This gets to what is in many ways the crux of a problem like this. Will removing (or attempting to remove) a moderator change things substantially? It might, it might not. I don't see the removal of a moderator as a "solution"; it can only ever be part of a bigger picture. There are a couple of things to consider here:Nalates wrote:Removing a moderator may be necessary from time to time. I consider such an action on its own a bit simplistic because when we get another problem moderator we have to go through another long painful process to remove them. There has to be a better more comprehensive way.
- On a small(ish) fan site forum the moderators and the Admins will likely be very "close" if not in fact the same people. Try to mobilize against a moderator there and you're probably more likely to earn yourself a long term holiday from the site. Fact of life.
- People who get their posts moderated will tend to "have a problem" with the moderation - it's comparatively rare for someone to be happy with being told that they've stepped out of line, accidental transgressions aside. Some people enjoy walking a fine line along the edge of the rules and will get moderated more than most. I'm not suggesting that they get "blacklisted" or anything like that (although that no doubt happens on some forums and phpBB3 has a User Notes log that mods can use), but those people do draw the attention of moderators. That's why I often say that the first responsibility for moderation lies with the poster.
- What is the guarantee that the next moderator won't act in the same way? This can break down into at least two things that I can see: a) It's actually the posters/complainants who are at fault and simply don't recognise that their own behaviour is at fault or b) The root cause of the maladministration hasn't been identified or tackled. The latter point is the one that I don't see anyone attempting to answer here and is probably the best learning opportunity for us all - Not so much what was erroneous about the moderation, but rather how could it have been handled better
What I'd really like to see is some (synthesised) case studies as "worked examples" of how best to moderate particular situations, but that probably needs to be somewhere other than in this thread. You cannot use "real" examples because you get into privacy issues and there is likely to be exchanges conducted by PM that no one person will have full visibility of. I'm not quite sure how best we could present something like that - I don't know if the forum really works for this.