we don't a have an agreed moderator view on my original post - and I am guessing that perhaps this is because the mods disagree amongst themselves.
But a few individual mods did say some interesting things about how moderation works here, and what they perceive to be the general role of a mod
when issues come up the mods have a space where they discuss/debate the pros & cons. This type of issue usually percolates to a freedom of expression debate with (suprise, surprise) diiferent mods having a variety of views.
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In general I try to do what Robbie asked initially - to moderate the site. That is not being a thought or behavior policeman day-to-day, but deal with excesses.
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I don't think it's for the Mods to enforce a "hey, that's not why we're here" standard on the community. And this subject comes up every once in a while.
[...] I see our role as Mods to generally make sure that behavior doesn't stray too far over the line. It doesn't happen too oftern.
Returning to the analogy I drew earlier I think good moderation is like good rugby refereeing --- and good rugby refereeing isn't about sitting back and letting players get on with it, only intervening when there is an egregious excess.
That sort of reactive approach wouldn't normally lead to the best game of rugby, I don't think it's how you all go about reffing, and I don't think it's how players even want to be reffed
Good rugby refs are more proactive -- they think about the standards they want to set, communicate the standards clearly, and enforce them appropriately. If they are very good they can accomplish an enormous amount with Ask and Tell, but they musn't be afraid to Penalise. That way a good game of rugby can happen
At one of our society meetings J P Doyle said something along the lines the objective of the referee is try and give the 30 players in front of you the best game of rugby they can have.
I thought that was good. I think the objectives of you mods should be to give posters the best possible rugby referees forum they could have.
I'm not saying it's entirely easy or straightforward, but I am saying that you could do more
[TBH I suspect that it doesn't help you that that there are large number of you and that (so far as I can tell) no one is in charge]