Moderators posting, ethics and site Terms of Service

[Jax]

:shocked2:

Wow, all this because JahJah expressed shock and dismay????

Awful lot of stone throwing by people living in glass houses.

 

[D_B]

I have had one of those "what the hell was I thinking" moments, and I discussed it among my friends here, and my instructor .. but I would not have posted it "out there" just because I know what I did wrong, and did not want to face the inevitable "your gonna die" comments.
You can comment, and instruct those that have made mistakes, without making them feel like a fool, even if what they did was foolish ... you DO want others to post their mistakes so we, and they, can learn from them, don't you?

As has been pointed out, once a moderator posts to thread, they are no longer a Moderator and they are not posting as a Moderator in that thread

But I understand the feeling that a Forum's Moderator is held to a different standard, whether or not justified, because his posts could seem to carry more weight

 

[Rick Murchison]

Rick,
Does anything in that thread resemble the way we handle issues in the debrief after a mission when a wingman admitted to making a mistake?

Anything? well, yes.

Would you have stood by while a wingman, or even a young IP took a similar beating over a self admitted mistake?

Nope.

Do you recall the proven "non-atribution" and "priviledge" that the flight safety program based its accident investigations on?...

Unfortunately that doesn't exist out here where there are lawyers and hollywood. Everything's all about laying blame rather than identifying and eliminating or ameliorating hazards. Everybody wants to get into motives rather than actions - hence all the talk about "complacency" rather than "plans." "Complacency" may be an excuse for a bad plan, but it's the bad plan that's the real problem. A complacent diver who makes and dives a good plan is less likely to suffer a mishap than a non-complacent diver who has no plan to follow or who ignores the plan. In the end, "why?" is irrelevant. It is what is done - the action - that counts.

The "gods-gift type" didn't last long in our world did they?

Nope.

PS:12,373 posts since Oct 2010? that's like 3 or 4 posts per day, every day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year, every year. YGBSM.

Yew talkin 'bout me? That's 2001, not 2010
As the longest serving mod on the board, I do tend to make half a dozen or more posts whenever I get on. It adds up fast. Your own posting rate over the past day would yield over 15,000 posts in the same time ...
I think that since joining the board in its early days, the longest I've gone without any posts at all was 30 days. Odd, that, for if I don't know the answer I likely do have an (important!) opinion.
Rick

 

[TSandM]

Nobody got silenced here at all. Posts got MOVED, because they didn't have anything to do with the topic of the original thread, not even as a logical segue. These posts are addressing another issue altogether, which is what the constraints on posting are for people who are moderators.

Reporting the first objectionable post in the other thread would have gotten moderator attention on it much sooner than the unhappy posts did, and would have left the logical sequence in the thread unmarred.

My take on things is that people who post, "I did something stupid but I don't want anybody to talk about what I did . . . " are indulging in a rather unrealistic degree of optimism. Rather than recount his story, the original poster in that thread COULD have posed a theoretical question about what you do when you have run into a little bit of deco. By recounting his story and then trying to direct the thread only to a discussion of varying algorithms, he was fighting a losing battle from the beginning.

With respect to the post that started all the furor, it's one of those that sort of walks the line between blunt criticism and snarkiness, and I think it should have been reported (honestly, I should have done that myself, as I did eventually report the thread) and reviewed by the staff.

We walk a fine and sometimes rather discouraging line in moderation. If we don't moderate, people complain because they think posts are over the line. When we DO moderate them, people complain about censorship. Even in this case, where posts were simply moved to create a discussion related to the secondary topic (moderator behavior) we're getting accused of it!

But it is a good question -- do you guys, as SB members, think the moderation staff should be restricted in its ability to speak its mind on any given topic?

 

[DevonDiver]

---

---

A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

For information.

The initial cause of complaint was a post by a moderator on the thread in question. That post has now been removed in line with site ToS.

I received more complaints about the off-topic and aggresive responses to the post in question, than I did about the post itself. THAT is why our ToS state that members should simply report a bad post and not respond to, or attack, it.

I would have done it much sooner if I did not have to deal with all the other unpleasant and off-topic posts first. As it was, the whole mess took several hours of my saturday afternoon to resolve.

I apologise if the matter took some time to resolve. The delays were a result of members not following site ToS and the correct protocols, not because of moderator reluctance or tardyness.

The thread concerned is now back on-topic and other members are enjoying a pleasant and informative debate.

---

 

[mdb]

I have been on this board awhile. I think it is one of the best SCUBA boards. We have an international group of active divers who share knowledge and OPINIONS on many topics.

The pub, Whine and Cheese, take care of many topics that are not strictly SCUBA related.

Accidents and incidents are, usually, very good learning threads. Even though I have been
diving for 40 years I learn from newer divers and their comments and observations.

It seems that here @ SB we have one of the more civil forums. The moderators seem to do a
good job of not being the "police". They are more like good moderators at a debate.

My call is that the moderation staff should be able to speak up on any given topic.

 

[Dr Wu]

And no, we won't moderate you because you disagree with a mod.

Nope.

The "mods" can scrub a thread when they are backed into a corner.

They take advantage of the ability to both erase a members posts and remove that posters ability to continue in the discussion.

That way a mod can claim victory and whitewash the entire exchange.

They get in the "last word" and deny any chance of rebuttal.

It is tiresome...

 

[lamont]

Did he admit all that in the first post? Yes, he did.

And he failed to draw the right conclusions from it, completely.

If he would have just posted, something about getting complacent and promising to never violate his NDLs until he got more training people would have been less excited about it. Instead he posted a bunch of stuff trying to figure out where he went wrong with how he violated his NDLs like he's still looking for excuses to continue to do so without training.

That's like getting into a car wreck at 110 mph and trying to claim it all would have worked out if you just got your brakes fixed -- and missing the elephant in the room of driving at 110 mph. And when someone who is trained to go 110 mph on a track posts that you're being an idiot and don't know how to handle a car at 110 and shouldn't be doing that on roads, you get all upset about the big-bad meanie ruining your fun?

 

[Diver0001]

It shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone that the moderators on this board are divers too. Some are very passionate divers and we all have our opinions about things.

It should also not come as a big surprise that moderators sometimes say things that they regret, just as any user does, and they sometimes have bad days and/or go over the line and violate the TOS. All of this happens because we share the same condition as every other user.... namely, the human condition.

None of the moderators on this board were selected, as far as I know, because they are perfect. We agreed, in fact, with the estimation of those who passionately objected to the tone of the post that set off this fire-storm, that it went over the line. The post was subsequently removed, as it would be for any other user.

Moderators moderating moderators? Yes, it happens. In fact, I think the most moderated person on the board is still Pete (NetDoc)... Our chief "Umpa Lumpa".

What didn't go well here is that the user didn't simply report the offensive post and started raging about it ... yes "raging" because there is no other word for what happened. Our policy when this happens is to split the complaint out into a thread like this one that can be discussed openly. This is an attempt, and I believe it works, to show that moderators are open to criticism and an attempt to give the person in question the room to get their frustration out and not just have their voice censured, which would set the stage for it happening again.

Unfortunately, whatever happens, these threads are toxic and difficult for everyone, but we believe that these kinds of things need to be kept above water and not quietly swept under the rug.

What *should* have happened here, instead of pushing this into conflict was that the offensive post should simply have been reported. For the sake of posterity, please understand that when moderators cross the line you can (and should) report them, like any other user. Yes, it *will* be taken seriously.

Thanks for reading.

R..

 

[Dr Wu]

We agreed, in fact, with the estimation of those who passionately objected to the tone of the post that set off this fire-storm, that it went over the line. The post was subsequently removed, as it would be for any other user.

Now you gotta re-post the post.