Here are some things we can all do well to keep in mind.
This is a very lightly modded forum.
To my knowledge the most severe mod action against long time posters is a 3 day ban. Only a few really problematic posters have been perma banned.
Modding is a volunteer job.
Nobody has yet made an empirical case of any mod bias.
Mountains of social science research demonstrates that a community of this size cannot function without some structure and rules.
In the end, this is a forum for fun chat among likeminded people. Try to be empathetic to your fellow posters. We are suppose to be the side that is good at understanding others and their views.
Please remember you donāt have to win every exchange. If you see the āyou have replied to x a few times. Let others have a chanceā message more than once a month you should really try to self moderate.
The fact that itās just about the most miserable full time job I could imagine ā fielding ceaseless bickering and quibbling over literally everything ā for a thankless volunteer role.
Oh, I donāt envision that mods would endlessly field bickering. They would document and explain their decisions. People could discuss it in the moderation thread, mods might further defend their decisions or they might not. If enough people found a decision (or lack of a decision) to be onerous, they could vote on overriding it.
I guess I donāt see the problem if people want to discuss moderation decisions in the moderation thread, and vote to overturn decisions they find particularly onerous. I think that would be pretty rare.
Ok, I understand what youāre saying. I dispute that Iāve been following anybody around. But Iāve been posting too frequently in the various threads dedicated to this clusterfuck. Probably because Iāve been mostly quarantined to a single room for the better part of a week. So Iāll chill for a while. But I can assure you that I have not been trolling and my opinions are sincere.
Different mods, which will bring a clean slate without baggage. A commitment to documenting moderation decisions. Welcoming feedback and criticism, encouraging people to discuss disagreements they have with moderation decisions, and encouraging people to hold votes on those disagreements. Because those ad hoc referendums will help shape the rule set that the community comes to agree on.
Iāve read every post in the multiple c-word and moderation threads over the past few months, and Iām in 95+% agreement with @anon10387340ās posts on those topics over the past two weeks ITT and the others.
Hopefully, since people are claiming that the volume of his posting is somehow a negative indicator of his sincerity and/or credibility on the topics at hand, the fact that Iāve posted only a handful of times and yet I agree with him, should carry lots of weight. Right? Thatās how it works, right?
My interpretation is that the vast majority appear to be either content with things or have issues that arenāt huge enough to turn them away from here.
A few active posters here are complaining and basically ruining the atmosphere of the forums for everyone else. Whether their arguments are in good faith or arguing just to be an asshole is unknown.
I mean the decision to fix the above is pretty obvious here. Give me the power and Iāll make it if all of you canāt handle the criticism of being a mod. Hell, Iāll take joy in ignoring your pleas for sanity!