FYI: Resignation as Admin for OO

[RadCap]

Hello all,

Since I still get email and pms concerning administrative issues related to the board, I wanted to let everyone know that I have resigned as an admin/moderator of the forum. The reason for this is simple - I found myself unable to formulate a consistent principle or set of principles to guide my administrative actions on this board. Since the purpose of additional admins is to relieve the owner of the site from the overwhelming time and effort required to police this forum, my inability to grasp and apply a fundamental set of guidelines left me in the position of continually consulting with or being consulted by GreedyCapitalist concerning the behavior of forum members - specifically what actions should or should not be taken by me towards questionable behavior on the part of such members.

Obviously such persistent questioning does not reduce, but in fact adds to the owner's burden. Because I was stuck at a concrete-bound level, I simply could not perform my administrative duties without having to continually question, or be questioned, by CG. The duties of an admin and/or a moderator require one to be able to forumlate abstract principles - and I was simply unable to do so. As such, the time and effort of both myself and GC were being wasted. Therefore I decided it was best to resign any and all admin or moderating duties.

I will likely continue to make postings on this site. And I hope that GC is able to make this site serve the purposes he expresses. I wish him and everyone else good luck.

With Regards,

RadCap

[AshRyan]

I am sorry to see you go, RadCap. I hope that you will continue posting regularly, as your contributions are always valuable.

I have had similar concerns about my capacity as a moderator, but have been able to resolve them for the most part, I think. What it comes down to is you just have to act as you think proper in that capacity. If a member whom you've disciplined feels he's been treated unfairly, he can of course always appeal to the head of the site (GreedyCapitalist) if he wishes, but hopefully overall your actions will serve to reduce his workload. As I said, I just act on my own judgment, and only consult with David in questionable cases. I assume he will let me know if I am overstepping my authority at any point or otherwise not doing my job properly.

I do have one suggestion that might enable moderators to do their jobs better. I haven't been able to fulfill my function as a moderator for the past few weeks because I've been busy with school and the board has been growing so rapidly that I simply can't keep up and review every single post. I'm trying to catch up now, but for future purposes (particularly if other moderators are having the same problem), perhaps we can divide up the board for moderation responsibilities. For example, I could be in charge of moderating the "Metaphysics and Epistemology" and "Aesthetics" forums, Steve could be in charge of the "Basic Questions" and "Ethics" forums, Matt could be in charge of the "Science" and "Miscellaneous" forums, David could be in charge of the "Political Philosophy" and "Current Events" forums, etc. (These are just examples, I'm obviously not trying to volunteer moderators for forums that they might not pick themselves.) That way, even if I got busy and couldn't keep up with all of the posts on the board, I could at least keep up with those in my assigned forums. I've seen this done on other boards and I think it would work quite well. Of course, there would still have to be one or two administrators over everything to integrate the administrative/moderation efforts on the board, but for the most part they would not have to be involved directly in everyday moderation affairs in forums assigned to others, just step in when there are complaints or they have some other reason to suspect that there is a problem.

What do you think, David?