Quote:
Originally Posted by DocJohn
Moderators being known members of the community presents far more transparency and far less hassle than moderators being "anonymous" (and when I say "anonymous," they really aren't -- members talk amongst themselves and figure out who the mods are eventually, as had largely happened on OBT).
Remember, if your core value is to create a supportive, caring environment for folks to come and discuss issues of importance to them, then a lot of this should largely be moot. We're all adults here, are all responsible, and most of us know when we "cross the line."
I feel that your community should be run with accountability and responsibility as well, and that really helps guide us with decisions like having transparent moderators. I think that's one of the biggest and most important differences between us and some other online communities.
John
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Doc John is right- concerning OBT, the identity of mods was discussed privately among the members- and I'm sure that most/many had figured out who the mods were....And whether certain people were mods or not, their behaviour and/or posts (posting under their forum names) had other members convinced that they were one of the "anonymous" mods and they knew it would do no good to complain about certain people on their particular forums because they "knew" that nothing would be done to them. It appeared that certain people thought they were "bulletproof" because of their friendships with certain other people. And I'm sure that some people were way off base as to who the mods were but I doubt that you'd ever be able to convince them that they were wrong- and that's because of the "history" of interchanges between certain people on there and the way that bannings were handed out or more telling, the way they WEREN'T handed out when they should've been (not saying that I agree with bannings or not- but talking about the way bannings were handled there, with bannings being the norm there). When you saw interchanges between certain "friends" on there, and saw certain people get by with "murder" while others who had done nothing but maybe question one of the so-called "forum proctors" get banned for life, this kind of thing did nothing to dispel the assumptions of who the mods were. And while it's possible (and probable in many people's minds) that those kinds of mod/poster "friendships" are continuing here, at least the mods are out in the open and hopefully they'll realize that people from OBT, rightly or wrongly, are watching to see if they will be unbiased toward their "friends" on this forum.