I haven't been able to actively contribute to this thread for a while, but I've read most of it. I won't attempt to go back and fisk or comment on every point made, but I will respond to some specifics and some generalities.
Buster's Uncle; you are advocating "leadership", and in many ways overly simplifying it. What I mean by that is that the impression I get from reading many of your posts is (to paraphrase) 'you guys need some leadership, go get some'. The implication here is that we have none. 'Leadership' is a complex quality, with many different aspects. There are some tools that good leaders employ, and there are some qualities that they possess. I reflected on one of your points earlier and noted that the point made was about "authenticity in leadership". You self-admittedly enjoy long Kirk-style speeches. I don't. For me to try that would, in my mind, not be authentic. I would extend that to expand on a theme in the last few posts - know your audience. Some people would appreciate and respond well to a Kirk-style speech, others would be put off completely. There is no one-size-fits all leadership model.
I don't claim to be a great leader, but I do have some leadership qualities. One of the more important is self-awareness. I take time to reflect on things. I think that while here at CFC I have done some good things, and I am fully aware that I have made some major mistakes. One of them, which Lefty pointed out to me one day, is that it is a mistake to try to run the forums like a corporation. This is a volunteer organisation.
Most of it (leadership) is about influencing people (some people want to be directed, not lead - empowerment doesn't work for everyone). There are different influencing styles. I ask of you: When you came into this thread / subforum, and started insulting the staff (which you admit that you did), what were you hoping to achieve? What were you trying to change, who were you trying to influence? If you were trying to influence the staff, do you think in hindsight, that it is a good influencing strategy, and further is it good leadership?
The next point is that a good leader balances inquiry and advocacy. I see a lot of advocacy from you, but very little inquiry. I see a lot of presumption and assumption. When people try to provide their perspectives on the issues you raise, you accuse them of groupthink and circling the wagons. This again is presumption and assumption. My advice to you is to observe, inquire, form an opinion and then test that opinion against evidence. You are not in possession of all the facts, and when an opinion is offered that appears to contradict your view, or is something that you disagree with, we get responses like:
I'm beginning to think that if I provided 200 screenshot examples of mod trolling and it would take a week to get anyone on staff to admit there was maybe a problem. This is frustrating. All evidence is always dismissed out of hand, and self-serving explanations invariably provided. I get it. Slavery is freedom and I love Big Brother or it's room 105.
Wrong. If we're to speculate about one another's inner states, the evidence is everywhere and YOU don't want to believe it.
Another example is:
-Then start telling everyone to do everything by Report Button, which is set up to leave pressure off the staff to take action until someone feels like it. Not really a big management accountability move, is it?
The system is broken.
Did you bother to actually ask how the system works before you came down in judgement on it? Note that your not phrasing the final line as an
opinion, but as a
fact.
Allow me to educate you on how the reporting system works. We ask people to report problematic posts. This is for several reasons:
1.) Should the poster instead try to deal with it themselves (eg. by flaming), it is our experience that the result is an escalation. Classic "don't feed the trolls".
2.) The moderators do not read each and every post. While some may legitimately think that we should, we do not think it is practicable (certainly not for 24x7 coverage).
3.) If they PM a moderator, there is no guarantee of a prompt response.
4.) Other moderators can see what
the community sees as problematic, and calibrate against community expectations.
When a post is reported, a thread is created for it in a specific "reported posts" subforum. When a moderator has reviewed it and acted on it (or not acted, as they see fit), then close the thread. This tells us which reported posts have been acted on, and which ones have not. This achieves two things: It provides the admins / moderators with assurance that posts reported are being reviewed and acted on, and it also allows moderators who want second opinions to leave the thread open, and post their views. I have attached a partially edited screenshot of the reported post forum. The threads with locks on them have been dealt with. You can see that the ones that don't have locks on them mostly have numerous replies and views - moderators are
discussing what to do with them. And as an aside, the one 6th from the top that Peter Grimes is the last poster in remains open, but it is actually resolved and he did a fantastic job of handling the issue.
Anyway - the point is that you're more than welcome to provide constructive feedback on the system, and now you have some more
facts to help frame your views.
I also want to address the claims of staff groupthink. This one is not so easy to provide you with info on, because, as you note yourself, staff discussions and disagreements should remain private in staff. The charge is that nothing ever changes because we are struck by groupthink. My view of the issue is almost the exact opposite: we are stuck by inability to reach a consensus. Yes, there have been numerous examples of moderators defending the status quo and exhibiting resistance to change; and yes, there have been numerous examples of moderators strongly advocating change and being frustrated by not being able to convince anyone. To these charges, I plead 'guilty'. For many examples, it is a failing of the administrators to steer a consensus or make a decision. But in many other cases, "do nothing" is, in my opinion, exactly the right decision. There is a delicate balance between learning from the past and embracing change. We are conservative in this by nature, but its not that the ship
can't be turned around, it is that it takes a long time and small incremental changes are often more effective than a massive paradigm shift (adaptability is another leadership quality).
The changes that we
are very good at responding to are the smaller things that help in the day-to-day: setting up new subforums for modders, fixing or responding to interface issues, providing technical support responses.
Another point:
I believe I've been insulted if you thought I was dumb enough to swallow that, but your masters cannot fault you for trying.
Err... What? BirdJaguar (and the other moderators in this thread) have taken the time to provide their own perspectives. This is not directed by anyone. And to his points about politeness in the staff forums - people can actually disagree without abusing each other.
I realise that this is getting very long, but this thread is actually about PDMA. I want to address some issues on that, and I fear that will take a lot of words, too.
One thing I did a few years ago, in response to numerous claims of inconsistency in moderation, was to rewrite and restructure the rules (along with explanations), and also work with moderators on how they are applied. One part of this was to
seek feedback from the community on the rules. While the staff obviously made the ultimate decisions, many rules were adjusted based on that feedback. Go have a read; educate yourself. There is even a thread there on PDMA, with views split on the merits (some moderators for it, some against; ditto for the community).
Your accusation is that we are a police state. Well, I don't know too many police states that allow their people to set the rules that they want to be bound by. But actually, that is missing the point. The rules provide a framework, but the real test is in how they are enforced.
I have a pretty simple vision / philosophy. I want people to be able to come to these forums and discuss various topics, or develop their own mods / artwork etc. I want them to be able to do that in an environment that is free from them being insulted, trolled and abused. I want them to be able to do that in an environment where the signal-to-noise ratio is reasonably high (not having to wade through pages of spam). The rules provide the framework for this. Our rules are
in principle actually not that far removed from the rules on many other forums. Many / most forums aren't quite so explicit in how they have written the rules, and perhaps it is a balance between transparency and consistency; setting boundaries. I think your forum has a simple rule of "don't piss us off". OK - so do the posters know what "pisses you off"?
So lets relate this to both leadership and to PDMA. Firstly, part of leadership is to set standards and expectations, and then enforce them graciously, by treating people with respect. We, as a forum leadership team need to keep reminding ourselves of this. It is not respectful to our community to simply delete threads without explanation. For info, I know exactly what the straw was that kicked-off this thread, I know exactly the mitigating circumstances why it occurred, and those involved. I thank RobAnybody for raising this, as it serves as a reminder for Moderators to provide more transparency on their actions, and actually swing the pendulum back somewhat to a better place (in short - better communication of what they do, less deletion of threads). The moderating team have discussed this, and there is (as I recall) zero resistance. A basic mea-culpa.
But this is not PDMA in the truest sense of what we don't allow. It was written earlier that my reason for not supporting PDMA was not wanting to embarrass moderators. Well, that is partially true, but it is more about not wanting to subject them to undeserved public floggings by people being unobjective.
You see, we get a number of unobjective complaints, people honestly arguing that they have the "right" to insult, troll, abuse etc. I.e. the rules are "wrong". Then we get the arguments that they didn't really break the rules. OK - but if they didn't break the rules, then we have an appeals process that can sort that out pretty quickly and efficiently. But this is extremely rare.
The majority of the complaints may not be couched in these specific terms, but they actually boil down to "should the moderator have infracted / banned me for that?" I.e. people who essentially know what the rules are, but think that they haven't broken them. "No, I wasn't trolling. I honestly think that all XXXX who do YYYY should have ZZZZ done to them. I wasn't trying to upset anyone, I just speak the truth". Umm... OK? So 9 people in the community were suitably offended to report that post, and we should then allow that person a soapbox on which to continue trying to justify why his or her view is "fact" and that the moderator who dealt with the issue is a fascist? (This is not a specific example, but we have had similar).
Now: This thread was not started about this type of PDMA. This thread was more about Moderators being more transparent in their actions, and we have taken steps to try to improve that (and I am still looking at ways to have a log, although I'm not sure it solves the problem).
It has evolved into all sorts of discussions, but one theme is
what fascists we are because we won't allow people who are infracted to abuse moderators in site feedback the benefits or not or "PDMA".
As some more info, the "GroupThink" moderators discuss this periodically, probably every year or so. And we are split on our views - probably about 40:60. The main concerns are around objectivity. Help convince us that PDMA can be objective for mutual benefit of the community
and the moderators, and that unobjective examples of PDMA can be handled reasonably, and we may just change.
(and apologies on how long this is).
We both put ourselves at risk with every post and as you present your ideas, hopefully they will resonate with others who read them and they will go,take a look at what Ac has to offer. That is what good marketing is all about.
Well, part of good marketing is that you just have to be unashamed at what a whore you are, or it gets in the way of doing business. I only realized a few days ago that promotion was happening whether I intended it or not, I swear. I further swear that if I'd come in here with a planned agenda, I would have done things differently and not set off The_J and invited random ad-hominem drive-bys.
Good one, man. 
), and we hope that shows. I want all of you to ignore that it says Adminstrator in my postbit when I'm talking to you, unless I make it clear I'm speaking officially. This includes when I'm commenting on your posting behavior and/or manners. I don't NEED such minute control of this enviroment that my every whim is law; I'd rather pursuade than give orders. I expect you to be smart and mature and wise. I expect those things of myself.
