Administrator Roles in Moderating

[Onilink89]

And wtf is happening here? Oh for the love of god, the whole forum is turning into a warzone of discussion again. This is exactly what i wanted to prevent!

I don't know who's right or wrong, neither am i going to take an effort to find out because its not going to change a damn thing!

To the staff:
If you give a chance to members to protest, at least do it in a fashion that prevents further heat. Do it on skype or with PM, i dunno, but openly discussing it involving other unreleated people is just begging for more conflict. This is what you get, members pointing fingers at you and accusing you of abuse.

To the members:
If a staff member really abused their position, in the end the issue must be solved within the staff. Please stop adding fuel to the flame with ya.
You guys have to realize that mods and admins are not perfect beings like some parent-figure. They are people that can make errors as well. That said, surely you guys can protest in a more calm and appropriate fashion instead of going "hurr durr he did this or that, or this happened b4 can happened again".

 

[Emma]

To the staff:
If you give a chance to members to protest, at least do it in a fashion that prevents further heat. Do it on skype or with PM, i dunno, but openly discussing it involving other unreleated people is just begging for more conflict. This is what you get, members pointing fingers at you and accusing you of abuse.

The problem with this is when it was attempted in the past, absolutely nothing ever was done about it. They would ignore all complaints. Unfair infractions would be left on indenfinitely, unfair bans would be left alone for their whole length. For example, LegendofZelda's permanet ban, and Seth's long ban a couple years back. Nothing happened. They were banned on an impulse that was never justified and the staff completely ignored all the private complaints about the bans. Despite passively agreeing they were unfair, they did nothing. Questionably, LoZ got frustrated and went around it with another account, because it was unfair, it was largely forgiven and his accounts were merged. But it doesn't excuse how the complaints were absolutely ignored when they were private. Nothing got done. Nothing productive ever happened until it was made public. It's absolutely not an ideal solution. But with the staff's history of ignoring things if they're not put under public pressure, there is little alternative.

To the members:
If a staff member really abused their position, in the end the issue must be solved within the staff. Please stop adding fuel to the flame with ya.
You guys have to realize that mods and admins are not perfect beings like some parent-figure. They are people that can make errors as well. That said, surely you guys can protest in a more calm and appropriate fashion instead of going "hurr durr he did this or that, or this happened b4 can happened again".

Like I just said, if it's not made public, nothing is ever done about it. It would literally be ignored for MONTHS, sometimes well over a year. Even the tinest things like making some minor improvements to the how the rules thread is worded, nothing happens without something public. None of this is ideal, absolutely. Too many people join in on these things have no idea what is going on simply because they're in a Skype chat where everyone in it is complaining about someone and they decide to join in even though they haven't got a clue what happened. In just this issue, from DM's first protest up to here, we've had a lot of strawman ad hominem attacks from people who were not involved, not witnesses, nothing to do it. Like saying DM was a troll, with absolutely no truth to it, so he deserved it, despite the evidence, the actual shoutbox logs, proving it wasn't justified.

What's the alternative. In PMs or one-on-one Skype messages, the staff NEVER does anything about these problems. In completely public cases, uninvolved people jump on and derail things with baseless accusations. Even if we set up a section where only the people involved can see a thread about something, say for protesting warnings and infractions, we'd still run into the problem of the staff ignoring it because there is no public pressure.

 

[Onilink89]

It's absolutely not an ideal solution. But with the staff's history of ignoring things if they're not put under public pressure, there is little alternative.

I cannot say for sure that the staff actualy ignoring things or do zero effort about these issue. I mean at the same time they might have discussions amongst themselfs too, which would not be surpising at all. If thats the case, then what discussion is more important to focus on? The staff discussion or these open discussions?

But if you think that these open discussions have influence, then i suggest an other method. Instead of making an open thread to protest after all the stuff has happened. Have an open banlist/infractionlist. We used this method in the past, when members accused staff of abuse. Everytime a mod/admin gave an infraction or a ban, he would report in that thread and update the list. At the same time if there were members against it, they could protest within a week and determine or compromise their punisment. This way members can not easly accuse the staff either. Later when things calmed down, we decided to remove it because it was kinda invading privacy of the members.

 

[Emma]

I cannot say for sure that the staff actualy ignoring things or do zero effort about these issue. I mean at the same time they might have discussions amongst themselfs too, which would not be surpising at all. If thats the case, then what discussion is more important to focus on? The staff discussion or these open discussions?

It does happen, some of the staff I know can vouch for what I claimed if they wish to speak up on it. It happens. It's natural anyway. When you are in a power position, and you see one person complaining about it, you're going to be considerably more confident you are in the right, and that you can justify it, than if many people are complaining at once together.

But if you think that these open discussions have influence, then i suggest an other method. Instead of making an open thread to protest after all the stuff has happened. Have an open banlist/infractionlist. We used this method in the past, when members accused staff of abuse. Everytime a mod/admin gave an infraction or a ban, he would report in that thread and update the list. At the same time if there were members against it, they could protest within a week and determine or compromise their punisment. This way members can not easly accuse the staff either. Later when things calmed down, we decided to remove it because it was kinda invading privacy of the members.

Yeah, that is a rather big privacy invasion. That thing I casually mentioned before, a special section just for protesting warnings and infractions that are not fair, and only staff and the person making it can see it, that might be doable if we also do other stuff. Setting up solid ground rules for a code of conduct the staff adheres to would help prevent a lot of this from happening in the first place. Solidly making warnings and infractions as a last resort and requiring a discussion on them should help a lot. A REQUIREMENT, not a recommended guideline. One that has consequences if an admin or mod chooses to disregard those guidelines. So there's absolutely no ambiguity if there's a question of overstepping their authority, as it's clearly defined that they can't do it. That's why I'm so focusing on these rules. It's a preventative measure. Prevention is way easier than dealing with it after it has happened. Any solution to dealing with protests is going to be a problem. It's natural human instinct to feel confident when only one person is complaining about something, versus a whole group. But then on the other side, you get people who are uninvolved, making themselves involved, to carry out someone else's grudge that they were complaining about on Skype. It's fraught with issues no matter how you do it. Which is all the more reason to focus so much on preventing it in the first place.

 

[Onilink89]

Yeah, that is a rather big privacy invasion.

It is, but if members get to monitor the actions of the staff and have a opinion about it within the 1 week time period and while the subject is fresh then its a reasonable price to pay. The whole point of the method was to prevent accusing one another afterwards (like now). Dispite how radical this method was, at least it worked.

That thing I casually mentioned before, a special section just for protesting warnings and infractions that are not fair, and only staff and the person making it can see it, that might be doable if we also do other stuff.

I dunno, i don't wanna see this forum to become a massive courthouse with tons of members acting like jury. I want to prevent discussions, not to promote it.

Setting up solid ground rules for a code of conduct the staff adheres to would help prevent a lot of this from happening in the first place.

Personally i'm not a big fan of making more rules making it more complex then it is. But if you think this would help, i suggest to write some and submit it to the staff.