When a moderator becomes both participant and arbiter
 

It seems to me that a moderator ought not act as an arbiter in a fracas where he or she is already involved as a participant. That should be obvious, just as in a more public setting a judge would never hear a case in which s/he had an interest.

In FlyerTalk, though, B747-437B recently opened a thread in trip reports, a forum in which he is a moderator. The discussion soon devolved into a contentious one. B747-437B was a participant, and one of the more agitating participants was N727NK, a new FlyerTalker who described himself as "a friend of [B747-437B] from elsewhere and he pointed me at this [thread]." Eventually, B747-437B closed the thread.

I have no particular opinion as to whether the thread warranted being closed, and I hope that this thread does not discuss that. However, it seems a clear lapse of judgment for B747-437B to have acted as moderator in a thread in which he (and, perhaps, someone who posted in the thread at his suggestion) was a participant. There are other moderators in the forum, and it would have been far more appropriate for B747-437B to have alerted those other moderators to a potential issue and then to have stepped aside.

A moderator needs not only to act impartially, but also to be perceived as acting impartially. When a moderator participates in a thread and then acts as a moderator in that thread, it would be difficult for him/her to act impartially and impossible for him/her to be perceived as acting impartially.

Edited to add closed quote (for clarity). --Wideman

[This message has been edited by wideman (edited 05-20-2003).]

I completely agree with your statements.
I believe in the thread in question that the moderator should have sought action by another moderator instead of handling it himself.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=recuse http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I disagree. The moderators are not acting as an arbiter. They are not a judge passing a sentence. They do a job of "housekeeping" and keeping things civil here on FT. There is a difference than being a judge casting an ultimate sentence.

IMO, B747 did a nearly excellent job in handling the situation that occurred in the Trip Reports, it just happened to be in a Trip Report that he posted.

To say that B747 was part of the "contentious discussion" is wrong, plain and simple. His writings were the subject, but he did not partake in the discussions after the initial post (until it got ugly).

You attempt to paint his as a combattant in the battle that occurred, and he wasn't.

The Trip Report thread is an excellent guide in discussion IMO.

Did it begged to be closed? Yes. It was getting nasty.

Why is it so wrong to moderate a thread that you start? If SKO starts an OMNI thread and it gets ugly, he has no right to close it? That is very silly.

People have screamed that the signal to nois ratio is quite high on FT nowadays. Acting in capacity of moderator, B747 stopped that noise from getting louder. Plain and simple, that thread was getting ugly... fast. He did the right thing in ending the road it had taken.

Remember, that it none of the Moderators have a full-time job of moderating. The other two moderators were unavailable, and again, IMO B747 did the correct action in not waiting for them to act upon his behalf.

I don't see impartiality to be a neccessity in being a moderator.

Applying standards and being constant is much more a required skill. The OMNI moderators are quick to shut down ANY thread where a FTer is the subject. This is done b/c it can turn for the worse, even with the best intentions. They're constant in doing this. In another forum, like it or not, a moderator has been pinned as "quick-fingered" in his decisions to close/move threads. Again, you may not like what he is doing, but he is constant and unwavering in his views of what an off-topic post is. This must be commended.

With the actions that have occurred on FT so far, I have no problems with moderators moderating threads that they start or participate in. My view on this would dramatically change if a moderator edited a thread (that they particpated in) to support their point of view or line of thinking. Between my personal knowledge of (some of), and respect for, the moderators I know this will not happen. So this hypothetical rogue action doesn't bother me! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I think anyone who is criticizing the moderators needs to spend time volunteering their, likely limited time, doing so themselves. It's very obviously a thankless job and on a forum of this size and diversity, it just isn't easy.

If a thread is moved, follow it and quit your *****ing. If it is locked, there are likely very good reasons for doing so. I questioned once the move of a thread and emailed the moderator personally. I didn't much agree with his response but it just isn't a big deal.

People here are even criticizing the move of threads that criticize moderators to this forum as if this isn't the proper place! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif Leaving them in the forum which generated the complaint only proves to disrupt the forum and distract those who don't care to be involved.

Get a grip people.

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin

Thanks for bringing this matter up wideman.

I am a subscriber to your school of thought that a moderator should not try to stifle discussion about themselves in any way. Once I posted my initial report, I backed away and did not participate further in the thread to either support the position I had taken or to even defend myself against the users who were attacking me personally.

However, when avek00 made a HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE personal attack upon techgirl on that thread, I was faced with the unpleasant decision of either leaving it there (and then facing criticism for not acting due to my friendship with avek00) or deleting it (and face criticism for acting by moderating a thread I had started). I chose the latter course of action because the end result was that the community's best interests were served by getting rid of the personal attack.

I also emailed both Randy Petersen and my fellow moderator pallensf at that time to alert them to the thread. Unfortunately, neither seemed to be available at the time as no responses were forthcoming.

Finally, at 2am local time I decided that there was far more risk in letting the two threads stay open for a flame war with no one available to step in and shut them down while I slept overnight than to simply step in and do the needful myself. Accordingly I acted to shut down the thread temporarily, leaving the decision upto Randy Petersen whether he chooses to reopen them for discussion.

As for N727NK, he is a personal friend of mine who has been lurking at Flyertalk for almost a year now. I don't claim any responsibility for the content of posts made by him as long as they are in compliance with the Terms Of Service. He was one of the contributing factors to the thread going off topic and its subsequent shutdown.

I took great pains to avoid any impression of impropriety in my moderation and I'm glad that I have the chance to explain my actions here. That said, I have also offered my reluctant resignation to Randy Petersen if he determines that I did indeed act with prejudice or poor judgement in deleting the personal attack and/or stopping the flamewar. However, I trust that he will not find it neccessary to accept it.

Thanks
Sean (B747-437B)


[This message has been edited by B747-437B (edited 05-20-2003).]

As stated in the base posting, my interest was to discuss the more general question of a moderator who both participated in a discussion and then closed it; I did not seek to pursue a discussion of the merits of closing the thread in question.

In this case, the explanation by B747-437B seems reasonable and proper: he asked for help from another moderator, and he subsequently took action only when no response was forthcoming.

The general principle still holds true, though: if a moderator is involved in a thread as a participant, it's far better for other moderators to act as moderators, if for no other reason than to maintain the general perception of fairness.

As a tangent, I nominate the following tidbit by Chexfan as the Preposterous Comment of the Week:
Chexfan, if applying the rules impartially isn't a necessary skill of a moderator, what is??

Uhhhhh........ I was born at night.

But it wasn't last night.

Your "friend" used a dexterity, language, and BB-software specific posting style so similar to that of a certain moderator that this belied his claim to be making his first couple of posts on FT. As Ozstamps said in the thread in question, it took him weeks and months to be able to make posts utilizing the same BB tools as the "friend."

Incidentially, the "friend" said the nasty things that the "moderator" wouldn't, unless he wanted to lost his position.

So...... Puhleeze...... Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

And I say this as somebody who has absolutely no stake or opinion in the dispute that led to this embarrassment of a thread, save the opinion that 99% of us have about the puerile Boy Zero.

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-Otto

Did you even read beyond that statement?

Applying constant standards is a necessary skill. It transcends being "impartial".

What is better? A "partial" moderator who moves threads to correct places and edits offending language -or- an "impartial" moderator who does nothing?

Chris has been an active participant on a number of other forums that use UBB code or similar. He participates on airlinecrew.net as N727NK and on airliners.net as airlinelover where he was even a moderator. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to apply what he knows from there to posting on flyertalk.

In the meanwhile, I do not appreciate being accused of violating the Terms Of Service on the basis of some flimsy so-called evidence of similar writing styles. I would appreciate if a withdrawal of that accusation and an apology were forthcoming.

[This message has been edited by B747-437B (edited 05-21-2003).]

B747, I've nothing against you nor any opinion on your little spats that are going on.

But please stop trying to play the martyr. You'll get neither an apology nor sympathy from me.

It's unbecoming, and you're not fooling anybody. Just let your "friend" slowly fade away, I am sure he'll be forgotten soon enough.

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-Otto

Wow. Maybe this one is heading for lock down too shortly?

Hope all who post here just reflect back that the Trip Reports thread did have some crazy things going on, and rehashing them here may just get the same result?

I know who gets the vote in my mind for being almost the SOLE reason that thread went totally off the rails. (No cigar for guessing.)

B747-737B has outlined his position and maybe all sides of the argument are pretty well covered by now?

This is Randy's Forum, and starting a sandbox skirmish in here as well is not very respectful surely?

Fair enough. If you have no opinion then kindly retract the allegation you have made above and that I have provided the explanation for.

wideman, I have known Sean for over 1.5 years.. I have been assisted by him in numerous issues, and I try to assist him when I can.. ESPECIALLY when it is something I believe mylself. I believe he called my attn to this thread not only as a pax, but as a former crew member as well.

Can it be, Otto, that more then one person on this planet use the same styles of writing and such? I am, as Sean has said, a member of other websites. Some of those use UBB, some do not, so it is not hard at all to figure it out. I also hand-type all of my "scripting" for the codes, I just copy and paste what I am quoting.. Oh, and yes, I have been lurking around for a year at the least.
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I can also say that as a former moderator myself (of another forum), it is not always possible to get input on something right away. You can email/call/whatever all you want, but that does not mean you always get a response within a short time. Moderators have to, sometimes, moderate their own threads. It happens. ALL OVER..

Do research into what Sean and I have told you all. Go to airliners.net.. go to airlinecrew.net.. look at posts I have made. See how I am with people. You will also see that the only time I go off is when someone makes a post like Techgirl did.

I rarely find time to post anything anymore, so I will leave it at that.. for now... Feel free to continue to try to find fault with what I say, as really, it makes no never-mind to me.

Chris

Ya know, FlyerTalk is a much better place when people don't feel the need to register and, the very same day, "go off" on other members. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

It would also be nice to read Trip Reports that don't contain nasty references to other member's reports, but with youth comes indiscretion, and Randy isn't about to ban youth - so we'll occasionally be stuck with a little indiscretion.