It has been mentioned in several places (for example here) that not all employees of Stack Exchange receive moderator diamonds on the sites. Are non-diamond staff subject to the regular community moderation that all other non-diamond users are?
I am not aware of any problem in this regard actually happening, but it is plausible that a non-diamond staff member might someday cross a social boundary or engage in conduct deemed detrimental by the community to the extent that one of our community-elected moderators decides to suspend their account. What happens in such a case? I have little doubt that an elected moderator has the technical capability to issue such a suspension, but I'm curious about it from a policy standpoint. Is a community moderator allowed to suspend a staff member that has become sufficiently disruptive, or are staff essentially "immune" to community action, with the only real solution being to escalate the behavior directly to the Community Team (e.g. via the Contact Us link)?
- Are non-diamond staff fully subject to the elected diamond moderators on the sites that they visit?
- Are there additional safeguards (that non-staff do not have) in place to ensure that community moderator suspensions of staff are not done arbitrarily or abusively?
- Would suspending a staff member subject the moderator to immediate removal?
To be clear, I'm not asking about any specific incident involving staff, but obviously the chances of a real incident happening one day are more than trivial. One could imagine a scenario this way: I am an elected community diamond moderator on one of our sites. One day, I unravel a voting ring and decide to suspend each participant for one month. Just before issuing the suspensions, I discover that one of the participants is a non-diamond staff. Is it ok for me to go ahead and suspend the staff member, or would I be expected to suspend only the non-staff users and then escalate the staff member's case to the Community Team for adjudication and disposition?
Also to be clear, I'm not asking if staff have carte blanche to violate any and all local community norms, site rules, quality standards, etc. that they wish with total impunity. I'm asking if community moderators have jurisdiction over them, or if only other staff are allowed to stand in judgment over them.