I was going to post this as a reply to question posed in Others, but whadya know, it was deleted ...
First of all, I want to make it clear that I appreciate the work of the moderators, and I am very glad that they prevent the forums from becoming a free-for-all. However, I think that there is some valid reason for irritation at the manner in which moderation is occasionally peformed, and I would like to express my opinion on the matter and see how the moderators and members feel about the topic.
Here's what the Posting Instructions say about moderators: "BrainDen is here for the enjoyment of our members. Moderators will take appropriate action, with or without further warning to ensure a rewarding experience for everyone. This means that offensive, flaming, disrespectful or harassing content of any type can lead to the termination of an account."
I agree with this on principle. The last sentence is self-explanatory, and obviously I have no problem with a moderator deleting offensive content. It is much harder to clarify, however, what it means to "ensure a rewarding experience for everyone." If a thread deals with a specific topic or question, and someone posts a side point which is likely to lead to an off-topic discussion, should the moderator delete it? In general, I would say no, there is no reason to. If there is an ongoing topical discussion, extraneous comments will be ignored by the active participants. However, if they choose to get distracted from the topic at hand, how can you say that preventing them from doing so is ensuring a rewarding experience for everyone?
As we've seen in the past few months, these issues occur most frequently in threads in Others that deal with controversial topics such as evolution or the existence of God. For that very reason, extra care has to be taken that moderation is not unfairly biased toward particular a view. This can be difficult due to the great variety of posting styles. When the discussions get really involved and span many pages, it's not uncommon for a newbie to pop in and contribute their two cents without really taking into consideration the previous dialog. It can be annoying, but it's understandable that everyone wants to have their voice. Also, even more frequently, members will make statements that were discussed earlier in the thread, or in other threads. Isn't this inevitable? Especially in threads like "religious debate," you can't expect posters to have waded through 40+ pages of discussion. For a moderator to simply delete posts because they don't mesh with his idea of what constitutes a "rewarding experience" is rather heavy-handed and kinda sucks out some of the fun.
In short, I don't think it's really necessary to take a strong-arm approach to keeping the discussions in line. Ultimately, these forums are supposed to be fun. For a few individuals to feel like they have the responsibility to maintain the intellectual integrity of the discussions seems contrary to the laid-back nature one would expect to find on a puzzles site, and poses the risk of inserting unfair bias into the moderation process.
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I was going to post this as a reply to question posed in Others, but whadya know, it was deleted ...
First of all, I want to make it clear that I appreciate the work of the moderators, and I am very glad that they prevent the forums from becoming a free-for-all. However, I think that there is some valid reason for irritation at the manner in which moderation is occasionally peformed, and I would like to express my opinion on the matter and see how the moderators and members feel about the topic.
Here's what the Posting Instructions say about moderators: "BrainDen is here for the enjoyment of our members. Moderators will take appropriate action, with or without further warning to ensure a rewarding experience for everyone. This means that offensive, flaming, disrespectful or harassing content of any type can lead to the termination of an account."
I agree with this on principle. The last sentence is self-explanatory, and obviously I have no problem with a moderator deleting offensive content. It is much harder to clarify, however, what it means to "ensure a rewarding experience for everyone." If a thread deals with a specific topic or question, and someone posts a side point which is likely to lead to an off-topic discussion, should the moderator delete it? In general, I would say no, there is no reason to. If there is an ongoing topical discussion, extraneous comments will be ignored by the active participants. However, if they choose to get distracted from the topic at hand, how can you say that preventing them from doing so is ensuring a rewarding experience for everyone?
As we've seen in the past few months, these issues occur most frequently in threads in Others that deal with controversial topics such as evolution or the existence of God. For that very reason, extra care has to be taken that moderation is not unfairly biased toward particular a view. This can be difficult due to the great variety of posting styles. When the discussions get really involved and span many pages, it's not uncommon for a newbie to pop in and contribute their two cents without really taking into consideration the previous dialog. It can be annoying, but it's understandable that everyone wants to have their voice. Also, even more frequently, members will make statements that were discussed earlier in the thread, or in other threads. Isn't this inevitable? Especially in threads like "religious debate," you can't expect posters to have waded through 40+ pages of discussion. For a moderator to simply delete posts because they don't mesh with his idea of what constitutes a "rewarding experience" is rather heavy-handed and kinda sucks out some of the fun.
In short, I don't think it's really necessary to take a strong-arm approach to keeping the discussions in line. Ultimately, these forums are supposed to be fun. For a few individuals to feel like they have the responsibility to maintain the intellectual integrity of the discussions seems contrary to the laid-back nature one would expect to find on a puzzles site, and poses the risk of inserting unfair bias into the moderation process.
Any thoughts?
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