Proposal: Allow Talkboard members to moderate the Talkboard Topics forum
 

It always seems weird that a member of the moderator team is assigned to moderate the Talkboard forum. This is after all their forum.

I propose to let the Talkboard assign a moderator to this forum from a lineup of the current Talkboard members.

This would allow the Talkboard to determine what is considered "off topic" instead of the moderator assigned to this forum.

The title should be changed to "...TalkBoard Topics forum"

I don't have an immediately positive reaction to this proposal, but I look forward to reading members' thoughts on it.

Not likely, because if any members tried to state their thoughts the non-TB moderators would immediately silence them for "discussion of moderation".

Personally, I'm good with Moderator2's decisions & involvement. If something needs to be moderated or "unmoderated" in this forum, he's been available.

That said, I'd rather have an impartial guy such as Moderator2 than a passionate TB member moderating the forum...

Just my 2 cents...

This.

When we were drafting the TB guidelines my notion was the the TB president should moderate both the private TB forum as well as this forum.

I was told in no uncertain terms by the moderator members of the TB at that time that no TB document could take a 'non-moderator' and make him or her a moderator. That only Randy and/or other moderators could choose moderators. Because to make someone a moderator of ANYthing just because he or she was TB president was a violation of everything the moderator corps stands for and holds dear. My goodness, such an interloper might read the private moderator forum, might fail the various morality, training and other super-secret criteria established for moderators and might be-soil and besmirch the good name that is MODERATOR.

Thus the unwieldy process for moderation of the private TB forum should a non-moderator be elected TB President as well as the 'outside' moderation of this forum.

+1

Goodness - I didn't realise that there was an expiry date on the confidentiality of that forum :confused:

I like the spin you are applying though! Way to be a politician ^

Well if I am guilty of violating the TB guidelines, by all means initiate the penalty procedures called for in the guidelines! :p

Just relating it the way I heard it! :)

koko, I believe the problem with having a non-moderator moderate a forum may be a technical limitation. It may not be possible to enable thread moving, editing, and deletion capability without also granting access to the moderators' discussion forum. If such a thing were possible, I can think of any number of people who I would trust as, in effect, assistant moderators.

Back to the OP, my concern was that the TB would argue about whom to appoint to this position. As others have noted, the proposal could also create fear of and perception of politically motivated moderation decisions in this forum. We don't need that.

We've been getting unbiased and consistent moderation here, but if you'd like it to be different in some way, send a private message to the moderator to explain your feelings.

Man, your clubhouse must be super sweet. :rolleyes:

Lol, you apparently hear it the same way I hear it. :D ;)

IMHO, if the moderators can't trust someone who is

- elected first by the posters to a position of trust as a TB member
- THEN elected to a further position of trust as the TB president by the other elected TB members

with temporary access to their super sweet clubhouse then that must be SOME awesome executive restroom indeed.

Either that or the mods don't trust the posters.

What??? All these years of moderating and no one has given me a key. I'm still using the bushes. ;)

Honestly, the black helicopters have always been around the moderator forum, and I can understand why. As it stands, the forum really is a pretty dull place.

Right now, these are the first ten threads in the forum (titles changed so I don't violate any rules):

1. Wishlist of board updates
2. Group mod emails?
3. Do rules
4. List of dupe handles
5. New/reassigned mods
6. New mod joins airline forum
7. Coupon connection challenges
8. Interesting threads on the forum
9. Feature request
10. Signature questions
11. Should Kokonutz be banned forever?

As you can see, there is nothing there that is even remotely interesting. I'd have no problem letting a Talkboard member participate in it. The community elected that person, and they should have earned our trust with that alone.

We have very strict rules in place about discussing specific members, we have rules about discussing other moderators. 99.9% of the discussions are just boring and discuss nothing more than board housekeeping.

I know a story about being an ASSMOD ....ask some day and I will tell you about 9 months of torture. But the Moderator forum was interesting (I think that was before Jenbel was on there though:p) !