I’m of the opinion that we wasted a bunch of time arguing about moderator terms when we should have been delineating moderator powers, responsibilities, and duties. We’ve added new mods and gotten complaints. We should be clear about what we expect from mods if we want to be able to make a case that some mods are good/bad. I’d normally prefer to build this from the ground up, but I’m going to start with something that has come up a few times recently.
Proposal:
Moderators shall have the ability to temporarily ban users for limited periods due to forum misbehavior, but permanently banning a user shall only occur with a community vote. The threshold for a permanent ban will be a percentage to be established via debate in this thread. (Two-thirds of voters?)
Exceptions where moderators will have the power to permanently ban a user without referendum are as follows: a previously banned poster returning under a new name and doing things that would earn a temporary ban for a new user (to give penitent users a chance to quietly return without being weighed down by the baggage of past mistakes), obvious spammers.
Posters facing the risk of a permanent ban from the forum shall be given the opportunity to plead their case, if they so desire. This does not mean they should be unbanned and allowed to freely debate their right to exist on the forum, but they should be given the chance to make a statement in their defense. Moderators are encourage to silence (which appears to be an option in Discourse that no mod ever uses) rather than temp-ban such posters so they can still communicate via PM with anyone who wishes to advocate for them.
A debate for a permaban will follow the procedures for an RFC with at least three days of debate. After than point, a moderator can decide to start an in-line poll within the RFC thread on whether to move to a binding vote on a permanent ban. The poll should be open for three days. If a majority of votes wish to move to a binding vote on a permanent ban, a moderator shall start a separate thread asking for a vote on a permanent ban with the options of yes, no, and abstain (to acknowledge that poster is aware of the debate but does not wish to cast a vote.) An abstention shall not count as a vote and the percentage for banning shall be calculated based only on yes and no votes.
The same procedures shall be used to debate the overturning of a permanent ban.