Timeline for The new moderator agreement is now live for moderators to accept across the network
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
22 events
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| Jul 15, 2020 at 14:44 | history | edited | Senior Wrangler | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 13, 2020 at 15:41 | comment | added | Catija StaffMod | I'm not quite sure how to respond to this... it's... kinda a lot to do just in comments but people sometimes don't like me editing in responses to the answer. We are planning on revising the removal process, after just revisiting the reinstatement process. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 21:15 | comment | added | Bryan Krause | @Shog9 Eh, I should have more artfully worded to indicate "something similar happening again" as many others have, but point taken. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 21:10 | comment | added | Shog9 | I'm not interested in preventing last fall, @Bryan... That's already lost. But the tradition of open moderation on these sites isn't, and I would hate to lose that! | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 21:08 | comment | added | Bryan Krause | @Shog9 The whole "you and I both know" bit is pretty manipulative, but yes, I agree with you. And I also stand by what you and I both know: that no measure of agreement here is going to prevent what happened last fall definitively. It's a stick to measure against at best. I think the suggestions for publicity are fine, but some of them might be too constraining, that's all. Personally, a commitment to disclose to moderators is sufficient and much more important than one to disclose to the rest of the public. There are 550 of us, and 550 opinions is...a lot. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 20:57 | comment | added | Shog9 | "Don't send Bryan's PII to the cops in <town>" is fine for private guidance, @BryanKrause. But... the PII handling rules this is grounded in very much SHOULD be public (and are, in the very agreement we're discussing). You & I both know that anyone suggesting a privacy policy of, "we won't tell you what we do with it, but we're cool, just trust us" is... Not the kind of policy that anyone wants to see! | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 19:20 | history | edited | George Stocker | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 9, 2020 at 19:12 | comment | added | Bryan Krause | @Shog9 I think the private elements are important to preserve in certain cases. For example, if there is a situation where a mod wanted to use PII access to report an incident to law enforcement, the company needs to have an agreed upon framework to say "stop! let us handle this!"; I think that actually protects mods. I trust that if these policies are used in an abusive fashion that mods (both as individuals and in solidarity) will rebel, as they have in the past. At that point the company can choose to ignore mods at their own detriment or listen to them, same as always. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 19:09 | comment | added | Bryan Krause | @Shog9 (always good to hear from you even if it's in disagreement) I guess I do indeed view those "pragmatic tips" as the basis of the out-of-public feedback from the company. I'm also quite aware of the elephant in the room, and my personal view is that there is no way that this agreement or any agreement can prevent that kind of BS. What it does do is set out some specific ways the company commits to not screwing up in the future (eg, media comments). I'm maybe alone on this but I feel like the company took quite a beating from last year, and I think that is and remains the best recourse. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 18:26 | comment | added | Shog9 | (also, come on... The elephant in the room that George is trying to point out is that situation last year where a moderator violated "private guidance" from a SLT member that no one - not moderators, not CMs - clearly understood or could explain. And yeah... It eventually did make it to public, but... I wouldn't recommend using any of that as an example of an ideal workflow.) | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 18:21 | comment | added | Shog9 | Ehhhh... I kinda disagree with that as a philosophy, @Bryan. For years, we considered private moderator guidance as effectively just, "pragmatic tips": ways of applying public rules in specific situations, often ways of applying rules without being overly "legalistic" - think, mediation tips and so on. Serious stuff had to be in public - moderators would frequently need to refer to it when discussing their actions! Remember: the vast, vast bulk of "moderation" on these sites is performed by ordinary users; thus, "private" guidance means they're using a different playbook. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 18:08 | comment | added | Bryan Krause | (said another way, I don't want to constrain CM guidance around moderation with a clause that says XYZ needs public approval; I think that's still possible within your suggestions but I think it's important to consider) | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 17:52 | comment | added | Bryan Krause | @GeorgeStocker I think anything particularly controversial will make it to the public anyways - there are a lot of moderators left that think like you do. I think the suggestions are good but I'm not convinced its necessary. I also worry that too much requirement of "public" means too much vetting by "legal". | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 17:29 | comment | added | George Stocker | @BryanKrause I think public consideration is important; To set up moderators for success, the company needs to include that. One of the issues is that Moderators may resign; but if we can keep good people from resigning by shedding sunlight on problematic policies, that's even better. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 17:11 | comment | added | Bryan Krause | Thanks. Can you opine on how crucial you feel these changes are? IMO the "and all other policies covered by this agreement" part is possibly most critical; the others seem to be mostly window dressing given the number of moderators and the freedom they have to resign if a privately-communicated policy is one they feel they cannot uphold. (I'm not personally convinced yet that making everything public is a good thing in that sometimes mods might interpret a privately-conceived policy as-intended, whereas the public will find the rules lawyer holes) | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 17:08 | comment | added | jscs | Good update; those "public"s would be nice additional guarantees. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 17:00 | comment | added | George Stocker | @BryanKrause I've enclosed the changes I'd make. Let me know your thoughts. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 16:59 | history | edited | George Stocker | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 9, 2020 at 16:03 | comment | added | Bryan Krause | (I'll add that moderators still have a right to leave en masse and have a lot of tools both on the site and on outside social media to raise hell when they do, and these are powerful tools) | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 16:01 | comment | added | Bryan Krause | Can you clarify what you expected/wanted to see here? In my view, some of those "loopholes" are either necessary or paradoxically protect mods. I don't see how you can prevent a company from dismissing a volunteer summarily without exposing that volunteer to substantial risk. What you can do is make that process transparent and reduce collateral damage, and this agreement does both by promising to communicate reasons, giving avenue for appeal, and establishing a policy of not commenting to media. | |
| Jul 9, 2020 at 13:46 | history | edited | George Stocker | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 9, 2020 at 13:40 | history | answered | George Stocker | CC BY-SA 4.0 |