I quoted the original post and highlighted the comments about Bollman bashing for a variety of reasons.
1 - It seemed to say that those bashing Bollman were being given free reign. That wasn't true - many people were banned for comments about Bollman, and many other actions taken by moderators are done without the majority of posters being aware of them.
2 - To provoke a discussion of the way that the
infraction/warning system works, since I think that's healthy on an occasional basis. By the way, that link is always available in the bottom toolbar. I think people should know that some posts get infractions without everybody being made aware of the fact that the poster was hit. There are times when it becomes public knowledge - an actual bashing infraction results in a 14-day ban, and the 'banned' shows next to somebody's avatar while it's in effect. Other infractions might not result in a ban (and no warnings do). But I agree with jwinslow in that making every moderator action public would be a nightmare for the mods and admins, since posters could question and debate all sorts of actions, And there are some folks that just like to argue, and some folks that just like to stir the pot (shocking, I know, but true). And we moderators don't want to have to spend a large amount of time evaluating each decision made by ourselves or other mods.
3 - To provide the occasional reminder that mods and admins are just fans that voluntarily make the effort to provide structure and order to these boards. It's not easy to be consistent in each decision, considering that for each questionable post, these options (at a minimum) are available:
- do nothing
- PM the poster and ask him to delete/edit the post, or to explain himself further
- delete the post
- edit the post
- send a message via a rep comment
- move the post to a different thread, which may or may not be publicly viewable
- Issue a warning, and decide which one applies
- Issue an infraction, and decide which one applies
- Issue a custom ban of x days
- consult with other mods/admins about how to handle the situation
Some topics are more difficult to deal with than others. Over the years, MoC, Troy Smith, TatGate, JT's forced departure, and the limited offense this season have created a lot of posts that required decisions to be made. Ideally, mods/admins understand how their personal opinions might affect their actions, and consider things like common sense and the consensus of board opinion while making their decisions. For example, a former Buckeye player was recently called a 'dumbass' in his alumni thread. At face value that may seem like bashing, but since it followed a report that he had punched a woman in the head, no action was taken.
But mods are human and we sometimes make a less than ideal choice. So there are times when our actions are reviewed by other mods/admins, and sometimes actions are revised after such a review. Those reviews are done without them being public, since that would just be opening cans of worms and creating the need to spend a lot more time on them.
There's a running joke about mods/admins being elitist pr_icks, and while that's mostly a joke, I'm sure that some folks feel there's truth to it. While we don't want to act as if we're operating from an ivory tower, we do prefer to avoid getting nitpicked and having to spend a lot of time justifying our actions. Hopefully we're able to find a proper balance the vast majority of the time, and admit to mistakes when they are made.
This whole discussion isn't being done in an attempt to gain sympathy from anybody, but rather to allow a better understanding to exist in how mods and admins function and why things generally work as they do.
