I appreciate what you're saying. However, I don't think you are really hearing what I am saying. First, when I originally posted I didn't realize that you and Kavir were also moderators. In light of that there is no issue with Matt. He's no worse than either of you.

Addressing your points
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1) If Matt did close the thread, the same people could claim an abuse of power, (non-applicable) First Amendment rights, or something similar. Criticism of moderators is always tricky. If two were active, I'd say have the other one handle this thread, but I don't think that's the case.
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It would not be an abuse. Especially in light that once I acknowledged my error I asked that the thread be deleted.

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2) Angry threads here really don't do anything, and in fact call into question your desire for a 'flame-free' environment. If you have a problem with the way Matt moderates, first take it up with him privately, then take it up with 3) It's not a negative when established, experienced MUD owners moderate a board about MUDs. They know the particulars about the issues in question, can sort posts into the correct topics judiciously, and they have an incentive to check in frequently.[quote= ]

I agree. I think it is negative that there is no moderation at all that I see and every flame deteriorates.

I suppose I could. I think I'd be less likely to get involved in the fray. Ultimately, I think the moderators you have are more -qualified- than I. But they're not moderating. What about Orien Elder? He's always polite, reasonable, intelligent and he's accomplished.

Okay, alot of people seem to be taking a very combative attitude about this. I thought this was supposed to be a "discussion" board?

I don't think I made a personal dig at anyone.

I just stated the -fact- that when someone has a vested interest in something and is supposed to be completely objective about it; that in -some- way, whether it's consciously or subconsciously, it -will- have an affect to some degree on how objectively they look at it.

I wasn't suggesting that I wanted to do it myself either. I was trying to be a voice of reason in a "discussion" where some people seemed to be taking a very combative stance, one way or another.

I can see how -both- sides feel about the subject of people acting as moderators.


Can't we all just get along?

Having moderated various boards for years, there are various approaches that may or may not work well here. I did find matt's moderation of threads about himself and muds he administers and pays ads at this website for a tad inappropriate. That I find his post content itself generally inflammatory is my own opinion (and that of many others), but is nonetheless irrelevant unless he starts flaming madly when reprimanding those he is moderating. Regarding IRE topics, pay vs. free debates, I would have thought matt would disqualify himself from moderating such threads given the obvious conflict of interest - better to leave it to other moderators to take care of (assuming they don't also have similar issues).

I see very little in the way of accountability or transparency in the moderation that goes on here. That people are moderators but not known to be such is surprising. That other people's post text itself is editted by moderators is not my own preferred way of moderating either, since it opens up a can of worms about who wrote what, which particular part of a post requires moderating and which is okay - does anyone prefer to explain the difference between moderating and censorship?

The best approach I've seen (and I'm not affiliated in any way with this site) is in use at with the policy explained here:


Although there's a lot of coding behind the example forums given above, the spirit and intent is to make both sides play fair, to know what is happening and what will happen, and to be able to see after the fact (even if only from an administrator's point of view) exactly what happened and who took what action, and why.

If you want a loose, casual approach to forum moderating where the only exceptions are profanity and vilification, then of course flame wars are going to be commonplace. But if there is meant to be a strict moderating policy in place and the intention is to prevent flaming and insults, especially when there are very common bones of contention (free vs. pay, licensing debates, which codebase is better, yada yada yada), you're going to have to tread carefully.

Ergh, I ramble. Enough from me.

1) If you click on 'forums', all moderators are listed next to the forums they are assigned to. There is total transparency and accountability there.

2) If a moderator edits someone's text, I believe it says "Edited by: " next to it. Do you have a specific example in mind where a moderator edited something without explanation?

3) I can only speak for myself, but if I do change a thread, I make a post explaining it.

Well, if it helps, I intend to ensure that the discussions in Tavern of the Blue hand will not be permitted to degenerate into off-topic flaming. On-topic flaming will be fine (within reasonable limits) for now.

--matt

Actually, yes. That does help. Thank you, Matt.

Simply put - you are wrong as to why people do not like him. But this is not the point of the thread; the point is that Matt has burned a couple people very quickly with his moderating already. I am probably the one most "burned", as he deleted several of my posts that were written to defend Aardwolf and criticize Matt's own underhanded jabs at Aardwolf on a thread that was meant to promote true 100% Free MUDs. He even deleted information in posts that were not critical, and gave the original poster(Nass) information on various MUDs that were 100% Free and in the Top 20 List, which was the point of the post. He said that the information was "off-topic and insulting", even though that part of it had nothing to do with him.

So, basically - from what I have seen(and not all of you have actually seen the deleted posts, as he deleted them), Matt has so far allowed his bias and protection of IRE command his moderating, and has also not taken any less of a condescending attitude on these forums. It would be my suggest to him to rethink his recent moderating tactics, so that Syno does not have to get involved(if he'd care).

As I said in the previous post - Matt's censorship did not anger me, or get me "riled" up. It does only further attest to his own character, though. And it does not mean that people who try to look through the point of view of what is best for the community as a whole are going to go away.

Flaming IRE doesn't excuse you from being moderated by Matt. You blatantly tried to derail a topic about listing which muds were pay-for-perks and which weren't and got moderated. If you want to speak on the evils of pay-for-perks system, start a different topic about it.

I did not even mention the "evils" of pay-for-perks (I do not think they are evil). I did not derail the conversation. I did defend Aardwolf MUD, a pay-for-perks MUD, from Matt's suggestions that they were operating illicitly (an obvious attempt to black-advertise them). And, information that was deleted was also lists of free MUDs in the top 20 for Nass, who had asked for that information in the subject post.

You did not see the posts that were moderated. Perhaps you should not comment on them?

Actually, my point was that there isn't enough moderation on the boards and that someone who often particpates in the shenanigans (for lack of a better word) might not be the best candidates for bringing more moderation. However, Matt says that will not be an issue. Great. Now Matt can moderate the other moderators and they can moderate him and they can moderate us, and soon the forums will be moderate and moderated. Yay!

I was actually responding to Aztecia (Moderator edited out unprovoked attack on Aztecia here).

However, I agree - let them moderate. We'll see how it goes. If anything, perhaps this thread will dissuade Matt from further uneccessary and bias censorship, thereby increasing the quality of the moderation itself. If that were to happen, then this thread did its job, I would suppose, whether or not your proposed rule were made.   [it'd likely have to be self-imposed, considering the way things are here]

Do we really need moderators here? I mean, if you're going to give the power to the most biased members of the forum, what's the point of there being any power?

I think there should be outsider moderators, people who have no vested interest in either side of the argument.

Either side of which argument? There are thousands of potential arguments, and each one has far more than two potential sides to it. Nobody is 'unbiased' anymore than anyone is 'neutral'. People are merely more or less biased on specific issues, with their level of objectivity differing from issue to issue.

--matt

But isn't your goal as a moderator to be objective in your decisions rather than making biased decisions based on the assumption that it's impossible to be objective?

I can understand why you take this stance, because it IS impossible for a MUD owner or operator to be objective on a MUD forum, especially when his MUD is frequently the subject of arguments and fights.  That's why they shouldn't be MUD owners or operators.

The problem is, most topics on here have nothing to do with MUDs. This topic for instance. It should have been shut down the moment it was put up, but obviously there's some vested interest in this ridiculous topic, so it's stayed open for six pages worth of posts.

Why should it have been shut down? If someone wants to question the moderating policies of the board in a polite manner, what's wrong with that?

Suggesting that anyone is unbiased about anything that they know anything about is a bit of a straw man. Everybody has biases. How well a moderator overcomes those biases in the performance of the moderating duty is the important thing, not whether the biases exist (as they exist in all people).

--matt