After watching what a putative moderator did in a thread and the nasty effect of a moderator's intervention in the same thread [that finally got deleted ( alas after the damage was done); now more than ever:

1- No anonymous moderators
2- No annonymous moderating actions: If moderated a public record of who moderated and why he moderated, should be kept in place of the affected posts and/or threads.
3- An ombudsman , to protect posters from abuses by moderators : real or perceived ( and the perception is being more damming ) is needed.

I did post a reply in the thread which has just been deleted regarding this, so I apologise for re-posting:

At WCG about a year ago there was much debate about the neutrality of Mods and the fact they had seperate anonymous Mod names to their normal team username after several incidents of flaming and resulting moderation which appeared biased.

Allegatations flew about where Mods loyalties lay, as no-one really knew which team they were from etc, and to be honest some was very unfair to the Mods - but the anonymity fuelled the suspicions.

After much debate, the powers that be decided to remove the anonymity from the Mods, and they then used their normal team usernames together with the title of 'Community Advisors'.

Also any 'mod' editing/deleting had to leave a marker in the post/thread indicating who did it and the reason why.

This system was then overseen by the overall powers that be who had no team affiliation.

It was resisted by some Mods and their relevant team supporters at the time, but as a result it has meant there have been very few flaming instances and virtually no allegations of mod bias since - which has made for a much more pleasant community forum experience - even the 'Community Advisors' who at first baulked at the idea have now openly said how much better it is both for them and the forum as a whole.

Maybe something like this could be implemented over here?

Hi at first here at Rosett@Home the mods where not anonymous and moderated and posted under their real ID. This caused frictions since
a) it difficult to tell who is and is not a mod ( a problem of this message board setup ), more a little later.
b) members did not know when it was a moderator issue OR a personal issue, so moderators loose the ability to have opinions.

So the moderator(x) (and now mod.xxx) where setup.
They are only supposed to be used for moderator actions, deleting, editting and talking from the viewpoint of rosetta@home/bakerlabs. They are supposed to use their normal accounts for any 'chat ans banter' 'personal opinion advice' since they represent rosetta@home and it's desires.

Now the original Moderator(x)'s where a lot less bothered about who knew who they where, but unfortunaly some of the current mods don't seem to want people to know. They should in my opinion use the profile section for this, saying who they are and a little 'get to know the me'.

This allows anyone with any doubt to check them out (people trust you more) and allows them to be seen as moderators represnting rosetta@home, while also giving them their real ID to talk freely.

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Team mauisun.org

After watching what a putative moderator did in a thread and the nasty effect of a moderator's intervention in the same thread [that finally got deleted ( alas after the damage was done); now more than ever:

1- No anonymous moderators
2- No annonymous moderating actions: If moderated a public record of who moderated and why he moderated, should be kept in place of the affected posts and/or threads.
3- An ombudsman , to protect posters from abuses by moderators : real or perceived ( and the perception is being more damming ) is needed.

I did post a reply in the thread which has just been deleted regarding this, so I apologise for re-posting:

At WCG about a year ago there was much debate about the neutrality of Mods and the fact they had seperate anonymous Mod names to their normal team username after several incidents of flaming and resulting moderation which appeared biased.

Allegatations flew about where Mods loyalties lay, as no-one really knew which team they were from etc, and to be honest some was very unfair to the Mods - but the anonymity fuelled the suspicions.

After much debate, the powers that be decided to remove the anonymity from the Mods, and they then used their normal team usernames together with the title of 'Community Advisors'.

Also any 'mod' editing/deleting had to leave a marker in the post/thread indicating who did it and the reason why.

This system was then overseen by the overall powers that be who had no team affiliation.

It was resisted by some Mods and their relevant team supporters at the time, but as a result it has meant there have been very few flaming instances and virtually no allegations of mod bias since - which has made for a much more pleasant community forum experience - even the 'Community Advisors' who at first baulked at the idea have now openly said how much better it is both for them and the forum as a whole.

Maybe something like this could be implemented over here?

Addy: What you are suggesting if implemented could go miles in solving the credibility problems the anonymous moderators and moderating is causing here.

Also, an ombudsman is needed: one to whom posters that feel they have been aggrieved by moderators (real or perceived grievances) can go to to seek redress for their grievances.

Note for Fluffy: Ty for your input. It surely helps to calm down reactions interacting with a non anonymous person.

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This and no other is the root from which a Tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”
Plato

Jose, Whl., carl.h,
what I see here is a constant percieved bias (that isn't real) and resulting mudslinging to the mods.
Agreed, Matt likes to bait for flames, got so in spades by other posters, and flamed himself as well, so that thread should have been closed a bit earlier, but there are two sides in a flame war.

It may be, that you don't think your constant mudslinging at the mods is percieved as pure flamebait by others, but it definitely is by me. There is next to no substance besides far-fetched conspiracy theories for a bias against you.

The credit solution has been solved to your benefit, and any further discussion is constantly first flamed and than modded into oblivion.
Your disregard for decisions by the project team regarding the privacy of mods speaks volumes imho.
You don't listen to opinions that don't fit in your conspiracy theory.
Both sides got modded for flames, both for minor transgressions, and both got away with flames.

After Matts initial post in the now hidden thread I put the (imho) worst flamers on ignore. (BTW: that was no flamebait, but a good advise imho.) After some time the answers, most still readable in quotes by others, became more moderate and some kind of modesty was reached again, so I un-ignored them again. What I see now about percieved "damage done", "bias", and other unsubstanciated claims makes me think of an premature decision of un-ignoring them. I don't want it, I don't like it, it's a measure I usually use only for mayor trolls, and I don't think they really are, they just temporarily behave as such.

Jose, Whl., carl.h,
what I see here is a constant percieved bias (that isn't real) and resulting mudslinging to the mods.
Agreed, Matt likes to bait for flames, got so in spades by other posters, and flamed himself as well, so that thread should have been closed a bit earlier, but there are two sides in a flame war.

It may be, that you don't think your constant mudslinging at the mods is percieved as pure flamebait by others, but it definitely is by me. There is next to no substance besides far-fetched conspiracy theories for a bias against you.

The credit solution has been solved to your benefit, and any further discussion is constantly first flamed and than modded into oblivion.
Your disregard for decisions by the project team regarding the privacy of mods speaks volumes imho.
You don't listen to opinions that don't fit in your conspiracy theory.
Both sides got modded for flames, both for minor transgressions, and both got away with flames.
After Matts initial post in the now hidden thread I put the (imho) worst flamers on ignore. (BTW: that was no flamebait, but a good advise imho.) After some time the answers, most still readable in quotes by others, became more moderate and some kind of modesty was reached again, so I un-ignored them again. What I see now about percieved "damage done", "bias", and other unsubstanciated claims makes me think of an premature decision of un-ignoring them. I don't want it, I don't like it, it's a measure I usually use only for mayor trolls, and I don't think they really are, they just temporarily behave as such.

Saenger: Had Matt kept to his own advise and not posted the insulting URLs and had the putative mod not joined in the baiting and had the mod that did the moderating done it right: there would have been no problems. But alas it did not happen.

So I ask you : What is wrong with the way moderating is done at WCG? That is the model we are recommending here.

BTW do you realize that what you wrote, if judged by the standards used against Carl, whl, Melymel , XSV and even me by the anonymous moderators , could be considered flame baiting ( you called us trolls) and off-topic as the issue here is not if you like us or not but the anonymity of the moderators and its effect on the civility in these boards?

I wonder if you were one of us , how fast would they (the anonymous moderators) deleted your post?

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This and no other is the root from which a Tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”
Plato

I wonder if you were one of us , how fast would they (the anonymous moderators) deleted your post?

As fast as anyone elses, like always in the past.
But I really don't think your trolls, although I percieve most of your baseless mudslinging against the mods as troll-like behaviour.

There are two ways to see this mod-issue:
As you constantly try to unmask them, you must have a second agenda. That's probably some hard action against the real accounts for their non-compliance to your wishes.
They do good not to unmask their identities, as they will be greeted with a barrage of insults from your side not only as anonymods, like now, but as their real accounts.
That's the way I see this situation at the moment. They should wait for a calm moment and decide then, but not now.

Saenger, I have not opinionised on anonymous mods afaik. You are asking me to defend issues in a thread that was deleted, in doing so you are resurrecting that thread and it`s contents.

If I were to call you a troll likelyhood is it will be modded, that`s fair yes ? That would be baiting you or simply insulting you. River was allowed to get away with the same issue by stating "three people".....

This was pointed out BEFORE all the hoo haa !

Now you know to whom he referred, I know to whom he referred so does everyone else.....No modding...because he is a mod.

If we are to play by the rules, they must be fair and they must be fairly applied.

There are other factors I could mention but I`m trying hard to withdraw from this forum whilst there is a modicum of peace.

Saenger, at heart I believe you`re a fair person and if I showed you last nights episode in full I think you would see there was a definate bias and uneveness to the modding.

Now other action is in place through the appropriate authorities to deal with the spamming of Teddies forum with graphical sexual content and also the spamming of my email by certain person(s).

That`s another thing whilst the mods are very good with their opinions not one voiced an opinion on that. A matter I don`t take lightly, a terrorist group was allowed to get away with something and the Government (Admin) said nothing....I can only presume that the Rosetta admin/mods condone such behaviour and I find that disgusting. Their silence on the matter is damning !

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

There are two ways to see this mod-issue:
As you constantly try to unmask them, you must have a second agenda. That's probably some hard action against the real accounts for their non-compliance to your wishes.
They do good not to unmask their identities, as they will be greeted with a barrage of insults from your side not only as anonymods, like now, but as their real accounts.
That's the way I see this situation at the moment. They should wait for a calm moment and decide then, but not now.

These are the exactly the same for/against arguements that were had over at WCG, but when the change was made the insults just didn't happen - and to be honest personal insults should not be tolerated regardless of whether targeted at a Mod or member.

Like many on here I suspect, I Mod at a site using my own identity without problem regardless of whether I am posting from a personal perspective or as a Mod.
If anyone disagrees with a moderation decision I make then they can PM me or ask for the site admin to adjudicate - sucessful Moderation relies on trust and respect, and I feel it is almost impossible to get that using anonymity.

The fact that you are having constant flame and argument here over the same issues would indicate to me that change is needed if you are to move forward - staying as it is seems to be the worst possible option - surely trying something new cannot be any worse than it is now?

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Crunching In Memory Of My Dad

There are two ways to see this mod-issue:
As you constantly try to unmask them, you must have a second agenda. That's probably some hard action against the real accounts for their non-compliance to your wishes.
They do good not to unmask their identities, as they will be greeted with a barrage of insults from your side not only as anonymods, like now, but as their real accounts.
That's the way I see this situation at the moment. They should wait for a calm moment and decide then, but not now.

These are the exactly the same for/against arguements that were had over at WCG, but when the change was made the insults just didn't happen - and to be honest personal insults should not be tolerated regardless of whether targeted at a Mod or member.

Like many on here I suspect, I Mod at a site using my own identity without problem regardless of whether I am posting from a personal perspective or as a Mod.
If anyone disagrees with a moderation decision I make then they can PM me or ask for the site admin to adjudicate - sucessful Moderation relies on trust and respect, and I feel it is almost impossible to get that using anonymity.

The fact that you are having constant flame and argument here over the same issues would indicate to me that change is needed if you are to move forward - staying as it is seems to be the worst possible option - surely trying something new cannot be any worse than it is now?

No change here - appears the anony-mods are still controlling instead of modding.

3 - 2 - 1
















GONE

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Proudly Banned from Predictator@Home and now Cosmology@home as well. Added SETI to the list today. Temporary ban only - so need to work harder :)



"You can't fix stupid" (Ron White)