Mods and values
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 8:21 am
In a recent talk I had with ACH I've noted an interesting issue - there are yet to be made specific concepts about what a moderator should or shouldn't be. Before we will move into the topic I would like to note two things:
1. This presents a personal opinion and not a rule or something I ask to implement.
2. I do not do it to convince anyone to return me to mod status. While stuff I write down is things I did myself but only because I believe in those things. I do not ask for anything from you.
3. I do not criticize anyone in this post. Please don't come just to criticize me either.
So without further ado let’s dive into this interesting topic.
The moderator and you
First of all at the basics of moderation. I'm sure all of you know that moderators exist to protect the forum from outside threats - spams, trolls, harassments, all of those are obvious threats that disorder the forum and in most cases there is no arguing about the right course of actions. The problems begin when the threat comes from inside. What is considered off-topic ? What thread can derail to a flaming war ? All those problems put the moderator before a complicated decision - should he interfere or stay out of the issue. Although dealing with those threats is an obvious task of the moderators there is another task that unfortunately I people see less important and tend not to do as moderators - Helping other members. If you look at the moderation panel you will see that most of the functions in there are actually for organizing threads - moving posts, splitting topics. The moderator is there to also help the members with problems that are beyond their powers. For example if I run out of space in my story thread (And yes there is a high probability it will happen
) I would ask a moderator to help me insert more space. Additionally as any other good policeman, the moderator should help you find your way around the forums, suggest you how to solve issues and inform you where can you get help. While we don't get many new members as of yet the moderator should know this is one of his duties.
So who is a moderator ?
We've just answered it above isn't ? well no, a moderator is a person, and just like any person he has his own thoughts, feelings and problems. This might cause problems but this is also what allows the moderator to be a moderator. As I said above the most problematic part in a moderator's job is to deal with inside threats. This is mostly because those usually fall in the gray zone where it is simply impossible to write rules. At this point the mod must make a decision - should he interfere ?
This decision is effected by many factors, some of them are objective, the other ones are not and depend highly on the mood of the moderator (he is a person after all). What do you consider when you decide should you interfere ?
- Was there a direct violation of the rule ? If so you must interfere, no questions asked.
- Do I intuitively feel something is wrong ? So turns out you hit the gray area ... Do you see that something is going really wrong ? Interfere, but be sure there is indeed a danger. You should look in those cases very carefully and try to judge as lightly as possible
- Who violated the rule ? Why do you ask ? Do you have an opinion about this person already ? Watch out, you might be considering the wrong reasons. Vinyl already got on her head once because she was confused with other when the old forum was necro'd ...
- What is my mood ? At first it seems like you consider your mood (Which is not good) but this question actually asks if you are aware of your mood. It is highly important to be aware of it as it will effect your decision. If you feel like your feelings are in the way of your judgment take a break and come back with a clean head.
- Was it violated on purpose ? Was the person aware that he violates the rules ? sometimes a simple warning might be enough to solve an issue, but if the others ignore it you know what to do. It is a good idea to warn first before you take actions in those gray areas.
When you are interfering in cases you shouldn't have you are doing what I call "Over moderation"
Over-Moderation
There might be a few reasons you are doing it, either you didn't evaluate the situation correctly, either you didn't evaluate the situation correctly due to a very big problem - your powers. It is a simple fact - power corrupts, no matter who you are , how strong you are, how old you are or how long you are a moderator, it effects you in one way or another (I began to view things more harshly , I guess it's good I was given a break ) . Sometimes I see mods who want to show off their powers. Usually they speak officially, as if they represent a higher authority (well they are just no need to point it out all the time). They tend to be very harsh and it feels almost as if they search for reasons to use their powers. Periodical post edits and warnings are common syndromes of this illness.
So how can you fight back this problem ? First you must be aware of it. If you know and you are ready to admit that you are effected by your position your attitude towards the issue changes and sometimes it is enough to solve it. Other times the moderator is aware of the problem but he can't notice when he is effected by it. Best way to deal with it is again to ask yourself questions and answer them honestly (Not only the questions I brought up, any questions that you thing will help you out , that fit your character and help you filter out wrong reasons). If you do not find a reason to take an action but you want to you are under effect of over-moderation. Don't touch this topic for half of an hour, do something else, don't think about that and come back to the issue with a clear mind (It is going nowhere believe me ! And if it is , better for you - issue solved !). Take the questions again to choose the correct course of actions. How do you build those questions ? Best way is to learn on your mistakes. When you over-moderated something think about what made you do it, how did you justify your choice and add it to the questions.
So what do I do ?
Again sometimes half of an hour make the difference - try to use it. The questions will help you to stay specific and make up your mind about an issue. If you are still unsure about an issue warn, it helps . When the warning doesn't help and you must take an action, but you are still not sure about it, judge lightly and give smaller punishments. It doesn't have to be a warning point - you can lock the threat, edit the posts. Even if you take a wrong choice here the consequences are not as severe as they could have been.
Finally don't forget you're not there to punish - you are there to help the community. Sometimes people do not know they can ask for help from you, if you see a situation where you can help - by all means do it.
And how does a mod look like ?
Your personality effects your decisions, so if you try to improve your personality you will improve your decisions right ? If we could change personalities like masks I would agree but it is a little bit more complicated. We can strive towards those though.
A good mod is usually not harsh - he will become more harsh during his service and we don't want over-moderation right ?
Yet he is confident in himself, he is not much of a moderator if he can't take decisions on his own right ? This includes issuing points.
The moderator should see himself as a person who helps and not a person who punishes - he should not search for violations. He is present on the forums and acts as a normal member, but when he sees he can help he helps out - will it be moving a thread or warning a user.
He should care - people who don't care about helping people will not care about banning them either, nor they would care about the fate of the forum.
Finally he should be active - it is nice that someone has moderation rights but it would be nicer if he will actually be there to use them.
This concludes my short article for helping mods, hope you found here something that helps you out.
1. This presents a personal opinion and not a rule or something I ask to implement.
2. I do not do it to convince anyone to return me to mod status. While stuff I write down is things I did myself but only because I believe in those things. I do not ask for anything from you.
3. I do not criticize anyone in this post. Please don't come just to criticize me either.
So without further ado let’s dive into this interesting topic.
The moderator and you
First of all at the basics of moderation. I'm sure all of you know that moderators exist to protect the forum from outside threats - spams, trolls, harassments, all of those are obvious threats that disorder the forum and in most cases there is no arguing about the right course of actions. The problems begin when the threat comes from inside. What is considered off-topic ? What thread can derail to a flaming war ? All those problems put the moderator before a complicated decision - should he interfere or stay out of the issue. Although dealing with those threats is an obvious task of the moderators there is another task that unfortunately I people see less important and tend not to do as moderators - Helping other members. If you look at the moderation panel you will see that most of the functions in there are actually for organizing threads - moving posts, splitting topics. The moderator is there to also help the members with problems that are beyond their powers. For example if I run out of space in my story thread (And yes there is a high probability it will happen
) I would ask a moderator to help me insert more space. Additionally as any other good policeman, the moderator should help you find your way around the forums, suggest you how to solve issues and inform you where can you get help. While we don't get many new members as of yet the moderator should know this is one of his duties.So who is a moderator ?
We've just answered it above isn't ? well no, a moderator is a person, and just like any person he has his own thoughts, feelings and problems. This might cause problems but this is also what allows the moderator to be a moderator. As I said above the most problematic part in a moderator's job is to deal with inside threats. This is mostly because those usually fall in the gray zone where it is simply impossible to write rules. At this point the mod must make a decision - should he interfere ?
This decision is effected by many factors, some of them are objective, the other ones are not and depend highly on the mood of the moderator (he is a person after all). What do you consider when you decide should you interfere ?
- Was there a direct violation of the rule ? If so you must interfere, no questions asked.
- Do I intuitively feel something is wrong ? So turns out you hit the gray area ... Do you see that something is going really wrong ? Interfere, but be sure there is indeed a danger. You should look in those cases very carefully and try to judge as lightly as possible
- Who violated the rule ? Why do you ask ? Do you have an opinion about this person already ? Watch out, you might be considering the wrong reasons. Vinyl already got on her head once because she was confused with other when the old forum was necro'd ...
- What is my mood ? At first it seems like you consider your mood (Which is not good) but this question actually asks if you are aware of your mood. It is highly important to be aware of it as it will effect your decision. If you feel like your feelings are in the way of your judgment take a break and come back with a clean head.
- Was it violated on purpose ? Was the person aware that he violates the rules ? sometimes a simple warning might be enough to solve an issue, but if the others ignore it you know what to do. It is a good idea to warn first before you take actions in those gray areas.
When you are interfering in cases you shouldn't have you are doing what I call "Over moderation"
Over-Moderation
There might be a few reasons you are doing it, either you didn't evaluate the situation correctly, either you didn't evaluate the situation correctly due to a very big problem - your powers. It is a simple fact - power corrupts, no matter who you are , how strong you are, how old you are or how long you are a moderator, it effects you in one way or another (I began to view things more harshly , I guess it's good I was given a break
) . Sometimes I see mods who want to show off their powers. Usually they speak officially, as if they represent a higher authority (well they are just no need to point it out all the time). They tend to be very harsh and it feels almost as if they search for reasons to use their powers. Periodical post edits and warnings are common syndromes of this illness. So how can you fight back this problem ? First you must be aware of it. If you know and you are ready to admit that you are effected by your position your attitude towards the issue changes and sometimes it is enough to solve it. Other times the moderator is aware of the problem but he can't notice when he is effected by it. Best way to deal with it is again to ask yourself questions and answer them honestly (Not only the questions I brought up, any questions that you thing will help you out , that fit your character and help you filter out wrong reasons). If you do not find a reason to take an action but you want to you are under effect of over-moderation. Don't touch this topic for half of an hour, do something else, don't think about that and come back to the issue with a clear mind (It is going nowhere believe me ! And if it is , better for you - issue solved !). Take the questions again to choose the correct course of actions. How do you build those questions ? Best way is to learn on your mistakes. When you over-moderated something think about what made you do it, how did you justify your choice and add it to the questions.
So what do I do ?
Again sometimes half of an hour make the difference - try to use it. The questions will help you to stay specific and make up your mind about an issue. If you are still unsure about an issue warn, it helps . When the warning doesn't help and you must take an action, but you are still not sure about it, judge lightly and give smaller punishments. It doesn't have to be a warning point - you can lock the threat, edit the posts. Even if you take a wrong choice here the consequences are not as severe as they could have been.
Finally don't forget you're not there to punish - you are there to help the community. Sometimes people do not know they can ask for help from you, if you see a situation where you can help - by all means do it.
And how does a mod look like ?
Your personality effects your decisions, so if you try to improve your personality you will improve your decisions right ? If we could change personalities like masks I would agree but it is a little bit more complicated. We can strive towards those though.
A good mod is usually not harsh - he will become more harsh during his service and we don't want over-moderation right ?
Yet he is confident in himself, he is not much of a moderator if he can't take decisions on his own right ? This includes issuing points.
The moderator should see himself as a person who helps and not a person who punishes - he should not search for violations. He is present on the forums and acts as a normal member, but when he sees he can help he helps out - will it be moving a thread or warning a user.
He should care - people who don't care about helping people will not care about banning them either, nor they would care about the fate of the forum.
Finally he should be active - it is nice that someone has moderation rights but it would be nicer if he will actually be there to use them.
This concludes my short article for helping mods, hope you found here something that helps you out.
I hate it when this happens...
. I'd put it in area 52 but my powers are gone 
.