A crescendo of recent criticisms of this board (and, by extension, the way I run it) have convinced me that the Great Moderatorial Experiment needs to be implemented A.S.A.P. So, this is to serve notice that it's about to get underway.
I need to tinker a bit with my administrators' controls, since they're not exactly intuitive, but I'll be implementing the required changes (adding moderatorial privileges, updating the rules of the board, etc.) one by one over the course of today. By tomorrow everything should be fully in place.
Therefore, the Great Moderatorial Experiment will run partially from today, but fully from tomorrow, until New Year's Day. Once that day hits, I'll be starting a new thread, probably titled "The Great Moderatorial Experiment, PART THREE: The aftermath" or something similar. In it, we'll all have a big pow-wow and discuss what worked, what didn't work, what change(s) should be made permanent, and which one(s) of my old policies should be reverted to.
With that in mind, please refer to this thread and follow along:
ITEM #1 will remain the same, WITH THE FOLLOWING ADDENDUM (consider it "item #1.5"):
Although we already delete in real life information, we moderators will now delete any on-board reference to anything that transpired in either the chat room or via PM. From here on out, that which takes place in the chat room stays in the chat room. Similarly, that which takes place on PM stays on PM. Any hint of a reference to something that transpired in either venue will be immediately and unceremoniously deleted without comment.*
ITEM #2 and ITEM #3 are now moot. Here are our new moderators:
- harmony will now moderate all forums.
- Scottie will continue to moderate all forums, but he'll now start moderating them the way he's been wanting to moderate them.
- marg will moderate the Celestial Forum (only).
- cksalmon will moderate the Terrestrial Forum (only).
ITEM #4 is essentially the same, with the addendum that liz3564 and I will begin observing our brand-new "item 1.5," above.
ITEM #5, ITEM #6, and ITEM #7 are unchanged. Moderators, please be sure to observe #6. You may decide among yourselves who will contact whom; I don't care just so long as they're all contacted. Everyone else, I respectfully request that you observe #7.
ITEM #8 and ITEM #9 are hereby modified. The new moderators will indeed keep their powers after the formal end of the experiment and throughout the upcoming pow-wow, since there's the distinct possibility that everyone will want the new moderators to remain onboard. Why strip them of their moderatorhood only to reinstate it? I may as well just save myself the step. Things will go back to the way they were--and people will cease being moderators--only after the community decides as much.
ITEM #10 is now moot.
Here are two brand-new additions to bring to your attention:
ITEM #11: People have made it clear that merely moving posts to a different forum isn't enough to convince people to observe baseline expectations of conduct. Therefore, although I'm not comfortable with outright banning, I'm now going to entertain the possibility of one-week suspensions.* This is to aid the new moderators just-in-case. Don't panic; the only thing that would earn a suspension would be a brazen attempt to circumvent a moderatorial decision. This would include such things as A) copying-and-pasting back into the Terrestrial Forum a post that had been moved to the Telestial Forum, B) Persistently refusing to observe item 1.5, above; C) deliberately attempting to circumvent the word-censor, e.g. coming up with a creative spelling in order to slip a filthy four-letter word into the Terrestrial Forum; and D) anything else similar to A, B, or C, above.
ITEM #12: The people have spoken, so I'll bring back smilies, much as it pains me to do so. There will be limits, however: If there is more than one smilie per paragraph, or if there are two or more smilies in a row, it'll be considered "smilie-spam" and immediately moved to the Outer Darkness forum. Moderators, please observe.
Whew! That being said, you might feel a bit hamstrung. If you're having doubts about what's expected of you, then allow me to hold up a shining example:
Sethbag.
Yes, Sethbag. Carefully observe how he interacts: He consistently gets his points across, he says exactly what he wants to say, yet he skillfully manages to avoid offending anyone (at least, I've never gotten any complaints about him). I'm unaware of him being involved in any sort of feud with anyone or being the cause of anyone's departure--or displeasure, for that matter. You want to survive this experiment? Then be like Sethbag.
With that, let the Great Moderatorial Experiment begin.
*You might say to yourself, "But Dr. Shades, isn't that a violation of your founding principles?" I answer, "Yes, indeed it is." Obviously Plan A didn't work, so we must now move to Plan B--at least for a month.
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