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Maybe I've read too much Orwell, but I seem to agree with everyone - it seems that I've learned finally to keep two contradictory positions in my head at the same time without it being a problem.
First things first - I agree with everyone when they say that one of the structuring principles on the board has always been that people shouldn't feel that the moderators are in a position of particular power or authority around the board. Certainly, they shouldn't feel that power is being abused. This is not the same as saying that a moderator shouldn't undertake any unnecessary action - which (although I agree with its sentiment) isn't a particularly clear declaration of intent. Fixing image widths so that they don't push the page out of whack isn't necessary but I would consider it to be the kind of thing that a moderator does because it makes the board easier for people to read without compromising any of the meaning of the original post. Similarly when HTML tags like bold and italics aren't closed properly.
When we finally agreed on the necessity of moderators on the board, I spent quite a lot of time trying to work out the best way of handling their introduction and powers, and I came to the conclusion that the successful running of a community as a community (rather than as a kind of dictatorship) was not helped by moderators with absolute power to do what they wanted. In essence we needed a clear and simple political system different from the monarchy or rural fiefdoms of other discussion boards. What Cal and I came up with was a first stage solution to that problem - in the absence of a workable model for anarchy or democracy, we'd institute a kind of distributed oligarchy which meant that every moderator could act as a check/balance on every other moderator. Alongside this we pushed an ideology which presented moderators more like gardeners or technicians - assistants - than leaders. The idea was then - and remains - that the job of the moderator would be to ameliorate problems around the site as they emerged, facilitate discussion and the like. More importantly the model we had operated on the principle that individuals could basically operate according to their own basic principles and beliefs about how Barbelith should be run without worrying too much about rules and regulations. All their decisions would be ratified by other people who had to operate according to their basic principles as well. So everything balanced out...
This thread was started so that people could communicate situations which would mean their moderation decisions were more likely to be ratified so as to stop them wasting their time suggesting things that weren't going to happen. It is NOT designed (in my opinion at least) to be a place where we tell other moderators what the 'rules' are. Clearly there are limits to the kind of behaviour we could expect from a mod before we had to come in and depose him or her, but that's more of a failing of the way we select moderators (ie. I chose them and people tell me if they have misgivings) than it is a failing of the basic principles that a moderator should - by common assent - do what they think is in the best of the board, with the understanding that others may radically disagree and say so...
I think there is a distinction between someone accidentally mis-typing a word (or wrod) and having it corrected as a sideline and someone writing lurid and offensively appalling prose which then gets put into 'appropriate' language. I think that moderators are able to make that distinction individually and if they are not, then their peers can help them do so. Remember - it's not majority rules in moderator decisions - any moderator action can be veto'd (at the moment at least) by any another moderator who votes on it. One negative vote is always enough to stop something that worries people.
Re-reading the above before posting - I wonder if my impression of the board is no longer in step with everyone else's. If this is indeed the case then we need to talk quickly, because the next shift in Barbelith moderation and politics is approaching relatively quickly and people might not like it... If people would like me to discuss our current thinking, then PM me and I'll start a thread for its discussion... |
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