DiscussMormonism.com

Dear Community:

Frankly, I'm surprised that my recent "Should _____ become a moderator?" polls ended up with so many negative votes. That said, RenegadeOfPhunk and EAllusion came out as the clear winners. Therefore, I'm about to extend conditional offers of moderator-ism to them.

If you are one of the people who objected to either (or both) of them becoming moderators, now is your (last) chance to send me a Private Message and explain why you wouldn't trust one or both of them to moderate your posts fairly. Just click on the green "PM" button at the bottom of this post.

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Dear RenegadeOfPhunk and EAllusion:

Should I make you moderators, do you agree to:

• Fully suppress any and all creativity and individualism as you moderate, and moderate as a pure clone of me, doing everything precisely the way I would do it and absolutely no differently than I would do it?
• Suppress any and all emotion as you moderate, making all decisions based on the rules alone, and never allow any trace of "anger" or "hurt feelings" to influence your moderating in any way, shape, or form?
• Agree up front that I can de-moderator-ize you at any time, for any (or no) reason whatsoever?

I think it is impossible to know how you would moderate in every single situation. And I think it is impossible to suppress all emotional influence over decisions. But yeah, I will enforce the moderator policies of the board as you've laid them out to the best of my ability. If I disagree too strongly with some policy, I'll just step down. I'm about as unemotional in my decision-making process as they realistically come, and I'll certainly try not to be personally biased in any moderating decision I make.

Shades

Frankly, I'm surprised that my recent "Should _____ become a moderator?" polls ended up with so many negative votes. That said, RenegadeOfPhunk and EAllusion came out as the clear winners. Therefore, I'm about to extend conditional offers of moderator-ism to them.

I want to say that I fully support Ren and EA as moderators for this board. I likewise, support the mod poll method. I think that anytime a poll is put up, especially where in this case, the topic is an individual poster, we can expect negative votes and also sock puppets coming out of the woodwork.

That said, I share the concerns of others who wonder why you didn't put up polls for everyone who volunteered. Namely, Belmont, madeleine, abestosman, Cam and myself. Of course the viewing public has no way to know if any of those folks contacted you privately and bowed out, we only know what we see take place on the board. Another poster shared that they thought abman declined on the board, I honestly didn't see that.

Cam created his own poll. In your recent comment on that thread, you essentially say that it was non-serious on his part. I cannot tell if it was non-serious or if his willingness to volunteer as a mod was sincere and he simply grew weary of waiting for you to put up a poll for him.

That is why I sent you a link to one of my posts, because most of us who'd been following the process were wondering if you'd seen these volunteers in the existing threads.

I think that if you are going to forward a process, Shades, you should do what it is you stated you would do. You stated that in the case of multiple volunteers, you would set up polls. You set out just a few conditions including godhood status and an unspecified ratio of friends:enemies. You did not publicly exclude former moderators such as myself.

Again, I have no way of judging the sincerity of volunteer offers except for what I see on the screen.

I do think that Belmont really wanted a chance to become a moderator pending the outcome of the polls. I think he likely knows that the outcome might not have gone in his favor or to his goals, but he still deserved a chance.

And so did everyone else who volunteered because when you act on the "voice" of the community who recently expressed a desire to limit personal attack, say that you will support it but need more moderators to enforce board rules, say that you will put up polls for multiple volunteers, we expect to see you do it. If we're going to be transparent vs the MD&D board that many of us criticize then by all means, let us be both transparent and credible.

Members, myself included, made several suggestions toward an effort of making improvements both in the operation of the board and for the benefit of moderators. I haven't seen any response from you with regards to to those suggestions. We have no way of knowing if you read the threads and suggestions. I hope that you choose to honor those who made a good will effort to offer suggestions for improvement by responding to them.

Jersey Girl

Jersey Girl wrote: polls for everyone who volunteered. Namely, Belmont, madeleine, abestosman, Cam and myself.

There was also BC-Space who showed interest I believe.

marg wrote:

Jersey Girl wrote: polls for everyone who volunteered. Namely, Belmont, madeleine, abestosman, Cam and myself.

There was also BC-Space who showed interest I believe.

You know, having a thread that listed just the volunteers might have been a good idea. Sort of a Roll Call of volunteers with no discussion.

Great thoughts, Jersey Girl.

Jersey Girl wrote:I do think that Belmont really wanted a chance to become a moderator pending the outcome of the polls. I think he likely knows that the outcome might not have gone in his favor or to his goals, but he still deserved a chance.

Belmont cannot be trusted.

His only reason for the position would be a rife with malice in what he sees as valiant defense of LDS Inc.

Polygamy-Porter wrote:

Jersey Girl wrote:I do think that Belmont really wanted a chance to become a moderator pending the outcome of the polls. I think he likely knows that the outcome might not have gone in his favor or to his goals, but he still deserved a chance.

Belmont cannot be trusted.

His only reason for the position would be a rife with malice in what he sees as valiant defense of LDS Inc.

And you would have been free to vote against him in a moderator poll however, he wasn't given the chance.

Zeezrom didn't win? Last time I checked those threads, he seemed to have overwhelming support.

CK;
Zeez was not fully willing.
Shades;
This is a good decision. A European for time- zone problems, and a nevermo. I obviously carry too much baggage for some to accept my moderation, no matter how fair it would be.

Jersey Girl;
It is his board. He has the right to make decisions as he wants. He researched the volunteers, and presented the best candidates. When other surprises happened, he was flexible enough to research them and present them as alternatives.