Fifty: I think that most posters who have been in OT for more than a few months know when they are crossing the line.
You'd be surprised. Well, let me qualify that. I think that they do know they are crossing the line, like, if another person did the exact same thing they did, they would consider it crossing the line, but a ton of people like to "play the victim" whenever they get an infraction. I mean seriously, spend 1 night in fiftychat and see if there isn't someone groaning about getting infracted (and it isn't always just dumb spammy kids either), and like I said 90% of the time it is for a legitimate infraction that any idiot (let alone a regular) could see was stepping over the line. I'm simply saying that I sympathize with mods not wanting to deal with such people, but when people have legit complaints/questions about infractions and mods take the time to deal with it, that is very harmful to the whole perception of moderators, and makes the entire thing more adversarial than it has to be. And believe me, there are instances when the mods goof up (they are only human after all). I've complained about maybe 8 infractions I've ever received, and I've gotten around 6 of them reversed.
In fact, I also think that many such posts are actually planned just to see if they can get away with something.
Agreed for sure.
Therefore mods who are responsive to posters are usually well liked and sought after.
Agreed, but I don't think being well liked is necessarily a prerequisite for being a good mod. Some people find duke and ainwood to be silent meanies who are too strict, but they also happen to be the two best mods around, in terms of effective, consistent, and fair moderation of the forums. In my judgment, as someone who has had by far more exposure to infractions than anyone on the forum, at least in recent times (I'm talking about through fiftychat, not necessarily just my own infractions), the least-well-liked and most often complained about mods (I will not name names) have achieved that status precisely through lack of consistency, and perceived (whether deserved or not) tendency to "defer to TF" instead of actually opening a dialogue with users who are complaining about infractions.
I think that there are those here who push the edges of acceptability just because it might give them a chance to engage a mod in a discussion.
I'm not sure if I agree with that. I mean, it may happen sometimes, but more often than not infractions are gained through either being genuinely mad enough to troll/flame, through spamming just to be funny, and through the ability to "game the system" in a manner such that you know when it is "ok" to flame/troll/spam, because you know exactly how many pts you have and so know how many infractions you can get before you have to "calm down".
The more gregarious mods do not mind "chatting" with plain folk, but some find it less interesting. In any case, such responsiveness is not part of being a mod, but it is part of being a member of a community. Padma will remember the "Friendly Policeman" from his Dick and Jane readers. Now I do not know what TF "mandates" regarding mod interaction with posters beyond keeping things orderly (if anything), but clearly, mods who interact with posters beyond just repremanding them, will improve the sense of community.
I'd agree to that, perhaps the best thing to do is roughly the system we have, where we have a few gregarious mods and a few behind the scenes. I just think that, independent of the "sense of community" factor, the more mods that can mod like ainwood or duke, the better.
Simply adding to what you'd said
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