PD of PDMA

I'd like to discuss, if I may, the policy of no Public Discussion of Mod Actions (PDMA). With no specifics. With no actual PDMA. Just discussing the policy.

Full disclosure, I've not been infracted (recently that is), so it's not a self-serving discussion, just a discussion. I'm not talking about any specific MA, although there was a thread that made me think of this. Ahem. With that all out the way...

There was, recently, a 100+ post thread that has vanished, which prompted this thought, but I'm not particularly concerned about that thread. My problem is that a 100+ post thread can vanish &... here is my point... most people don't know why, at least I assume so. OK, granted, a couple people probably know why, but I don't, & I bet most people don't. So I guess I'm making a big assumption there, but it's probably true. Anyway..

The Moderation on this site seems to only address very specific problems at a very specific time regarding very specific posts. Namely, those posts that get moderated. The general users don't have a clue as to what happened, & thus there is no "lesson learned", to put it in kindergarten terms.

If I may suggest a solution, there should be a thread, just one, pinned, where Moderator actions are both posted & can even be discussed. Like, for example...

"MODERATOR ACTION: Deleted Thread 'Everyone sucks, I rule!' - Reason: Flaming of everyone"

Just throwing that out there. Or, even if it's just a post within a thread, there'd be a message in this proposed Moderator Actions thread, like:

"MODERATOR ACTION: Banned RobAnybody for 3 days: posted about PD of PDMA"

And then people could see 1) that someone got infracted, which is useful in & of itself, but also 2) why someone got banned or infracted, & 3) we could talk about it, *in that thread only*. It'd be a public record, people could talk about it without that whole "PM a MOD" thing, which seriously has never worked as a policy on any board ever, & would serve as a deterrent example to other potential abuses.

Eh, I'm just saying consider it. Far too often stuff happens behind the scenes & for someone like me, who only pops in every few days, we could understand wtf just happened, & understand what we missed, why something happened, & maybe learn a lesson by example. And also, since it'd be lasting public record, new people could see examples of what constitutes an infraction.

Just tossing it out there. FWIW.

In before MA of PD of PDMA.

I think it would be very helpful to have a single post when threads were deleted in whole simply notifying the community of what happened. If the enforcement is invisible, there is a stronger likelihood of repeat offenses.

This would probably go better in Site Feedback.
I, for one, would appreciate more transparency in the site's modding; this is one of the only problems I've had in my experience with the mods. What the OP is proposing is a good idea.

JollyRoger said:

In before MA of PD of PDMA.

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For this reason probably.

Antilogic said:

I think it would be very helpful to have a single post when threads were deleted in whole simply notifying the community of what happened. If the enforcement is invisible, there is a stronger likelihood of repeat offenses.

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Or perhaps a determination to try harder without getting caught?

Perhaps these things happen to remind us the mysteriousness of a "God" like existence.

Why not just make a subforum called "After-Action Reviews", where anything worth a word can be discussed?

I like the idea of a thread tracking thread closures and reasons along with a list of bannings with reasons. One of the biggest criticisms I've noticed of the mods is that they don't do enough, so perhaps with a public tracking thread we can better see how much they do actually do.

timtofly said:

Or perhaps a determination to try harder without getting caught?

Perhaps these things happen to remind us the mysteriousness of a "God" like existence.

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People are already trying as hard as they can, I doubt whether the mods say they deleted a thread will seriously affect their motivation one way or another.

And no Mod is God.

Ajidica said:

I like the idea of a thread tracking thread closures and reasons along with a list of bannings with reasons. One of the biggest criticisms I've noticed of the mods is that they don't do enough, so perhaps with a public tracking thread we can better see how much they do actually do.

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Could vBulletin support bots that take snapshots every time a moderator action is taken, with a one day buffer for admins to censor anything too raunchy, then automatically uploaded to a thread or subforum?

Mods can still act as normal, posters can discuss moderator actions in a controlled environment, the admins can ensure anything that isn't family friendly goes to the dumpster, and maybe if we all play nice posters and moderators can perhaps understand each other better.

Edit: Another issue would be poster privacy. I can understand proper nouns being redacted. It does create a pretty clear paper trail on any problem poster.

I'm willing to donate a past infraction per day for discussion to give us several months worth to work with.

This is actually a good idea. Just make it a locked thread where moderators could post the reason for deleting threads.

I brought up the need for moderators to give notices when they take action to inform the community so lessons can be learned during the recent survey. IIRC it was even positively commented on by the moderators after they released the survey but they obviously didn't take action on it.

I don't really have anything else to add, I am just stating this so everyone knows that the mods know this is an issue. it's something they said they were already looking into changing but didn't. I fully back every word of the OP.

As someone who has received a few PDMA warnings in the past simply for voicing disagreement with the decision, I am in full support of this motion.

As RobAnybody points out, it really is instructive to the community to know why decisions have been made and threads have been nuked. Simply stating, Thread Closed and linking to the rules doesn't cut it, neither does obliterating an entire thread. For one, if the mods want to correct are behavior, a one-sentence explanation of what was done wrong is tremendously helpful.

Further, in the case of infractions and such, it can help erase a general sense of unfairness if everyone can be told that the situation was dealt with. When a user has posts deleted, even if they got an infraction in secret, it still leaves the impression that the situation wasn't fairly dealt with unless you somehow happen to notice the deletion and then figure out an infraction was handed out as well.

More transparency from the mods (which I believe is what this all boils down to) would also help with mitigating the belief some users have that <insert subforum here> is being discriminated against by the mods. There's very little, if anything, negative that could come out of this.

If anyone remember Cannon Fodder.. I wouldn't mind a little graveyard with tombstones for the permabans - name, date and cause. The rest could be mildly interesting, mostly out of curiosity. I'm not sure what people would be discriminated for..

This thread doesn't seem to be much about PDMA, but rather about the visibility of actions. Making actions visible is completely different to allowing people to comment on them.

Following the OT survey, I've been trying to delete less things (though that doesn't mean suddenly nothing will get deleted; I deleted something the other day, for instance). I assume it's the same for other moderators. But it's not a policy decision, and never really has been. It's up to the moderator who happens to take action, a decision which can be influenced by any other available moderators. But in the end, deletion is a matter of personal preference. Some moderators will hardly ever delete anything, others will delete stuff more often.

If the root of the request is that you want to know exactly what is and what isn't going to attract moderator action, and if we're talking about the Tavern, then acting like a reasonable human being is going to be a far surer guide than casually and sporadically observing a handful of moderator actions isolated from their entire context (which is generally wider than the post or thread itself).

Reasonable human beings keep their word.

Camikaze said:

This thread doesn't seem to be much about PDMA, but rather about the visibility of actions. Making actions visible is completely different to allowing people to comment on them.

Following the OT survey, I've been trying to delete less things (though that doesn't mean suddenly nothing will get deleted; I deleted something the other day, for instance). I assume it's the same for other moderators. But it's not a policy decision, and never really has been. It's up to the moderator who happens to take action, a decision which can be influenced by any other available moderators. But in the end, deletion is a matter of personal preference. Some moderators will hardly ever delete anything, others will delete stuff more often.

If the root of the request is that you want to know exactly what is and what isn't going to attract moderator action, and if we're talking about the Tavern, then acting like a reasonable human being is going to be a far surer guide than casually and sporadically observing a handful of moderator actions isolated from their entire context (which is generally wider than the post or thread itself).

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Right so that covers the 'users should police themselves' aspect. Fair enough, though if that were the case you'd be out of a non-paying job.

Anywho, that still leaves the fairness question about when people don't know justice has been served because you all took care of it hush-hush.

With respect to the mods doing their own thing, well sure. But do you all not have any best practices? Particularly if the issue came up enough in the survey for you all to take notice and for you in particular to make changes, is that enough to warrant a new best practice? It seems to be a trivial enough change that would make a lot of people happy.

And of course I realize some posts and threads have to be destroyed via massive orbital bombardment, you don't have to remind of that.

Did someone say My Little Pony?

UKIP anyone?