2018 The Workplace Moderator Election Chat

motosubatsu

07:38

@user5389107 firstly apologies for the delay in answering your question (I'm UK based so you posted it as I was driving home from work), now for the question. I would say I'm used to being "demonized" from multiple sides (my time in middle management gave me excellent practice at that) and my "strategy" for want of a better word is understanding that very rarely is that sort of thing personal,

when people have emotions invested in the point of contention then it's easy for that to spill over into viewing any moderation as an attack on them so the key for me is not to let my own emotions get involved.

And if the matter at hand is one that I am emotionally invested in I would avoid getting involved as much as possible. Where that is not feasible I would use the same tactic I do as a normal user - taking advantage of the nature of internet communications I write my response in a notepad window first then try and view it as if someone else had written it and remove anything that I view as unreasonable.

Snow

07:49

@user5389107 I don't anticipate being demonized at all - if that happens then something has failed. Being reasonable, looking at the argument from different sides and showing that you understand people's viewpoints are important. You don't have to agree with someone's point of view, but they feel better if you show that you understand it and you're willing to listen even if you don't ultimately agree.

doppelgreener

11:09

I want to share some thoughts I was mulling over regarding moderator behaviour, and current behaviour vs what one will behave like as a moderator: basically that they'll be the same (for a long time).

Candidates tend to get evaluated as though their current behaviour will be what they'll have once they're elected, because that tends to be exactly what we get. Personality behaviour patterns take time to change, and replacing undesirable patterns with good ones takes time, commitment, and work. It takes all of that to recognise and begin instilling the good behaviours in ourselves, and to recognise and stop ourselves in the moment we're engaging in bad behaviour.

Promises regarding significant behaviour changes post-election, or “switching off” personality traits, aren't generally something we can rely on. If the candidate has commitment to changing, the community will be dealing with the moderator still making those changes for weeks or months, mainly the fallout from their struggles or slip-ups in making those changes -- and there should be a proven track record they are changing or can do that change.

If the candidate cannot make changes to their undesirable behaviour patterns post-election despite their commitment... then a community just has a moderator with undesirable behaviour patterns.

In other words a moderator needs to already be modelling the behaviour they will carry in to moderation, because they will carry their current behaviour predominantly into moderation. If there's changes, there needs to be a demonstration the changes have already long since started and are on a good trajectory to get resolved soon.

This means sometimes if there's a demonstrated behaviour pattern that one wouldn't want in a moderator, and there's no indication it's already changing, promising during the election to change it may be too little too late. (Hindsight being 20/20 here.) The candidate can work on that for whenever the next election is. Or they can work on that anyway just to better improve their community and improve their ability to guide it well as a model stackizen.

Mister Positive

12:46

@Snow The hardest thing to do sometimes is LISTEN first.

Mister Positive

13:11

Greetings everyone.

Snow

13:30

Hello all. I've brought donuts. Don't fight over them - there's enough for everyone and they're the same flavour.

Mister Positive

Thanks for sharing sir. I will go get some coffee. @Snow

Richard U

@doppelgreener Well, given what's modeled by some, the bar seems to be set very low. It seems to be perfectly acceptable to throw out unsubstantiated accusations, open disparagements, disregard of the be nice rule, and other nonsense. I've worked with many moderators on different sites who can step things up. Any manager will tell you that there are times they put on a manager hat, and other times address things differently.

But, the decisions already been made, now the justifications begin.

Now, what's worse, is when you get a bunch of outsiders who do not look at a person's record, bring out their grudges, because of some tangential encounter.

The high crime of "behavior" is brought up, but no specifics are named, making for vague charges that a person cannot defend against. "You showed bad behavior!!"

Where?

"You should know, and this disqualifies you"

Do I know you? No, but I heard you have bad behavior.

MackM

13:52

Hello @RichardU, I see you have been subject to some negative attention around this election. I can't imagine that will stop if you are elected as a moderator, so I am curious, do you feel these accusations of past mistakes will impact how effective you can be as a moderator? Do you have a plan for how to deal with them?

Richard U

14:22

@MackM Well, I'm handling the first bit now, by stepping back. As for past mistakes, we all have them. There's an old joke about a banker being interviewed. He's asked "How did you get so rich" To which he replied "Good decisions", when asked how he knew to make those good decisions, he replied "Wisdom", and when asked where he got that wisdom he said "BAD DECISIONS" We've all said or done things we regret and hopefully learn from.

Sadly, the new way of doing thins seems to be "find the worst thing this person has said, take it out of context, then crucify him" The irony is that I can actually think of worst things I've said or done in my past that they're bringing up. Do I regret all of those things, no. did I learn from them, yes.

What made me soften my tone long ago was an encounter with a workplace bully. He decided to come after me, so I responded. I was good, and I really hurt that man. Not physically, but I could figure out the things to say that would hurt him most.

He got so depressed that his doctors had to intervene because he became suicidal (I was told by a coworker that he was that bad off).

Did I learn from that? Yes. You'll find that the absolute worst thing I do around here is snark. Most of it is self-effacing, and I never say anything to actually hurt someone.

Now, I do make mistakes, we all do. HEated conversations happen, we say things we shouldn't. You don't dwell on them, but you learn from them. Too rough in the past? Try a softer tone. I don't deny my mistakes, but I try to draw them into myself as lessons of what to do nor not do.

MackM

14:54

Thank you for your reply @RichardU. How would you respond if you were elected as a moderator and saw frequent complaints on Meta about your moderation style or things you had said after the election? How would you respond if you felt confident these were targeted at you, and that another moderator doing/saying the same things you were criticized for would have been ignored?

Richard U

15:38

@MackM As a moderator, if I saw frequent complaints about my moderating style, or other things said after the election, I would ask for someone else to review it and give me their input. I'd likely also ask for input before I posted something, Again restraint is important. IF I felt there were some sort of double standard, I'd try to find out if it were a true double standard or a perception.

Sometimes people get reputations which aren't necessarily accurate. Take for example the narrative that is being pushed that all that I do is snark at people. There's not much to drawn on because it doesn't happen that often, but they KNOW I'm snarking all the time because they believe it.

If I felt confident that I was being targeted, I'd seek advice from another mod (whom I could trust) or possible to one of the CM's and make sure. If it did turn out to be real, it should be addressed

doppelgreener

15:59

Moderators having their merits or style questioned is something that tends to happen at least once a month, on smaller or larger scales. Or individual users having a complaint about something we're doing with them.

Mister Positive

@doppelgreener I would think thick skin or the ability to ignore BS is required.

Snow

I'm of the opinion that it's ok for a moderator to admit that they got something wrong and then put it right. It's unreasonable for a moderator to get something wrong and then defend their actions to the death without backing down.

Mister Positive

@Snow Of course

MackM

Thank you for your answers Richard, good luck in the polls!

doppelgreener

@MisterPositive As a former RPG.SE moderator once put it: "There's a reason we get a gold badge for putting up with this crap for a year."

Generally anything a diamond says is said with a booming voice and a "kick me" sign taped to their back.

3

MackM

16:07

Just out of idle curiosity, does anyone know why an election is being called? Is there a workload issue or is it to keep a certain level of moderator staffing?

Mister Positive

@MackM I know at least one moderator is stepping away, I am not sure of the second opening.

doppelgreener

@Snow Absolutely, and that's important to having a healthy moderation environment. Moderators will make mistakes. Everyone does. Being able to deal with it healthily is extremely important, making amends where they need to be made, etc.

Mister Positive

@doppelgreener This would be very scary if honest mistakes weren't treated fairly....

doppelgreener

The main job of a moderator is to de-escalate situations and keep things clean; inability to resolve one's own wrongdoing is incompatible with that job.

Mister Positive

@doppelgreener makes sense to me

doppelgreener

16:11

@MisterPositive Well, there is the "kick me" sign. They won't be treated fairly by everybody. But it's important for elected moderators to handle it well to the best of their ability.

Mister Positive

@doppelgreener seems like a fair ask to me.

Richard U

@doppelgreener what is the best way to deal with a user who is getting angry?

doppelgreener

16:29

@RichardU Depends majorly on the circumstances motivating their anger. There's no single best way.

Richard U

@doppelgreener Say. a user feels she's been wronged about something, how would you address that?

doppelgreener

@RichardU Hear them out. Look out for the behaviour they claim to have been wronged. Assess the situation, go digging and sleuthing. Ask the other moderators what they've seen and what their take is. If the user themselves was doing something to make the situation worse for themselves, I'd speak with them privately to walk them through that part of it and help them work out what they can do differently next time.

When the user brings forward their issues I'd also confirm I'm going to look into it and see how we can address it.

Masked Man

@doppelgreener I would just like to point out that the same statement taken out of context could be easily painted to show "bad" behaviour on part of the moderator. Example: "Here you said users post crap that we need to put up with." "Here you said any criticism of your decisions is crap." "Here you said you became a moderator just for the badge." and so on.

@MackM One mod has officially announced they would be taking an extended break. Another mod has been less active of late, but hasn't officially announced anything as yet.

doppelgreener

@MaskedMan He was an exemplary moderator the community looked up to as fair and equitable. The fact just is moderators take a lot of abuse. A lot of abuse. Most of it in private settings, or in ways nobody will see because it's part of comments we delete so nobody else has to see that crap.

We get kicked a lot, and we just take it for the better of the community.

Mister Positive

@MaskedMan I thought I answered that LOL....

Richard U

16:39

@doppelgreener So, would be talking down to someome who was obviously upset, bringing in other people to say the same thing, and state that the problem was with her, be less than ideal?

Masked Man

@doppelgreener I know what you mean, I wasn't arguing against what you said. I was just pointing out that it is possible to take any statement out of context to suit one's agenda. For example, "you said that the mod was exemplary, how do we know? Here I have 4 examples of some bad things he said, so clearly he is not suited to be a mod." That's more or less what I observed happening here as well.

doppelgreener

@RichardU This is getting very specific, enough that I suspect you're trying to describe the water cooler situation, where that isn't what happened. (It sounds like you're thinking I was roped into it, but I joined chat because I was checking out the moderator election, and saw the pointer to join chat.)

Masked Man

Anyway, my take on the situation can best be described by my quote I shared yesterday: "never let go of an opportunity to let it go". There were some concerns about one candidate, so comments were posted on his nomination post. That's great. However, stop it at that. Let it go. Don't go chasing him into other sites and old chats looking for bad things he said before.

Even if he posts something on chat complaining about the criticism (which is not what Richard did, but anyway), there's no need to escalate it and keep dragging the discussion, especially if the user is already a mod on another site.

doppelgreener

@MaskedMan I'm not sure what you're getting at then, sorry.

Richard U

@doppelgreener not getting that specific. Any parallels you wish to draw are fine. Bit in general, you'd think that listening to a person rather than berating them would be the better choice.

doppelgreener

16:44

I'm not going to engage in that.

Masked Man

@doppelgreener It wasn't directed to you or anything you said.

Richard U

We

WE are just trying to find out what the standard of behavior is for moderation @doppelgreener

Masked Man

It is one thing for a mod candidate to be "unsuitable" (not implying that Richard is such), it is quite another for a current mod to demonstrate less than exemplary behaviour.

doppelgreener

I'm here to discuss moderation, but I'm not interested in giving my hot take on the interactions in TWC.

2

Masked Man

Just to put this in context, the past 2 days have all been about one candidate. You could be forgiven for thinking there are no other mod candidates at all.

Richard U

16:47

@doppelgreener Here's another scenario for you. Jane has posted something, and her answer is getting derailed by someone from another stack that has a problem with her. He posts innuendo, nasty details, links to posts she said after she lost her sister and another moderator says that this is inappropriate. This is not your home stack.Do you then post something negative to her to chase her off, then follow her to a chat room where she's venting?

Masked Man

@doppelgreener Your insights are most certainly welcome. I am not asking you to be the jury here. :) Anyway, I think I will be stepping out of that discussion and won't participate in it any more.

doppelgreener

@RichardU No, I'm declining to engage in narratives about what happened.

@MaskedMan Thanks. I will be as well. Ttfn.

Richard U

@doppelgreener not surprising, the events speak for themselves, and the deplorable behavior was obvious.

Masked Man

@MisterPositive Right, I read the chat transcript from top to bottom. :)

Richard U

Well, you gotta admire loyalty. Stick up for someone no matter how wrong they are.

Thanks @doppelgreener this has been very productive. I've learned quite a bit.

doppelgreener