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Unread 12-20-2009, 10:19 AM
E. Shaun Russell E. Shaun Russell is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Columbus, OH
Posts: 2,159
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex Pepple View Post
Shaun, transparency remains in the usual Eratosphere conversation forums and for threads deemed suitable to be moved from those forums to Eratosphericals. See http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showpo...1&postcount=20 . Yes, we're for transparency, but that's not an invitation to flame the Sphere to ashes and bury it's main focus of poetry and critique, because after all Eratosphere guidelines still apply in all cases. What we're done is simply strike a fair balance between all these sometime conflicting requirements. Dear Moderators and Dear Administrators provides everyone with something beyond PM -- a mechanism for having a personal discussion with all moderators or the administrators.

...Alex
I deeply respect that, Alex -- truly. But one of the issues with this is that any correspondence with or about the moderators is still essentially private, which bothers some folks. Whether things are conducted via PM or in a forum that no-one but mods can see...it's still behind closed doors, really. This is just an educated guess, but I think you may be quite surprised how much less flaming and mod-griping there would be if there was a level of openness to how things were conducted -- whether that's meting out discipline, or just addressing questions etc. When business like that is conducted completely behind the scenes, and posts / threads / members disappear without a word of explanation, that's where suspicion about mod practices comes in.

I've modded at other boards of equivalent size before and have seen the sheer vitriol that has been leveled at mods (myself included) for not being completely open about the process. If the guidelines are absolutes, and there is a clear means of dealing with breaches, then there shouldn't be any need for secrecy or closed doors, should there?

Just my $.02.
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