Replies

Joe, thanks very much for posting this. I believe this is going to go a long ways toward starting the healing process. I'm hoping that no one blames the moderators for any of our woes. I am the guy who instigated the moderator program, established the rules and set the standards. If there is any blame to place, place it on me. Besides being broad shouldered, I'm hard headed. You can't hurt me. LOl

Seriously, the moderators only act on the rules and guidelines I set forth. They do not randomly ban people and they do not ban people they don't agree with. If a decision has to be made on someone that they've interacted with in the past and they believe there may be some bias, they usually recuse themselves and leave it to others. Furthermore, in most banning situations (except for emergencies or the very obvious), there is a group discussion and a consensus is reached before a banning takes place.

And even them some mistakes have been made and we've ended up reinstating the person. There may have been mistakes made where a person did not get reinstated, but again you can blame me for that. Those decisions are mine.

It is also my decision when any "old timer" gets banned. They're not making them anymore so I don't like banning anyone who's been with us for awhile. Actually, I don't like banning anyone at all, but sometimes there's no getting around it.

We are working on a new observer system and as soon as we get it installed we will select a staff to man it and will be available to explain all of our actions.

Frankly, the only problem I ever noticed with the moderators was a lack of consistency, although I personally never detected an ideological bias on their part. For instance, on one thread, I noticed where a member was banned, but his highly offensive post remained, whereas most of the time such a post is deleted, but the member stays. I think your laying down some basic standardized guidelines for the moderators will go a long way to remedy that, especially if you re-evalutate both the moderators and the guidelines every few months or so.

As part of that, maybe you could post a Suggestion Box or "How am I doing?" type thread on a quarterly basis to get honest feedback. By you yourself setting up an official time and place for the great Whine Festival, you can help keep it under control. Maybe if people have a set place to let off steam about FR housekeeping (Moderators, formatting, etc.) , with your active participation on the thread, they won't clutter up the other threads with it and we won't have to wait for an opus for all the bad blood to be let.

I have no idea who was right about the moderators and it is the least important issue in this whole thing.

Don't let the love-in obscure the fact that you've now set a terrible precedent from a managerial point of view. There are probably a dozen people around you who now know you can be held hostage in a public ruckus and will eventually grant concessions for the sake of peace.

Of course, peace is better than an all-out shooting war. Whoever negotiated the deal did a good thing given the low level things had fallen to. But the larger effect of how it was conducted will be bad, and that is just plain poor management.

To a thousand small complaints you answer "the board is mine, I'll manage it however I want." And that is just fine. So you appoint moderators and you tell them how to act. Good. But then it comes out that when somebody is important they will be placated by "observing" the moderators. (That sure must make the moderators feel you are behind them.)

Then, the argument breaks out into the open. At first, you are unmoving -- then, you are announcing a "compromise" in the most public and cheery way, as if it all was just an amusing disagreement over where to eat dinner.

One minute you're a benovelent despot (which is fine); the next, you're tossing concessions to those with power, or you are conceding to keep the donations up (it isn't clear exactly why you conceded; there is no indication you actually were persuaded by argument that some of the moderation is bad.)

Those who hate the moderators may feel they "won" this; they didn't. Those who like them may think they "won"; they didn't. The watchers who just want everyone to get along so we all can "freep" together may think it ended well; it didn't. The Bush-lovers may think "good, we still have moderators to kick out the loons"; no, you have castrated moderators. The libertarians may think "good, the worst moderators are going to be out"; no, soon you will have the moderators liked by whoever collars JR next week.

JR, you give the impression you are susceptible to manipulation. It is the INCONSISTENCY that is the mark of bad parenting, and bad management.