Ways to improve Catholic Answers Forums moderating

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Polak

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I was going to put this in the site feedback area, but can’t seem to locate it. Has it gone?

I understand moderators have lives outside the forums, so don’t have that much time to spend on here. I do however believe serious improvements to moderating could be made.

I was recently suspended twice. Both times unjustly in my view (I won’t discuss either case in case I get suspended again).

To be honest, I’m not sure I want to even remain a member here anymore because sometimes I get the feeling that the moderators believe that just like the Catholic Church has a system of hierarchy, so does the forum, where moderators are higher up the chain than forum members. I believe moderators should be here to resolve issues, not punish users for breaking the site’s ‘canon law’. I most certainly would not become a patron at this stage, after such treatment.

What I would like to do however, is start a constructive feedback thread on how moderating could be improved, as I have seen other members here also get upset about the way they were treated, and perhaps this could improve the way things are done on the website. I have a couple of suggestions. Please do add your own suggestions.

1. Post should not, ever, be edited by mods.

The words of a member are their words and should not be played around with by moderators, even if the intention is good. I have had members here tell me I edited my post later to take something out that they had commented on, when I hadn’t. It was a moderator who did that. I don’t think it is good practice to tamper with people’s posts, as it looks as though they have written something they haven’t. What could be done by moderators as an alternative, if a post really is seen as offensive, is either hide the post and send the member who posted it a message, telling them they need to take out/modify a certain part of it before it will become visible again, or, if most of the post really is that offensive, just delete it (with an explanation why), but no editing yourself.

2. Give clear reasons why a post was deleted

Posts often get deleted after they are flagged by somebody. The reason isn’t given. I think when deleting a post, the moderators should specifically tell what about your the post caused it to be deleted (so you can know for future cases) or as per my above suggestion, simply hide the post and explain what part needs to be modified or deleted, for it to be visible again.
 
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I had a post edited yesterday to remove ‘sounds about right’. Just that sentence. The rest of my post was left up.
 
Polak said:
I was going to put this in the site feedback area, but can’t seem to locate it. Has it gone?
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Only patrons can access the feedback section. This by far has been one of the worst changes to the site. It essentially says that you need to pay for your feedback to matter. What about those of us that don’t have money to spare?

Also, ditto editing posts. One of my posts was edited and the reasoning the moderator gave me is that, it could have sounded nicer. I did not even break a forum rule. I just could have been nicer to what was an obvious troll. Either delete the post if it broke a rule or leave it up: it is dishonest to put words in someone else’s mouth and, therefore, not very Catholic.
 
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Polak said:
I was going to put this in the site feedback area, but can’t seem to locate it. Has it gone?
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Yes, it has. I think it’s a shame to be honest, there was a lot of useful info there.

I’m not going to comment on your posts, but I do agree with #1. I’m really uncomfortable with posts being edited. It would be nice to make it clearer (I know the ellipsis is used, and you can check the editing at the top of the post, but it’s easy to miss). I’d prefer it, if posts are edited, for the mods to use a bold or italic font for the parts they’ve changed, and to explicitly state in the post that they’ve changed it. Otherwise it becomes very confusing.
 
I note that Enforcement Rule 3 of the TOS states,
Judgments by the Moderators can be discussed with the Moderators via private messaging but not on the board itself.
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That, in addition to the fact that the mods don’t usually read these threads, makes it rather difficult to have a discussion of moderating on the forum. Not that many past posters haven’t tried in the old Feedback Forum. Often the threads got locked or deleted.

There is still a Site Feedback forum, but it is only available to Patrons.
 
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You used to be able to contact someone via the main CA website, but they have stopped responding.
 
I know that I’m at risk of getting punished (again) for commenting on my two suspensions, so I’m editing it to leave out the detail of each case, but I certainly stand by them being unjust and definitely think that moderating could be improved.
 
I had a post edited yesterday to remove just: “Are you here to troll?”

But the rest of my post was left up, too. Including the rest of it where I expanded on why the person’s comments were coming across as ‘trolling’.

Maybe Monday is a special moderation day, haha. Snip snip, tiny trims.

Incidentally I will say, although I haven’t personally been gravely offended by any moderation alterations to my posts, I can see how a more typically palatable moderation technique (if technology allows for it) might be to make a suggested edit to a member’s post, then have that post auto-hidden from audiences until the member decides to either ‘accept’ the edit, or reject it and delete the post. That way at least a member could have final say over how their own words are publicly represented (either approving an edit, or retracting posts entirely), and wouldn’t have to feel startled at being misrepresented (if a post is edited in a way that the member feels changes the meaning of what they want to convey).

As others have mentioned though, I don’t know if moderators are likely to see this thread. And even if they do, I don’t know what technological solutions are technically possible on this platform. They may be constrained in ways we’re unaware of.
 
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My guess is that 75% of forum posters have been suspended at least once and probably more than that have had at least one post deleted, and pretty much everybody thinks at least one incident of suspension or deletion was unfair.

While I too have my past situations of thinking some action was unfair, I can see where it would also be difficult for a moderator to please all of the people all of the time. Very few people who post in good faith are going to agree that their suspension or deletion was fair. And pretty much everybody has a different idea of what would be a “better” way to proceed.
 
… I also would like to add that whether or not you get warnings or suspensions depends on which moderator you have reading your post.

I’ve found this out personally. I don’t know how they divvy up the work or schedules, but there are some that are incredibly crazy over the top strict and others are more level headed. It seems it depends on which moderator is ‘working’ or ‘reading’ that day or at that time. I’ve seen it go both ways.
 
If you think moderators are the problem, you should look more closely at the posts.
 
I’m not sure there are more than 2 moderators.

I personally like the infraction and warning system.

I liked when there were moderators for each subforum.

I miss the old forum.

🙁
 
I’ve found the moderation of this site to be fair and balanced.
 
To people who think the moderating is absolutely fine, do you also agree with posts being edited by moderators?
 
I’m leaning towards no. However, if the moderator must modify or partially delete content of a post, I would prefer to see a clear indication of it to the readers.
 
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Beryllos said:
However, if the moderator must modify or partially delete content of a post, I would prefer to see a clear indication of it to the readers.
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The moderators generally indicate that something has been deleted by putting ellipses where the deleted material was.

The deletion usually occurs where someone had made a generally okay post but included a couple sentences or a paragraph that violated the rules, like by including material from an unapproved private revelation.
 
My own opinion here, is that the old Catholic Answers Forum was very strict and people got banned or suspended relatively easily. This now, seems very tolerable and I appreciate it. I’m sure, I will run into problems again but I am trying. I am also aware of moderating duties myself. I must say, I have not conversed with moderators but I have sent them messages that I believe they have seen and reviewed. Finger crossed, this new forum seems to have the honor system more and more understanding moderators than before. Also, I suppose I have matured some too. Maybe I don’t fly off the handle so easily. Again, just my 2 cents.
 
On lots of social media and discussion forums, I’d like to see an algorithm that could identify cliques and cabals exploitation of reporting mechanisms. They are toxic elements of our modern day online communications. Worse than trolls in my opinion.
 
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