Can that mod hat be worn jauntily off to the side?

[skdadl]

On the subject of oppressive levels of moderation at BnR:


Y'know, I can still count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in the last ten months or so that I have stepped in to redirect a public discussion on this board. I suspect that Debra needs even fewer fingers.

That is partly because BnR is little, and it is not usually abrasive or contentious. Many of the people who came here in the first place came because it is a refuge from the abrasive and contentious, and both Debra and I feel a special responsibility to those people.

Debra (to whom I am subordinate) and I do not get fan mail from lurkers. We get messages, both private and sometimes very public, about things that worry some members. We try to help where we can without stepping on too many toes.

I, for instance, am not especially bothered by low-level thread drift, often contribute to it myself. We have noted, however, the scoldings that deBO, eg, gives to people who start chatting in the Recently Posted thread, so we're aware that that bothers some people, although we're always sorry to see anyone's feelings hurt over a short comment or two.

A straight run of 23-24 posts about the philosophy of science in a chat thread, however, does not seem to me a brief social diversion. I'm sure that, when it started, no one intended to be rude to mamitalinda, eg, although that was one eventual effect. Those who became absorbed in the discussion about science seemed not to notice that they had stopped all other conversation, but some other people did, and talked to us about it, and so we acted.

When I say that this board is not abrasive and contentious, I am making a feminist statement. A great deal of the most serious content that is brought to BnR comes from very talented and tough women who are not here just for the hugs, although hugs are always good. The majority of members here are feminists of both sexes -- ie, people who are too smart to believe that being smart has anything to do with comparing sizes or playing rhetorical games. I don't think there is anything soft about our most basic work at all, but anyone who thinks there is should probably go looking for somewhere more abrasive and contentious.

Debra and I have not moderated much at all, partly because we haven't had to, because we have a lot of faith in most members here, and then partly because we've both got many other things on our plates.

I do think that Debra is right when she says that this thread springs mainly from personal issues. About those, unfortunately, we can't do much.

[deBeauxOs]

dbo do you have a point? Or do you perfer the passive aggressive snark and run

Yes I have a point.  Many B'n'R members work hard and spend time building and sustaining their free-lancing and/or home-based business.

[Debra]

I am sure they do Sorry still not getting your point

[pookie]

You know, aside from the concern about drift (which in the context of this board is really funny) I get the impression that what bothered some is that a poster who popped back in after being away for a while was not sufficiently welcomed or acknolwedged.  

I mean, really.

It is funny to when people keep going on about how "different" this board is.  The interpersonal sniping and other stuff here is not appreciably different from the other boards we all know.  Sorry, but it really isn't.

[pogge]

(which in the context of this board is really funny)

In the context of this board, the original request from the moderator was entirely predictable. The interest in keeping threads on topic isn't something that was imposed from the top down, it's something that bubbled up from the community itself. That's why this smilie used to be seen fairly often:
 :
 
Skdadl didn't just dream up her request to relocate that discussion out of thin air. I would submit that she was trying to do a job in the manner in which the community had previously indicated they wanted the job done. It's all very well for a few to say that conditions have changed and maybe that rule should change along with it but right now it amounts to retroactively justifying bad behaviour. In the interests of context, let's review Caissa's initial response to the moderator's request:

cranky hat on/What bullshit! There isn't enough traffic on this site to begin with. And you wonder why so many people have departed over the last year. This place is becoming an echo chamber. Time for my coffee/cramky hat off.

I don't see a reasoned request to review the policy. I see a little temper tantrum and one that was designed to be at least a little insulting. And I fail to see why Caissa or anyone else would think that he can snark like that at a mod who is trying to do a job and not get some snark back in his direction. As soon as he responded in that manner, the real issue stopped being the original request to relocate that discussion and became his attitude.

[Caissa]

I regret my first sentence that Pogge highlighted and apologize for it. I stand by the rest of the post.

[pogge]

I regret my first sentence that Pogge highlighted and apologize for it. I stand by the rest of the post.

It doesn't work that way. The first sentence set the tone. I say that as someone who's done a fair bit of moderating and who would have suspended you right after the 't' in bullshit.

ETA: Though I hasten to add: suspend and not ban.

[Caissa]

Obviously, you missed the verb tenses,pogge in my above post. I apologize for the first sentence and even retract it if that is more clear to you. Present tense, I STAND by the rest of the post.

Let's stop confusing this thread by making it about me, pogge or how you would have moderated the event. Mandos clearly outlines the issue in the op.

[skdadl]

I've read Mandos's OP several times now, trying to figure out what it's about, and I have to tell you, I can't. He is saying that he likes things to be the way that he likes them, but beyond that, I can't figure it out.

Caissa, if you think, as you say, that there are issues clearly outlined there, could you please present them to me in point/bullet form here? Thanks very much.

[Mandos]

I don't think it could be clearer, I can't believe you're using that debate tactic.

Been busy today (ugh, Wednesday...), will try to write something substantive soon.

[Mandos]

OK, I will *make* time, and I will play along with an abstract of the OP: this episode re drift moderation has illustrated a pattern of moderatorial/administratorial intransigence (that continues to be illustrated) that has had a direct effect on the volume and quality of discussion directly on the board.  The remainder of the post describes the manner in which, if we are to survive as a community,

* We cannot afford to be zealous about drift anymore.
* We cannot afford a moderatorial attitude that responds to criticism with the obvious resentment that it has presently, including on this thread.
* We cannot afford a moderatorial attitude that denies that a problem exists, or instantly rejects discussion of "meta" issues.

And the latter two---which are the primary symptoms---have resulted in the first (where drift is the only place where we see the quality of discussion we did when we started, and hence we cannot afford to be zealous about it anymore).

Furthermore, the decline in quality and volume of discussion has resulted in a situation in which the board risks becoming an aggregator and link library, rather than a discussion board.  The undesirability of this situation has been pointed out by more than me.

Finally, many of us try to keep up our end of the effort as time permits, but our efforts are clearly not enough.  It is not fully clear why this is not enough, except that the moderators are intransigent not only in acknowledging that a problem exists but *particularly* in their negative reaction to criticism of their actions in matters like thread drift.  The episode that resulted in Caissa's suspension is a case in point.

Does this make it clearer?  I am not willing to believe that it wasn't obvious from the OP, but I'm willing to play along.

[RP.]

* We cannot afford a moderatorial attitude that denies that a problem exists, or instantly rejects discussion of "meta" issues.

I was going to close this thread for being 80% bullshit, 15% tempest in a teapot, but that would have proven your point, wouldn't it have?  I'll add that your abstract is a lot more clear than the original post, and mercifully devoid of passive agressive emphasis.   :  :whis:

[deBeauxOs]

I was going to close this thread for being 80% bullshit, 15% tempest in a teapot, but that would have proven your point, wouldn't it have?  I'll add that your abstract is a lot more clear than the original post, and mercifully devoid of passive agressive emphasis.   :  :whis:

Hi RP.  Did not know you were a B'n'R mod.  

Does it bear repeating that Mandos was asked to present his concerns? By another mod?

[Mandos]

Tempest in a teapot, eh?  I mean, you *have* noticed the days when the 24h TAT ends up with, like, four posts.  And in about an hour, I can pretty much replace all of those with my own name, and then some, and then in the next couple of days, it falls to four posts again, all of which are blog-aggregation/link archiving?  I mean, you refresh TAT, right?  It didn't used to be that way, and now it is.  I find it odd.  

I don't know.  Maybe it's merely that the discussion board form is a dying art?  I'm on other boards and it doesn't seem that way to me!

As for the tone of the OP, well, it was necessary to write it that way.  Necessary, I say, because certain people had already taken a dismissive and/or insulting and/or defensive and/or patronizing posture in advance---both a mild response and a direct aggression would have been ineffective in that context.

[skdadl]

"A moderatorial attitude"? That is comical. I honestly can't remember acting as a moderator publicly between yesterday and this past January. And I can't remember Debra doing so either. Have we? We all (the two of us and RP) catch spam and stuff, but that really has been about it.

I don't buy the "we can't afford" line, although I can see where that comes from, from the same place that this from Caissa comes from:

There isn't enough traffic on this site to begin with.

Most of the people who come to BnR are not itching to be part of a bigger, faster-moving site. I have no idea what Caissa meant by "enough traffic," but that seems to be his and Mandos's problem.

BnR gets the "traffic" it gets. I'm not aware of that many people who have left. I know that some of my favourite people have no time to write here any longer, and a few others were driven away by public bullying. Debra and I have tried to keep in touch with those people, but they tend to be canny and they know that things have not settled down.

Again, moderators appear here in public so seldom that it's funny, but when we do, we don't do it out of personal resentment. We do it because we know that other members are disturbed, and we consider their worries reasonable.

If I were to do an analysis of what I think the meta-issues are, I would be accused of being cruel, and that's not my place as a moderator. The main problem I'm aware of is that a few very aggressive personalities have frightened the very people this board was set up for.

I will make two personal observations:

Mandos, I'm sorry that you can't find the space you covet on a faster-moving Merkin board, but that's life, eh? BnR is not Lambert's place, never will be, and in spite of myself, I am beginning to feel some empathy for Lambert.

Caissa, normally I think that anyone here can write however much or however little she wants to, and I very much oppose judgement at that level, but it always strikes me as odd that people who contribute almost no content to the site would be the noisiest in process or "meta" discussions. Have you ever written a post with any content? I think of you as 95 per cent attitude, and that's about it.

And a PS to Mandos: "presently" means "in a little while." You mean "currently" or "at present."