"Your 'expose' didn't explain some things. Can you clarify? If you've been doing this for one year, what changed to compel you (all) to come forward? You cite examples to show why FR (Jim and John, really) need assistance *now, and yet you state that you've already been providing this for approximately one year. Shouldn't you already have a handle on this kind of thing by now?
We were acting strictly as sidebar moderators before Jim left on his trip to Texas. The only thing we could do was remove articles from the sidebar, but not from the forum. It was solely Jim's decision to keep our presence hidden as was the decision to announce our presence.
There is some concern about people beyond Jim and John having access to participant's personal information, including email and ISP stuff. Was this already answered somewhere else?
We do not have access to that sort of stuff. The Senior Admin Moderator may have, but he/she will have to speak to it.
When you state that records are being kept, what kind of records do you mean, and who is keeping them? And for how long? Is each moderator assigned a group of people to monitor, or how exactly does it work?
A log is kept for every abuse report. A place is provided for the moderators or Jim or John to make a comment in that log, similar to what you do if you submit an abuse report. There is also a log of actions taken against individual users for us to refer to if we want to know if someone is a repeat offender. I have no idea how long the log files stay available. That's up to Jim and John. We do not each monitor groups of people or threads. We rely solely on abuse reports and occasionally we will see a problem in the course of normal FReeping and act on it.
What constitutes a 'flame' (war)? Is this left to the individual moderator to determine, or are there written guidelines spelling them out, which will/are followed?
A 'flame war' is pretty obvious once you've seen some. Calling a flame war is up to the discretion of the moderator, but all moderators can look at all abuse reports and if they feel strongly enough, over rule a previous moderator.
I think the idea of various anonymous moderators is a bad idea. Jim uses HIS name which is very visible-we all use screen names that are recognizable. "Moderators" should too, imo.
It was Jim's decision to have us anonymous and I support it. What we do may not be visible to the forum at large, but Jim and John can review and change any action we take. So far, they have been supportive of our calls.
Having said that, since it IS Jim's forum, he gets to choose how it works, and has." It's not the end of the world, of course--most forums have moderators. Having said that, I think these are reasonable questions-obviously, providing answers is not mandatory....
I don't think questions about the moderators are unreasonable and will attempt to answer any I see. In fact, they can be beneficial as we modify how we use the powers Jim has given us.
I'm sure you didn't mean to infer that you have plans to modify the use of the powers that Jim bestowed upon you , did you?