About Moderation

There are certainly topics that are trouble waiting to happen.

As a rule of thumb, the moderators try to let topics about the game roll until they peter out, 'trouble' we'll try to watch more closely.
Most tricky is when trouble kicks off in a fast-moving thread - the Character Romance thread, for example, can clear 10 pages in an hour.

We have 7 moderators and while we are different people, we know each other well enough now to have a consistent approach to stuff 9/10 times.
We discuss reports at more length than people might think in the hidden 'reports' threads, and decisions will usually have 3 mods agreeing on action.

We're a bit light in the Character sub-forum at the moment as Natashina is having some down time, so the point about getting some more moderator help is under mod discussion.

The point about free speech is an interesting one.

If someone is being hateful, of course that should be dealt with. Insults and so forth.
If someone is sharing views that are dumb or foolish then it might be ok to let the debate run a little while because there is a value in debating dumb or foolish views rather than simply deleting them. 'Free speech' is not unlimited here, but so far as it exists, such free speech is not freedom from criticism.

The point about not letting viral topics run away with themselves is well made.

We've discussed in the past what we didn't like about moderation on BSN Prime, where even discussing moderation was a transgression.

The mods realise that we mod with the 'consent' of the community and if that moderation doesn't go perfectly sometimes we should try to listen and take feedback on board. We can't please everyone and some requested actions will be mutually contradictory. The attempt is to have a forum where most people across a really wide cross-section of views can be accommodated.

99% of the posts that we remove are not deleted. They are moved to an area that only we can access.

If one of us needs to take immediate action regarding a post which we believe is in bad faith / against the site rules, we report the post and 'remove' it.

Once the post has been reported it alerts all the mods for evaluation and debate if need be. If the majority decide that the post should be restored, we then have the option to do so.
We set up this system in the interests of fairness and it is an approach that we have all adopted and stick by.

It is also sometimes unfortunate that we have to remove posts which have a connection to a comment that we have removed. In most cases this is due to a member quoting an offending post. If this action is necessary, it is common practice for us to PM the user and explain to them why a post (which may not of broken any rules), had to be removed. It's unfortunate that we have to do this occasionally but it is often for the greater good of the thread.

Blatant posts of homophobia and racism is not something that we will tolerate. But I have to admit we can't all be awake 24 hours a day and cover every inch of this thread. That is why we encourage any offences to be reported so that the mod 'on duty' can take immediate action if necessary.

But I would also like to emphasise that 'calling someone out' who has been deliberately homophobic or racist etc is not the way to handle the situation. Just because someone has broken the rules does not give other members free reign to make personal attacks against them, as this will also be considered against the site rules.

Don't feed the trolls. Report them and let us deal with them accordingly.

I can't stress enough that using the report post function is the best way to bring moderator attention to something. Not simply just PMing a moderator but actually using the "Report Post" feature by clicking on the gear on the top right of each post and selecting it from the dropdown. That puts it into a list that all mods can look at and comment on so we can reach a consensus. If you're worried about a single mod's bias(I know a few people have raised this concern), this ensures that it's checked against other mods. We do our best but everybody has their biases and it's impossible to completely get away from them, so the best tool is having multiple people.

Especially in a thread like the Character Romance thread which can sometimes gain 4-5 pages after I've been called away for 30 minutes. The thread just moves way too fast at times for us to be able to look at every single post that gets made in there.

I admit to my fault that my posting dragged the whole thing on longer than it needed to go, but by the time I had even gotten there it had already started and there wasn't a single post in that thread that was reported(I checked both active and archived logs in case another mod had already dealt with it).

So much this. I have had people approach me from the MEAMP forum (where I tend to frequent the most) to ask why this or that was allowed to happen or why so-and-so was allowed to do this, that, or the other... and it was news to me. Because I cannot possibly read every single post in every single thread of the forum, no matter how active I am, and if something is not reported using the report feature... then I (and the other mods) quite possibly had no way of knowing.

I can accept when people get frustrated at me if they disagreed with a moderator action I took. But what I can't really understand is getting mad at me for not being an omniscient god swooping down from the heavens if they didn't bother to hit the report button and say what bad thing was happening.

I'll share a few facts to counterpoint some of the nonsense you might read on the internet.

• This forum was started to give BSNers a credible place to hang out after the official site closed.
• We have many BioWare devs and management as members, we leave them be and the mods protect them if they post.
• We've banned around 30 people over the last year, some had several alts, plus some ad-bots.
• Most moderation 'actions' are moved posts, PM warnings and the occasional 24-hr ban.
• People have to work hard to get perma-banned, but we've had a few haters, assholes, even death threats.
  
• We try to moderate evenhandedly which means people will sometimes post things others disagree with. We get 6,000-30,000 visits daily.
• On the whole, I think we're less toxic than the old forum because we're unofficial, but you can judge yourself.

And a forum is supposed to be an entertainment, not a sufferance.
Even low-level sniping can stop being funny pretty fast.

There are plenty of forums more draconian than this one, but we'd like it to stay classy...

We were chatting in another thread about posters that post contrary to the mood of particular sub-forums.
i.e. someone in a sub-forum who posts regularly that they hate that game.

The question was asked:

Why is it that moderators allow people to post when they are clearly irritating many people?

The answer is partially about free speech (though not totally, as a forum is not totally 'free' there are some constraints, we've done the free speech discussion in this thread already). Summary: it's ok for most views to be shared, even if they are not popular (slurs/insults excluded).

It's healthy for different opinions to be shared, some level of opposition makes for an interesting discussion.
And we will, to a point, respect long-standing forum members, many of whom were long-standing forum members on BSN Prime, so if they didn't ban them, we're not going to be more draconian just to keep the peace.

Yes, there is a line when views can dominate or spam a sub-forum, and moderators will intervene if that happens.

Posters who push it to the extent of 'pointless crap', do run the risk of moderator sanction, and some have attracted, warnings, bans and even permanent bans.

I think the thing to remember, is just because someone posts an unpopular view, doesn't mean that view can't be argued with or even politely mocked without personal insult. A little free speech is not freedom from response or criticism.

I'd welcome any comments about that, hopefully without getting hung up about specific individuals. 

Moderating a 'fight' generally falls into two parts:

1) remove offending post(s)
2) warning/dealing with perpetrators

The first is obvious (if you knew something was there). The second is not.

Step one usually happens when the first mod sees it, given that we live mostly in UK and US, time zones are a factor sometimes.
Step two involves a behind-the-scenes mod discussion to agree the appropriate sanction, unless the sanction is dead obvious in which case the mod just does it.

Exceptions to post removal may include when a fight is so pervasive in a thread that removing it would decimate the thread (a lock may be considered)
or when the thread has moved on several pages, post removal may be fairly academic.
Sometimes a thread will be temp-locked to calm it down during tidying.
Moderators typically prefer to keep a thread running rather than locking if it can be saved or if it still provides value.

As it stands, if an image is allowed under forum rules, there is no current obligation to put it in a spoiler tag.
We do ask that story spoilers for a recent game are put in such tags.
People may wish to put a large quantity of images or content in a spoiler tag to be considerate.

In cases of spam, the edict is to not spam, not to only put spam in tags.

If we had a rule that certain images should go in spoiler tags, we would need to define and describe such images.
I don't think that would be easy to do as it is hard enough to define what images fall inside or outside of TOS.

It is more likely that we will be more deliberate in ruling borderline images as non-postable,
but if they are deemed postable, they are entitled to be posted, i.e. not spoiler tagged.

Just as an observation, the moderators are all individual volunteers, we do have our individual styles.

But we talk behind the scenes on individual report threads and in our 'mod-cave' a lot.

Sometimes (but not too often) we'll disagree and a decision gets walked back or increased.
All posts are kept in our 'quarantine' except for NSFW ones that ProBoards will kick our ass about.

In short, you might see an individual mod, er, mod, but there is usually a high degree of alignment.

The biggest challenges are fast moving threads (we can't read 1,500 posts/day) so we do rely on reports.

I would send a PM to 2 or 3 other mods and explain what the problem is, they can then review the situation.

No, the moderators regularly confer to maintain consistency.
Individual moderators don't typically go out on a limb and will always check back with the others if they do.

If we had a 'thing' against specific posters, banning their ass would take seconds.
Instead, we have a careful and some would say ponderous escalation system giving lots of second chances.
You have to be a prize asshole to get perma-banned around here...

If there is a slight shift in 'toughness' it's because consistent feedback over time has been that the moderation has been around too 20% soft.
A useful target benchmark example I could give is that of old BSN before they shut the Lobby down.

No issue with not being a native English speaker, I'm not a native English speaker myself.