Temporary Forum Closures (including DISCUSS RULES)

[drstevej]

You were on staff - you know the "rule" was to stick to your own forums.

I have been off staff since last June. Ergo, my question.

 

[meh]

Is this a change or the way CF has operated up to now?

No change. We have only ever modded other areas or forum when there is an emergency or asked to by the other team.

 

[scraparcs]

Is this a change or the way CF has operated up to now?

I mean moderating without explicit permission of Support admins. Obviously if the support admins ask another admin to help moderate then they would have the authority to take whatever action was necessary.

 

[Crazy Liz]

There are not plans for this currently - we need to get the forum running well before we make too many changes.

After the forum has been running for a while and we've worked out the kinks and conciliators and staff are OK with it, I don't see why we can't talk about it.

I am very disappointed to read this.

Many of us got behind the idea of a fully-moderated forum as a way to allow specific staff actions to be discussed while assuaging fears of staff members that they would be flamed.

 

[CaDan]

I am very disappointed to read this.

Many of us got behind the idea of a fully-moderated forum as a way to allow specific staff actions to be discussed while assuaging fears of staff members that they would be flamed.

I concur.

An agreement to agree is not an agreement at all.

 

[Auntie]

Will staff posts be moderated too?

 

[nyj]

I am very disappointed to read this.

Many of us got behind the idea of a fully-moderated forum as a way to allow specific staff actions to be discussed while assuaging fears of staff members that they would be flamed.

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=35090011

 

[nyj]

staff will be free to participate as regular members.

What staff levels will be able to provide "official answers".

The last time this was bandied about, it was suggested that only Supervisors and above do so. That never took.

 

[constance]

Will staff posts be moderated too?

What do you suggest?

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=35090011

I like this. I've thought about and suggested this before and the response was that people might feel staff was hiding behind the anonymity. What do you all think about that?

What staff levels will be able to provide "official answers".

The last time this was bandied about, it was suggested that only Supervisors and above do so. That never took.

What do you suggest?

 

[nyj]

I like this. I've thought about and suggested this before and the response was that people might feel staff was hiding behind the anonymity. What do you all think about that?

Perhaps, but as it stands ... people think staff is hiding behind Rule 3.8. So what would people prefer? The chance to air grievances publically against team action, or not to air them at all?

What do you suggest?

I think several things.

However, I think that for the sake of clarity and consistency, Supervisors and above should be the ones to give "official answers" in the DR. And those official answers should set precedent for future actions, and they should be held to them. Which means they better be darn confident and knowledgeable of what they say. I say that from a DR standpoint.

However, in the team specific fora, questions about actions should be askable and answerable from the team, since they are the most cognizant of what happened. Those fora should be IMO, for specific questions about specific happenings. People can ask, and get an answer. If an underlying policy issue crops up, that's for the DR forum to handle.

My two ducats.

 

[Auntie]

What do you suggest?

If staff posts are not moderated, then a whole new crop of problems might come up, things like accusations of bias.

And, since the moderation of DR will be private, any staff posts that aren't approved will be a completely private issue.

 

[CaDan]

If Staff posts are not subject to the same full moderation, I will make a fuss.

 

[TomUK]

I should probably add to my previous posts that i really thank the exec for a post like this. Under the previous 'system' the exec would have announced their intent and left it that. I find it encouraging that they are finally beginning to listen to our ideas. While i must it that ideally this thread would have been created automatically after the decision to close the DR, i really do appreciate the opportunity to pose questions to the exec. I know for one that already some of my concerns have been dealt with. If only this was the approach for many of the previous then i believe the huge controversy's would have been laid to rest months ago. We can but live and learn i suppose. Above all i wish to thank constance as the only member of the exec to actually take part in thread. It is appreciated and most definitely noted.

 

[FatBurger]

I believe that in vBulletin staff posts bypass the moderated forums feature by default. Unless this is changed (by Erwin, since it's a coding issue), staff would have to manually unapprove all posts, something which could easily be forgotten (I know I would).

Can someone correct me if I'm wrong there?

 

[meh]

Will the Conciliators have access to the edit logs so they can verify?

No. Only staff can see logs. Although I am open to talking to them about addressing concerns about that.

But I'm fully aware we're asking people to put some trust in the Support team and it might take awhile to build up that trust.

FatBurger is right in that if (I don't know) staff posts were to be moderated as well, at this point staff would have to manually unapprove their post as the software lets mod posts go through automatically. So if you were to ask someone on staff you trust to check out an edit log on a thread you think might be getting dodgy, they should be aware of things like that.

The difference is that the struggles with sexuality forum is moderated to protect potentially vulnerable individuals. I'm not really sure who moderating the DR will protect. I do know however that it will significantly stifle discussion of policy.

Our goal is not to stifle. It's to do things like stop flame wars and repeated thread clean-ups and closures and people getting warnings or infractions for DR posts.

This is not a way for Support team to keep posts we don't like or points we don't like off the board. We will all do our best to be fair and not mod in a way like "I don't like what TomUK has to say, so we aren't approving this."

Posts will be modded for rule violations. I don't agree with or "like" a lot of posts sometimes, but they will not be kept from the board for that reason.

If you think that is happening, contact the conciliators or Support team immediately and we'll work on it.

Also, with the approved posting method, problem posts can be addressed before even reaching the board. For instance, if a huge, flaming OT post were to go through in the old/current DR, then it would get reported 10 (or more) times and then there would be replies to it and they would get reported and you'd end up with mulitple reports and thread clean-ups or closure. And then people might get the warnings/infractions. This should cut down on that.

People will still report posts that we've approved that they feel we should take a second look at, and we will always do that.

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=35090011

I like that idea. I also have the same concern constance mentioned. I would like to see member opinions on it.

 

[Crazy Liz]

FatBurger is right in that if (I don't know) staff posts were to be moderated as well, at this point staff would have to manually unapprove their post as the software lets mod posts go through automatically. So if you were to ask someone on staff you trust to check out an edit log on a thread you think might be getting dodgy, they should be aware of things like that.

Would a staff member be allowed to answer such a question without violating staff confidentiality?

 

[constance]

if you are subject to unapproving your own posts, and if you can't remember you're supposed to do that, you'll eventually lose the privilege to post there.

 

[Crazy Liz]

FatBurger is right in that if (I don't know) staff posts were to be moderated as well, at this point staff would have to manually unapprove their post as the software lets mod posts go through automatically. So if you were to ask someone on staff you trust to check out an edit log on a thread you think might be getting dodgy, they should be aware of things like that.

Would a staff member be allowed to answer such a question without violating staff confidentiality?

 

[meh]

Would a staff member be allowed to answer such a question without violating staff confidentiality?

No they couldn't give the member results or anything. I'm invisioning something like picking a senior staffer *they* trust and saying something like "A member was concerned about this thread. I checked the edit log, and I have some concerns as well..." for example.

 

[Crazy Liz]

No they couldn't give the member results or anything. I'm invisioning something like picking a senior staffer *they* trust and saying something like "A member was concerned about this thread. I checked the edit log, and I have some concerns as well..." for example.

So you're suggesting people find an Admin they trust and ask them a question the Admin can't answer?