Moderator accountability

[SoftWareRevue]

or not?

Do you have moderators acknowledge to members that they are the one that moderated?

Or do you have a system in place that allows for the moderator of a specific action be anonymous?

[Scott]

Moderators, IMO, should be accountable to other moderators and admins. An action should be explained, if required.

However, I would leave it up to the moderator as to whether they explained this to the member or not. If not, and the member questioned the action, it would be the admins who would explain it getting details from the moderator if necessary.

[Aussie Bob]

. . . Or do you have a system in place that allows for the moderator of a specific action be anonymous?
I remember when I was a Moderator for the WHT ad forums. I think I modded there for about a month, and got a few "you're a bastard and we're going to get you" threats, by hosts that received mod warnings etc, in their ads in the WHT ad forum. :doh:

So I then suggested to Dennis that maybe our modding could be anonymous, and there could be no retaliation back to the mods, who are also hosts etc. If memory serves me correct (this was about 4yrs back) Dennis said they deserved to know who the mod was, if they got a warning.

I discussed this with my wife, and we decided it was best not to put our business (HTTPme) in harms way, with modding those ad forums. I then stopped modding the ad forums. That place used to give me the creeps. It was like going into the dodgy end of town, with poorly lit streets and seedy allies. :eek2:

Anonymous modding wouldn't work in all forums, but I think there's a time and place for it.

[Jan]

It seems to be different with all forums I mod. I guess it all boils down to the admin or owner of a particular forum, and what he/she percieves an acceptable way of dealing with rule breakers.

[writespeak]

I remember when I was a Moderator for the WHT ad forums. I think I modded there for about a month, and got a few "you're a bastard and we're going to get you" threats, by hosts that received mod warnings etc, in their ads in the WHT ad forum. :doh:

Your possibly being in competition with those web hosts may have been a factor. At WHT, I've experienced mindless rants that aren't directed at me personally, but that's about it. Well, that and the occasional PM asking why I moved the member's thread or that type of thing, but those members have been polite.

I've wondered if my having an occupation that's unrelated to what most regulars do at WHT has helped avoid the situation of members seeing my actions the way they saw yours.

Back to the original question...I think that if some members hope to gain business via the forum and some of the mods are in the same business, it can be helpful to allow them to be anonymous to members. If members have something at stake by posting, some will react to those who get in their way.

I'd like to hear the experiences of those who mod at different types of forums.

Lois

[Aussie Bob]

Your possibly being in competition with those web hosts may have been a factor.
Yeah, that and these were younger hosts, who viewed their WHT ads as being paramount to their success, while on school holidays. :D
I've wondered if my having an occupation that's unrelated to what most regulars do at WHT has helped avoid the situation of members seeing my actions the way they saw yours.
WHT was a different beast back then. This is around 3 or 4 years ago, and things weren't as calm as they are now. It had that wild west feel about it, back then, from my perspective. :think:

[Jan]

Whoa! I just revisited a forum that I was a techie admin at. Seems I am still admin there and haven't been there since 2003 :think: Anywho, I checked their updated rules and it seems from the wording that they have been slammed with the same kind of spam etc that all forums end up getting.

When I was there, it was rival forums that were the problem. But it still seems they delete members (not just disable them). There was no warning policy in place then, but it seems there is now. But the admin there does the warning. The forum owner in this case is frequently ill and doesn't have a very retentive memory, so leaves all the techie stuff to her co-admin. But judging by reading the admin forum, it is the blind leading the blind :s

I tried to instill into the owner's mind way back then, to just ban, not delete the member, as there was no IP tracking if they signed up again.

Not that that ^^ has much to do with this discussion, but I revisited to see if things have changed. They didn't have specific rules in place back then and only the owner would ban, which she would do if someone annoyed her :s Didn't matter if the moderators objected, but it was her board so......

[SoftWareRevue]

... They didn't have specific rules in place back then ...Some places don't seem to have much in the way of guidelines (http://www.forumuniversity.com/campus/rules.php). :whistle:

I can see where anonymous moderation may work well from an administrative view.

But, I wonder how members feel about it. :think:

[writespeak]

I wonder how members feel about it. :think:

From what I've read, they don't. I remember a post from someone saying that he didn't like seeing threads closed without knowing who closed them. If members want to know that, I imagine most want to know who took stronger moderating actions.

I think we're better mods if our name is attached to everything we do. I believe in standing behind my actions. But I also see where that can be a problem for some mods, such as when your business is a competitor of the businesses of a lot of the members.

Lois

[adb22791]

It depends on what kind of anonymous moderation. I love getting personalized replies back from the WHT helpdesk and from other moderators on other boards when I have a problem, however I feel that to maintain good relations between mods and members when a moderator is warning or banning a user it might be good to be anonymous. On the other hand, if a moderator is closing or splitting or merging a thread, its nice to see them insert a little comment, like "Thread Closed by Request" or "Thread Merged".

Moderators need to be activly seen in the community, not just people in the shadows lurking and making sure the forums run. While a bit of anonymous moderation is ok, sometimes even good, I think that fully anonymous moderation would not help the community as much.

[B33R]

I agree with both of the above posts. It's much better to know who's actually moderating the forums and why.

I like receiving replies from the staff too. It makes it feel more like a community and less of a dictatorship.
I can't really say I enjoy being told off by the mods for being a naughty boy :D but it does help to know the reasons.

All in all, regarding thread closure, moving, merging or editing, I like to know who's doing it and why. Personal replies from WHTs helpdesk are also very good. If it's something like sig rules being broken then a more generic (and faceless) message is acceptable.

Sure it may take a bit more time to write a message for each action but it is time well spent. Especially if it stops another person from making the same mistakes. I think WHT has got moderating pretty much right.

Some places don't seem to have much in the way of guidelines. :whistle: Some places don't need bulky guidelines. Some communities can be built more on respect with intelligent, knowledgeable members (apparently ;))
Well, that and the fact that FU hasn't been invaded by hundreds of newbies asking "what's a forum?" and "where can I get phpBB?" amongst other pointless questions -- YET! :D

Some forums just don't have a need for guidelines and moderators... but then with no moderators, who would we beat in the FU Arcade?