Rules for chat moderators:

[DavidV]

(I am making this public so non-moderators know what to expect.)

I want to outline some rules for chat moderators. (I expect this of forum moderators too.)

1.) Your position of authority comes with responsibilities. When you are acting in your capacity as moderator, you must take those responsibilities seriously.

2.) You may joke, express emotions, curse and even insult (to a degree) when you are not acting as a moderator. In your capacity as moderator, you may not do any of these things.

3.) You must provide reasons for your actions, citing specific examples for all moderation activity.

4.) I would like to be able to prohibit moderators from acting against users they have a personal disagreement with, but that is not practical for chat. Chronic (persistent) cases however, should be taken to the moderator forum or given to another moderator.

To concretize the correct attitude, just imagine that you are a judge in a court room. That's the kind of professionalism you should exert as a moderator.

I hope this post is sufficient explanation.

Edited August 19, 2010 by GreedyCapitalist

[ropoctl]

In Carl's defense, this is what SDC was saying:

"(SDC): [Peikoff is] old, senile, and makes us look like crazy psychopaths when it comes to foreign policy."

"(SDC): In any case, yes, I can't wait for Peikoff to die, because then Oism will be much better off without him saying ridiculous, insane things like "blow up the mosque if it's a propaganda victory'."

This hostility to Oism is not acceptable in chat.

Ceterum censeo moscam Cordobae esse delendam.

[Axiomatic]

(I am making this public so non-moderators know what to expect.)

I want to outline some rules for chat moderators. (I expect this of forum moderators too.)

1.) Your position of authority comes with responsibilities. When you are acting in your capacity as moderator, you must take those responsibilities seriously.

Thats obvious and resonable

2.) You may joke, express emotions, curse and even insult (to a degree) when you are not acting as a moderator. In your capacity as moderator, you may not do any of these things.

Does that mean that the moderator must 'switch modes' between being informal and acting in the professional capacity , or do you mean that he just must act formal all of the time?

3.) You must provide reasons for your actions, citing specific examples for all moderation activity.

This is certainly reasonable

4.) I would like to be able to prohibit moderators from acting against users they have a personal disagreement with, but that is not practical for chat. Chronic (persistent) cases however, should be taken to the moderator forum or given to another moderator.

Thats pretty ambiguous. So a moderator can use his position against people arbitrarily for his own personal disagreements or not? Would it not be more prudent to lay down precisely what general instances a moderator may exercise their powers. For example, if someone persistently attacks O'ism or prominent O'ists or indeed other users with ad homenin attacks that add no value to rational discussion, can that be an instance where a moderator can use his powers or not?

To concretize the correct attitude, just imagine that you are a judge in a court room. That's the kind of professionalism you should exert as a moderator.

I hope this post is sufficient explanation.

Thats also pretty vague, but I get your general point. I hope you mean in this instance that in by 'as moderator' you mean when exercising powers of moderation and that one does not need to be uptight and 'professional' in every instance of discussion in chat. That would make the position of moderator of chat very undesirable indeed.

Edited August 19, 2010 by Axiomatic

[Shelby]

4.) I would like to be able to prohibit moderators from acting against users they have a personal disagreement with, but that is not practical for chat. Chronic (persistent) cases however, should be taken to the moderator forum or given to another moderator.

There should never be moderators acting against users they have a personal disagreement with, simply for the fact it is personal. If that happens but it is still a potentially valid reason for taking action against the user I don't see why they could not be temporarily kicked so as to defuse the problem and during that time the moderator can make a case for further action in this moderator forum. To say that it can sometimes be gotten away with as if it is an inevitability is to suggest that sometimes users will get seriously effected in an inappropriate manner by a moderator from time to time. If that is allowed to happen then it would be better to have no moderators except for the website owner or to figure out a different way to handle it, like the one I suggested.

[DavidV]

Does that mean that the moderator must 'switch modes' between being informal and acting in the professional capacity?

Yes.

[DavidV]

There should never be moderators acting against users they have a personal disagreement with, simply for the fact it is personal.

It is not possible to abstain from ruling on personal disagreements at this time because there is currently only one active chat moderator. If we had more moderators volunteer, it may become possible to off-load moderation responsibilities.

[Axiomatic]

It is not possible to abstain from ruling on personal disagreements at this time because there is currently only one active chat moderator. If we had more moderators volunteer, it may become possible to off-load moderation responsibilities.

I would like to again nominate Dwayne for the position of another moderator position due to his consistent rationality, skill in dissolving disputes and his time-zone relation to knast.

[CapitalistSwine]

There are definitely one or two people that have stated they were willing to be moderators for the chatroom along with Knast. Why they have not made it explicit in that thread is beyond me. I will make sure they are made aware of the thread. I understand that it is not your fault David as only one in the chatroom has really volunteered, I just would like this done sooner than later as, and you already mentioned one reason, having 1 moderator for a discussion medium, and only 1 moderator, is not a good thing.

[Prometheus98876]

There are definitely one or two people that have stated they were willing to be moderators for the chatroom along with Knast. Why they have not made it explicit in that thread is beyond me. I will make sure they are made aware of the thread. I understand that it is not your fault David as only one in the chatroom has really volunteered, I just would like this done sooner than later as, and you already mentioned one reason, having 1 moderator for a discussion medium, and only 1 moderator, is not a good thing.

Yes, I am opne of those that has been nominated on several occasions (Dwayne). I have already made it quite clear that I would be willing to act in such a capacity if the moderators were to act on said nominations. I have been following all such threads so far published to some extent so far.

In any case : I think that these rules are pretty reasonable. However it should be made quite clear to the users ( in the rules or wherever makes the most sense) that if one considers the moderator(s) continue to act in a manner that is not consistent with the rules, that the users should feel free to make sure that the forum staff are made aware of this. However, this could result in a flood of people complaining things which dont break the rules...so there would have to be something in place to discourage people complaining every time they felt slighted.

Edited August 20, 2010 by Prometheus98876