kokonutz

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.

Dovster

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.

empedocles

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.

kokonutz

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? @:-)

Mary2e

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.

hfly

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.

bhatnasx

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) - 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...

bhatnasx

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.

kokonutz

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?

bhatnasx

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.

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.

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...

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...

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

wharvey

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

techgirl

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.

TIGA31328

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.