BPL Moderator talent search

welcome back, hope you enjoyed your break

That would be good!!!

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

Thanks Clue.

Time will tell Jerry. Could turn into Practical Backpacking.

Looks like I’ll get in trouble.

Well.

“Are you respected and well-liked in our forums, or do you tend to create controversy and incite opposition?”
“Do you have these attributes: patience, humility, understanding, tolerance, intentionality, fairness, objectivity?”

I know better to volunteer again.

Poofay might be a good moderator.

Look at that Michael L had his post deleted for his opinion that he would be a better moderator than Roger, and was going to volunteer. Guess no need to now.

Hmmm….I wonder how much trouble I’d get into if I volunteered?

I wonder what I could do with that kind of power over Chaff………

We’ve talked about the lack of posts and how many people are MIA since the site switch. Gear Swap will be all that remains. My $.02, if a moderator has the time to delete your post they should make the time to contact you and let you know. That would only be polite.

“1.Deletion of the violating post (or entire thread) by a moderator, usually without warning or followup.”

That is just bad form, lazy, and rude.

And deleting an opinion in Chaff, Really?

It was actually an accident, we were testing out some code that auto-moderated posts that were user-reported. That post was reported by several users and the code took care of it, permanently, which was not what we were expecting. We want people (mods) to be making those decisions, and not machines. That piece of the code was axed. There may have been a few others. And generally, yes, we’ll contact people if a post will deleted permanently.

“And generally, yes, we’ll contact people if a post will deleted permanently.”

Nice to hear, but not my experience.

So he can now post again? Because he was not able to post anything after that.

I am not into banning unless someone has been warned repeatedly about egregious behaviour.

I would gladly take a moderator position. Have offered before.

Application info for being a mod is near the bottom of the forum guidelines doc. Apps will be reviewed by the current mod team, which includes RyanJ, RogerC, EricV, and LukeS starting next week.

why is it that when I hit “https://backpackinglight.com/recent-forum-topics/” or “https://backpackinglight.com/forums/forum/campfire/chaff/”, “FEATURE REQUEST: Remove Helpful / Not Helpful Buttons (closed/implemented)” is always at the top?

Over time, will more accumulate so I’ll have to start paging down to get to the real new ones?

@retiredjerry – nope, it’s just there for a few days to let people know. Not everyone reads the bug forum, and there was a lot of interest in this particular change, so this was an easy way to increase communications about it to the forum community.

“That post was reported by several users”

Seriously, several users? His post wasn’t even inflammatory.

Damn, there are far too many too-easily offended people wandering about the interwebs these days. Microaggressions run amok.

Edit to add: this site used to pride itself on how little moderation was done in the forums – now even minor stuff is getting deleted (and I’m not really talking about Michael’s post which was auto-deleted) and at least one person banned for a rather minor transgression. Kinda sad.

@bpl admin. Has someone been banned ? If so, have they been informed about it?

+1 with Doug.

–B.G.– was banned for vocalizing his frustration of deletions without explanation. Just wanted to know who the jerk was who deleted his post about BPL needing an editor since so many errors were in articles. Been almost a year.

Allrighr enough drift. Curious how it pans out with a gang of moderators on the loose.

Who’s volunteering? With posts down as much as they are nobody should have to work hard.

I am asking about someone else . He cannot post, has not received any sort of communication from admin and my question earlier was ignored, since admin. posted after me and did not address anything. It seems disrespectful to the community. If I stop posting you’ll know why.

Moving this thread to a more appropriate public forum. It’s a good discussion to have and shouldn’t be hidden back in the bar.

@kat_p @idester –

* As we bring on additional moderators there will be different styles and tolerances among the mods. We’ll do our best to moderate lightly and maintain consistency. Some people will want more moderation, some will want less. The only guarantee we can make is that that some people will be unhappy some of the time :D

* It helps to not be easily offended.

* Likewise, it helps to go out of your way not to offend people, and be kind and respectful to them. This principle will be a far more important guideline for this forum than that of “not being easily offended”.

* No one is ever permanently banned for a minor transgression. There was the issue some time ago of a temporary ban being placed on a forum member, but the member opted not to have a conversation with me about it to resolve the conflict. The door remains open to that individual and we’re happy to lift the temporary ban if the individual is at least willing to have a conversation with me.

* No bans have occurred recently except for a very small handful of new spammers.

* @here – Nobody gets permanently banned without an explanation (unless they are a spammer), or has a post that gets moderated for offering a constructive suggestion.

@kat_p – that should not be happening (that someone was banned w/o communications). Please encourage them to contact me privately at ryan@backpackinglight.com. Also the @bpl account is managed by web techs, so don’t expect too much inside info from them.

To my knowledge, over the course of 15+ years, I’m guessing that we have banned less than 10 users. Currently, we have one temporarily banned member pending, and we haven’t issued any permanent bans since the new site moved over in November.

Please understand that we need to keep forum conflicts private in order to protect the confidentiality of individuals, and we won’t discuss details about any member with anyone except that member. What that member chooses to divulge to you is up to them, but hopefully you will consider that there are two sides to any story and that in some cases, the assumptions that people have made about what happened are not entirely accurate accounts of what actually happened.

Thanks for the reply Ryan.

Okay Ryan, thanks for some clarification.

Ken Thompson, GGG Chieftain.

Looking forward to doing a trip next week with the majority of this threads posters! I have met all but RJ and whoever is behind the Admin keyboard.

Ryan,

A little communication goes a long way and I really appreciate your response here.  When a response disappears and there’s no commentary from the moderator who removed it, it tends to upset people who may not even be involved in the conversation.  I can think of a few examples where responses were removed from some editorial content without explanation.

In my humble opinion, Roger really sets a good example of what a moderator should be.  He does a good job of allowing people to have heated exchanges but will edit out profanity and other language that steps over the line.  When he does, he edits a comment in explaining why he removed/modified the comment and that it was his call.

I respect the fact that you prefer to keep this stuff private, but a simple “edited for not meeting forum guidelines R.J.” really isn’t hanging any dirty laundry out there.