Making it Better: The future of WP

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Noted and applauded, with slight correction: there should be an "and" before "cookie", The oxford comma is the belt and suspenders of punctuation.

And agreed.

When you see such personal attacks of any kind, please send a PM to a mod with the link. We aren't omniscient or omnipresent.

Noted and applauded, with slight correction: there should be an "and" before "cookie", The oxford comma is the belt and suspenders of punctuation.

And agreed.

Regarding the "dangers" of enforcing the rules: I certainly wasn't suggesting a dogmatic approach. What I meant is that we (or the mods) should be careful with cherry-picking who we make allowances for and who gets treated more harshly or taking a personal or ideological dislike to someone and either participate in or turn a blind eye when they're being bullied or insulted.

I also don't agree that autistic people can't understand and follow the rules, since it's not a problem on other autistic forums, especially when they get some guidance and assistance from the mods.

I don't see any rule against asking "stupid" questions and I don't agree with harassing people based on suspicion, particularly new members. With the former moderation team, I was encouraged by one of them to report suspicions privately since he had the means to make further investigations or at least to keep an eye on the person until he could make up his mind. As Isabella said, someone who has experience with that kind of stuff would be a great addition, as it happened quite frequently in the past for members to make public accusations of sock-puppetry or trolling and be wrong about it, while actual offenders managed to fly under the radar.

And I'm still a big fan of self-moderating and I agree with the post Isabella made a couple of pages ago (sorry, can't quote). People should stay out of the Haven if they don't have anything nice to say, as for the rest of the forum, people who can't stand each other or are incapable of engaging in a civil exchange (happens to all of us), should learn to stay away from each other instead of having the same fights over and over again. Leaving aside that cookie-cutter advice is generally bad as we often can't fully understand others' personal circumstances, this is also a pragmatical POV: no matter how valid your advice might be, nobody will ever change their ways or views because someone on the internet is pestering them or downright accuses them of being lazy, "wrong" or much worse. I also dislike seeing people leave or get banned because aggressive or argumentative members are allowed to follow them around or even bait them until they lose their cool. And while some do that kind of stuff because they seemingly can't help themselves, IMO others have been taking advantage of the situation to get rid of those they dislike or disagree with.

These last couple of weeks I've been irritable as hell due to the heatwave so I just stopped posting as I knew I can't fully trust myself to not take it out on some poor bugger. There are a couple of people here whom I never, ever engage since I know from experience it doesn't go well. Others, even if they obviously can't stand me will respond in a civilised manner and that's also fine: not everybody will like or agree with you and as far as I'm concerned, that's mostly a plus, not a minus.

Wouldn't adding "and" make the Oxford Comma redundant?

It's up to the new mod team to make the future of WP better.

Regarding the "report button" submissions which took me over an hour to prepare and document, all I received were emails to confirm the cases were closed. No follow up. Again, I can still read the offensive posts which have not been edited or removed.

I can only guess at why this happened.

1. The case was closed in error.
2. The case was closed but action was not taken due to being sidetracked.
3. The case was closed and no action was taken as the moderator who dealt with the case saw no personal attack.

Noted and applauded, with slight correction: there should be an "and" before "cookie", The oxford comma is the belt and suspenders of punctuation.

In the case of 3, I would expect that this decision be explained. Even when I corresponded by PM, and we had a back-and-forth conversation, the problems themselves were not resolved. No discernible action was taken, as far as I'm aware.

None of the reports I submitted or PM'ed were ambiguous. I don't report problems unless they are severe and obvious. Sometimes they are issues I have noticed myself. Sometimes, they are issues my daughter has identified from the younger population in the membership.

The mods made this thread to ask for suggestions about helping the future of WP, and they asked that problems or concerns be reported. I've done this in good faith to provide meaningful input and not to spite any other person. Amity has worked very hard to improve the transparency of moderation decisions, so I was hoping that the mods would be able to explain their rationale for the betterment of Wrong Planet.

Due to a moderator shortage I can only guess that a reply to every report would be very time consuming. Hopefully Alex has fixed the moderator tool issue and the new mods can lighten the load. If the current mods are unable to answer your question for whatever reason then the new mods may be of help.

I agree. I wouldn't expect a reply every time or any time -- if clear action was taken.

Perhaps you're right and Options 1 or 2 happened. The reports and PM must have been closed in error.