TalkBoard Elections/06 - Question 3: Review the underlying principles and philosophy of FlyerTalk moderation.

Submitted by RichardInSF:
To avoid endless bitter debate, there should never be a discussion of any individual moderation decision, but it should be both possible and productive for the TalkBoard to rationally review the underlying principles and philosophy of FlyerTalk moderation. Do you agree? If so, what do you think the key changes should be, if any? If not, why not?

It is my opinion that moderators do a great job on FT. They volunteer their time and I appreciate their input. I have been corrected several times in my 5 years on FT and it has always been done respectfully and with the best interest of the group as the primary goal. I support that premise. This is a group of frequent travelers with a tremendous amount of knowledge and diverse personalities that sometimes clash. A little good natured chiding of fellow members is expected, but abusive behavior or greed should not be tolerated. We all need to get along for the benefit of the group.

Thanks Mods for the great job you have done.

I believe that TalkBoard should set the rules for how moderation is handled and what is/is not allowable under the TOS. In short, it should act as FlyerTalk's legislative branch.

Moderators are the police of FlyerTalk. As such, they fall under the authority of Randy, who is the executive department. He should be the one to make certain that they are enforcing the rules which TalkBoard established and doing so in a just and equal manner.

I do believe it would be wise to have a judiciary. In theory, Randy handles that today -- a moderator's decision can be appealed to him. I say "in theory" because Randy has an extremely heavy workload and often can not get to matters in a timely fashion. I know of at least two instances where he eventually overturned a moderator's decision but did so only after a very long period during which the member was suspended.

To that end, and to make certain that moderation is applied evenly throughout FlyerTalk, I would like to have one person (preferably somebody from the House of Miles) serve as the judiciary.

Randy has repeatedly said that most suspensions are handed out for spamming. This is invariably from newbies, generally with only one or two posts.

This means that the remaining suspensions would not take up very much time for the one man judiciary.

Therefore, let's work it this way:

1. If a poster has been on FlyerTalk for less than 6 months and has less than 100 posts, any moderator can suspend him.

2. In all other cases, the moderator would remove the offending post but not suspend the member. Instead, he would send a complaint to the "judiciary". The judiciary would look at it, and if he saw any merit in it at all, contact the offending member and ask for his defense. The offending member would have 3 days to present his side of the argument. The judiciary, having seen both the complaint and the defense, would then make a decision.

There is nothing very radical in what I am suggesting. It is basically a streamlined equivalent of what happens when any person in Western nation is charged with a violation ranging from illegal parking to murder. The police make the charge, he is given the chance to defend himself, and the judiciary comes to a decision.

This would guarantee two things:

1. That moderation is applied equally throughout FlyerTalk.
2. That a suspension would not need Randy's approval to be lifted but rather the judiciary's approval to be put into effect.

The moderators are here to help direct traffic (otherwise, it has been shown, 94.3% of all posts would be in MilesBuzz) and to avoid chaos. I think the moderators do a fine job. Considering that they work for free, I would upgrade (mmm, upgrades...) that to outstanding.

Years ago, I didn't think we needed moderators. FT has grown so much, that they are certainly needed now. In other words, I was against moderators before I was for them. In the pre-911 world (when we only had 910 members) and everything was sunshine and light, there was no need. Now, we have hundreds of thousands of members, and some of them have terrorized the boards with massively destructive posts. The fighting men and women of the moderator force are our only defense. I support the moderators, and will so, until that totally undefined time when total victory is ours.

I also believe the moderators are doing a fine job. They kept the forums organized, allowing questions to be answered. They deleted posts which violated the TOS, and also any which were offensive. They kept the board clean and friendly. It’s very hard to do that, with over 119,000 members and over 6.5 million posts. FlyerTalk is a bigger community than many towns, and friendlier and cleaner than many. I thank the moderators for doing such a great job.

Moderation is a tough job. But with clearly defined principles it can be accomplished without hurting the community. A community encourages participation and moderation should not be a tool to discourage it. Moderation is important in making sure that the health of the community is excellent. This means, members are able to post, discuss, seek advice and learn from others. If one person decides to post something inappropriate (as set by clearly defined guidelines) then moderators need to act on behalf of the community.

I agree:
An act of moderation of a discussion should never be based on the individual. This a COMMUNITY forum and should be based on the principles as defined in the Terms of Service.

I believe:
Always admit a mistake. I’m just a member of another forum (not travel related) and when the administrators and moderators decided to make a big format change AND close all discussions related to why people didn’t like the change (thousands of members protested the new style) - they left. But within a week the moderators admit they didn’t consider how it would change the user’s ability to access the forum.

I believe:
Saying “no” sucks. Instead of saying “this cannot be discussed” or “not here”. I always believe in providing a solution instead of “no.” Fortunately – moderators here direct people to the right forum or where a thread should belong. They are doing a great job here.

I believe:
We should have a set of terms or rules to govern the forums by. I propose that administrators, moderators and members (but just a sample – too many cooks in the kitchen can lead to no solutions) get together to draft them.

I believe:
A poster should be given the benefit of the doubt. But if they take advantage of the situation and make a mistake then there should be rules set on how to suspend, temporarily or permanent, or remove them from the FT community. But again, there have to be guidelines. We do this for the community.

No, I do not think it should be both possible and productive for the TalkBoard to rationally review the underlying principles and philosophy of FlyerTalk moderation.

The owner of this bulletin board has made it very clear that he alone wishes to be the one responsible for the moderators and moderation philosophy. TalkBoard is an advisory board. I respect that decision and think that the TalkBoard should continue to stay out of moderation.

How utterly flippin sweet, RichardInSF, another opportunituy to alienate an entire class of flyertalkers!

Moderation sucks. It disrupts the natural evolution of conversation and the community that our conversations create. I believe in open and free markets of ideas and Flyertalk ought to strive for that ideal.

Naturally however, time, place and manner restrictions become necessary when flagrant abuses and/or manipulation of the marketplace take place.

It is my view that moderators moderate best when they moderate least. Let people's words define who they are and what they are about.

The vast majority of moderators do a great job of this.

I utterly disagree with Dovster and Opus on the role of moderators, though. Moderators should be neither cops nor soldiers. They should be janitors...garbagemen. Their job should not be to run investigations, interrogations or invasions. Their job is to collect the fetid garbage left on the curb by posters from time to time and to also collect the recyclables and put them in the proper forum.

In this role, I believe that moderators should give WIDE latitude to the posters.

Otherwise the forum becomes all about the moderators. It takes on the tenor of their vision and theirs alone of what the forum should be rather than letting it be a vibrant, evolving community. And we do have some mods here who seem to relish keeping 'their' forum so neat and tidy that it stifles discussion and, more seriously, stifles the potential for community growth and fun.

Another thing that annoys the crud out of me is when mods close discussion with flip remarks like 'That's enough of that.' or 'This is done.' You know what, you're not our parents. Have some respect. If there is a TOS violation or the thread needs to be closed or moved per the Moderator Guidelines (and if such guidelines exist and if they do they SHOULD BE PUBLISHED FOR ALL TO SEE so we posters can know when a mod is being abusive of same), simply say so and if you want to be REALLY helpful, point out which TOS and/or Guideline has been abused.

I think most of the mods we have here, 95% of them, do exactly this and understand the reality that the less they interfere with the communities of Flyertalk the better they are doing their job. Most of the mods here do a great job of dealing with the garbage and recyclables we posters sometimes leave on the curb.

Should the Talkboard have a say in this? If Randy wills it, sure. But I would point out that the moderation style that Randy himself employs in the OMNI forum is the ideal to which all moderators should strive to achieve!

So thank you, and macaca to all you moderators out there!

The problem I have with TB reviewing moderation philosophies is that I remain to be convinced that a one-sized fits all moderation policy would work that well in practice. In theory I’m sure it would be equal and fair – in practice, we have a number of well established boards, with on-going traditions which are at variance from the currently established rules, but which their moderators permit some freedom on, at their discretion – examples would be the DL Lounge thread, the UK train discussions on BD, the understanding that on non-US boards, there can be some laxity about what constitutes Off Topic. These things vary considerably board to board, and have generally taken quite a lot of time to evolve, in co-operation and discussion between the board and their moderators. And additionally – moderators are human, are volunteers, and have a limited amount of time. Anything which increases their workload (such as sending in reports about people they want to ban, having to deal with time differences – as a practical issue, Dovster’s suggestion would be a nightmare for non-US based mods, working to a different set of time zones than HOM) is probably not a good thing – we already lose good mods because they don’t have the time to do their job and live. We need to continue to attract good mods, and increasing the workload and the bureaucracy involved in being a moderator is likely to make that more difficult.

So for me, TB reviewing moderation policies, is just an opportunity to introduce a de-stabilising element into the relationship between boards and mods, increase bureaucracy, reduce flexibility, all for very little return. With the best will in the world, there is no way that TB will be able to get as good an understanding of the dynamic of the boards as the mods do, as they have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis. The mods have a better understanding of what works and doesn’t work when managing a board – TB (unless they are also mods) has no experience of this. Having to run policies past TB actually reduces the flexibility of the board to deal with unexpected events – for example, Community Buzz was recently upped to 15 mods, to deal with one thread in particular, which attracted a lot of attention, was active and contentious. Not having to consult TB meant that the situation could be handled in a flexible manner, quickly and proactively, which meant that the thread could be left open, albeit with a lot of management, and not have to be moved into OMNI.

FT is not a government. TB is not a legislative branch. The mods are not police, they are volunteers, trying to ensure that those of us who use the boards are able to do so in an enjoyable manner, and very often using their discretion in doing so. And, in my experience, it generally works well. Sure there are glitches – but we deal with humans, it’s not going to be perfect. But until there is evidence of systematic failings in the system, I think TB’s input is not required, and could actually make the situation worse - a mod working to policies and rules developed by someone else and enforced by someone else would have no discretion to manage situations on their board to the best of their experience.

Hi,

Well this question regarding moderation is always around at election time. It’s a very hard one as I would say that it’s the one that gets people most riled up (and this is apparent already from some of the postings that have been made).

I think personally that moderation is a good thing as long as it’s being seen to be done in a fair and understanding manner. Moderators should be held accountable for any decision they do but I would suspect that if they have had to moderate a thread then they would have had a very good reason for doing it IAW with the TOS in FlyerTalk.

Now as for discussing why a moderator has done something, well this is another bone of contention (is that just a UK saying or do others understand it ;) ) anyway, I think that the moderator should at least inform the person of why the action was taken, I would suspect that in a fast majority of cases folk would accept it, if not then they should be able to put forward their grievances to TalkBoard.

I think that Moderation of the forums is something that we all don’t want to happen and I would love to see NO moderators on any of the forums but since we live in a world of spammers, fraudsters as well as the occasional hot head, we do need moderators, some may say they are a necessary evil to keep FlyerTalk running smoothly.

Moderators give a lot of their own personal time up and this is something that we should not forget. I thank them for that time ^ .

Well that’s my views on it, but as a parting line I would say that we will all just have to agree to disagree on what we think the role of moderators are within Flyertalk because I believe that there is no simple answer to the issue, there never has and there will never be.

Regards
John

As others have mentioned in this thread, a "one-size-fits-all" policy of moderation does not seem to fit FlyerTalk. The reason for this is simple: although FlyerTalk is one big community, it is also subdivided into a number of smaller communities, such as the Delta community, the BA community, etc. All of these little subdivisions have, sometimes unconsciously, set a standard of behavior tolerated within that subset. These standards seem to vary greatly across community lines. As such, the moderators flexibility to be able to work within the mores of the communities they are responsible for.

My stand on moderators is similar to the current special education regulations in the United States: Least Restrictive Environment, When a student is identified as a special needs student, the laws require that the student be given accommdations, but also that these accommodations be the least restrictive on the student. (In other words, you don't put a kid with mild ADD in isolation.) By the same token, moderators need to maintain a least restrictive environment, given the standards of the community they moderate and the personalities of the membership they moderate. Naturally, the minimum restrictive environment is the FlyerTalk TOS, and this should serve as the baseline for standards of conduct and moderation.

Therefore, let's work it this way:

1. If a poster has been on FlyerTalk for less than 6 months and has less than 100 posts, any moderator can suspend him.

2. In all other cases, the moderator would remove the offending post but not suspend the member. Instead, he would send a complaint to the "judiciary". The judiciary would look at it, and if he saw any merit in it at all, contact the offending member and ask for his defense. The offending member would have 3 days to present his side of the argument. The judiciary, having seen both the complaint and the defense, would then make a decision.


How do these regulations address a member who does not meet category 1, and yet for whatever reason becomes disruptive? By not suspending such an individual immediately, does this policy not give such an individual ample time to continue on the path of destruction until the "judiciary" makes their decision?

How do these regulations address a member who does not meet category 1, and yet for whatever reason becomes disruptive? By not suspending such an individual immediately, does this policy not give such an individual ample time to continue on the path of destruction until the "judiciary" makes their decision?

Fair enough question -- and let's look at the answer.

In the event that a veteran poster suddenly decides to become disruptive, his post would be removed immediately.

The moderator would send him a notice saying that he has filed a complaint with the "judiciary". The poster would realize that further disruptions would only hurt his case and could, indeed, result in a much longer suspension.

The fact that his suspension would begin in three days, instead of immediately, would have little impact.

(Hey! We generally have at least a month before having to pay a speeding ticket, but that doesn't encourage us to go flying through known radar traps.)

Submitted by RichardInSF:
To avoid endless bitter debate, there should never be a discussion of any individual moderation decision, but it should be both possible and productive for the TalkBoard to rationally review the underlying principles and philosophy of FlyerTalk moderation. Do you agree? If so, what do you think the key changes should be, if any? If not, why not?

It's possible, sure, but first Randy would have to cede some authority in the area of moderation and he hasn't done so. I'm good with that, because, as kokonutz has said earlier in this thread, he is the ideal moderator as seen everyday in OMNI.

The one area I would like to see cleaned up are suspensions. I've never been suspended, personally, but I think moderators ought to only have the ability to suspend a poster until there is a review, ideally within 24 hours. TalkBoard would be perfect for this role, provided there isn't too much of a conflict of interest.

I've seen some posters suspended for little reason and some posters flagrantly violate the TOS and not get suspended, so some consistency in the application of suspensions would be nice and TalkBoard could help Randy in an advisory fashion there, too, if he so desired.

I think the Moderators do a good job, for the most part. It's only when they get too agressive are they noticed in a negative way.

How do these regulations address a member who does not meet category 1, and yet for whatever reason becomes disruptive? By not suspending such an individual immediately, does this policy not give such an individual ample time to continue on the path of destruction until the "judiciary" makes their decision?

I think it should be the other way. Allow the mod to suspend immediately, but require a review within 24-48 hours. If the review doesn't happen, the suspension ends.

For longtime members, a 24-48 hour cooling off period should be enough to calm the member down and make the issue go away. If not, then another suspension and a referral to Randy wouldn't be that hard to make.

I just want to point out that whenever a poster, ANY poster, is suspended, we all lose a resource. Sometimes it's a valuable resource, other times we may not think so much is lost.

But every village needs even an idiot and, frankly, I kind of miss VillageIdiot. He was one crazy friggin' Canuck!!

I've been suspended a couple of times for getting a little blue, and each time I felt really, really sorry for the rest of the community because you were missing out on my incredibly knowledgeable and witty insights. [Livia Soprano]Oh, pooooor you.[/Livia Soprano]

I'm told (have been warned? threatened?) by moderators that my next suspension is a mandatory minimum month-long suspension. I find that (and ALL mandatory minimums for that matter) to be utterly ridiculous.

If Randy gave the TB any power over moderation and I was on the TB, I'd be taking a long hard look at suspension policies. Because other than repeat spammers and wack-jobs, suspensions should be safe, legal and rare.

If Randy gave the TB any power over moderation and I was on the TB, I'd be taking a long hard look at suspension policies. Because other than repeat spammers and wack-jobs, suspensions should be safe, legal and rare.

I think a point has to be clarified here. It is true that Randy has not given TalkBoard any power over moderation but he has given it authority concerning the TOS.

The last major overhaul of the TOS was handled by moderators and Randy presented it to TalkBoard for approval -- with a strong implication that TB had failed in its duties and the moderators had filled in the gap.

The TOS determines what is permissible on FlyerTalk and what is not. All of us, including moderators, are subject to it. If TalkBoard wants to correct what it sees as bad moderation procedures the way to do it is by amending the TOS.

I don't know how many moderators are aware of what I just said. I do believe that there are some who do know this but like to make believe that it is not true. This is not surprising -- it is human nature to try to extend your own "turf".

My feeling, however, is that an appointed group is given (or assumes) authority from an elected group, it is the electorate which is cheated.

Under the present system aren't this:

It is true that Randy has not given TalkBoard any power over moderation but he has given it authority concerning the TOS.

And this:

If TalkBoard wants to correct what it sees as bad moderation procedures the way to do it is by amending the TOS.

Mutually exclusive?

Well, maybe not mutually exclusive, but amending the TOS will exert zero control over moderation, as moderation policy itself is not within the purview of the TB. It will change the guidelines used by the moderators themselves, but it won't otherwise have an impact on moderator regulation or activity oversight.

BTW, I'm not intentionally picking on you. Your posts just happen to be the ones I have questions about at the moment. :)

Under the present system aren't this:



And this:



Mutually exclusive?

Well, maybe not mutually exclusive, but amending the TOS will exert zero control over moderation, as moderation policy itself is not within the purview of the TB. It will change the guidelines used by the moderators themselves, but it won't otherwise have an impact on moderator regulation or activity oversight.

BTW, I'm not intentionally picking on you. Your posts just happen to be the ones I have questions about at the moment. :)I also heard on Friday night that the Moderators have their own Guidelines that they are to follow. Again, perhaps a candidate who is also a moderator can shed some light on this question? @:-)

First of all, I have nothing but respect for the work the moderators do. It's a thankless job that often goes unnoticed.

When it does get noticed is if/when people feel moderation is too strict or not strict enough. This, for a volunteer, is a tough place to be in.

Suspensions are sometimes a tough call and I think it shouldn't be on the shoulders of just one moderator. I agree with a few of the posters above that there should be a review board or person, particularly for long time members, to see what the offense was, or to get an explanation. After all, we all sometimes have bad days when we say/do things we later regret or wish we had done differentlly.

Randy, unfortunately, can't be that review board or person. He is very busy and often doesn't have the time to look into these things. Heck, he hardly comes into Omni lately to yell at someone :). He does have a business to run. Perhaps someone at the HOM could take on the role and also become familiar with the posting patterns of people and also fully understand the context of the comment or violation.

It would seem that there are tonnes of questions about Moderation when this in fact is something that falls OUTSIDE the purview of the TB. I think the system is pretty good and that this subject is somewhat of a Red Herring.

Submitted by RichardInSF:
To avoid endless bitter debate, there should never be a discussion of any individual moderation decision, but it should be both possible and productive for the TalkBoard to rationally review the underlying principles and philosophy of FlyerTalk moderation. Do you agree? If so, what do you think the key changes should be, if any? If not, why not?

To answer RichardInSF's specific question - No. I don't believe that the TalkBoard should be the ones that review the philosophy behind FlyerTalk moderation & discussion of moderation rules. This might not be a popular stance on this board. I'm not saying that I don't think that moderation is something that shouldn't be discussed - I just don't think that the TalkBoard is the group that should be doing it.

Spiff made a point in his post that I agree with. Randy Petersen is the board's owner. This board is a privately held entitiy - it is not owned my a corporation of stockholders and it is not owned by the members either. It's not even, from my understanding, considered to be a business venture. FlyerTalk is one of the dreams of the board's owner - a place where people who are passionate about travel can get together and discuss miles, points, and whatever the topic du jour is in OMNI. No one has ever once been asked to pay to be here. Sure, one can get the ad-free version of FlyerTalk with an InsideFlyer subscription - but this board, which I'm sure costs quite a bit to run, doesn't cost anything for anyone to participate. It's free of influence by some corporation who is using it to market their product - sure, there's banner ads and the "Sherman's Travel" or "TravelZoo" pop-up that comes up if you're not an ad-free member, but the revenue that comes from those (which I'm sure isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things) probably barely covers the cost of running this board. Remember, that it takes a LOT of bandwith and a lot of technical service to ensure that FlyerTalk is running & available to the hundreds of thousands of people that log onto this board.

This past weekend, there was a moderator meeting in Washington, DC, which the TalkBoard was invited to attend, as they've been invited to in the past for all the other moderator meetings. Each moderator took their personal time and used their personal means to get to DC to make this meeting. Randy & a couple of his team members from the House of Miles flew into town and spent their valuable time with us. Two of programmers from FlyerTalk attended this meeting as well. There's a lot of work done behind the scenes to operate FlyerTalk - not only from a technical, but from a legal, and logistical standpoint - and I'm sure that this costs a lot of money to run. This website isn't here because it was a good financial investment 8 years ago when it was started - it was here because there was no other place on the web that folks could get together & talk about miles & points.

The role of the moderators is one of the things that makes FlyerTalk a unique place. These are people who are volunteers who are doing their often times thankless job to try to make the user experience a great one for all users. We are people who have regular jobs and are quite busy (I'm writing this from my hotel room in Hamilton, Ontario - I've been at home about 5 total nights over the past 3 weeks thanks to my busy work travel).

No moderator's goal is to stifle discussion and no moderator's goal is to find people and suspend them just because it gives them pleasure as some people would have you believe.

Moderators are here to enhance (and no, not in the Continental Airlines definition of the term "enhance") the user experience. For many users, it's a totally different experience. But remember, we were all "newbies" once - and as a newbie, it can be intimidating to post on FlyerTalk sometimes - so, yes, there may be occassions when a moderator has to step in & say "okay kids, that's enough" - and I'll be honest - I've done that before. I've shut down threads for a 12-hour timeout because I've felt the people have gotttried to en out of hand. How can we encourage the sharing of ideas here on FlyerTalk if we're calling each other idiots and morons? Remember the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have done to you? Well, have you ever tried to join a tightly knit community of people? Remember your first day at a new school - being the new kid at the playground? Ever have a first day at a new job where everyone else knows each other? Were you ever intimidated during those times? If you were, then you probably understand why we have to have moderators at all.

So, this brings us back to RichardInSF's original question - should the TalkTeam be responsible for the moderator group? In my opinion, no - this is Randy's board - he's said time & time again, that he doesn't think the TB should be doing this. This is his board, and in a way, a gift to many of us - it's a community that we participate in - we should respect his wishes.

That said, I agree that specific actions should not be discussed in public - and I have always invited members to discuss my actions with me via PM (don't believe me? Check out this thread (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=454485)) - however, I don't believe that discussions regarding overall generic non-specific moderation should definitely be banned from discussion. One of the biggest problems with that though, is that often times, people don't have the ability to talk frankly and things get overly emotional. If it was possible to have a rational discussion on this topics, then I'd encourage it - but given the way simple topics can get into heated arguments & name calling can occur quickly because people get into their "online personalities" hiding behind a computer & an internet connection, I don't think it's necessarily a good idea.

Just my 2 cents...

I also heard on Friday night that the Moderators have their own Guidelines that they are to follow. Again, perhaps a candidate who is also a moderator can shed some light on this question? @:-)

There is a Moderator Mission Statement and a Moderator Code of Conduct as well as a Moderator Best Practices document that we use as a guide. Unfortunately, I can't provide a link to it because its not publically available to all logins - only to those who have moderator access rights. As to the inevitable question that will arise - why isn't it pubically published - there are some notes in there that help us deal with problems that may arise - such as the spammers, and how to technically deal with them - and that's not something Randy want's publically posted. If you are curious about any of these things, I encourage you to ask Randy to pull out parts of it that he feels comfortable with sharing.

Also, here's information on the moderators & how to become one if anyone is interested - http://www.flyertalk.com/townhall/talkmoderator.php - I noticed that the link to the Moderator Guidelines is down - I'm placing a note in the Technical Issues forum to notify the IT guys about this.

Moderators are here to enhance (and no, not in the Continental Airlines definition of the term "enhance") the user experience. For many users, it's a totally different experience. But remember, we were all "newbies" once - and as a newbie, it can be intimidating to post on FlyerTalk sometimes - so, yes, there may be occassions when a moderator has to step in & say "okay kids, that's enough" - and I'll be honest - I've done that before. I've shut down threads for a 12-hour timeout because I've felt the people have gotttried to en out of hand. How can we encourage the sharing of ideas here on FlyerTalk if we're calling each other idiots and morons? Remember the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have done to you? Well, have you ever tried to join a tightly knit community of people? Remember your first day at a new school - being the new kid at the playground? Ever have a first day at a new job where everyone else knows each other? Were you ever intimidated during those times? If you were, then you probably understand why we have to have moderators at all.

With all due respect, and you KNOW I love ya from the DC HHs, the concept that some moderators have that we are a bunch of kids and the moderators are the schoolmarms puts my panites in a bunch.

We're all adults here and no one needs a 'timeout.' If folks lose their heads and need to be talked to, talk to them.

I understand that moderators can play a role in welcoming new posters, but this is not school. It's not a playground. It is a conversation among adults; an opportunity to learn, have fun and grow a sense of community. We dont need to be lectured about right and wrong, acceptance nor tolerance.

And we CERTAINLY dont need condescending thread closures like "ok, kids, that's enough."

That attitude will kill the Flyertalk community faster than anything. It is what drives people away and keeps them from coming back.

As for the moderator guidelines, I would hope that the rules that the mods live by would be made public. How else are we to know whether a Mod is just doing his or her job or is instead abusing his or her position?

Although I don't wish to engage in a discussion regarding moderation, since currently the TB's role has nothing to do with moderation and this forum's about member questions regarding the TB candidates, I'll try to respond to a couple of your points below.

We're all adults here and no one needs a 'timeout.' If folks lose their heads and need to be talked to, talk to them.

Totally agree 100% - however, what would you recommend if the countelss PM's and "talking to's" don't work? We are all adults here and we all expect to be treated like adults. But adults usually listen & respect others - that's not always the case here. Sometimes, IMHO, if someone doesn't get the picture & what they're doing disrupts the hundreds of other members, then maybe that person should take a little time off of FT to think about what they're doing & why they're doing it. Suspensions are not just handed out because someone's saying something that someone else doesn't agree with. Usually its because something worse has happened.

It is a conversation among adults; an opportunity to learn, have fun and grow a sense of community. We dont need to be lectured about right and wrong, acceptance nor tolerance.

And we CERTAINLY dont need condescending thread closures like "ok, kids, that's enough."

I agree - it should be a conversation amongst adults - and 99% of the time it is. But, in the instance (the one & only instance) that I have ever closed a thread with a line similar to "Okay kids, that's enough" was a thread where 18 different seperate posters were attacking a newbie for calling an airline after the fare was sent out. It turned out that the "newbie" was actually not a newbie, but a member who had a duplicate handle & seemed to posting for the sake of posting. So that thread was not anything that contributed to good of FlyerTalk. All the anger, while warranted, isn't always best expressed by calling someone names - that's what people do on the playground - not in the adult world...

That attitude will kill the Flyertalk community faster than anything. It is what drives people away and keeps them from coming back. And yet you're still here... ;) And almost every candidate says that the main thing they love about FT is the community...And so many of us meet each other offline at DO's & Happy Hours...

As for the moderator guidelines, I would hope that the rules that the mods live by would be made public. How else are we to know whether a Mod is just doing his or her job or is instead abusing his or her position?

Again - this is a request that should go through to Randy directly per the reasons above.

First, my apologies for not posting sooner. I have been travelling in Singapore, Brussels and London (here now) and have had almost no free time to check in other than to perform moderation duties.

First, a disclosure: I am both a Talkboard member and a volunteer moderator so view my comments through that filter.

I believe that the Talkboard should have no say in how the moderators do their job other than through the development and approval of the TOS. Randy has made it clear that the moderators are his "staff" and that he alone handles issues relating to them.

In addition, Randy is currently the only arbitrator of moderator actions. When you consider how few times he has overruled a moderator over the many appeals he has heard, he must feel the moderators are doing something right.

I honestly believe we try to allow discussions to happen freely... but some people (and usually the same ones) just will not take a friendly "warning" and require us to take action. We then get labeled with terms that are probably against the TOS for me to say right here.

Understand, many of our decisions are not taken until we have talked to another moderator. Believe me, it is work for us to take any action... from editing posts, deleting posts, suspending members, sending emails and documenting the information in our database.

I would much rather help new members on how to navigate Flyertalk.com.

If Randy wishes to set a member of his staff as the arbitor, I am fine with that... but I do not see the Talkboard having a say in that practice.

William

I agree with the principles that I (as a moderator) understand them. We as moderators are here to promote a civil posting culture and enforce the TOS as it has been written by The House of Miles.

I am privy to some of the behind the scenes issues with moderation and I will say that I’m an advocate of consistency (i.e. making decisions based on the situation and not the individual).

I am also a strong advocate of peer review and independent review of suspension decisions (outside the immediate forum moderation team) – my moderator peers may tell you that I’ve have been fairly vocal in my advocacy of these issues.

Finally, I’m zero-tolerance on members being allowed to unfairly harass other members. FT has no place for trolling, persistent badgering by PM (by either members OR moderators), or post stalking.

I believe the underlying principles and philosophy of FlyerTalk moderation are sound. I agree that they are working and that our moderators are going above and beyond to be fair and consistent in their work. I feel that if a member is in disagreement that they should abide by the moderation and get on with life, if it is to such an extreme that the moderator feels the member is taking it too personally that there should be a review, or consideration process to at least rationalize the decision to the member and provide this outside of the original moderator, perhaps with another moderator's assistance. I do not think that it should be the TalkBoard second guessing moderation decisions.