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Well, first of all, I'd like to say that I've been a part of a lot of online communities, and TA is one of the best ones I've ever seen when it comes to being able to have quality conversations on a wide variety of topics. While this might partially be attributed to the fact that most of the members seem to be interested in making it as enjoyable place as possible, there is no doubt that good moderation is a major factor which has led to the success of this community. The moderators here at TA do a good job, in my opinion, and while they certainly make some decisions I feel are questionable, there aren't any of them who I specifically have a problem with or who I believe to be a chronic source of bad decisions. That said, I have been critical of some of the decisions and even policies of the moderators in the past. The important thing to realize, though, is that I've never been one to say that the mods have been doing a bad job. Rather, I merely think that there remains a great deal of room for improvement.
In my opinion, the key to being a good moderator (or a good group of moderators) is twofold: communication, and dedication. In the following paragraphs, I'll take a look at how I think each of these characteristics could be maximized. What, you thought this was going to be short? 
Communication
Communication is vital to maintaining a strong community where the moderators’ decisions are clear and understandable (even when you don't agree with them.) To be a good moderator, you have be both skilled at organizing and communicating your feelings on a matter and also be accessible to the community. There are two major aspects of communication I'd like to address:
1. Statement of Community Rules
This is, in my opinion, one of the things that's missing on TA right now. It often seems like no one, perhaps not even the moderators, knows precisely what is and is not allowed on the forums. This type of "interpretive" moderation seems to do a sufficient job (probably because we have quality moderators), but it lends itself to biased decisions and inconsistency, which judging by the other responses in this thread seem to be two of the major gripes people have with the mods. What I would like to see, personally, is a permanent sticky thread at the top of every forum which explains, in precise language, exactly what is considered a violation of forum rules, as well as any additional rules specific to that forum. Obviously the moderating staff would have to invest the time to discuss, construct, and publish such a document. However, in my opinion, if the moderating staff is truly dedicated to making TA the best community it can be, then something like this really needs to be done. Finally, I understand that no matter how much work the mods put in towards creating an official set of forum rules, there will always be unforeseen problems which can arise and require the intervention of mods. Nevertheless, I still think that an official rules document of some kind would help avert a lot of our problems, even though a lot of people probably wouldn't read it. In my view, it would add an air of legitimacy to the decisions of the moderators. Right now, it often seems as if decisions are just being made up on the spot. If people knew exactly what to expect, they would have a lot less to complain about.
2. User Complaints
User complaints can mean one of two things. Either one member of the community wishes to lodge a complaint against another in the form of an accusation of a violation of the forum rules, or a member of the community wishes to challenge the decision of a moderator regarding a specific decision. In either case, the current methodology is essentially "pm a mod and see if you get a response." Even though the moderators usually do a pretty good job of dealing with complaints, I think this could be improved upon. There are a lot of ways you could go about improving the system, but primarily the problem I see in it as it stands is that once again it moves the decision-making process of the moderators behind closed doors. This leaves people to speculate about how decisions are being made and leads to discontent among people who don't agree with/understand the decisions and the rationale behind them. One idea, and this is just an example, would be to make another sticky thread, or perhaps just use the forum rules thread, where people can report violations of forum rules. This could potentially make the moderators' job easier, because they could quickly view this thread to see if there were any major issues that required their attention if they didn't have time to read the whole forum. Then, the moderator could review the issue, post a decision and brief explanation there and take whatever action was necessary. After a few days, the posts regarding that particular issue could be deleted. Similarly, if someone wanted to complain (intelligently) about a moderator's decision, they could post their complaint there and get a further explanation if desired. Obviously, the moderator would still ultimately decide the best course of action to take, but I think it would help cut down on the discontent with moderating in general if people could at least consistently get a coherent response to their complaints.
Again, these methodologies are only ideas which happened to pop into my head as I was writing this. There are probably better ways to address these issues. The important message I'm trying to get across is that these are areas that could use some work if our community is to reach its full potential.
For a quick example of the type of problem I'm talking about, I hope no one will mind if I point out an example of a minor argument that has arisen in the politics forum between Cyrus King, a politics forum regular, and Wicked Neo, one of the forum moderators. You can read it in this thread if you'd like.
Essentially the problem is the Cyrus King is of the opinion that the situation resulting in his suspension from the politics forum was inequitable because he didn't receive sufficient notice. Wicked Neo claims (or seems to claim, this is actually a bit vague) that he did warn Cyrus King, and furthermore states that:
| quote: | | Originally posted by Wicked NeoI stand by my decsion to suspend you when i did, because of the numerous complaints i had about you, from more than one user, that the mods of this board have not been happy with your posts (i will add this, the senior mods of this forum usually discuss suspensions before we suspend someone, and the majority ruled in favour of your suspension, they veiwed your posts for themselves and agreed with myself and with the complaints i had had about you, the suspension was agreed with not a single senior mod objecting) and that it was not an isolated incident. |
Now, I don't want to be seen as passing judgment on this particular situation. I don't see any reason why Wicked Neo or another mod would be out to get Cyrus King, and I have observed that Cyrus King occasionally allows his emotions to get the better of him and says some things that might offend people. At the same time, Wicked Neo really can't provide any evidence to support his claims that he warned Cyrus King, nor can he validate the nature or content of complaints he received about Cyrus King or his conversations with other moderators. I'm not accusing Wicked Neo of lying - far from it. Rather, I'm trying to illustrate an inherent flaw in the system that's being used to maintain order on the boards: that is, that all the important conversations, decisions, etc are occurring behind closed doors, in that they're either contained in PM communications or possibly on the mod forum. When the decision-making process is hidden in this manner, it leaves people with no choice but to speculate as to what really happened. This, in turn, leads to complaints about the moderators.
Dedication
The other aspect of good moderating that I wanted to discuss briefly is dedication. Seven years ago, I moderated a small (compared to TA) message board where people could discuss the computer game Starcraft. I understand that moderating even a small community, much less a large one like TA, requires a significant commitment of time. One of the issues that several other people in this thread have raised is that of inactive moderators, and/or moderators who do not consistently visit all the forums which they moderate.
While I don't see there as being any imminent need for a "crackdown" or even really any evidence of a lack of dedication on the part of our moderating staff, I'm sure some of these concerns are valid - especially in special topic forums, such as the amateur production forum and the politics forum. I don't have any specific gripes about moderators who may or may not be pulling their weight when it comes to moderating the forums. My only observation might be that it seems like a disproportionate amount of the work ends up being done by Wicked Neo, but I don't visit every forum so I really can't say.
The way I look at it is this: when you're a moderator, you have authority. But with authority comes responsibility. If a moderator isn't willing to invest the time to contribute positively to the community on a regular basis, I don't really think they have any business being a moderator. With that in mind, my only recommendation would be that Swamper re-evaluate his moderating staff on a regular basis to ensure that everyone who is entrusted with the authority of being a moderator is demonstrating a sufficient level of dedication and responsibility.
I personally believe that the moderating staff here at TA does an impressive job. I can only hope that my critique might empower them to do an even better job in the future.
Best Wishes,
Arbiter
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mods & rules
