Moderating in Moderation
 

Moderators have difficult and generally thankless jobs. In most cases, their work is invisible. They do the housekeeping for the forum and they get no credit for this work. The visible part of their work is enforcing forum policies, and when this is necessary it is not uncommon for one or more posters to be unhappy with their actions.

Still, the policing actions of moderators are necessary to ensure that the discussions on the forum do not fall into disarray and fail to conform to the posted policies of the forum.

The question arises of whether forum moderators must follow the rules themselves, or whether they are a law unto themselves? Should forum moderators respect the forum policies and the forum members? When the forum policy says "It is not our intent to discourage Visitors or Members from taking controversial positions or expressing vigorously what may be unpopular views", does the moderator take that statement seriously? Or, do they secretly add "...unless I don't agree with what they say."?

Should moderators exercise great restraint with the "veto" power that allows them to make posts disappear? When they do delete posts, should they not then at least have the common courtesy to take public responsibility for their actions, and to clearly state their reasons for doing so, so that others may understand what transpired? Or, should they delete posts furtively? If so, to what end? Do they not owe it to their member base to provide some understanding of the the unstated REAL rules of posting, especially if those rules do not agree with the stated "Terms of Service"?

When moderators demonstrate honesty and integrity by taking responsibility for and explaining their actions, posters can decide for themselves whether it is worth taking the time to research and make a post. Why waste time if it might get deleted at someone's whim? Other readers can give thought to whether a given subject has been reasonably debated, or whether a moderator's personal perspectives might have colored the debate through selective deletions of posts that the moderator did not agree with.

By way of providing full disclosure, I have had some brushes with the moderator of this forum (or at least one of them). Without getting into details, let's just say I disagree with the moderating style. I'm a "by the book" kind of person. I don't appreciate the unwritten rules or favoritism shown in enforcement of rules, both written and unwritten. Now I find my posts being regularly deleted by a moderator, simply because he does not believe they are "worthy". One will not find that arbitrary and capricious rule anywhere in forum policies.

I fully expect this post to be deleted too. Not because it violates any policies of the forum. It does not. It IS an unpopular view, more unpopular with some than others, I trust, but this post is in the right category on the forum (Miscellaneous topics and for general social, non-Segway discussions) and violates no [written] policy of the forum. Is this post "worthy"? Will it survive deletion? Will I be "banned" for heresy? Who knows? Perhaps this post will survive long enough for other posters to consider whether arbitrary censorship of this forum is acceptable to them.

The "because I have the power to do it" philosophy of moderation is a dangerous and slippery slope. This forum deserves better.

You are working hard.....
 

On getting put into the moderated mode, Civicsman!

And its not like you have not been made aware of the issues why your posts have been moved off-line.

But in all fairness this thread will stay up for awhile.

Yeah I'm sure this thread will go great now that the OP has been threatened with losing his posting priviledges for making posts that are now deleted (and thus nobody can read) or for things that only OP and mods know about.

Way to promote discussion, Will!

I agree that the moderator has warned me in the past about exchanging barbs with some other posters. I don't agree with some of how some of that was handled, but I agree that I was informed. As a result, I modified my posting style. I may still be more confrontational than WWhopper is happy with, but I do not violate written forum policies, and I am far from the worst case on this forum.

However, now I am referring to posts being deleted without any comment from the moderator, either public or private, until I asked why it was happening. The answer was that the moderator felt that a particular thread about serial numbers "does not require a major discussion". Posts from several posters were deleted, twice, from that string, apparently for violation of the "does not require a major discussion" policy. Yet many recent threads go completely off topic, or have exchanges that would better be private messages, and those posts are not deleted, nor are the posters threatened.

The "you are working hard on getting put into moderated mode" response is telling. Does my original post for this thread violate any forum policies? I think not. If it doesn't, why is a threat necessary? Why does my post need a special dispensation to let it "stay up for a while"? If it doesn't violate policy, doesn't it rate the same consideration as any other post? Is this subject open to honest discussion amongst members or not?

It hasn't been in the past. Maybe Segwaychat is turning over a new leaf. Pretty big maybe, though.

I admit to some confusion.

Why would this thread be deleted after "awhile"? It either is or is not proper to be posted here, under whatever rules are guiding the forum.

If it is proper, why would it be deleted at all?

If it is improper, why would it be left up for "awhile"?

If it is deemed to be improper I'd like to know under what reasoning it is so deemed, so that as a potential poster I will know what is considered proper and improper on this forum.

From my point of view, new and possibly uninformed as it may be, there doesn't seem to be any reason to delete the OP or threaten the poster with loss of privilege. Am I wrong?

Thank you

Switching caps is difficult perhaps?
 

Just my "2 cents" regarding moderation:

SegwayChat is not affiliated with Segway Inc., Inc. once has granted the right to use the name Segway in the domain/website name, but that's it.

The original moderators, which were just a few enthusiasts, if I'm not mistaken, so also not affiliated with Inc.

After a while moderators left due to other obligations / tired of deleting spam / etc., they all had their own very good reasons.

So the vacant moderator positions were filled in with people who are affiliated with Inc., they are a dealer / or have a close relation with a dealer / worked for inc. in the past / etc. etc. there are many reasons why a moderator nowadays is a bit closer to Inc. or more tight to Inc.'s policies than in the past, we will have to respect this fact.

I think everyone will understand that being a moderator at the moment is more difficult than for the first moderators who were just enthusiasts. The enthusiasts won't mind that certain topics are discussed, they probably wanted to know the answers too. The current moderators are, as far as I know, all somehow "affiliated" with Inc, which makes it much more difficult to moderate topics in a way that the earlier moderators did.

We can't expect that somebody who is affiliated with Inc. during office hours, will not be affiliated outside the office hours.

This is a very telling statement- Thanks for posting.

I have been watching this unfold over the past week and have kept silent because I am fairly new to the forum and am still trying to figure out the personalities involved. That being said, it has been difficult for me to understand why the posts in the serial # thread (which seemed fairly benign compared with other exchanges found throughout this forum) were continually deleted.

There is only one other forum which I check and contribute to frequently. Although there is a "Big Cheese" who owns and moderates that Forum, he has always taken the position that the Forum is really owned by the regular contributors who drive the content. Therefore, a thread or post will only be deleted if several of the regular contributors agree that it should be- this is usually done within the thread in question. The exception to this rule is that self-promotion type posts are deleted summarily.

This is untrue
 

At the moment there are two of us who work on this board. John and myself. John worked for Inc prior to 2006, I have never worked for Inc. though occassionally work with a dealer, like a number of other users on this forum.

This is an all volunteer group, not affliated with Inc.

Now and again Inc. will ask the moderators to help with something, or to keep an eye out so that information on something is not released prior to a specific date, such as recently with the patroller model.

As has been said before, this is a private forum that is run and funded by volunteers. Not funded or controlled by Segway. You can choose to believe that or not believe it, it is up to you, but it is ture, and how it has always been.

Members come here to share information about Segways. Those members who are combative and abusive to other members are asked to control themselves, when they do not, they are put on moderatior or banned. As Moderators we bend backwards to keep everyone on this forum, even when the moderators may not agree with the posts. For those of you who find this unacceptable, there are other options out there on the internet for you to participate in.

I've reopened and moved this thread to the appropriate forum to continue the discussion.

Generally, moderators are asked to notify members when their thread is removed; however, this is not done when a number of posts are removed from a thread for engaging in ad hominem or personal attacks that have little to do with the OP's topic. This happens fairly frequently here on SC, sadly, and we've tried to counsel members to put other members they don't get along with on "Ignore" list, but that doesn't always happen.

We could care less about the information you post here, as long as it's consistent with the TOS. Posts are removed when people start arguing and making things personal.

Trust me, if everyone treated everyone else with a modicum of respect and manners, you'd never see a post removed here that's discussing Segways. It's when people can't stop themselves from being "right" or to get the last word in that you'll see moderation happen.

No one will be put into moderation simply for discussing these issues, you have my word on that.

John