An issue has been raised over in another thread, now locked. You know, this one.
The problem, as I see it, is this:
What are moderators supposed to do about things that take place in Private Messages?
It's a pretty good question, I thought, and one all of us ought to think over a few times. Especially as regards accusations of abuse.
On the public board, it's pretty easy to identify an exchange that's getting unproductively aggressive, and for mods to start selectively deleting posts and replies. It happens -- not frequently, generally fairly smoothly, and leaves little trace. Discussing the problems in private seems to help.
But when something similar happens via private messaging, what should moderators do? What can moderators do?
I think it's important to point out that moderators here, as I see 'em, are not cops. Some folks might think they should be, some folks don't see why we should have any. Their primary mission (as I see it) is to keep discussions on topic, not keep the peace.
Not only are they not cops, but they're also visible and publicly accountable, supposedly. That's part of the idea of having this Policy forum available to the whole forum (most boards have a moderator-only forum that regular users can't even see). That's part of the foundation of the "distributed moderation" model -- making each moderation decision subject at least to the approval (and disapproval) of all the other mods.
The private workings of the board have traditionally been the province of Tom and Tom alone.
-------
So what to do about keeping the peace in private?
One solution was brought up here, which I had frankly forgotten about. I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but still, it deserves a mention. (The link goes to a Barbelith thread from a time in mid 2001 when Tom turned off the PM function, just to see what would happen.)
This would be the most extreme option, and seems unmerited.
----
Another solution: the ability to block PMs from a particular user. Y'know, like an email filter.
We don't have the technology for that now.
So, Tom (or Cal, if you're reading this), is this possible? It'd be a perfect option from where I sit because it puts the power back in the hands of the individual user, not the cops.
Also, it seems like it'd be possible (correct me if I'm wrong) to design a message blocker so that it'd count the number of blocked messages sent from a particular user, or track levels of blockage in some other way.
I'd like to know if this is possible.
-------
Any other ideas? Any other relevant concerns I'm not addressing? |
