A serious question for advocates of skepticism - please respond

[chillzero]

OK. Some of you may know where this is coming from. If you do, I'd appreciate non disclosure for a short time - I'll reveal it later. Thank you for cooperation in this.

Please let's not even discuss which forum(s) may be involved.


I would like to have opinions from skeptics, about whether or not they would ever consider being moderators on an internet forum for skeptics, if they were forbidden to post on that forum.

Do you think you could do a better job of moderating a forum without being a full member?
Do you think it would influence your enthusiasm for the job? In which way?
Do you think you would continue the job for any particular length of time? Why would you make it a temp role / permanent role?

Any thoughts any of you have would be very much welcome.

[Matt]

There's two types of forum moderators.

Some are paid by the service provider. They offer a commercial service which requires the presence of a moderator to ensure compliance with certain standards e.g. making the place child friendly.

Others are volunteers from within the community the forum supports.

In the former case I might consider the role if I didn't get better money elsewhere. An interest in the community would be at a proffessional level only and any restirctions on my adopting a secondary role as a member of the communty would be entirely in keeping with an employer demanding certain standards of proffessionalism. In such a scenario, if I was drawn into the community and could no longer live with the restrictions of my professional involvement I would have to resign as a moderator.

In the latter case the moderators are drawn from within the community. They are unpaid and simply offering extra time and effort towards the mainenance of a community of which they're an integral part.

Often such moderators refrain from wearing their moderator hat in threads within which they're participating allowing another moderator to take a more impartial viewpoint. I don't think many would be prepared to make the additional sacrifice of being unable to contribute as a forum user in order to contribute as a volunteer moderator. I know I wouldn't.

[chillzero]

To clarify - this would be unpaid.

[Matt]

To clarify - this would be unpaid.

I thought as much. (Guessing but not mentioning the context) However I think the contrast highlights the motivations of people to become moderators and why a ban on other forms of participation would be self destructive for any forum that implemented it.

[Mulder]

To clarify - this would be unpaid.

I've been a moderator on a 'contentious' forum. Why anyone would want to get involved in such a miserable, thankless job for no money is beyond understanding. My advice is - don't do it!

[filippo lippi]

I've been a moderator on a 'contentious' forum. Why anyone would want to get involved in such a miserable, thankless job for no money is beyond understanding. My advice is - don't do it!

I agree. I have moderated on two other fora - one openly and one through an account other than the one I used to post with; neither were paid. The main reason I did it was to keep the fora working efficiently so that I could enjoy posting on them, so I would have resigned if asked to not contribute beyond moderation.

[SimonC]

As with Filippo Lippi I moderated a forum ( discussing fake psychics ) for a couple of years. Given the amount of abuse and derision I received as a result ( often spreading to other, believers', fora ) I would not have done so if I had not been free to participate in debates - the time-commitment simply would not have been justified.

I don't see what is to be gained if moderators are not allowed to openly participate on a board. Would this supposedly make them more impartial? I would've thought that the administrator of a forum chooses his/her moderators on the basis of their ability to demonstrate fairness and common-sense, irrespective of their contribution to discussions.

[Mongrel]

IMO,

Unless you're being paid to do the moderation then you have every right to post there, why would you have an interest in the forum otherwise if you didn't interact?

[brodski]

As mat says, people tend to moderate for two reasoans
1) ‘cos they’re paid to do it or
2) to help ensure the smooth (or continued) running of a virtual community which they care about
(ok there is point 3, for the power, the UNBELIEVABLE POWER bwa ha ha ha ha!!!!!! Erm. Sorry…)

If payment is off the cards that just leaves point 2. Now how many people are there really out that that care enough about an online community to give up their time free time and face constant bitching and moaning, quibbling and nitpicking and generally childish or just outright deranged behaviour from people who are allegedly adults, yet not want to participate in that forum in anyway except to enforce the rules?

Even if one could find such a person (or rather a number of such people), what good would this do? In what way is the moderator function impaired by the member also posting in the forum (from my experience it is the poster experience which is impaired by moderating in a forum…).
Is the suggestion that the mods will be biased against those that disagree with them? Surely the mods will be expected to read the forum, in which cases teby would presumably disagree with some posts, even if they are not allowed to post to make their disagreement public. If disagreement is meant to cause automatic mod discrimination, or loss of impartiality (a claim I would disagree with based on my experience)- why would a hidden disagreement be better than a public disagreement?
Really this idea smacks of valuing form over function- take away the apparent cause of alleged bias and the perceived problem will go away?
Or am I reading too much into this?

In short my answer would be no- I would not volunteer to mod a forum in which I could not post in a non-mod capacity, I’m not entirely sure why anyone would seriously propose such a thing.


That said, in practise at the moment I am a mod at a forum where I can’t post, as I cant log into there during lunch at work (unlike here)- and at the moment don’t get chance to post (or mod for that matter ) there at other times.

[Pebble]

Writing as a complete outsider, with no real knowledge of what precisely moderating involves, what has been written to date suggests that being a moderator (unpaid) is a labour of love.

I would deduce that one would have to care deeply about the success of the forum to justify the continued effort of moderating, and would thus have to be allowed to post.

As the undertaking is a voluntary activity, there is a small risk of bias, but this is surely an acceptable risk for a non professional forum.

Transparency is ensured by posting the 'rules of the forum' and whenever someone is banned, citing the precise infringement. Perhaps to ensure an even handed approach, any one could approach the moderator where an infringement is believed to have occurred, and if there is persistent disagreement over whether the rules have been infringed, a moderator from another similar forum could be asked to adjudicate. This arrangement could be recriprocal.

[Admin]

Professional or paid moderators tend to have a poor reputation. I think it's because they have little to no interest in the forums they moderate, they aren't familiar with the users, and they don't understand the context of many exchanges. I rarely post on forums these days but I do read them still and those with non-visible moderators seem to have the highest level of dissatisfaction amongst their users.

I think moderators should have an interest in the forum itself in order to (potentially!!) do a good moderating job.

So having said that, it follows that I think moderators should be able to post on the forum otherwise what incentive would they have for moderating it (especially if not paid)?

So I wouldn't moderate a forum I couldn't post on and I probably wouldn't be a mod anyway- unless it had the informal sort of modding we have on here.

[djellison]

I've moderated a few forums, and now mod/admin a forum I founded nearly 5 years ago. I've been in and around forums for 10 years or so.

I honestly don't think you can be a forum moderator if you're not a part of that forum actively. You have to be a part of that community to understand it, and to judge when it is or is not having a discussion in a direction it shouldn't.

Doug

[chillzero]

Thank you all for the responses.
I'll be happy for this conversation to continue, however, the reason it was created was to answer a concern raised by a member at the JREF. That discussion has kind of fallen apart, so this one isn't so useful or relevant to that any more.

Thank you all for your opinions and participation though.

[brodski]

Thank you all for the responses.
I'll be happy for this conversation to continue, however, the reason it was created was to answer a concern raised by a member at the JREF. That discussion has kind of fallen apart, so this one isn't so useful or relevant to that any more.

Thank you all for your opinions and participation though.

As an asside the member who had concerns there, is also a member here- perhaps he would like to comment?

[chillzero]

Is he really?