Moderators Reporting Posts.. A good thing. :)

[Big Dan]

Hey Guys,

I wanted to share something a number of my moderators have been doing on my board. Lately, they have been reporting posts before fixing them. This solves a problem we had with people claiming their posts disappeared.

At any rate it's works out great, a copy of the original post is made within the reported post thread and we automatically have a thread to discuss the issue and what if any remedy was done.

I'm thinking of implementing this as a rule, all posts must be reported before anything is changed. The only downside is I'll have to turn off emails to mods upon a reported post. What do you all think?

-Danny

[T0PS3O]

Why not making it soft-delete by default? That way nothing disappears forever.

On DP we get the reported posts in a non-public forum instead of e-mails. That reduces the change mods waste time on a thread that's already attended to by someone else.

[Big Dan]

Why not making it soft-delete by default? That way nothing disappears forever.

On DP we get the reported posts in a non-public forum instead of e-mails. That reduces the change mods waste time on a thread that's already attended to by someone else.

My mods cannot permanently delete anything, the main problem was editing posts to remove profanity and stuff like that. After the edit was made, the original was gone we had no proof to back the edit up.

[T0PS3O]

Ah right, see what you mean. That's indeed a suitable solution for that scenario but also leads to the question, do you actually owe a justification to your members? Or is it more for maybe unscrupulous mods reporting to you as the admin?

I'd like to believe that all mods can be trusted and their decisions can be relied upon. Mistakes obviously happen but that still doesn't warrant 100% transparency towards members IMO.

All depends on the moderating style I guess.

[Big Dan]

Ah right, see what you mean. That's indeed a suitable solution for that scenario but also leads to the question, do you actually owe a justification to your members? Or is it more for maybe unscrupulous mods reporting to you as the admin?

I'd like to believe that all mods can be trusted and their decisions can be relied upon. Mistakes obviously happen but that still doesn't warrant 100% transparency towards members IMO.

All depends on the moderating style I guess.

I'd like to believe all mods can be trusted. I have trust for all the guys on my board however we just banned one mod and all of a sudden he got reinstated at competing site where he was banned for almost a year. My guess is he bartered with information from the staff forums, statistics and stuff like that to get back in on the other site. It bothers me because this is was a man I once respected obviously my respect was misplaced.

As far as moderating style, we're pretty transparent on my board not much moderation is done only the occasional profanity and bashing gets deleted or edited. I just like to have a record so when I'm "called to the mat" about it, I have something to back me up. :)

[Paul M]

We never send out reported post e-mails anyway - that seems a complete waste of time to me.

Our mods do occasionally report a post to keep a record of it, but it's not a rule.

[Peggy]

IMO it should be a rule for mods to report a post before they do anything to it.
It's called CYA (cover your ass)

[Perry]

Wow! An e-mail to all Mods for a reported post
is somehow a bad thing? Minor edits - formatting
or layout errors, grammar, reference of spelling
idiosyncrasies can all be done without a report.
(On the Board where I Mod) Anything else gets
reported (saves a record of the original) before
being edited or is unapproved (soft delete). In
almost all cases the Mod will send a PM to the
infringing member, explaining the action.

A reported-by-Mod post/thread ordinarily requires
that Mod to deal with it, even if helped. But the
task can be delegated to another Mod, if the one
reporting it is over-committed, at that moment.
(E.g. Just off to pick the kids up from school!)

A reported-by-member post usually has the first
Mod to it add a quick line, saying they're on to it,
to save duplication. Doesn't always work! :(

I agree with Danny: anything slightly tendentious
does need to have a record kept of the original
before moderation/editing. CYA it is!

[kotq8]

Good idea

[Perry]

My mods cannot permanently delete anything, the main problem was editing posts to remove profanity and stuff like that. After the edit was made, the original was gone we had no proof to back the edit up.
This has been solved / superseded, in later
versions, right? Clicking on the last edited by
line at the base of the post brings up all the
versions of the post, including the original.
At least it does for Mods & Admins . . . .