Who can become a moderator and how are they selected?

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Cookies and milk with a punch, eh?!

Nope.

But it sure is nice to occasionally be able to just stroll around quietly and see everyone else doing relatively well!

Uhh, how else are you going to find out who is on the other end of a dispute without the other side's name?

Through a PM (Private Message) to a mod.

Reporting an unquestionably-obvious troll or spammer here is certainly the quickest way to warn other members and to get a mod's attention, that is faine and that has always been the practice. However, publicly posting another member's name over a personal spat only escalates the overall situation.

Last edited by leejosepho on 19 Feb 2011, 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

Assuming that he read it and took note before he deleted it, but her post seems to have vanished too and thus her right of reply.
To my mind I would rather these things were bought up and presented publicly. We see what was said and what was done and can extrapolate meaning rather than vanishing posts and people, and a membership which is confused.
This also means that IF the mod simply "get's it wrong" then there is no way to have the wrong righted. Deletion ought to be used sparingly because once it vanishes then it is no good relying on for what was said and how and in what context.

I guess the other thing is too that this deletion thing "could" be seen as glorified editing to present things in a certain light. It reflects badly on any moderator if put to them that they are rewriting what was said by deleting perhaps key posts and key messages.
It is not to say that you or any mod is doing this but, were you to practice this, it does rewrite what was said by whom and how and in response to what and history and context is lost.
It can give rise to such things as (unfairly in likelihood) is the said moderator trying to protect someone by deleting certain text of people that oppose them? Are they allowing one sided discourse by deleting posts in the negative? Are they trying to sell their own agenda and deliberately editing to make a point.? Are they trying to rewrite history?
All of this is very hard to deny IF their if proof that text is missing or is obvious that text gets taken out of debate. It is not to say that it is true, honest, fair or right, but it is hard to appeal against.

Last edited by AlSwearengen on 19 Feb 2011, 8:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

In the particular case in question, I simply removed the personal spat from public view, and I did that without compromising the integrity of the thread where that personal spat had taken place.


Sure, just keep WP-member names out of questions posted here (or anywhere, actually) for public review.


Not true. Posts are only removed from public view.

Sorry Lee I was editing when you were replying and had not noticed you had posted

I guess the other thing is too that this deletion thing "could" be seen as glorified editing to present things in a certain light. It reflects badly on any moderator if put to them that they are rewriting what was said by deleting perhaps key posts and key messages.
It is not to say that you or any mod is doing this but, were you to practice this, it does rewrite what was said by whom and how and in response to what and history and context is lost.
It can give rise to such things as (unfairly in likelihood) is the said moderator trying to protect someone by deleting certain text of people that oppose them? Are they allowing one sided discourse by deleting posts in the negative? Are they trying to sell their own agenda and deliberately editing to make a point.? Are they trying to rewrite history?
All of this is very hard to deny IF their if proof that text is missing or is obvious that text gets taken out of debate. It is not to say that it is true, honest, fair or right, but it is hard to appeal against.

That is what I typed.

I think I do understand what you say about the name and what have you BUT it also beg the concept of transparency. The right for members to know what is going on and why versus th moderators want to protect and as to who and why. Murky stuff and hard to make a call. I would err on the side of full disclosure to show no undue influence irrespective of whether there is a need for such or not and let members be rational and reasonable enough to draw sensible conclusion.

Hard call though. (Not insinuating there is a need or want but would hate for any members to get a possibly wrong idea about things)

One of nice things about this kind of forum is its allowance for two or more people to be talking at the same time without ever having to miss anything said!


People see things as they do, and I can definitely understand how people could see things that way. Personally, I strive to just be sure everyone has a level field of play ... and while doing that, I think it is a good thing when others thereby occasionally become aware of at least their not-always-so-subtle attempts to tilt/tip it.


The differences between and the nuances of striving to hold a field of play level and running a bit of interference or even "protecting" someone from unfair play can occasionally be difficult for some people to discern.


No.


As to the matter of a level field of play: Yes.

Lee my questions for the most part were rhetorical.
Different situations. Different moderators. Different degrees of whatever. Different participants.
All of these things have potentially different answers.

Now as a member I like to think that the moderator on duty at any time will act in the forums interests and whatever decisions they make are good and proper and without question.
I would like to thing that all actions are, even if not understood, for the best and seen as such.

I like this in the same way I like to think people are inherently good, good conquers evil, try your hardest and you will be rewarded and so on.

However I am enough of a realist to register that even if a moderator (any moderator on any site) is not inherently bad or power abusing, they are human and can make mistakes.
When this is coupled with removal of posts and removal of context ....as I say it does make things "seem" murky and suspicious and whilst the mods may well have a clear picture of what is or has happened, members clearly will not get the picture.

Transparency is lost and the ability for any member to gauge what is happening is stymied.
Again we need to look at whether the members will be better off or worse off for the lack of transparency and whether this will give rise for (again perhaps completely baseless and unfair and unfounded) concerns as mentioned.

That is why I would say that let the chips fall where they may to an extent. Interject, redirect, infract but take away history or remove what was said and the reasons why? It just lacks transparency.
Someone does something terrible and you ban them or do whatever it is to infract them. If you leave their crime as evidenced, surely members seeing it will look at the post in question and nod sagely with a "Hmmm...OK that is probably what got them infracted"
Remove all evidence and they will just know someone disappeared and maybe their reason was sound or not but how will the member looking for why appreciate it? They simply can't.

Of course as said it is a hard line to draw in the sand but again I would probably say what supports transparency from the moderator's side would be best. For the reasons I have covered.

What's the point in keeping out member's names when you complain about them here if you can post a link to their post where they attacked you? Now everyone knows about it and who did it.

Here is the general principle I try to use in my own personal affairs, and I think it fits well here:

Keep things private until or unless something has actually been proved against someone else and other people truly need to be warned.

That "personal spat" we saw this morning was, I believe, a good example of someone unnecessarily posting something publicly. People posting in that thread already knew what was going on, and the spatting members had each sent a PM to me ... and at that point I could only see the additional *public* post as an attempt to flame.

So, the question I would ask each of us to think about before posting a member's name or a direct link here is this:

Is someone actually offending everyone here, or is this just a personal matter for a mod to help resolve?

We might each answer that question differently, of course, but I think we should at least still give it some thought.

To my knowledge, the most recent flareup making a good example here would be the obvious singling-out of iamnotaparakeet. And for some transparency here, I would say 'keet and I are friendly with each other but not necessarily "buddies", so to speak. In any case ...

Iamnotaprakeet has some personal "opinion, belief or philosophy" (see WP rules) other people happen to oppose ... and of course, that is just how things are amongst us human beings. But then the next thing you know, we have WP "members", as such, actually using 'keet's and his wife's personal photos as their *own* personal avatars while directly challenging and attacking iamnotaparakeet personally rather than simply doing as already mentioned being acceptable from within WP rules:


For effect, please allow me to repeat:




I might be a rookie moderator, but I do know the different between "an opinion, belief or philosophy" and "the person making the comments".

Attacking "the person making the comments" is intolerable here on WP, and I will personally continue to address such occurrences when I happen to see them and to then remove ...

Edit: Attacking "the person making the comments" is intolerable here on WP, and I will personally continue to address such occurrences when I happen to see them (along with other moderators, of course) and to then remove at least the most-vulgar of personal attacks from public view without fear of WP members somehow thereafter suffering any loss of allegedly-valuable historical documentation.
============================

Note to all: The above is a response to a question and does not in way reflect a negative personal opinion about anyone, including you, AlSwearengen. That statement is largely intended to let people know it will be pointless to make a personal attack or to provoke and fight a flame war on the hope of the thread then being locked within public view as some kind of trophy for his or her personal prowess.

Last edited by leejosepho on 19 Feb 2011, 11:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

I haven't seen this example and can't say that is sounds positive. In fact it sounds like it was very emotionally charged and that perhaps the fact that he threatened people with legal action and called them perverts effectively may have had something to do with someone taking that drastic step.

That said I think that has little to do with now (I know it is still fresh in your mind but I wasn't around then and can't find most of this) and that is why I began to get a disquieting feeling that history was not properly reflected. I did go looking for what had or not happened here and there was little here and I saw little ganging up on Iamnotaparakeet. Gave me the impression that there was a lot of deletions or editing going on. When I saw posts almost disappear in front of my eyes, in this thread, I brought it up.

I did see that thread in PPR forums that was locked and was curious as to why it was locked up. I was more than a little surprised that Butterflies had concerns about editing and so did someone called TheHotEarlGray (Sp?).

It reminds me of a joke to which I will do a disservice by trying to remember of the top of my head but it has to do with a proposal given and described as a "bucket of s**t". Through various slight changes (editing) between people the bucket of s**t becomes a idea contained in a vessel full of rich and powerful sustenance from which promotes healthy growth.

What was said and how it was said is significant, and not just for the moderators but the board too.

Now there is more coming out of this thread though. You disagreed both of you. That is fine. I think you both were putting forward yourselves intelligently and by my reading she does bring up good points and on a backdrop of being gay herself (at this point I would like to say that I am assuming Butterflies is a female and hope I am not insulting them with references of the same) and being in a homophobic culture is good reasons for sensitivity on things and the points she raises in respect to these matters actually strengthened by her understanding of this.

Lee in all honesty at this point no foul. THEN you said that she was a troll, sockpuppet or bully.
You lost the argument and along with it made most of the points she was putting to you.
I am sorry mate. You state

Attacking an opinion, belief or philosophy is acceptable, but attacking the person making the comments is not.

then you go and say this. Now her background and her conviction and the reasoning and way she puts herself forward is not bullying and is fine by any reading.
Go look at the more heated threads like the Abortion thread and you will see views that are stronger and put forward more pointedly.

So strike one for bullies.

What she has done that give the rise of troll is not at all certain except for disagree with you and disagree with homophobic attitudes and people that would propagate such attitudes.

Strike two for troll

Now is she a sockpuppet. That is going to take a bit of doing. I like Google. I use it a lot. By searching her name against 6 ASD forums I found two forums that she is a member on. One of them is this one. It is very possible that she has already joined the online Autism community and has joined another. (Identifying this ought not be at all hard) Which is hardly sockpuppetry. Certainly she would choose another account name.

Looks like strike three for sockpuppetry.

Now Lee for you to have appeared to flown in the face of your rulings that you reinforce here and demand of the membership, you will need to actually make a decent case for yourself OR all that you express and demand and pass off as worthy is going to look like inconsistent hypocritical babbling.

You may have good reasons to say or think what you do but YOU have chosen to attack a member and discredit them and then lock a thread and cut off THEIR right of reply. If you have good reason and can show that you are not being a hypocrite and that you are right in the assertions you make then please show us, or you effectively say

"You know guys, Butterflies is right in what she says and just disliked her calling me on behaviour which I can not contest as wrong."

I personally don't want this. You seem like a good man and that accusation was like a blow out of nowhere. I read it twice and did a "WTF are you doing mate?"

Here is the time-updated version of the note presently appearing at the current end of that thread since the time it was first locked:



Lee in all honesty [up to a certain point] no foul. THEN you [stated it is common knowledge among a variety of people here on WP] that she [is] a troll, sockpuppet or bully. (one of the three)


Perception noted.

Oh for chrissakes! Why does this thread have a different title again?? Can you guys please stop re-arranging the furniture!! !!

I am closing this thread down now. Everyone has had an opportunity to share their feelings and there is nothing further that can be served by this continued discussion.

To answer the OP question, mods are chosen by the sites owner using whatever criteria he chooses to use. There is no application process.