Limiting moderators banning rights

[Jon12345]

Can I restrict how long a moderator can ban a user for?

 

[djbaxter]

Based on this thread and another thread you started recently, it seems to me that you are allowing moderators to set forum policy and/or you simply don't trust some of your moderators.

You are the forum owner.

• Set up some rules for what you want to allow regarding moderation and direct your moderators to adhere to those rules.
• Moderators who disagree with your vision or preferences about moderation should be instructed to adhere to your rules anyway or step down.
• Moderators who ignore your rules should be removed as moderators.
• Moderators you don't trust should be removed as moderators.

 

[Jon12345]

Maybe some of you guys here might think I was unreasonable in my debate with the mods and VIPs, who knows.

 

[djbaxter]

No. At least I don't. You are the owner / CEO of your forum, or the father/mother of your family. You have the last word and you need to make that clear, i.e., be open to suggestions but as the owner retain the right to reject suggestions if they conflict with your model of how you want your forum to be run. The guy who pays the bills is the guy who gets to make the decisions.

Also, if you set up your warnings system correctly, and you don't want to have any permanent bans, you can simply not allow any moderators to override the allowed warnings or issue permanent bans.

AdminCP >> Options >> Users >> User discipline warnings

• Make sure that all of the allowed Warnings are set up with a Points expiry set to After Time (e.g., 1 month, 1 week, or whatever you want)
• Then uncheck "Points and expiry time are editable when giving warning"

If you have any Warning Actions set up, make sure that all of them look like this:

• Points threshold = 10 (or whatever you decide)
• Action to take: Ban
• For time period: While at or above points threshold

 

[Jon12345]

Thank you for that. I will take a look and it might prove helpful.

A member in the debate said this:

So, while I still stress that collective agreement is not necessary, it is very unwise for a forum owner to go against the sentiment of the community he hosts. After all, the owner is more of a guardian of the community and not its ruler. Any forum owner behaving erratically and unreasonable towards the community will cause the community to move elsewhere in the long run.

What are your thoughts?

 

[djbaxter]

I would reject that argument. And my guess is the only person likely to leave would be that disgruntled moderator.

Stating your vision for your forum and putting certain rules in place (for both moderators and regular members) is not erratic or unreasonable behavior. It's why I think every forum should have a publicly stated list of rules regarding expected behavior for members and an additional set for moderators. That is basically saying, "Here is what is expected of you. By using this forum, you agree to abide by these rules."

You are rarely going to get 100% agreement on any issue within a forum. That's why someone has to be the boss and stick one of those "the buck stops here" signs on the virtual desk.

But see my comments above: if you set up the moderator permissions and warning system correctly, you don't need to continue even having this debate. Moderators simply won't have the ability to permaban anyone.

 

[Jon12345]

the owner is more of a guardian of the community

It is almost as though this person thinks that I am the cleaner! Not true. I own the website, I own the intellectual property, I own the 11,000 incoming links. I own the rights. I think some people do not appreciate the 20 something years I have run the forum, the up to 80+ hours per week I have been investing in it recently and the money spent. "Hey its all free, you don't deserve any say in it. It's all about the people!"

 

[Jon12345]

To be honest, I probably feel like the groundsman, clearing up rubbish, mending pipes and fixing the guttering.

 

[djbaxter]

Remind yourself at least once a day that you are the owner, the boss, the one in charge, and stop trying to please everyone, especially the unreasonable ones.

Rick Nelson in Garden Party:

You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself

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[Jon12345]

I wanted to take a collaborative approach towards establishing guidelines for banning. It turned into madness! What I thought was entirely reasonable did not have majority agreement. For example, one of the tenants I wanted is that if someone wanted to ban a member for 3 weeks, they needed to consult other mods. One of the moderators arguing against the need for more of a consensus was someone who got banned by the site owner on another forum. They said the site owner was wrong to perma ban him. So my argument is you don't get perma banned here, that consultation between mods gets around personal dislikes, and you get another chance. I asked that mod if they had a monopoly on the truth, since they said the site owner was wrong to ban them. They did not reply to my question. Why? Because it really underpins what I am saying all along, and that is right and wrong on these matters is subjective.

 

[djbaxter]

Yes. Just like being a parent in a family, being receptive to the ideas of your members is a good thing but, as I always said to my children when they were growing up, especially in their teens, in the absence of consensus someone has to make the final decision and that person should be the forum owner. And sometimes even if there is consensus, if that violates your vision of what you want your forum to be, as the owner you have veto or override power.

By the way, my suggestions above about not letting moderators permaban does not mean you can't if you want, for example with a repeat offender the admin can always ban someone.

 

[Jon12345]

And sometimes even if their is consensus, if that violates your vision of what you want your forum to be, as the owner you have veto or override power.

This.

I wouldn't expect the site owner of a Veganism board to consent to a section on burgers!

 

[Kirby]

as the owner you have veto or override power.

Hmm, I'd say even though the owner has the power, it won't necessarily be possible to enforce his ideas.

You can only enforce rules the community as a whole is going to accept.

If you set up a rule that every member has to post a long (3000 words) unique praise-the-owner prayer every day, you most likely wouldn't be able to enforce this rule without losing the majority of users.

 

[djbaxter]

Hmm, I'd say even though the owner has the power, it won't necessarily be possible to enforce his ideas.

You can only enforce rules the community as a whole is going to accept.

If you set up a rule that every member has to post a long (3000 words) unique praise-the-owner prayer every day, you most likely wouldn't be able to enforce this rule without loosing the majority of users.

You mean "losing".

Also, the example in your comment is absurd. Any owner that sets ridiculous rules like that obviously wouldn't be able to maintain any sort of forum. But that's clearly not what we're discussing in this thread.

 

[Jon12345]

If I adopt some of the warning rules you mentioned earlier, how do they deal with clear spam emails? It would be nice if they could ban anybody (i.e. the spammers) where their post count is below X.

 

[djbaxter]

Can they use the spam button?

You can also require email validation for all new regiostrations. Fake emails can't respond to that so they will remain in a waiting state.

 

[Jon12345]

I think so. I presume so. Normally, AFAIK, when you hit the spam button, it gives you a checklist of things, like ban user, remove posts, ban IP etc. So I was thinking if they used that button, the ban user part would not get enacted.

 

[djbaxter]

The spam button is a different system than the warnings system though. I think if the moderators use that, all the usual options would apply.

 

[Jon12345]

Perhaps I should just see what happens. Silently remove all the ban privileges from the mods.

 

[Jon12345]

I'm finding it helpful speaking to other board members. I think we have a different perspective to mods, vips and regular users.