Wesley R. Elsberry
Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002
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About moderation at AtBC:
We have a set of rules that are lightly enforced. It pays to read those. The goal of moderation here is to enhance discussions here by trimming away from threads comments that are not topical, not legal, simply abusive, simply trolling, or otherwise not conducive to good conversation. Everything but spam and illegal messages that is moderated is transferred intact to the Bathroom Wall, where almost anything goes. Context does matter; the same sort of witty aside that might have passed a week ago on a thread may not be appropriate to it now.
Eventually, moderation can lead to trimming away users who can't seem to work within even this broadly permissive framework. These don't admit of "bright-line" rules. There is a wide degree of subjective judgment that is called for in making a moderation decision about a comment. That judgment lies with our moderators. Users are welcome to take up specific issues with moderated comments or other decisions of our moderators, but *always* via PM, email, or other offline channel of communication. (This applies, also, to possible commentary on this comment itself.)
The olden days of online discussion on FidoNet saw the development of a broad meta-rule: don't be annoying. Repeatedly being annoying, or being annoying in a spectacular way once, will be considered excessively annoying, and excessively annoying people are hindrances to good discussion that won't be tolerated here. Beyond all the ways of being annoying that have been mentioned to this point, messages sent in public topics about moderation issues are annoying; multiple instances will be deemed excessively annoying. Rude and abrasive messages to moderators sent privately are annoying. If being annoying is important to you, maybe this isn't the place to be spending your time.
Please be aware that moderation is a necessary activity. Unmoderated fora tend towards an abusive anarchy shortly. Our moderators are volunteers with the best interests of the continued health of our discussion community in mind. That doesn't mean that we will always be perfect in our decisions. It does mean that our aim is toward better topicality on the topical threads, and thus, hopefully, better discussions there.
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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker
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