koko, jenbel is being realistic in her assessment. We have to deal with taking care of the needs of the vast majority of FT's membership and not the tiny minority who are always complaining (pardon my bluntness). Remember that the key word here is realistic!

Well, I guess in a situation where it's your beliefs against my experience, my experience won't carry as much weight as your beliefs.

Par for the course on this thread.

So now we come to it. It's not that the posters don't trust the mods so much as the mods don't trust the posters. I....seeee. :p

Please re-read the proposed TOS amendment. It makes perfectly clear that abusive and/or uncivil posts will be deleted and that discussion of individual posters' suspension or ban are not allowed.

Further, I think you would be surprised...when people are allowed to say how they think and feel, even if it is not the majority opinion, they feel better about the final decisions taken. It's all about having a say, even if your say is not the final say, and it leads to far greater user satisfaction.

I live in a world where when I see something that can be done better to improve a place I love, I push hard to make it happen.

Especially when it makes good sense, will make FT more competitive by being more responsive to posters and will improve the overall FT experience.

If you mean to imply that I am a trouble-maker because I don't think that the status quo is perfect, then I wear that as a badge of honor.

Turning your point around at you, you appear to live in a world where you think FT is perfect. Where you know and do what is best for the forums you moderate. Maybe you do. But...here's the thing....maybe not. Why not find out?

If we change this TOS and the threads turn into a nightmare of non-constructive gripping then the TOS is easily changed again based on the lessons learnt.

But based on the experiences in the forums where this has been done so far, I doubt it will come to that.

And yet that is not what has happened in the DL forum moderation thread. @:-)

In some cases, yes. In cases where a poster feels a moderator is simply taking an opposing viewpoint or deleting posts because that poster has previously disagreed with a moderator, then yes. I can completely understand why a poster would refrain from trying to resolve the issue privately with the moderator and would opt to post something in public, in part because that way, everyone can see what a poster said to a moderator, and if they choose, what the moderator says to the poster, and everyone can see how both parties act.

All I'm doing is sharing with you my experience as a moderator.

You can chose to mischaracterise that, but it does exactly underline why earlier in the thread I chose not to do that, and I'm now wondering why I even bothered.

The issue is that your mind is already made up. You won't listen to our genuine concerns because they will not outweigh your belief that this will be good:
That's only your opinion. Please feel free to cite some evidence to support that viewpoint. I've seen the very opposite happen, where the users needs cannot be met, and they get increasingly frustrated instead.

But, as I say, your mind is made up. I'm disappointed that I tried to engage, it's pointless - and of course, all the usual mischaracterisations and trying to put the worst spin possible onto my words will now happen, as I predicted up thread :(

lol, oh, Jenbel, let's not be so hangdog, shall we!?

You are so afraid of a backlash to your opinion that you seem reticent to share that opinion. That's no way to be! If you have examples and facts to bring to the discussion, bring them. I swear I don't bite!

But if you are just going to say "I'm a moderator, so I KNOW this is a bad idea so you just have to believe me," well, no. Make your case!

And this is not directed at you, necessarily, but look, I get it that the notion of having these threads is going to make some folks nervous. No one wants to deal with criticisms...often even when it is constructive.

If I were a moderator, I would view this proposal as a wonderful opportunity to engage with the posters in my forum, not as a burden or nuisance. But then I am not someone who has spent years as a moderator doing things a certain way.

I never expected this proposal to be very popular with moderators. It opens them to some amounts of accountability and might make them change 'the way it has always been done' in their day-to-day management of forums. But if we want to make FT more responsive to what the posters want, that's what it will take.

For moderators who are doing a good job of managing the way the posters want, though, or for moderators like RSSrsvp whose forums already have this mechanism in place, it will mean nothing, other than validating that you are doing things right.

The appeals process has a reputation for being extremely non-responsive, to the point of being pretty much a joke.

I'll bet the farm that no matter how clearly stated up front the intended purpose and scope of such a thread, it will slide into one about specific actions. Resulting in, of course, moderators moderating threads about moderation!

Acceptance of the TOS is a condition of membership. How anyone can be ignorant of the warning-suspension process when it's clearly outlined in the TOS is perhaps the better question to delve into.

Furthermore, when we post on thread warnings, that's notification that the process is occurring. When we issue formal warnings via PM, that's notification that the process is occurring. So when we reach the point of a 7-day, 30-day or permanent suspension, plenty of prior notification has been served that the process is occurring. What the heck else are we supposed to do about notifications, DC, dress 'em up with frosting and candy buttons and deliver it via owl post? *LOL*

Being absurd here is part of my point, actually because at what point does it become absurd to keep advancing an agenda of moderator accountability if members fail to be follow the rules they originally agreed to?

I've not had experience personally with the process, but I've had a few PMs sent to me describing exactly what you say here.

(Looking at your signature: I've avoided the TS/S forum since the split and since it's impossible to post my true feelings about the TSA and it's employees there without risking an imposed holiday.)

So hypothetically speaking if you had a post deleted on an existing board on FT that did not have a mod discussion thread which would you do:
1) contact the moderator privately
2) start your own thread voicing your disagreement with the moderator's decision

Please elaborate on this statement as it is ambiguous at best.

Wow. Did you just read the word "warning" and then go off on that rant?

The warning/suspension system was not was I was talking about at all.

We already have this.

Appeals come to me (if the member follows the instructions given in the FT Guidelines, also given them in the suspension note). I am unaware of one single person who has appealed in the past 11 months who has yet to receive a response. Certainly there are those who take colorful issue with the response and might not consider it satisfactory - but that's a different matter.