Your are 100%, absolutely, correct.

Of course, when you are elected to a 2 year term and not allowed to discuss anything beyond new forums, post counts, internal TB matters, and TOS changes which moderators are free to ignore, this result is inevitable.

Let TB have some real authority (and, no, I am not arguing this for myself -- I have repeatedly said that I will not run for a third term) and I think you will see that the silly little issues will fall off its agenda and be replaced with questions that truly matter.

Please, do the count yourself.

(I realize that you doubt what I said because you, yourself, would never play those kind of games. That is not, unfortunately, true of all mods.)

Well IME this only points out that bad apples were discovered. Do some sleuthing and you will discover moderators who have been suspended. @:-)

That's IB (Internet Brands), not IBB (a generic reference to "internet bulletin boards").

This posting really epitomizes the problem. If too many moderators exhibited this 'tude, most members would be out of here.

What IB (or HOM at one time) want is content. Content attracts members, who contribute more content, and lurkers, who contribute participation in the forum of "visits" and "pageviews" and especially income. Members might also contribute some income, but the bulk of ad clicks will come from unregistered lurkers. In my own boards, 70+% of the traffic comes from search engines and referrals, not from direct accesses (i.e. people who already know about it).

How do you get members to stick around and contribute content? I'll leave that as an open question, but I'll also suggest that abusing them & treating them with arrogance is not part of a successful equation. The more they feel welcome & at home & part of a community, the more they will contribute. IB's needs are best met by trying to serve the members directly and keeping them satisfied.

Yes, which was my point ;) but will expand on the topic to ask those here to consider how the role of Moderator would change if it were a paying job. If Dov thinks some egos are boosted by Mod. title imagine how it would change with a Mod. title and a paycheque. It's not something I'd like to see so am okay with it staying a volunteer thing even if some don't understand the motivation. Just MHO.

I certainly know of at least one moderator who was suspended. Oddly enough, it happened shortly after he made a critical post about moderation. (His suspension, of course, was for a completely different matter and had nothing to do with that post. Right?)

IMHO, someone getting a paycheck would think twice before risking it by letting his ego interfere with his work. Although I made a TSA comparison earlier, there is one big difference here -- it is much harder to hide what you are doing when it is on a public bulletin board.

Right on the mark.

And speaking of TB members suspended, there's one well known ex-TB member suspended repeatedly (and I believe once again, permanently) because said TB member kept discussing the evil subject of moderation.

TB not only has it's range of allowed influence artificially curtailed, they are also subjected to intimidation & reprisal by the moderator corps if they dare to question moderation.

Mods are not going to be paid on FT. Not when posters are queuing up to do it for free. Free is what the market will bear so free it is.

So this is our paradigm. And in this paradigm, I still believe there is an opportunity for Mods to focus on keeping the posters (the ones who bring the gold to IB) happy and posting and making FT their IBB of choice, and ensuring that ego, arrogance nor any other malevolent motivation never trumps good management. Here it is:

Discussing Specific Forum Moderator Actionsion
Each forum contains a stickied thread for discussion of that forum's moderation decisions and actions. These threads exist to collaboratively discuss and improve moderation in that forum. On-board discussion of moderator decisions - including post deletions and member discipline - is not allowed and will be removed in these threads only. Members will also be subject to disciplinary action. Similarly, However, abusive and/or uncivil posts will be deleted. posts announcing a member's return to FlyerTalk after aDiscussion of individual posters' suspension or ban are not allowed in these threads. If you have a question about a moderator action, you may also contact the moderator directly or Carol the Community Director (SanDiego1k).

Your 'oddly enough" is just an assumption or as others might say a can of worms.

Most moderators just like most Talk Board members are good members and do not hold conspiracy theories. No the reason a member, even though they will go to the river in Africa, runs afoul is due to their last post. It may have been their first post ever or their 20000 but it was the one that got them there. The only exception that I can think to that is persistent infringement. Just like officiating a match it is difficult to see and invariably we are provided the first clue by an RBP from a concerned member. Sometimes we agree with the RBP other times we do not.

Once again the evidence surrounds you. If you followed the Robert Briscoe link above and looked around you would have read that IB had an average 94 million unique views a month for all their holdings. Not sure what amount was FTs but do know that FT is near the largest. If you break it into their Travel section you would have found out that there were 146 million visits (not unique) and once again FT is amongst the largest with the most percentage.

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Why not allow it (if the person suspended begins it)? We are certainly NOT protecting his privacy. After all, for up to 30 days the word "suspended" appears under his name on every post he ever made.

If he feels he has been wronged, why should he not be able to say so in a public forum and, perhaps, clear his name?

Of course, once he makes such a post the moderator(s) involved would be free to present their side of the story -- including, but not limited to, showing the actual post that earned the suspension.

Other posters would then be free to determine if the suspension was warranted or not.

It seems to me that by prohibiting discussion of a specific suspension we are not protecting the poster from anyone but himself but are protecting a moderator who handed out an invalid suspension.

AFAIK this specific forum is the only one on FT that always seems to have more registered members in attendance than guests. Sometimes it seems like an exclusive chat room. But nonetheless I have read and posted in this room since July '02

Because the threads in the specific forums are meant to improve the day-to-day management of that particular forum through collaborative input to the management practices in that forum.

I'm all for making the disciplinary process more public. Heck, it's mostly all open secrets anyway, as we all talk about this 'forbidden topic' in person, on email, in other IBBs and even on the face book. No moderator can control what we do off-board, nor punish us for it. The discipline database is the worst kept secret on FlyerTalk, only slightly behind fuel dumps. So sure, let's talk about a way to pull back that curtain. But that should not be done in the threads I am proposing because it is not forum-specific, so addressing that topic is another issue for another day in another thread.

Right now I am focused on creating a consistent opportunity for collaborative feedback on the day-to-day management of forums across FT. :)

Odd it never stopped a few of my bosses. Sorry but while I hear what you're saying a paid staff of Mod.'s isn't something I'd welcome.

:confused:

What purpose does this serve for FT? What does this do for somebody wanting to come to FT and learn about miles and points?

I just posted to Mike above about TB Topics being an exclusive member enclave for FT. Neverthe less about 4 or 5 years prior to being asked to be a moderator by Randy the following was posted by me.I really wonder if my proposal was the first public one because it was not always in the TOS? Once again this was posted in a thread that was castigating moderators.

More importantly it still confuses me that 7 years later there are those who believe a moderator needs to spend time in an open discussion with someone who has taken a river cruise in Africa instead of attending to the reasons they became a moderator.