Disputes over Moderation
From Barbelith
The role of the moderator on Barbelith is in some ways much simpler than a comparable moderator on a board without Distributed Moderation. Much of the political maneuvring is removed by the simple fact that no moderator can do anything without the agreement of his or her peers. Still, despite that, on occasion disputes will occur between moderator(s) and moderated.
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Responsibilities of a Moderator
The first thing to bear in mind is that moderators are people like you - with jobs and lives and social lives. They do not spend their entire lives on Barbelith. Moreover they're not perfect. So an individual moderator may not visit barbelith for a couple of days and may make occasional errors. DistributedModeration is designed to fix some of these problems from the start by having in place some checks and balances. But the fact remains that moderators are doing the rest of us a favour and it's only right to remember that.
One of the best things about distributed moderation is that people can moderate completely according to their consciences without an individual's perspective coming to dominate the board. In fact not only can they - they should - almost whether or not they think it's practical or likely to cause problems. The checks and balances are social and communal rather than individual... Someone else can always veto the action. And if it's a movement or an edit, someone else can always edit it or move it back.
Having said that a moderator should always err on the side of caution. Not everything needs to be changed and a lot of people resent having their writing changed without their consent. The voting system weights it so that some processes are easier than others, which helps stop things getting out of hand, but moderation for the sake of it should be left to Tom (praise be to his name), who has little better to do with his time...
Finally a moderator should feel able to explain every decision they make, even if for the largest amount of time they won't have to...
Expectations of moderators
Moderators take on responsibility for the running of parts of the board, and to a large extent it's a fairly thankless job, although it's not a too invasive or time-consuming one. Still, we have to be thankful that they've decided to contribute so valuably - particularly those who have jobs and social lives as well. So if you disagree with a moderation decision you should always try and be polite about it - it's much more likely that something has been done by mistake than by deliberate conspiracy and if you don't have the responsibility of being a moderator then it's very easy to point fingers and say you could do a better job.
Telling the moderators what to do
You can ask a moderator to do something if you think it would be useful or that it's important, by all means. But don't expect them to jump into line!
Users have the option to propose edits to their own posts, as well as to request that something they posted be deleted. Frequently, deleting posts outright from a thread disrupts discussion, leaving big gaps in a conversation. If there is material that you want deleted from your post, please consider editing it rather than asking to have it deleted. This will preserve the integrity of the thread.
Threads on Barbelith do not belong to any one poster, no matter who started the thread. If an initial post has sparked meaningful and/or interesting discussion, it is unfair to posters involved in the discussion to delete it, even if this runs counter to the wishes of the thread starter.
If you've said something and are later embarrassed by it, the best thing to do in the overwhelming majority of cases is to apologize once, and then let it go, rather than trying to get everything you said deleted. If you do this, the thread will likely sink to the bottom of the board and out of memory fairly quickly.
If you have a dispute with a moderation decision
Private message a moderator in the relevant forum and talk to them about the issues raised and try and persuade them otherwise. If that fails to produce a satisfactory resolution to the problem, you can bring the matter to the attention of the board in the Policy fourm. Remember the moderators are doing all of us a favour, so be polite above all! Explain your case, avoid personal attacks and see what everyone else thinks.
If the consensus is against you, RETIRE GRACEFULLY.
Or, better yet, show everyone how it should be done. All the tools you'll need are over at How To Make Your Own Board.
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