Ever had an unidentifiable moderator leak information? And how did you deal with it?

[Carlos]

So, demote the WHOLE team, telling them basically you don't respect them, nor that you trust ANY of them.

Actually, by the end of the list, I said put them back on - I implied it is.... temporary.

In my opinion, based on my observation of your posts, the way you moderate and make decisions for your sites is coming across as truly retarded.

Who you callin' retarded? Me? I'm trying to help and you call my "tactics" retarded? Okay. Fine, it is your opinion.

I wish you, your community, and especially those who work hard on your behalf, ... the best of luck.

My community will be just fine.

GeekChat, I think this thread isn't going to have any serious responses. I will privmsg you. I hope you find out who's not respecting their position within the team.

My post isn't serious? It IS serious.

...This will cause way more problems than you hope to solve.

Oh. Like you have a better idea.

Everything about me is negative. Everything.

*Points at Forsaken* To you. *Points at Floris* And to you, and to everyone else.

Cool. Must be fun to be me.

 

[Forsaken]

Actually, by the end of the list, I said put them back on - I implied it is.... temporary.

Who you callin' retarded? Me? I'm trying to help and you call my "tactics" retarded? Okay. Fine, your opinion.

My community will be just fine.

My post isn't serious? It IS serious.

Oh. Like you have a better idea.

Everything about me is negative. Everything.

*Points at Forsaken* To you. *Points at Floris* And to you, and to everyone else.

Cool. Must be fun to be me.

No, I actually have you ignored, but your advice would cause more issues than its worth.

Demoting the moderator team will show there is a major issue, and possibly affect the members trust in the moderators. This will also cause hard feelings with the moderators as you're doubting them (when it is only one person).

Announcing it will either degrade trust again, and/or piss off your moderators. Yes, one of them leaked, but putting all of them on the spot does nothing but harm the trust of your community.

Those are the biggest issues with your suggestion.

 

[Floris]

You can try to explain it to him Forsaken, you can't make him understand.

 

[jadmperry]

I would use truth serum, lasers, and sharks to get to the bottom of this and deal with the traitorous parties.

(apologies for humorous detour- For serious answer, would need more details and would tend to take a lighter hand- maybe post a reminder to mods not to share private info- then deploy the lasers).

 

[Carlos]

Demoting the moderator team will show there is a major issue, and possibly affect the members trust in the moderators. This will also cause hard feelings with the moderators as you're doubting them (when it is only one person).

Then how do you lure out someone who's being really secretive? From the way that the moderator is acting - he's hiding. HE knows that this "leak" will hurt the community as a whole. HE knows. That kind of thing... should not be tolerated. He broke HIS [GChat's] trust. So, why the hell would he trust the other mods on the face of this? He disrupted the flow of trust. Therefore, a chopping block needs to occur before anything gets better. If you don't, they will continue to do it in a pattern. The point here is to break that pattern.

So, explain to me, how you'd go about confronting the moderator who's actually hiding?

Announcing it will either degrade trust again, and/or piss off your moderators. Yes, one of them leaked, but putting all of them on the spot does nothing but harm the trust of your community.

Not if you keep it vague.

But you know what, since two people are protesting, and saying that what I'm doing is "wrong." I'll just give up.

What's more embarrassing is that someone had the audacity to say "You can try to explain it to him Forsaken, you can't make him understand." So, carry on with the thread...

 

[Forsaken]

not going to bother arguing with you, which is why you're on my ignore list.

 

[Floris]

Maybe, and that's just me thinking out loud.. haha, imagine this. Have an open mind.

Just maybe, when you respect and trust a moderator. You .. respect and trust them. You show this, by not throwing them in the pool of those who you don't trust.

If you have to demote the whole group, even temporary, it shows you don't actually trust and respect them. You respect and trust them to the level where one individual on a team raffles your feathers so much you instantly stop trusting everybody - even if it is temporary - and show disrespect by kicking them out until you're happy again and convinced you made a mistake by doing so; And then re-add them.

haha, so silly of me to even think like that.

I apologize for my bad wording.

 

[Carlos]

I can see the sarcasm. Thanks.

If you have to demote the whole group, even temporary, it shows you don't actually trust and respect them. You respect and trust them to the level where one individual on a team raffles your feathers so much you instantly stop trusting everybody - even if it is temporary - and show disrespect by kicking them out until you're happy again and convinced you made a mistake by doing so; And then re-add them.

Life has ups and down. A community has ups and down. No community is perfect.

No community is perfect.

Before your community can get stronger, it has to go through it's own trials and tribulations. If it doesn't, how can it get stronger? This moderator already broke the flow of trust, in order to regain that flow of trust, there has to be a rocky situation - here is an opportunity. GeCh has an opportunity to rebuild the trust with the moderators, and the only way to do it is to bring it out in the open, because in this situation, in this particular situation - someone is hushy, silent, and is hiding. If you confronted each mod and ask them what they know about the leak, they're going to be on the spot anyway. At least that's what is going to be felt whey they read that PM. It will take a long while to get to the bottom of it, it will cause a stalemate situation - nobody will win. Sometimes, people can be stubborn to the point of just saying "demote me if you want!" To me, talking to each mod will be more trouble, because sometimes mods do bring things out in the open. I have seen it myself. I have seen conflicts between mods before. And most of the time, it kills the community. That's not what GeCh wants, and that's why he created this thread.

If that particular community comes out strong after a few mods arguing about this and that, that community must count themselves lucky.

not going to bother arguing with you, which is why you're on my ignore list.

Hey, that's your fault. I didn't try to fight with you, but instead, you want to be the enemy against me. Hey, that's fine with me.

Continue to ignore me. I don't care.

 

[Mikey]

Just out of interest, how public or private are your moderators and mod discussions and actions?

Do you publish moderation actions?

I recently upgraded one of my mods to an administrative position, and since then he wants to divulge all actions made by staff, any issues with the site are posted publicly by him, when I personally would rather him to come to me privately. Don't air your dirty laundry in public, am I right?

Anyway, the point I'm trying to get across is that if you have members of your staff who are what I like to call "serial staff" (staff on one or more forums), then they'll have adapted thier own moderation style which could conflict with yours. You need to lay down boundaries more strictly for them.

As for my wayward admin, well I still have to get around to taking my own advice

 

[EQnoble]

snipped

It is as simple as this...perception is everything. You are as weak as you are perceived...that phrase can apply to your forum. Disputes in the ranks should NEVER be public in that community for SO many strategic reasons it would take an essay to explain it and it's relation to common tactics.

Would you feel confident in your country that represents you, having it's president on national tv straight arguing and calling out the vice president in front of the whole world questioning his loyalty and accusing him of misusing private confidential data or info? If the vice-president can get trashed in public...what can happen to me?

Your forum is like a little country in which you are the leader...you must speak softly and carry a big stick, yet you NEED to have the ability to forget about what you the president feels like and think more of what you the citizen would feel like if the president addressed you how you are about to be addressing someone.

 

[Brett Peters]

Carlos I dont suppose you can tone it down a notch or maybe start a "Carlos shenanigans thread" so I know what to expect when I enter a thread, Decent threads seem to get hurt when Carlos is focused/passionate and tries to over power every opposing comment, It is a conversation so let it flooooooow.

To get back on topic I could only suggest that any participant in a private forum should be aware that content may be published at anytime, And maybe use XF as an example of what the standards should be.. You dont see Kier justifying Brogans action unless it is critically needed to make a statement... Keep beef behind closed doors in the fridge where it is recommended.

 

[Sador]

I'm glad I'm not a moderator of Carlos' team, then.

 

[Digital Jedi]

We actually already have expressions for what Carlos is suggesting: "Scorched Earth" and "Cure the disease and kill the patient." There's a reason why they have a negative connotation. They're last resorts for when all else has failed. Which means 99% of the time, they're unnecessary.

Look, odds are your not going to find out who it is this time, particularly if he's dead set on remaining anonymous. And rooting him out means a lot of leg work and, likely, drama, which nobody needs. Especially after a bad weekend. Let it go for now, but take measures to prevent it from happening again. How?

I know our board used to handle things this way. We, too, had a trusted group of moderators who pretty much ran the site outside of the day to day managing from an admin. But the mods had a sub group. We called it the Triumvirate, but essentially, it was three moderators chosen by the larger body of moderators to sort of have the final say in matters. They would convene with the Council of Heroes (the moderator body as a whole) and then retreat to a private area, where they would make final judgment on moderation issues. Usually, this only had to be done for big stuff, like banning, warnings and thread deletions. The three mods were nominated every six months, and we'd all then vote on the three for that six month period, and then vote on who would head up the Tri. Honestly, it was lots of fun. It built trust and camaraderie among the mods. And if you have a good, trustworthy team in general, you learn a lot about how the mods feel about each other. The admin (I didn't own the site at the time) only poked his head in when he felt we were getting off track, or forgetting how the process was supposed to work, which I can only think happened one time in three years.( And that was minor. We had just forgotten about the COPPA policy.)

I've always felt this was the best system I've ever seen put into place for a medium to large size boards. We gave it silly names, and had fun with it, but it gave our moderators a very strong sense of system among the moderators. A strong sense of "this needs to be handled as a team, regardless of my feelings on the matter." And, quite frankly, when we had disagreements, we at least had a system that showed we weren't steam rolling to a preconceived notion, or foregone conclusion. (Yes, I know those are the same things, but it sounded cool saying them separately.)

 

[Paul B]

Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

 

[CTXMedia]

Some good suggestions, thank you.

I've made a few changes to limit mods ability to change user accounts etc. (I probably had the mod privs set a bit too high anyway) and have posted a thread in the mods forum offering the person the opportunity to discuss things in private with me, if they want to.

Unless they come forward I doubt I'll ever know who it was, but there is really no merit whatsoever in getting rid of a great modding team on the back of a single incident. They are a very good, hard working team, who have a passion for what we're doing and it would be stupid of me to destroy the trust of the entire team, for the sake of one person. It's better to have someone on board who cannot be wholey trusted, than not trust the whole team.

I'm going to move forward with all of my moderators intact, and whilst that means taking someone along who has shared information, I would hope that a discussion on how to improve moderation would give them the opportunity to say what they feel and help us avoid a similar situation in the future.

A learning experience for me, but hopefully one that will lead to some positive changes and to improvements for me, the moderators, and our community.

Thanks,
Shaun

 

[Floris]

Best of luck Shaun.

 

[ChemicalKicks]

So, demote the WHOLE team, telling them basically you don't respect them, nor that you trust ANY of them.

In my opinion, based on my observation of your posts, the way you moderate and make decisions for your sites is coming across as truly retarded.

I wish you, your community, and especially those who work hard on your behalf, ... the best of luck.

GeekChat, I think this thread isn't going to have any serious responses. I will privmsg you. I hope you find out who's not respecting their position within the team.

Kind of funny you like to call people retarded when you openly admit taking money from the government for a disability that prevents you from working, oh and you run business which you publicly advertise here. Carry on.

 

[Floris]

I didn't call him retarded, I said he's acting quite as one.

 

[ChemicalKicks]

You'd be in a position to judge.

 

[Floris]

: rolleyes :