It is time for a change in the way things are moderated

[salty mud]

We've explained why that doesn't work as we'll as you would advertise it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You have that ability now. If you have information and want to present it, please use the Private Message system to a moderator. We have a forum where we can post it in order to discuss proposed actions. It may take us a while as we try to come to consensus, but we do discuss these types of things.

We both know it tends to either be outright dismissed or debated for a page or two and then dismissed. I don't recall very many instances when something like this produced positive and lasting change in moderation. Even the situation to which people have been alluding was never properly resolved - just the fairest of a whole list of unfair "solutions."

 

[azzaman333]

That may be so, but that does not make a good excuse for spotty, inconsistent moderating. Banning someone for quoting a certain singer* and not banning someone who trolls entire topics is simply inexcusable.

The petty rule is a good one, but it should be an extension of a rule that forbids posting about the same topics over and over and over, rather than being an exception for one poster. People who constantly talk about homosexuality issues, or how bad Obama is, or other single issue focused posters should be subjected to the same standards.

You have that ability now. If you have information and want to present it, please use the Private Message system to a moderator. We have a forum where we can post it in order to discuss proposed actions. It may take us a while as we try to come to consensus, but we do discuss these types of things.

In other words, only moderators are allowed to discuss the moderation here, which inevitably results in a situation where the moderation standards don't reflect what he community desires from you guys. Basically, you're completely out of touch with the OT community, resulting in a steady exodus of posters.

 

[Camikaze]

In other words, only moderators are allowed to discuss the moderation here, which inevitably results in a situation where the moderation standards don't reflect what he community desires from you guys. Basically, you're completely out of touch with the OT community, resulting in a steady exodus of posters.

The very low number of issues that people actually do bring to staff seems to indicate that people are avoiding talking to staff simply based on (false) reputation. If you think that not engaging in discussions involving specific moderator actions makes moderators out of touch with the OT community, then start engaging us in those discussions via the available method. The best way to get an answer out of staff is to actually ask us. And the forum rules stipulate that the way this should be done is via PM. If people are only willing to do so via public posts, then they must either be unaware of the forum rules (in which case it'd probably be helpful to read them before making a complaint), under a false impression that private messages don't get answered, not really all that worried about the problems they're bringing up, or just doing it for the attention and/or PC.

It's bemusing that people say they get nowhere with discussions with moderators in private when they haven't even tried them.

And note the difference between engaging in a discussion and shooting off a, "grrrr, I don't like it when the rules apply to me! You suck!" response to an infraction.

 

[North King]

You have that ability now. If you have information and want to present it, please use the Private Message system to a moderator. We have a forum where we can post it in order to discuss proposed actions. It may take us a while as we try to come to consensus, but we do discuss these types of things.

I feel like you utterly missed the thrust of the post in the hopes of quashing further discussion. I'm not saying how people should present their findings, I'm saying that if people present their findings in a competent way, there's no reason that we can't have a reasoned discussion about this. Though, amusingly enough, the people who have quoted my post so far have largely misapplied it, but I feel like if you took the suggestion to heart there wouldn't be a problem, and we could solve some longstanding grievances. As it stands the stance of the moderator community seems to be "we welcome suggestions except we really don't," because if you actually welcomed suggestions you probably wouldn't mind having them in a public forum (where, you know, other people could riff on them and offer further suggestions).

 

[North King]

The very low number of issues that people actually do bring to staff seems to indicate that people are avoiding talking to staff simply based on (false) reputation. If you think that not engaging in discussions involving specific moderator actions makes moderators out of touch with the OT community, then start engaging us in those discussions via the available method. The best way to get an answer out of staff is to actually ask us. And the forum rules stipulate that the way this should be done is via PM. If people are only willing to do so via public posts, then they must either be unaware of the forum rules (in which case it'd probably be helpful to read them before making a complaint), under a false impression that private messages don't get answered, not really all that worried about the problems they're bringing up, or just doing it for the attention and/or PC.

This is missing the point. Again. No one seems to be concerned that their PMs won't get answered, it's that their concerns will be politely ignored. And also that suggestions about moderation are only allowed in the vaguest sense on the forum, which effectively neuters any real argument we might be able to present... And yes, only in public, but your decision making process is less transparent than a block of lead. You can't just say "oh, stuff is discussed in the moderator forum," and expect people to believe they're being taken seriously there. You also can't expect us to believe that our suggestions are being fairly represented or debated when we aren't there to defend them. You can't expect people to feel like they have input in the process when clearly they don't really have any involvement at all.

 

[leif erikson]

In other words, only moderators are allowed to discuss the moderation here, which inevitably results in a situation where the moderation standards don't reflect what he community desires from you guys. Basically, you're completely out of touch with the OT community, resulting in a steady exodus of posters.

When you joined the site, you agreed to abide by certain rules. It seems you have forgotten them? You can read them here. A couple of basics:

Your agreement with us
You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this forum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, racist, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this forum. In addition, if you post at this site, what you post is considered to be in the public domain. Should you choose to leave the forum (or behave in a manner that results in your account being banned), any deletion of your account, or the posts you have made (including attachments) is at the sole discretion of the administrators.

Your rights to Freedom of Speech don't apply here.
You are welcome to have opinions. You are welcome to question certain subject matter posted on these forums. You are welcome to dislike a certain post or disagree with it. Though we typically encourage people to express their opinions and ideas, we have the right to delete yours if necessary, should we consider it abusive, inappropriate or not in the best interests of the community. Remember: This is a public forum, and your posts are indexed and can be found by search engines. This means that they can be found by friends, family, employers or the like. Take care with what you post, as CFC cannot guarantee your anonymity on this forum.

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in removal of your posting privileges
Depending on the severity of your violation and the number of times you have previously violated the Forum Guidelines, the Administration may choose to suspend your posting privileges or terminate your account. If you are suspended you will not be able to post on our forums for an amount of time to be determined by the Administration.

Moderation
Moderators are identified by the various tags under their user names. It is their job to keep order within the forums and respond to inappropriate posting and advertising. The fastest way to get moderation attention is to report a post. All reported posts go to a specific subforum where any moderator can see and respond to them. Please do not respond to inappropriate posts or post in obvious spam advertising threads. Just report them.

These seem to indicate that it is the moderators that set the standards and who are responsible to ensure you live by them. Seems to also say that if you fail to follow the guidelines and break the rules severely, you may be banned by the moderators. Seems to me the moderator staff signed up to serve the web site, not to conform to your idea of what we should do?

 

[North King]

If members think there are ways in which moderation can be improved then we welcome such ideas and will consider them

As noted above, you want suggestions but haha jk?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The very low number of issues that people actually do bring to staff seems to indicate that people are avoiding talking to staff simply based on (false) reputation. If you think that not engaging in discussions involving specific moderator actions makes moderators out of touch with the OT community, then start engaging us in those discussions via the available method. The best way to get an answer out of staff is to actually ask us. And the forum rules stipulate that the way this should be done is via PM. If people are only willing to do so via public posts, then they must either be unaware of the forum rules (in which case it'd probably be helpful to read them before making a complaint), under a false impression that private messages don't get answered, not really all that worried about the problems they're bringing up, or just doing it for the attention and/or PC.

It's bemusing that people say they get nowhere with discussions with moderators in private when they haven't even tried them.

And note the difference between engaging in a discussion and shooting off a, "grrrr, I don't like it when the rules apply to me! You suck!" response to an infraction.

It's been my own experience that not all private messages to moderators get answered. And I'm not talking about my own time as a moderator. I'm talking about both before and after. I'm prepared to give people the benefit of the doubt if they're having computer problems, they get sick, there is a natural disaster going on locally, etc., but if it's not an offline problem of that degree, I expect to be given the courtesy of not only a reply, but a reply that straightforwardly answers my questions and addresses my concerns. Vagueness doesn't cut it. I always gave people straightforward, detailed replies when I was on staff, because that's how I myself prefer to be treated.

 

[Synobun]

We're barely able to suggest that there are moderators who aren't fantastic without incurring moderator wrath.

I can personally attest to this.

You have that ability now. If you have information and want to present it, please use the Private Message system to a moderator. We have a forum where we can post it in order to discuss proposed actions. It may take us a while as we try to come to consensus, but we do discuss these types of things.

You have a problem with the moderators? That's great! Please PM a moderator with your concerns.

(Awesome logic, I do say.)

The very low number of issues that people actually do bring to staff seems to indicate that people are avoiding talking to staff simply based on (false) reputation. If you think that not engaging in discussions involving specific moderator actions makes moderators out of touch with the OT community, then start engaging us in those discussions via the available method. The best way to get an answer out of staff is to actually ask us. And the forum rules stipulate that the way this should be done is via PM. If people are only willing to do so via public posts, then they must either be unaware of the forum rules (in which case it'd probably be helpful to read them before making a complaint), under a false impression that private messages don't get answered, not really all that worried about the problems they're bringing up, or just doing it for the attention and/or PC.

It's bemusing that people say they get nowhere with discussions with moderators in private when they haven't even tried them.

And note the difference between engaging in a discussion and shooting off a, "grrrr, I don't like it when the rules apply to me! You suck!" response to an infraction.

People avoid talking to staff because it's completely and utterly useless, in the same way that someone who goes to the cops with a report and they get discarded, they'll be less likely to go to the cops next time, especially if it continues. It doesn't matter what you do in the moderator forum. What matters is what you do in the public forums. Complete disregard is both silly and inefficient. It's easy to discard a problem or simply have a coffee-break chat about it if you're in your own little personal corner, but not so when on a public forum, because people will call you out on it.

Shooting a PM over does not engage anyone to any discussion. It's just more break room banter.

I will get to the rule remark later.

Also, implying that people only have a problem with moderators because they want attention or post count...

When you joined the site, you agreed to abide by certain rules. It seems you have forgotten them? You can read them here. A couple of basics:

These seem to indicate that it is the moderators that set the standards and who are responsible to ensure you live by them. Seems to also say that if you fail to follow the guidelines and break the rules severely, you may be banned by the moderators. Seems to me the moderator staff signed up to serve the web site, not to conform to your idea of what we should do?

This site is nothing without its community. You moderators can all sit here twiddling your thumbs with your inefficiency and general terribleness at your volunteer job but eventually droves of people will start leaving, and the only thing left will be the people who simply come here for the civilization stuff, which, if this were to happen, would be a colossal failure on part of the team responsible for making this place welcoming and great to be at (hint: that's moderators).

The moderator team better conform to the idea of what the community wants or the community will simply disappear.

As noted above, you want suggestions but haha jk?

Remember, if you have a problem, just read the rules!

Edit: I should probably mention I'm really just talking to the OT and related forum moderators. As far I can tell, the civ mods are fine.

 

[North King]

This site is nothing without its community. You moderators can all sit here twiddling your thumbs with your inefficiency and general terribleness at your volunteer job but eventually droves of people will start leaving, and the only thing left will be the people who simply come here for the civilization stuff, which, if this were to happen, would be a colossal failure on part of the team responsible for making this place welcoming and great to be at (hint: that's moderators).

The moderator team better conform to the idea of what the community wants or the community will simply disappear.

I wouldn't go this far, but I would note that it's extremely alienating for users to have mods suggest that the users should be happy that the moderators have the forbearance to let them stay here. Last I checked, the mods were supposed to help support the community, and were tasked with this because they were regarded as responsible, mature individuals, level-headed even when the debate got hot. The [perhaps purely verbal] treatment of the fora as little fiefs is extremely disturbing.

 

[Synobun]

I wouldn't go this far, but I would note that it's extremely alienating for users to have mods suggest that the users should be happy that the moderators have the forbearance to let them stay here. Last I checked, the mods were supposed to help support the community, and were tasked with this because they were regarded as responsible, mature individuals, level-headed even when the debate got hot. The [perhaps purely verbal] treatment of the fora as little fiefs is extremely disturbing.

The problem isn't nearly as bad as I said it would be, yet. However, if the problem persists, many regulars will (and have), left. The problem will eventually bleed over into the main life source of this forum, the civ section. Then it'll happen all over again. Not everybody will leave, but the regulars might, and an entire forum driven by new people that are only here because they had a problem or idea about civ... Eh.

 

[DaveShack]

Some people seem to have missed this, and need to pay more attention to it.

As I said, we welcome constructive ideas, but complaining about things like poster-specific rules, particular moderators, and the like isn't acceptable here. If you have a problem with particular things of that kind you should raise it in private.

 

[North King]

How can you say we missed that when the last couple of pages has been filled with responses to that idea? This is almost turning into a parody of bad Off-Topic threads now (in the "one side is literally just ignoring the other side" kind of way).

 

[Maniacal]

You have that ability now. If you have information and want to present it, please use the Private Message system to a moderator. We have a forum where we can post it in order to discuss proposed actions. It may take us a while as we try to come to consensus, but we do discuss these types of things.

An invisible forum where we have no idea if the mods actually do anything at all and only one side of the story gets to discuss it. Judging by the fact that it has been a month since I heard anything back I'm going to assume that no, nothing happens there.

 

[azzaman333]

The very low number of issues that people actually do bring to staff seems to indicate that people are avoiding talking to staff simply based on (false) reputation. If you think that not engaging in discussions involving specific moderator actions makes moderators out of touch with the OT community, then start engaging us in those discussions via the available method. The best way to get an answer out of staff is to actually ask us. And the forum rules stipulate that the way this should be done is via PM. If people are only willing to do so via public posts, then they must either be unaware of the forum rules (in which case it'd probably be helpful to read them before making a complaint), under a false impression that private messages don't get answered, not really all that worried about the problems they're bringing up, or just doing it for the attention and/or PC.

It's bemusing that people say they get nowhere with discussions with moderators in private when they haven't even tried them.

And note the difference between engaging in a discussion and shooting off a, "grrrr, I don't like it when the rules apply to me! You suck!" response to an infraction.

There was a time when I used to try to engage in discussion with the moderators. I've realised that's a waste of my time, since it's practically impossible to get you to change your mind unless you've blatantly made a mistake.

When you joined the site, you agreed to abide by certain rules. It seems you have forgotten them? You can read them here. A couple of basics:

These seem to indicate that it is the moderators that set the standards and who are responsible to ensure you live by them. Seems to also say that if you fail to follow the guidelines and break the rules severely, you may be banned by the moderators. Seems to me the moderator staff signed up to serve the web site, not to conform to your idea of what we should do?

This is exactly the sort of attitude that is toxic to the forum, implying that the moderators can do no wrong. Sorry to break it to you, but I'm not trying to make the moderators conform to my personal standards. Feel free to continue to ignore the community, and ban them from attempting to draw on specific examples of what moderation they do/don't like, but in time there won't be anyone left for you to moderate because we'll all have left.

 

[Turner]

Here's an awesome opportunity for one side to prove themselves.

The "poster's side" can engage the "mod's side" for some kind of private discussion and get their feelings validated by the "mod's side" ignoring them.

Or

The "mod's side" can receive some correspondence about how to effect change from the "poster's side" and be validated by saying "Yes, we do listen and engage."

Or

Both sides can continue to hold their line, one side saying it's useless to do anything because they'll be ignored, and the other side wondering why no one engages them to discuss changes and instead have to deal with threads like this one.

Hmm.

 

[salty mud]

At the end of the day, this is a forum on the Internet. While usually a fun, interesting and often educational place to visit, I highly doubt it forms one of the most important aspects of any members' lives, including the moderators. This is a place of relaxation, fun, and light discussion, or a hobby if you would.

However, I think the moderators don't see it this way. I think the moderators see CFC as their own personal domain, somewhere where they have control over the posters and somewhere where their egos can go a little over-the-top. A forum of this size does need moderation, yes, to protect the more vulnerable posters from harassment or harm, and no one can argue this point otherwise. But CFC's mods take it a step too far, where we all have to conform to a set of rules that may as well be named the Commandments. One little deviation from these Commandments, be it in the interest of making a point, making a joke or having some fun, and you will receive punishment for it. That's not fun.

I'd like to refer to my complaint on the first page on this thread, to continue the discussion regarding mod's PMs and such. I probably should discuss this via PM with a moderator but I've already tried that; the mod in question simply stopped replying to me once I shown him that I didn't actually create a spam post and it was meant to be a joke. However, no efforts were made to remove my card. They just stopped responding and assumed this behaviour will go unnoticed, so I am glad that this thread exists where I can explain this.

Both sides can continue to hold their line, one side saying it's useless to do anything because they'll be ignored, and the other side wondering why no one engages them to discuss changes and instead have to deal with threads like this one.

Hmm.

They will be ignored, as I've just explained. Perhaps if the mods were to prove they actually took these complaints on board the tensions would ease a little bit. But the general opinion is that nothing gets done. The posters can't all think like that by sheer coincidence, can they.

 

[Camikaze]

They will be ignored, as I've just explained. Perhaps if the mods were to prove they actually took these complaints on board the tensions would ease a little bit. But the general opinion is that nothing gets done. The posters can't all think like that by sheer coincidence, can they.

This thread has become a little unwieldy. Having not read it in one sitting, I'm having trouble thinking what the specific complaints actually are. I don't have time right now, so if someone would like to go through the thread and summarise the complaints raised (avoiding PDMA), that would be great.

 

[mayor]

I do have the feeling, while reading this thread, that the mods can be a bit more approachable.

However I also want to say that I am very positive in the communication with the mods. I have responded to several Mod PM's with questions to explain something and every time it was explained clear, with arguments and fast.