I actually think that this is an excellent and thoughtful and well argued post.
Heh, not sure why, as misspelt and grammatically shoddy as it is. Reading it back, I also realise that it’s written primarily for forum members who have advanced some forms of the same argument I’ve seen for a while. I may not log in and post here very often anymore, but I read the front page and a couple of other forums a few times per week.
It doesn't make sense to close a thread because its becoming a heated discussion.
Sometimes, I agree. I’ll come onto that.
Because I wrote my previous post from an ex-moderator point of view, trying to put some things over to forum members in a way that moderators aren’t so free to express themselves and also addressing forum members who might not have been here that long or may not know me too well, I’ve also realised that I have some things to say about the moderating of PRSI and in general, so I’ll direct my comments by and large to those moderators who care to read them.
However, just as I know they won’t publicly engage in specifics, especially with a nuisance such as myself, I’ll add that I won’t respond to any replies to this post or post anymore in this thread.
Before I tackle some things and make some suggestions, I want to stress that although there is a sizable group of forum members that communicate with each other off-board and have known each other for years, for various personal reasons, I’m not really in that loop, hardly ever post on Twitter and only engage on social networks with those I’ve met in person, so what I’m going to say is a distillation of my own thoughts and no-one else’s. I’m not taking up anyone else’s battles as my own.
For those who think otherwise, I’ve covered why PRSI has to be moderated. For business reasons and the kind of joint that Arn wants to run, MacRumors has standards. Where there are standards, there are rules. Where there are rules, someone has to enforce them… and thinking it over, I don’t think those who have been calling for a completely unmoderated forum seriously mean this, but have concerns about appearance, process, tone and style. For those forum members, it’s important to bear in mind what Ann said upthread:
In PRSI threads there is so little self-policing going on...
In other words, for various reasons, because PRSI participants rarely report stuff, there is a far more pro-active stance towards PRSI, especially during times of nationally or globally important or contentious issues and stories. So, to put it bluntly, the mods are looking for trouble.
Sometimes, they seem to me — and I’m speaking from my own personal experience here because I’ve done it myself — to be so eager to keep things on a leash, for the best of intentions, that they might be making more work for themselves in unexpected ways. How they occasionally handle it is fair game for discussion, so I’ll try to pitch in with some constructive observations:
Generally...
Although mods have been poring over PRSI, I’ve noticed that the news threads — the most important threads on MR — seem to be occasionally littered with one-word posts, insults and the like. Rhetorically, is the balance of moderator attention where it should be at the moment?
Moderating the Newtown school shooting threads
I have no axe to grind here as I didn’t post in them. However, I would question some decisions:
1. Splitting off a ‘gun-related’ thread from the main thread, thereby making a political judgement on what was relevant to the topic. Those who put forward the argument that people shouldn’t politicise the issue have a vested interest in restricting the terms of the discussion, because in the face of such an atrocity, they want to talk about everything and anything except guns. This artificial distinction is utterly absurd, as it’s integral to the entire story and what’s more, has been treated as such by any media outlet of national or global consequence.
2. Ask yourself whether it was completely necessary to monitor this thread or others like them in PRSI so closely and in real time, leading to thread closure and clean-ups while people were still champing at the bit. Not only does it make modding more obvious and intrusive and the experience of moderating a bit more stressful, nothing seriously is going get broken on the forum if things are dealt with when threads take a natural lull or burn out of their own accord. Clean-ups can sometimes be less obtrusive and more straightforward when there’s a clear chain of responses to mark up and work through when they’re played out, even if people then bitch about things not being dealt with immediately.
Although PRSI regulars may not be so keen to report every small or borderline infringements, you know as well as I do, that if someone egregiously crosses the line with something offensive and out of generally-accepted bounds, it will usually be reported.
People get antsy when you mess with threads too much when they’re deep in the hustle-bustle and then, when they inevitably complain about it later, more time and energy is spent dealing with addressing or discussing their complaints, either in public or in private. And to be honest, sometimes certain people shouldn’t be protected from themselves: if a thread is going off the rails, sometimes it’s better to give regular troublemakers some rope, let the cards fall where they may and dish out the mod actions as you see fit later at a more considered pace.
From the school of hard knocks
• Your title and status affect how people see you and respond to your posts. As difficult as it can be, try to cultivate an air of objectivity, or at least detachment, and if you take a stance, it’s better to expand and reinforce on others you agree with than getting into running skirmishes, because as sure as night follows day, you will stoke resentment which can have unintended consequences.
• Your reputation is the most important thing here. Choose your public battles carefully.
• Ignore those who will never ever change their minds.
• For some reason, people seem to accept duplicate or similar thread merges with redirects more readily than thread closures.
• Bear in mind that conservatives — including moderators — in PRSI will always be outnumbered, due to forum members who participate not only being from strongly blue states, but also being drawn by and large from Anglo-Saxon countries like Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand as well as European countries, where the political centre is well to the left of the USA. This also includes American expats who have been changed by their travels. What’s more, sometimes they’re fully up to speed with what’s happening in the US as American news is often on the front pages across the world. It’s not a liberal conspiracy, it’s just the demographics.
• Take your time. Try not to use Forum Spy for PRSI, as like Twitter, it can lead to rash and ill-advised posts, drawing you into a morass of claim and counter-claim. Better to draft something of substance, preview it and add it to the thread when it matters.
• If you have to close a thread for a temporary period, be inclusive and try to give some casual indication of when you think it might reopen, even if it’s as vague as ‘in a few hours’ or ‘tomorrow at some point’.
OK, enough. See you in the soup, if the Mayans don’t get us first.
Edit: Also, I don’t think it’s helpful for site editors to venture into site and forum feedback threads about moderation. Rightly or wrongly, people will think that you’re not minding your own business.