I can answer that.

Moderators are simply members who have volunteered some of their time to assist other members around FlyerTalk. When we first introduced moderators to FlyerTalk we simply posted a note and those who volunteered were assigned to a forum they volunteered to help with. To this day, 99 percent of moderators are volunteering in the forum(s) in which they asked to help others in. As you might also understand, there was no training or tools or guidelines for our initial group of moderators - we really aren't in the professional bulletin board business and this group has done a really great job in overcoming those initial hurdles. First and foremost, moderators are here to answer members questions of where to post a particular questions, how to use search and what is attending a "Do" like. As well, they respond to and research members concerns of other members posting practices, the content of some members posting language and the overall general interpretation of the Terms of Service (TOS) that each member agrees to accept in return for posting privileges here on FT. Moderators actually stay far busier than most might know by eliminating and monitoring spam on FT. Daily, there are scammers registering to post up commercial messages and the like. I know of one moderator who in a single day was asked to monitor and delete 14 different scammers and their attempt to post on many different forums a commercial message. This requires our moderator staff to communicate with each other and try to detect these interruptions for our members. These volunteers donate anywhere from a few extra hours a week on FT to dozens of extra hours a week. This of course takes away from their own time to contribute and enjoy FlyerTalk - but we know for sure, without moderators, FlyerTalk would not exist.

The task of moderators is going through a change right now. We no longer simply throw new volunteers into a forum by themselves to sink or swim and now assign new volunteers to a veteran moderator to gain some experience before being assigned to a forum of their choice. This mentoring program for new mods is new and will help many members in the future as well as the volunteers themselves. As well, the commitment of the mods was recently displayed when 20 of them gather in Las Vegas for two days at their own expense to establish unified guidelines for the current group and those who might consider volunteering later on. Among the topics they discussed was to update and clarify the TOS. better communications among moderators and tools to help make their decisions more consistent and informed.

Your comments seem to indicate you personally are not happy with a moderator. That can happen sometimes because of personalities, a misunderstanding of the role of the moderator or frankly because a member id on the receiving end of some action by a moderator. The good new for FT is that far less than 1 percent of members ever have any negative interaction with a moderator (excluding the obvious spammers) and those usually are because of trolling or a dispute between two members where the mod is simply a referee, not the target of the dispute.

As for being heavy-handed. We have tried to eliminate that by assigning groups of mods to most major forums. Here. mods typically talk among themselves before taking any actions and that serves to help make decisions more even-handed. As well, when you mention that a mod may be too heavy-handed, you might not be considering that rarely does a mod take any action on his/her own. Rather, they are called to assist on a particular thread because of other members using "Report a Post." There's been many a time when a member felt that a mod was being heavy-handed when in fact the mod was simply responding to the interests of other members. I'm not sure if this is the situation here.

As well, among the conversations in which the mods have initiated are a peer review. Exciting things for this volunteer group are going on now and while it seems you have a single concern, the best way for that is to contact me personally with particular examples. Just saying that XXXX is heavy-handed does not help anyone.

As for your question about impeaching and electing a new one? Rather an ugly suggestion and one that i don't think you'll find an elective option on any single major bulletin board anywhere. I can't see this happening and as noted, there are ways in which you can provide input that is far more conducive to a great FlyerTalk. Just remember, mods are not interviewed, professionally screened or "hired." They are assigned in the past simply to help others get more out of FlyerTalk.

I hope this answers your question.

Cheers,
Randy