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gth · 04-02-2006, 08:27 PM

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.

04-02-2006, 08:27 PM	#43
gth Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 50	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.