An open letter on moderation

[iceman]

Hi all

I PM'd a member to deal with a complaint around moderation, and I felt that my reply was suitable to post as an open letter and to give some transparency.

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I can understand the frustration regarding some of the moderation and noone likes to see their thread, or a thread they were participating in, get locked or deleted.

These are some of the things I've learned in the last 7.5 years:

- We can't please everyone. If we leave a thread open, someone will get upset. If we close or delete a thread, someone will get upset.
- Moderation is a very grey area. There are never 'hard and fast rules' that can be equally applied in every situation. We're dealing with human beings who make mistakes or who have differing opinions, even when we're trying to be on the same side.
- Threads that are created asking about a closed or deleted thread, always get closed or deleted themselves.
- Threads that are created with the intention of 'gaining support' around a cause, such as a deleted thread or an issue with moderation, are simply not the best way to go about things. PM'ing me directly is the best way.
Open threads like that are a way to try and get "yeh me too" responses which generally detract from the spirit of the forum.

No doubt we make some mistakes sometimes, and no doubt we could be and should be more consistent in how we deal with grey areas like politics and day to day current news events. No doubt we could be and should be more professional in how we deal with complaints or how we lock threads.

We're all human and sometimes we make mistakes. I apologise if you were offended by the actions of myself or any other moderator.

Like I said, we are never able to please everyone and as a result, people come and go from the forum. Sometimes long term members stop posting. Sometimes they go elsewhere. There's literally nothing I can do about that.

It's certainly not my intention to have members get frustrated and leave the community - and I'm always looking for ways to see how we can improve the forum for everyone.

We encourage people to focus on the positive aspects of the forum and the community and focus on what they can put into it and what they can get out of being part of a great community.

As an action point out of our discussion, I will:
- Take a summary of this PM and post it in the general forum as a reminder to people
- Speak to the moderators to remind ourselves about how we need to act and how the way we act can influence others, in a positive and negative way.

Thanks for your time.

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I'm happy to hear your feedback, but anything overly nasty that would be better handled as a PM to me, may end up being deleted.

[Dennis]

Fair enough Mike – all sounds reasonable to me, especially for a free-to-air experience such as the Ice In Space extravaganza!

The management team, mods and community of members does a great job in keeping this site a pleasant and friendly place to meet in.

Cheers

Dennis

[bert]

I like the community feel here.

I think you and the iis team are doing a great job. And yes I have had a post deleted and the occasional tap on the shoulder from a mod. It keeps it a good family forum.

Keep up the good work guys.

Brett

[FlashDrive]

It's all good with me ...!! The ' mod's ' do a good job .. !!

Keeps us all inline ... on the straight and narrow path ..!!! :whistle:

Seriously .... it's all ok !!!

Flash :D

[omegacrux]

Well said

[Hagar]

I should probably post my reply to Mike and just clarify what I actually mean with the statement "The interpretation of the TOS and the content of threads will always be contentious and as such would benifit from a short explanation even down to the description of spam."

All that is required when a thread is locked or deleted is some meaningfull reason. Spam could be used to lock or delete almost every thread.

This should put Mikes letter into some context.
My Reply:

Thanks for the reply Mike. I do understand where you are coming from and as one who has been and probably will be guilty of speaking out I understand your frustrations but really all I am asking is that some explanation, realistic explanation, and not just comments like a breach of TOS posted as the reason for closing, locking or deleting threads. Actions with real reasons will always be much better accepted by most people. The interpretation of the TOS and the content of threads will always be contentious and as such would benifit from a short explanation even down to the description of spam. Spam is a good one and would remove all but a few members on the site.

[Ausrock]

Mike,

That's a fair, well balanced and clear response but having moderated on an (international based) audio recording forum for over nine years I also understand and have to agree with Doug's opinion.

We learnt from experience that on the rare occasions we had to take "firm" action, that a brief post explaining the mod's action and requesting that no more discussion of the issue be posted, was usually accepted by the members more gracefully than when no explanation was forthcoming.

[ballaratdragons]

Same thing here.
As a Moderator in Cloudy Nights any action I take on a member, I have to PM the member and explain why the action was taken.
I suppose it's just good manners to do so.
Otherwise the offender doesn't know why it happened and will react.
In doing this I have never had a bad reaction from anyone I have moderated :)

[iceman]

Thanks for your comments, they're taken on board.

I will also take this opportunity to state that these aren't intended as hard and fast, to the letter, rules for the moderators. They are guidelines to make part of our job easier (ie: less complaints later).

There's still times when it won't be necessary to send a PM to every individual involved, or when it's extremely obvious why a thread was locked or deleted. The moderators can make their own judgements still and I will support them. I don't want to see any "But mike said you have to PM me..." type threads or PM's.

The worst part of being a moderator is dealing with threads and people where it's obvious people are just trying to cause trouble or get a reaction - they're also the first ones that will complain (either publicly or privately) when action is taken against them (deleted or locked thread).

To help make the moderation job more powerful and to be able to more easily deal with persistent trouble makers, I'll be implementing a new system of infractions with short-term bans.

This is quite a big change for IceInSpace because for the most part, we've very rarely banned anyone, except for the worst trouble makers.

But for persistent trouble makers who consistently cause trouble or headaches and don't use IceInSpace for the spirit its intended, there are are now additional short term and long term ban options that the moderators and I can use.

I'll start a new thread shortly on this.