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

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The mod was secretly taking the side of a member that had been banned and was talking behind my back, passing along info to the banned member. I found out but never said anything and never trusted the Mod again. Mods are people too and will sometimes sympathize with members even when they are banned members. It happens.

The best thing to do is like someone earlier suggested, never say anything in private that you would not say in public. It's hard and I don't follow it like I should but that is the best policy to avoid embarrassing situations like the OP experienced.
 
AdrianH said:
A private forum is just that and the content should not be divulged. Clearly this moderator cannot be trusted with your control panel or the integrity of your site, I would have removed him/her permanently as soon as this came to light.
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Also agreed.
Sador said:
This, I'd never do. How do you think they feel, if they've worked hard for ages to help, and then get kicked because someone else -might- have leaked information intentionally?
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Then, the perpetrator will be embarrassed. That person will go into obscurity with the community. If you have enough weight with the members, the moderator in question loses his "stature." In other words, once the other mods start pointing fingers at the mod in question - he loses respect from them, and then loses the community's respect in the process. That's how it works.
Fred Sherman said:
Consider this. I knew of a forum that once had a similar problem. All mods were let go. Some stayed on as users, but were cranky and negative. Others started their own forums (they know the software now) and syphoned off users. The place was never the same
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They can do what they please. Like I said before: If you have enough weight, and power with your members, you can keep them despite the problems.

I also know of a forum that had similar situation - and some mods were let go. This is a large Call of Duty forum [started as a Black Ops site, evolved into a MW3 site], and while an exodus of members left, and they created their own MW3 forum. Despite all of this, the site bounced back up, and it's as lively as it was before.

I never divulged information like this, but I have been on the receiving end of that "let go" of moderator position twice. In one of those communities, it took me 8 years to rebuild, regain, and retain my reputation, and regain some trust from some people. And that is in a community comprised of 10 thousand to 30 thousand members, and is now a 2 million posts site.

So, I would know this kind of situation.

And if they create their own forum...So what? They can't duplicate what you've done.
Tread carefully. Communities are fragile things.
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They are, but you can move with confidence and everything will be all right. :)
 
Carlos said:
Then, the perpetrator will be embarrassed. That person will go into obscurity with the community. If you have enough weight with the members, the moderator in question loses his "stature." In other words, once the other mods start pointing fingers at the mod in question - he loses respect from them, and then loses the community's respect in the process. That's how it works.
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Yes, or they will all turn against you for your actions and both ex-moderators and members will never look at you the same way. Nothing loses you the favour of people quicker than punishing the innocent.
 
Sador said:
Yes, or they will all turn against you for your actions and both ex-moderators and members will never look at you the same way. Nothing loses you the favour of people quicker than punishing the innocent.
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Not to mention, an overkill attitude can convince the other moderators their hard work can be thrown out the window at any time. Why would they bother with a volunteer position if they can't trust the ones they should look up to?
 
Pop songs are often small samplimlings of great philosophies.

Hang on loosely but don't let go...

Adminning a successful forum is not easy. Many times it is like trying to keep hold of a greased pig. YMMV

Good luck!
 
Sador said:
Yes, or they will all turn against you for your actions and both ex-moderators and members will never look at you the same way. Nothing loses you the favour of people quicker than punishing the innocent.
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"Innocent." Really?

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Soooo......leaking information is considered... "innocent?" Eh?
Floris said:
Not to mention, an overkill attitude can convince the other moderators their hard work can be thrown out the window at any time. Why would they bother with a volunteer position if they can't trust the ones they should look up to?
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Actually, not really. If that moderator is worried about losing his [volunteer] position because another person did something to really hurt the site in question, then there's the door. There is no overkill. If he plans to do something really stupid such as revealing your sensitive information, he should be demoted. Pronto.

That, in the OP in there.... Not acceptable to me. Not acceptable.

As I said about the recent facebook rumor about facebook charging money for profile update:

"People who spread rumors are twice as stupid as those who repost them."

Because while FB is getting a lot of media attention via this rumor, it might hurt them more than not. People will move to another social network over a small thing, and this is one of them.

What if, your website - Floris. Yours. Is backed by your own company, using the same brand as your website. And you have a moderator that spread rumors or leaks about your site - which also happens to affect your company's well-being. What do you do?
 
Floris said:
Wow. Carlos. So much to learn.
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Nope. I have been there, done that. I have seen communities throw out a moderator team, and people who "contributed" to the success of that site were afraid it would happen to them - they they were even more afraid to try the same tactic. I have seen it myself. More than once.
 
GeeksChat said:
I've checked everything possible and I don't think he's actually had access to the private forum, just been told the details (by a moderator) of the particular thread concerning him (I believe he would have gone to town if he'd genuinely had access!).
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I suggest not allowing threads like this to exist in the first place.
 
If you have that many moderators, even on a medium size board of 18k members, then this is asking for trouble.
First of all you have admins, super mods & mods, so create different forums for each usergroup. Now you have different trust levels. Make sure that your super moderator group only includes the staff members who you fully trust and who have invested the most energy/time.
Add another moderator user group for junior moderators. Put mods who have low activity or are new or have not proven themselves yet in here.
A moderator who is not honest about his / her actions may well cause severe problems down the road.
 
If it was me?

I'd say this list:

- Demote the mod team (wait before you pass judgement)
- Make an announcement about the leak, don't say anything about the absolute details like you did here.
- Wait for reactions.
- If negative, such as who did this, who did that, let all the negativity out in the open. Let it all out. Don't worry about speculation, let it be. If you must try and clear things up, do so.
- Let the moderator come forward. He's going to be feeling guilty.
- Once you're finished, slowly bring the moderators back into the team if you really like some of them, or really trust them.

After this ordeal is done, put your original thread about the leak into a private forum, and let them mods talk it out.

The point is not to blame anyone, but to lure the perpetrator out.

Confront this person, and tell him how you feel. You, not the mod team, not your members. YOU.

Then proceed to manage the forum as normal.

Alternate routes and outcomes:
If you contacted each moderator and ask them up-front, the perpetrator is going to keep silent for as long as he wishes, or as long as the ban on the original member is lifted. The perpetrator is going to lie to you until "the point is made." But you don't want to give him that kind of satisfaction. That's actually saying "hah! I can have power over what the admin decides to do." In other words, this way, you're his puppet. You don't want that.

On the other side of the equation, if you contacted each mod, they're going to think you're blaming THEM, individually, and will cause internal conflicts. [This can and will be brought out in the open.] It recently happened to a community I used to frequent.

So, either way, you have a tough situation in your hands.
 
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.
 
Carlos said:
If it was me?

I'd say this list:

- Demote the mod team (wait before you pass judgement)
- Make an announcement about the leak, don't say anything about the absolute details like you did here.
- Wait for reactions.
- If negative, such as who did this, who did that, let all the negativity out in the open. Let it all out. Don't worry about speculation, let it be. If you must try and clear things up, do so.
- Let the moderator come forward. He's going to be feeling guilty.
- Once you're finished, slowly bring the moderators back into the team if you really like some of them, or really trust them.

After this ordeal is done, put your original thread about the leak into a private forum, and let them mods talk it out.

The point is not to blame anyone, but to lure the perpetrator out.

Confront this person, and tell him how you feel. You, not the mod team, not your members. YOU.

Then proceed to manage the forum as normal.

Alternate routes and outcomes:
If you contacted each moderator and ask them up-front, the perpetrator is going to keep silent for as long as he wishes, or as long as the ban on the original member is lifted. The perpetrator is going to lie to you until "the point is made." But you don't want to give him that kind of satisfaction. That's actually saying "hah! I can have power over what the admin decides to do." In other words, this way, you're his puppet. You don't want that.

On the other side of the equation, if you contacted each mod, they're going to think you're blaming THEM, individually, and will cause internal conflicts. [This can and will be brought out in the open.] It recently happened to a community I used to frequent.

So, either way, you have a tough situation in your hands.
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...This will cause way more problems than you hope to solve.
 
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