Reform of 'PDMA' Guidelines and Establishment of Public Appeal Thread/Forum

[North King]

I'd think it clear from a cursory examination of world politics that a more transparent government, regardless of whether it's democracy or dictatorship, makes for a far more trusting populace -- and that appealing to an absolutist dogma is a little weird. There are gradations between Switzerland and North Korea.

 

[Tee Kay]

I wasn't meaning to suggest that posters shouldn't be able to appeal at all because they might still be unhappy, just that a managed PDMA system would seem unlikely to make them much happier.

Yes yes they would. It means their unhappiness (to an extent) can be aired and discussed in public, rather than being dealt with opaquely via PM as it is now. Perhaps you've forgotten how intimidating it can be to deal with mods - after all, authority figures - and how frustrating the non-transparent system of appeals is.

By relaxing the PDMA rules our unhappy poster feels he is at least being heard, and the mods don't get so much concentrated anger in their PMs. It's win, win, win.

 

[North King]

Yes yes they would. It means their unhappiness (to an extent) can be aired and discussed in public, rather than being dealt with opaquely via PM as it is now. Perhaps you've forgotten how intimidating it can be to deal with mods - after all, authority figures - and how frustrating the non-transparent system of appeals is.

Non-existent, really. At present, I'm unsure how I would even go about appealing a ban/infraction/whatever, except by talking to a moderator who I'm friends with. Cause talking to an admin doesn't seem to do a whole lot.

Favoritism ftw?

 

[Camikaze]

Yes yes they would. It means their unhappiness (to an extent) can be aired and discussed in public, rather than being dealt with opaquely via PM as it is now. Perhaps you've forgotten how intimidating it can be to deal with mods - after all, authority figures - and how frustrating the non-transparent system of appeals is.

By relaxing the PDMA rules our unhappy poster feels he is at least being heard, and the mods don't get so much concentrated anger in their PMs. It's win, win, win.

Yeah, perhaps that's true and a valid counterpoint to my first post. But at the very least, I think it's clear that happiness at the system would largely depend on what the rules for managed PDMA are - we may have to be quite permissive for people to actually be happy, in which case there'd probably be a need for a greater time investment, for instance.

Regarding your first point, I dunno, I guess I have forgotten. I wouldn't have thought I'm particularly intimidating to approach, but perhaps I am to some people. Being more approachable would also then be a partial solution to the perceived problem.

Non-existent, really. At present, I'm unsure how I would even go about appealing a ban/infraction/whatever, except by talking to a moderator who I'm friends with. Cause talking to an admin doesn't seem to do a whole lot.

Favoritism ftw?

I agree that the process isn't as well-known as it perhaps should be. I mean, we don't try to hide it, but nor do we actively publicise it. There are generally only about 10 appeals a year. This could mean we need to be clearer about the process, but it also could mean that perhaps an avenue already exists through which people could make themselves more satisfied with moderator action, if they were to try it out.

 

[Tee Kay]

Yeah, perhaps that's true and a valid counterpoint to my first post. But at the very least, I think it's clear that happiness at the system would largely depend on what the rules for managed PDMA are - we may have to be quite permissive for people to actually be happy, in which case there'd probably be a need for a greater time investment, for instance.

People don't need to be happy happy, just less unhappy than under the current regime.

I wouldn't have thought I'm particularly intimidating to approach, but perhaps I am to some people.

You do have a tendency to post formidable walls of text... so yeah... yes, I would say so mate.

Being more approachable would also then be a partial solution to the perceived problem.

Reading the posts here by others regarding mod attitude suggests that approachability is indeed a problem.

 

[Thlayli]

I think that in allowing full PDMA but only in a certain designated appeal thread, it allows moderators to continue policing the forum as before, but reduces that element of opacity that other posters have identified as being so frustrating.

It also has the benefit of collecting most, if not all, complaints to the moderators in a common location for all of the moderators to respond to, rather than individually via PM. This could prove to be a more efficient system than the one that existed before, as well as making people happier.

If we had been able to have the types of conversations that we are currently having in the NES forum with the moderators BEFORE the current crisis exploded, it might not have exploded. After the moderators opened a discussion, heated opinions calmed down considerably. I wouldn't underestimate the value of discussion threads, as we've just seen, and an official place for moderators and community members to have these discussions sounds just like a natural good thing to have to prevent future crises, doesn't it?

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Non-existent, really. At present, I'm unsure how I would even go about appealing a ban/infraction/whatever, except by talking to a moderator who I'm friends with. Cause talking to an admin doesn't seem to do a whole lot.

Between 20% to 25% of appeals result in a reduced or reversed moderator action, but a portion of those occurred after after the change was moot because of time, such as the infraction or restriction has expired. Now that we are back up to strength on Supermoderator personnel, appeals are moving little faster than they in 2012 and 2013.

 

[Gem Hound]

I was once a mod on another forum, I held myself accountable to my members and revealed everything I did, I also participated in most things, basically showing "I am a jumped up member that sometimes makes mistakes" Even people who I temporarily banned liked me because I both explained myself, and took active part in my section of the forum. The only reason I am no longer a mod there is that I left due to pure spam attacks from East Asian Companies(glyphs) that the admins wouldn't do anything about.

So I understand both sides, yet do not understand the need for secrecy.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Regarding your first point, I dunno, I guess I have forgotten. I wouldn't have thought I'm particularly intimidating to approach, but perhaps I am to some people. Being more approachable would also then be a partial solution to the perceived problem.

One of the experiences I had with this during my time was when I PM'd a member to share a funny picture I thought he'd appreciate. He was upfront about his first reaction to seeing a PM from a moderator ("What did I do wrong?"), which suggests that some moderators have a tendency to interact with members only when an infraction or warning has been issued. This is something that tends to foster a "They" vs "We" disconnect and lessens the "approachability" factor.

Between 20% to 25% of appeals result in a reduced or reversed moderator action, but a portion of those occurred after after the change was moot because of time, such as the infraction or restriction has expired. Now that we are back up to strength on Supermoderator personnel, appeals are moving little faster than they in 2012 and 2013.

Some people don't appeal because they don't think they'd get a fair hearing. Or maybe the person to whom they're directed to make the appeal is the same person with whom they're having the problem - which also doesn't make for an impartial hearing.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Favoritism ftw?

This is an example - albeit a very, very mild one - of that phenomenon of 'reading the worst motives into every moderator action' that I mentioned before, with the suggestion of possible (or declaration of actual) malice or willful unfairness being a common feature of complaints in those cases where things get problematic. I draw two conclusions from this which, though they need not necessarily be opposed, do make the question of PDMA more difficult to resolve.

On the one hand, greater transparency should probably help to build trust among forum members at large that mods are acting in good faith. It might also encourage the mods to pay a little more care (and there really only needs to be a little more care) to phrasing their interventions in a manner less likely to create ambiguity and mistrust.

On the other hand, if mods constantly find their motives and integrity questioned, they are unlikely to see discussion of their actions as a positive thing, and may very well feel their authority has been undermined. Having spent years as a teaching assistant, I can say with absolute certainty that when school teachers get to feeling their authority is undermined is when they start to act in a more defensive and less reasonable, less attentive manner (and, if the feeling persists over time, to start considering a change of career). It seems clear to me that the same kind of thing happen is likely to happen with moderators.

ps. Sorry to pick on your comment in particular, North King, but it's mildness and jokiness made it more appropriate to address this point than other, more serious-sounding comments. My intention here is not to read the worst motives into your actions.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I'm curious how the PDMA thread would work. If it's transparency people want, there could be a sort of Judge Judy type of hearing. Explain the reason for appeal and get your verdict from some other mod, supermod or administrator. That could be interesting to oversee. Or is it supposed to be a more free-for-all type of thread where supporters and accusers all could join in?

Otherwise - what Winston said.

 

[Thlayli]

I'd imagine there would be guidelines, particularly encouraging people to keep a civil tone in their heads.

But I think the intent of the thread would be to foster discussion of community members' problems, rather than act as a public replica of the appeals system which already exists.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I'd imagine there would be guidelines, particularly encouraging people to keep a civil tone in their heads.

But I think the intent of the thread would be to foster discussion of community members' problems, rather than act as a public replica of the appeals system which already exists.

Aren't said community members' problems most often other community members?

 

[Thlayli]

I think there's a respectful way to make the moderators aware of bad behavior by other community members without flaming them. Generally, when things are made public, everyone tends to have greater care about what they say than in more private settings.

At least that's what I find.

 

[brennan]

PDMA honestly has no point in existing. The issue here is really moderator accountability. The current intent of the PDMA policy is to insulate and protect moderators..

I don't think that's true. The no PDMA policy prevents threads from being hijacked by... PDMA.

There actually is accountability in the process, it just isn't visible to most of the community. With that in mind:

I'm curious how the PDMA thread would work. ...Explain the reason for appeal and get your verdict from some other mod, supermod or administrator. That could be interesting to oversee. Or is it supposed to be a more free-for-all type of thread where supporters and accusers all could join in?

&

Honestly, the obvious problem is the fact that if there's any accountability, it's completely invisible. People message moderators and it's as if the report goes into a memory hole. Some sort of way to track the progress of your complaint (received -> in discussion -> evaluated -> warning issued/post cleared) would go a long ways towards showing whether you've been ignored or actually given a fair look.

Good ideas here. How about a thread where people can publicly request an explanation of specific instances of Moderator Action and in which they are entitled to a detailed response from the Moderation Community - which could potentially include the possibility of the action being overturned?

There's a potential for people to waste the mod's time here obviously, but people who troll the thread with stupid questions like "why was I moderated for telling XXXX to go YYYY themselves" could get a stock reply copy-pasted and receive an infraction for trolling. People who can't be civil to the mods can likewise get infractions for flaming.

The thread could even be just a straightforward Question/Answer format - no actual discussion, just a post for the community member to make the request for clarification/appeal and a post from the mods with their explanation/verdict. That alone would provide a greatly improved degree of transparency. If people want to go into detail about what they think about individual decisions and possible changes to moderation perhaps they can then start up individual discussion threads over the details.

I know I have repeated periods of extended absence from CFC, but one of the primary reasons I keep coming back (for nearly a decade now) is that the moderation here is excellent and encourages a far higher quality of polite discourse than any other forum I know of.

Keep up the good work.

 

[peter grimes]

Just chiming in to let people know that I'm following this, too.

Stop locking the threads when enforcing PDMA, instead purge the posts that were rule breaking and then post something akin to this in the thread: "Please do not publically discuss moderator action, please privately discuss moderator action in the way outlined by the rules". The encourages posters to read the rules and contact the moderators appropriately.

This is, as far as I know, the way things work (at least in the forums I moderate. Perhaps it's not site-wide. But in Off-Topic this is exactly the way we handle these situations, which are quite rare to be honest.

The issue here is really moderator accountability. The current intent of the PDMA policy is to insulate and protect moderators, but it does so at the expense of the members of the community who are often upset and angry and deserve a place to publicly appeal moderator actions. As previously demonstrated, PDMA is like a shield for a man wearing an invincible suit of armor. It is unnecessary and 'protects' moderators from nothing except legitimate critiques of their actions. Abusive and insulting posts can easily be deleted in seconds anyway!

If the issue is moderator accountability then relaxing PDMA won't change that at all. I think Camikaze addressed this, but I wanted to reiterate it, because it's a crucial point to understand. What you seem to be thinking is that relaxing PDMA will somehow cause moderators to react to public will regarding an issue. But we can't, since it's the owner of the site that determines the rules we need to encourage the community to adhere to. Let's take foul language as an example. I personally have a wider threshold for what's tolerable in certain contexts than the site's rules. But I'm 41, not 14. We have to apply the rules so that the parent of a 14 year old won't be upset if they happen to notice an emotionally charged political rant on their kid's screen. I can handle just about any language - in context - with no problem. But I can't ignore that rule. Maybe most of the members of the site are like me, but it doesn't matter. We're not accountable like that.

Does that make sense? Rereading what I wrote it might be confusing, but I've only got a couple minutes...

Honestly, the obvious problem is the fact that if there's any accountability, it's completely invisible. People message moderators and it's as if the report goes into a memory hole. Some sort of way to track the progress of your complaint (received -> in discussion -> evaluated -> warning issued/post cleared) would go a long ways towards showing whether you've been ignored or actually given a fair look.

Does that really happen? When I get a PM from a member I try to reply as soon as possible, even if it's just to say "Can't look into this right now, remind me again if you don't hear from me in X hours".

We don't reply to the people who file reports since that would be really, really time consuming. I have messaged reporters to further explain a report if it's ambiguous. But if I get a PM from someone I try to deal with it as soon as possible. The interesting thing is that some people have inaccurate impressions of reports. There was one guy I friended on Facebook after he ragequit the site. When I was made Moderator he laughed and congratulated me, commenting that he thought maybe moderation would improve. He told me that nothing ever came of the times he reported targeted trolling against him. So I check the report threads and guess what? He had reported a total of 2 posts in 4 years, not a single one was trolling him! It was stuff like adspam and language violations

Yet he had an impression that the Moderators were ignoring him....

Ok, sorry I don't have time to post more just now. There are other posts from earlier in the thread I'd like to address in some degree, but I felt it important to get at least something contributed here

 

[schlaufuchs]

If the issue is moderator accountability then relaxing PDMA won't change that at all. I think Camikaze addressed this, but I wanted to reiterate it, because it's a crucial point to understand. What you seem to be thinking is that relaxing PDMA will somehow cause moderators to react to public will regarding an issue. But we can't, since it's the owner of the site that determines the rules we need to encourage the community to adhere to. Let's take foul language as an example. I personally have a wider threshold for what's tolerable in certain contexts than the site's rules. But I'm 41, not 14. We have to apply the rules so that the parent of a 14 year old won't be upset if they happen to notice an emotionally charged political rant on their kid's screen. I can handle just about any language - in context - with no problem. But I can't ignore that rule. Maybe most of the members of the site are like me, but it doesn't matter. We're not accountable like that.

See to me this argument doesn't hold much water. The forum holds the assumption that we need to hold the forum to standards such that the parent of a 14-year old would not be offended by what his/her child was looking at. And yet in the babe thread we all but permit softcore pornography. We enable posters to persist with misogynistic nice-guy posts. We enable posters who have outright advocated racist sentiments against minorities (particularly against poc and romani). We enable posters who outright advocate murder (as in shooting fleeing nonviolent targets). We enable posters who disagree with Timothy McVeigh only in that he advocated harming children.

We allow all of these things and yet...

It took 15 years for posters to finally be allowed to post and discuss rap music (kinda...)
We still theoretically cannot post pictures by Manet or Kirchner.
In the world of Google Translate, where things in just about any language are accessible to anyone we still cannot post in non-English languages outside of a select few, very restrictive threads.


Do you guys see why these rules infuriate many residents of these forums?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

We still theoretically cannot post pictures by Manet or Kirchner.

Do you guys see why these rules infuriate many residents of these forums?

None of the pictures on those Wikipedia pages are in violation of the standards of the Arts & Entertainment forum.

 

[Takhisis]

Other forums have specific-purpose public infraction appeal subforums (or sub-fora, as Plotinus would say) which are heavily monitored. It migth be worth it looking at how those folks do it.

 

[schlaufuchs]

None of the pictures on those Wikipedia pages are in violation of the standards of the Arts & Entertainment forum.

Except I do not like posting in A&E for reasons I've elucidated in numerous other posts.