Heya, I hope you don't mind if I break this down into sections, it makes it easier for me to focus on the points at hand.
Parksey wrote:Well, that's sort of what I was getting at - if someone PMs a Mod, then they could pick the one "assigned" to that section. However, as I said, people should also be aware that it is going to be quicker to notify whichever Mod is online at that moment. People shouldn't be reluctant to do that just because they haven't listed OT as "their" section.
To be honest, most of the Mods visit OT quite often, I'd wager. Like I said, we only really have two big sections and, while Mods maybe prefer one folder to another, I struggle to imagine a situation whereby one Mod is unsuited to a particular section - no one is really going to be out of the loop in Off Topic, for example.
Well I think consistency is paramount, and in a lot of cases more important than a quick response. There are more not so clear cut issues on a day to day basis around here than there are he-posted-goatse-get-him ones, and when you're in a period of transition like we are now, I do think that Mods should avoid making those calls in the sections they're perhaps
less comfortable in.
Of course it's important for when a really quick response is needed that everyone knows that all Mods
can moderate any board, but the group name
is "Global Moderators" and their name would be green throughout the different boards anyway; what I'm saying is that there are visual cues as well as presumably the announcement explaining it, whereas if you choose to not have the names listed explicitly underneath the forum names, there are no obvious cues for which Moderators 'go' where.
It's very important, in my opinion, for users to
know, even if they don't read the announcement, which Mods are the 'biggies' for the board they're posting in. Not only does it help harbour consistency, but it also helps with the tone-setting abilities of those moderators, because you know which to look out for.
You will probably say that users should respect all Moderators equally, but there will be of course subtle differences across the board -- OT is more relaxed than GGC and it will be even when we're matching EDGE in terms of self-seriousness
-- and for especially newer users, knowing who to follow cues from over who else is a useful tool.
I'd just like to err on the side of Moderators being and appearing to be locked into their boards, even though that wouldn't
really be the case whichever way you slice it. Garth's plan should probably go ahead either way, though, the announcement would make lots of things explicit and hopefully most people would read them.
Sorry if that's a load of points and not much explanation, but it's a lot of little things that make, IMO, having the names on the index a better choice than not having them on the index (which is essentially what this boils down to).
Parksey wrote:Likewise, in the example you give, any borderline OT topics are unlikely to be handled by one Moderator alone anyway - the topic will probably get discussed by the whole team in the Staff Room anyway, to get a few more opinions on the matter. Would this be alright with you? That's not meant to be a condescending remark; I'm genuinely interested as to what people think about this (especially you, Karl, who are probably my polar opposite on this matter).
I think that discussion on a hard call is always a good thing, especially if it helps the outcome of that call be as fair and as consistent with the rules, the community goals, and past decisions (see caveat) as possible. However you mentioned that you don't think a 'home' Mod should have more clout in the Mod room than an 'away' Mod -- why is this? I think it's natural and healthy that the Mods that spend more of their time on a board and know the board best get a bigger say. Of course you should be working together to bring the whole forum towards whatever you want to achieve with it -- still not
confirmed that we're shooting for Gaf-lite, y'know
-- but if 9 Mods respond to a call discussion, 5 say Lock and 4 say Don't Lock, and 3 of those 4 are that forum's home Mods ... well, in your unified voice scenario, Lock would win, yet the three who in theory know that forum best and are setting the tone of that board with their everyday decisions have essentially been vetoed.
Caveat: in this time of transition I wouldn't worry about being consistent with decisions you made a month or even 2 weeks ago; but remaining day-to-day consistent insofar as possible is fairly key.
There is also a point to be made about tone. One thing I really do think happens on every online community is the ability of the management to set the tone of pretty much everything. The tone-setting powers of a focused group of 3 Mods who are very similar and consistent would be greater than the tone-setting powers of a slice of 9 Mods who are more thinly spread and more varied in their thought processes. That's
real important, again, in a period of transition especially.
Parksey wrote:And, of course, it would naive to think that "misunderstandings" still won't occur if we have forum-specific Mods. If anything, aren't you going to even more reliant on the skills of one particular Moderator?
You make a decent point about misunderstandings still occuring, but I honestly do think that they would be minimised and a more consistent output of decisions would be achieved if the moderating of any particular board was down to 3 people and not 9. There's less room for a situation in which you get a range of possible responses to a borderline problem, especially if those 3 people are
all 'board-native' and thus on the same wavelength.
Oh, and yes, a weak or otherwise poor Moderator could impact a board more with a more focused regime, but should weak or poor Moderators retain their position anyway? If they're not contributing as much as they perhaps should be then, well... *shrug*