Discussion about forum moderation

[Dreamstorm]

Hi - I wasn’t able to follow along with this discussion over the weekend, so apologies if I’m retreading old ground, and that this post is so long.  I’m going to try and organize based on topic in an (unsuccessful) endeavor to make this a little shorter.

Shipping and Character Discussion

Like others have said, my perception is “shipping” is a bit of a dirty word around here.  I think that is part of the attitude which led to ASK becoming what it became.  In my mind, when people say someone is a “shipper”, that means your emotion is overriding your analytical ability and therefore your opinions and analysis is not as valid.  I liked @Kogiopsis's post on the subject in another thread, as I think it helps lay out the various positions when it comes to “shipping”: the emotional side, the theorizing on where the author is heading, and the fact that any complete character discussion of almost every character (for better or for worse, depending on your position) will include a discussion of that person’s interactions with romance.

On 2/24/2018 at 1:32 AM, FeatherWriter said:

I've had too many fandom friends say they don't feel like 17S is a place for people like them, the shippers, the character experts, the fanfic writers, the artists, the AU people. They get intimidated and think you've got to be a Realmatics expert and know at least 200 WoBs of the top of your head to post here, and I don't want that to be true. It's great that we have experts who really know the nitty-gritty of the cosmere in and out, and I think they're amazing resources for this site. But no one should feel like those are the only people who are welcome.

Yes to this.  I’m not artistic or creative (in the slightest), but I drafted an entire post on Kadolin (my emotional ship) after encouragement from a mod actually (@Greywatch), but around that time there was a lot of pushback against the idea of discussing even the canon romances, so I didn’t want to put myself in the line of fire for posting something which was 100% based on emotions.  I can clean that up and post it though (tomorrow) if people would like?  Does that even belong in the regular OB board though?

Along the lines of new posts (but on a totally different bent), I don’t want to poach @maxal's work, but I can also tomorrow pull our posts on Adolin’s fashion into a new thread.  I thought that was interesting as well and the shut down happened right after the discussion got started.  I gulp at saying this, but I also had some thoughts on Adolin and why he is so divisive (which I put in a spoiler, in ASK, if you want to see how far I buried that) from right before the shut down that I can also post…  I don’t know how far we want to go with this as that goes into an area which can be more contentious.

On 2/24/2018 at 6:23 PM, Comatose said:

We have talked a little about options for keeping quality character discussions going (character subforums / topic specific threads), and I hope that conversation continues, but from my read of things the point that has not been addressed is how the ASK became an important community space, and that (if I’m understanding correctly) members feel displaced now that it is closed.  I understand that opening new threads will not necessarily assist in the community concern, so I’m curious about what the users who were/are members of the ‘ASK Community’ for lack of a better term feel would be a suitable replacement/solution?

It became an important space because it was the only place some of us felt like we could discuss the things we wanted to discuss, as there was an extreme amount of negativity towards discussing romance and especially anything love triangle related anywhere else.  I think as long as there are rules against people rejecting the idea that such discussions can happen (see below), having new threads on character discussions could definitely work.  As I said above, I also like the idea of delineating whether a discussion is pure fun shipping, theorizing on where the author is headed with a romance or discussing a character in which romance will be part of the discussion.

5 hours ago, Comatose said:

am also curious about what other people who have expressed their dissatisfaction with the ASK closing think about a community thread for social discussion, what one should look like, and if they think it will be useful.

I personally don’t feel like I need this as long as the changes below come to fruition.  As long as I feel like I can talk about the things I want to talk about openly, that works for me.  Others may have a different opinion though!

Moderation Generally

On 2/24/2018 at 1:04 PM, Chaos said:

• First, writing a post acknowledging that having discussion with staff in a contentious thread can be difficult, and new policy to counteract that (short version: staff don't converse in divisive or heated topics)
• Another post describing how moderation actually occurs and how it is determined moderation is necessar Short version: we discuss it, get people who aren't involved in the thread to help make a judgment. It actually self corrects for bias really well. Obviously we don't get everything right but the core premise that we are too biased to judge what is respectful vs. disrespectful is not true, and this will explain how things work in practice.
• ‎A follow up to the ASK closure post describing the plan for character discussion that I talked about earlier, as well as a list of various possible character topics to start with. But please if you want to discuss something, just make a topic now! Make a bunch of topics!
• ‎Lastly, a post somewhere describing the importance of character discussion, condescension towards a class of threads will not be tolerated, and that we will have people leave specific topics if they are causing things to get heated. We want to try and solve the issues ASK presented and leave members feeling like they can discuss what they want in a relaxed environment

I like all of these ideas.  I’m someone who likes knowing rules.  I think if I had known I could (and was even encouraged to) report posts which made me not want to contribute character/romance posts it would have changed how I interacted on the forum.  It seems like some of the people who I felt were hostile did not mean to be, and if it had been addressed as the beginning, perhaps a lot of the unpleasantness could have been avoided.

On 2/24/2018 at 6:23 PM, Comatose said:

We need to find balance between public scolding and dealing with people via PM. Some public guidelines about it would be nice.  Public statements about conduct are useful for educating the community on standards, and to be transparent, but we all agree they should be handled with care.  Not mentioning names in public warnings is a good idea that we can work with.

I agree with this.  I think there is definitely a time and a place for public scolding.  One of the things which I think would be nice is if there was more transparency about actions taken, but to tell you the truth, I think that cuts against limiting public scolding to more intense situations.  The other forum (about a sport) which I’m involved in notes when posts are removed by a moderator or edited by a moderator.  (It seems like here usually the staff asks the poster to edit, so I’m not sure if moderator editing is possible.)  I’m actually not sure how a staff post in a contentious debate would be received along the lines of “This discussion got out of hand.  I talked to the users involved, and it was resolved” or something like that.  Not sure about this idea myself, but just a thought.

On 2/24/2018 at 6:12 PM, Mestiv said:

I agree with you very strongly on this. I think other staff members do too. I will advocate we create some kind of guideline on how to handle what. When it's ok to do things publicly and when we should stick with PMs. 

Sorry if I’m getting repetitive, but I like all of this.

Moderators and their Opinions

On 2/24/2018 at 1:04 PM, Chaos said:

Would you rather us just not share opinions? If we just hid in holes and you knew nothing about it? We'd still have opinions. If there were posts that some find disrespectful, we'd still evaluate them in the same way. Or, would you rather like to know what some individuals on the staff think? 

Honestly, yes?  I think part of the problem is the perception, especially when it came to ASK and there seemed to be a cohesive mod opinion, and if you were against the opinion, you really had to watch yourself.  (As others had stated, the Shardcast didn’t help with this perception.)  I think I would have interpreted actions differently if I hadn’t known the opinions of the moderators. (I’m not saying this forum needs to go this way, and I don’t think it will, but since you asked…)

On 2/24/2018 at 1:04 PM, Chaos said:

We do realize that the moderator badge carries a lot of weight, and we don't want people to fear moderators. We will be instructing staff to not engage in heated discussions. We will also make it clearer which is Official Moderator Action, probably with boldface, when written in a post. We do wish to improve things and improve moderator communication, and make our disciplinary action more clear. We don't have a handbook and maybe we can codify things.

I like these ideas, which counter a lot of my issues with moderator opinions.  I will say in the other forum I’m involved in, mods just run “mod accounts.”  There are two or three of them, so you don’t know which person behind the mod is doing which actions.  The mods also have their own usernames, but when they are a “mod” that’s all they are doing.

Other

On 2/24/2018 at 6:12 PM, Mestiv said:

Ok, now I understand and I see your point. That was indeed a bit reckless that I split that post into a separate thread without consulting @Dreamstorm first. So, Dreamstorm, if you didn't agree with what I did, I sincerely apologize. 

No worries.  In retrospect, I maybe would have liked to be asked, but considering I expected the post to be deleted, to be put on mod status and to be told I could only discuss the issue in PM, I was completely fine with how it was handled.  I remain impressed that this discussion is even happening, so thank you for that.

2 hours ago, Mestiv said:

It occurred you me, that we, as multinational community,  can have a bit off communication issue. I don't know if it's true for other non-native speakers,  but I was shocked when I first saw the word "tribalism" used in this discussion. My immediate interpretation of it was straight out offensive (tribalism -> tribe -> some primitive tribe from before the pyramids -> primitive behaviour) and if it was directed at me I would be very unhappy. 

Not related to any of the above, but thank you, and I agree.  I’m guilty of it too, and given this is only online interaction without the benefit of other social cues, language becomes much more important than it would if there was other context involved.  It's sometimes very hard to ascertain someone's tone!

[+Extesian]

3 hours ago, Mestiv said:

It occurred you me, that we, as multinational community,  can have a bit off communication issue. I don't know if it's true for other non-native speakers,  but I was shocked when I first saw the word "tribalism" used in this discussion. My immediate interpretation of it was straight out offensive (tribalism -> tribe -> some primitive tribe from before the pyramids -> primitive behaviour) and if it was directed at me I would be very unhappy. 

Turns out this word simply means us-vs-them mentality, which isn't anything offensive. However, the bad taste after the first, intuitive interpretation remains in my mind. 

That's why I have a friendly request to everyone, not as a moderator, but as a person whose English skills aren't as good as most of you: be careful with this word, ok? 

I'll just address this briefly as I used that word, and thank you Mestiv for privately contacting me about it to give me the chance to remove it. I did just want to emphasise that I never meant anything offensive by it, its a word we use to refer to the polarizing nature of politics or sports, and I didn't realize it would be taken in a strong way. So as I said in my edit, I sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended and I certainly didn't mean it in the way it was taken, and I completely understand that anyone, not just internationals, would take it that way. I will be very careful with wording like that in future. I don't want to add to the emotions in this thread, even if I felt the need to defend the staff. Thanks for your patience guys, and thanks to the person or people who reported my post or I never would've realized I'd said something offensive! That's exactly what makes the report button so useful. 

[Chaos]

Dreamstorm, thank you for your post. I hope we are on the right track here and if we aren't--at any point in the future--you are more than welcome to write a post in the 17S Discussion board to have open discussion on things. Ideas are coming out of this thread (and from PMs to us) that will lead to active changes, which we hope will improve matters dramatically.

14 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

Yes to this.  I’m not artistic or creative (in the slightest), but I drafted an entire post on Kadolin (my emotional ship) after encouragement from a mod actually (@Greywatch), but around that time there was a lot of pushback against the idea of discussing even the canon romances, so I didn’t want to put myself in the line of fire for posting something which was 100% based on emotions.  I can clean that up and post it though (tomorrow) if people would like?  Does that even belong in the regular OB board though?

Along the lines of new posts (but on a totally different bent), I don’t want to poach @maxal's work, but I can also tomorrow pull our posts on Adolin’s fashion into a new thread.  I thought that was interesting as well and the shut down happened right after the discussion got started.  I gulp at saying this, but I also had some thoughts on Adolin and why he is so divisive (which I put in a spoiler, in ASK, if you want to see how far I buried that) from right before the shut down that I can also post…  I don’t know how far we want to go with this as that goes into an area which can be more contentious.

Please do!! 

If it has OB spoilers, still put it in the OB board. I'd also highly recommend you put in the OP @Kogiopsis's suggestions on what exactly the type of thread would be, and I'm glad you find those ideas astute, because I do too.

We're considering a character forum but we are very worried about the general feedback we've received from many people interested in character discussion that people might feel that type of discussion "corners" them into a certain area of the site. We want to counteract the idea that character discussion is bad, so we really don't want to exacerbate that with the structure of the forum itself, so we are leaning against no on a new forum, but we are considering it. That's a long winded way of saying, make these topics now! If we make any sort of character forum, it's trivial to move the topics.  

[Jofwu]

Wanted to post my own opinion concerning "character discussion" forum/subforum(s)...

I can see the appeal for a separate space, but I'd MUCH rather combat the idea that these discussions aren't welcome and eliminate the problem entirely. As someone who primarily looks at theories, character discussions (shipping or otherwise) should feel welcome.

Maybe there's a benefit that I don't see... But otherwise I'd prefer to at least try making this work before going down that road.

 

[maxal]

1 hour ago, Dreamstorm said:

Along the lines of new posts (but on a totally different bent), I don’t want to poach @maxal's work, but I can also tomorrow pull our posts on Adolin’s fashion into a new thread.  I thought that was interesting as well and the shut down happened right after the discussion got started.  I gulp at saying this, but I also had some thoughts on Adolin and why he is so divisive (which I put in a spoiler, in ASK, if you want to see how far I buried that) from right before the shut down that I can also post…  I don’t know how far we want to go with this as that goes into an area which can be more contentious.

Go ahead and post. As I said, I am really swamped these days, if you wait after me, you may wait a long time  I do want to have the conversation, but I hardly got time to sit down and enjoy myself these days. I saw your spoiler threat, but I didn't get the chance to read it, so definitely post it! It does not matter if it is contentious, I mean character discussion is nearly always contentious.

I might not have the time to answer decently for a while though.

[Chaos]

10 minutes ago, maxal said:

I saw your spoiler threat, but I didn't get the chance to read it, so definitely post it! It does not matter if it is contentious, I mean character discussion is nearly always contentious.

I don't mean to make light of this because I know this is an obvious typo, but I just wanted to joke, maybe it'd be less contentious if there were less spoiler threats  

(Okay, I'm going to bed now.)

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

3 hours ago, Dreamstorm said:

Moderators and their Opinions

On 2/24/2018 at 10:04 AM, Chaos said:

Would you rather us just not share opinions? If we just hid in holes and you knew nothing about it? We'd still have opinions. If there were posts that some find disrespectful, we'd still evaluate them in the same way. Or, would you rather like to know what some individuals on the staff think? 

Honestly, yes?  I think part of the problem is the perception, especially when it came to ASK and there seemed to be a cohesive mod opinion, and if you were against the opinion, you really had to watch yourself.  (As others had stated, the Shardcast didn’t help with this perception.)  I think I would have interpreted actions differently if I hadn’t known the opinions of the moderators. (I’m not saying this forum needs to go this way, and I don’t think it will, but since you asked…)

@Dreamstorm, I thought your post was exceptionally well though out and agree with nearly everything you said except the bit quoted above.

I hope you take this in the spirit it is intended, but it seems fundamentally wrong to me to request that some of Brandon's most dedicated fans should be restricted in sharing their opinions on a website that they setup and maintain without any monetary support form the users of that site. That's like asking the little red hen to gather the wheat, thresh the wheat, bake it into bread and then retire so that others can enjoy the fresh baked loaf of bread. The reason that these people are giving so much of their time to this is endeavor that is the 17th shard is that they feel passionate about these books. Further, I think there is a double standard at play in this, that in order to protect a certain group from the perception of bias, another group has to be silenced. This site, as I see it (with my rose tinted optimist glasses on), is like classical Alexandria under Ptolemy I, this is a place for discussions on the highest level, disagreements are inevitable, and the best use of energy of those regulating this environment of free discourse is in diffusing disagreements that are turning into personal attacks.

This is a time when the sage advice of Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird would help. Try to imagine that you are an admin/moderator/arcanist of the 17th shard, why would you commit a large segment of your personal time to do largely unpleasant/repetitive/difficult work if you can't enjoy the fruits of your labor?

Totally get that it's a bad feeling to feel like the amazing work you do is unappreciated, I wish that some of the really good analysis that was in the ASK thread had been pulled out so that I could have read it. I am really looking forward to reading some of these when they appear in a form that is less daunting (like I said in an earlier post I stayed away from the ASK thread because of it's size, but if these ideas were broken into smaller chunks I would love to read them).

I've read your posts on other threads, you have a great voice and you have a very sharp analytical mind and I would love to read some more of your posts in the future. There are a lot of great posters that seemed to have confined their great content to the ASK thread, so I think going forward, it will better for everyone that they are posting in a way that more forum users will be exposed to their unique voices/awesome analysis.

[Calderis]

I'm against the creation of a new subforum, because like I've said previously, I think creating barriers isn't the answer. I think that the current setup should work fine, and that there's also a deeper misunderstanding here. That may be due to the name of the Cosmere Theories board. 

I've seen a couple of times in here, that people have mention that the Cosmere Theories board is somehow for "deep realmatics." To my knowledge though, that's not it's purpose. Cosmere Theories exists, in my mind at least, as a place to put you posts that don't neatly fit in to any one series discussion. It's about potentially spoiling people to other series, not the amount of quotes and WoBs.

I mean, I made my original Cosmere Limericks thread in Cosmere Theories just so that it could have spoilers for all series and not be a problem. It's not barred to certain subjects or silliness or speculation, or anything that doesn't break the site rules. It's just there to protect people who haven't read everything yet. 

[Dreamstorm]

9 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

I hope you take this in the spirit it is intended, but it seems fundamentally wrong to me to request that some of Brandon's most dedicated fans should be restricted in sharing their opinions on a website that they setup and maintain without any monetary support form the users of that site. That's like asking the little red hen to gather the wheat, thresh the wheat, bake it into bread and then retire so that others can enjoy the fresh baked loaf of bread. The reason that these people are giving so much of their time to this is endeavor that is the 17th shard is that they feel passionate about these books. Further, I think there is a double standard at play in this, that in order to protect a certain group from the perception of bias, another group has to be silenced. This site, as I see it (with my rose tinted optimist glasses on), is like classical Alexandria under Ptolemy I, this is a place for discussions on the highest level, disagreements are inevitable, and the best use of energy of those regulating this environment of free discourse is in diffusing disagreements that are turning into personal attacks.

I totally understand that you have a different perspective, and I think that is the prevailing perspective here.  Like I said, on these other forums I frequent, there are a few "mod accounts" that only moderate.  The people "behind" the mod accounts have their own personal accounts (I don't know if they all do, but I believe many do) where they can participate in the forums (so they get the benefit of their hard work too), but the mod accounts only moderate.  I don't even know how many mods (persons behind the mod accounts) there are!  This definitely isn't the way this forum was set up, and I can also see the benefit in knowing your admin staff and building a rapport with them, and how that can actually facilitate conflict mediation.  If I got my way (life is hard in the fact it doesn't always happen that way though ), I would choose the impersonal "mod account" style, so I wanted to give my perspective to the questions posed.  I'm not expecting everyone (or even a majority) to agree with me or for this to be what happens though!

On 2/23/2018 at 6:26 PM, Chaos said:

One more thing about bias from the OP: everyone is biased. Every one of you with your opinions and how you have lived your life. The way to deal with bias is not to hide it but to acknowledge it as being real. The OP seems to suggest that because we biased, we can't moderate anything.

I didn't address this in my post last night, but I wanted to clarify that I definitely didn't mean it that way.  You are absolutely correct every person has bias (both conscious and unconscious), and it is impossible to be a completely neutral adjudicator in any dispute.  All you can do is acknowledge your bias and correct for it, if needed.  In my OP, I felt like there was a definite bias (in a couple areas - anti-romance/characters and more specifically ASK) which came out in the moderation.  So my issue was not that moderators had a bias, it's that it seemed to influence their actions.  After talking through a number of situations, it seems like that perception was not reality in many cases (and I know some specific instances have been discussed privately; my comment was more general.)  I think having clear guidelines, as is discussed above, will go a long way to making users like me feel comfortable that bias isn't affecting moderation actions.  (And this discussion has been helpful as well.)

13 hours ago, maxal said:

Go ahead and post. As I said, I am really swamped these days, if you wait after me, you may wait a long time  I do want to have the conversation, but I hardly got time to sit down and enjoy myself these days. I saw your spoiler threat, but I didn't get the chance to read it, so definitely post it! It does not matter if it is contentious, I mean character discussion is nearly always contentious.

Alright, fashion post up, and I will do the other one either later today or tomorrow as I want to put more thought into it.  So I await continuing our discussion when you have the time to do so!

[Stark]

I personally am not invested in shipping conversations.  They do nothing for me, so I avoid them all together, except for the occasional off-hand thought.  So I have nothing to say on that subject for how it should be handled.  I am saddened that it is such a divisive subject.

 

As for moderator participation on the boards, I'm all for that.  I do not think the moderators need separate accounts for personal posts versus official posts.  They are not government officials.  They are unpaid volunteers doing this because they love it.  Restricting their posting seems like a good way to drive them to quit, or take the fun out of this and make it actual work.  I do not believe it is the way to go.

Having a strict set of guidelines for how Mods enforce site rules, regardless of the offender, that I am all for, and that seems to be the direction we are leaning.  The only thing I would want to ask the Mods is for them to be aware of the perception that can be associated with their posts.  Not to not post, nor to change their posting habits, but just to be aware that their posts can be perceived as official position, or unconsciously given additional weight.

 

And as a final thought for the arcanists - Directed mainly to Rshara and Calderis as they seem to be the representatives of the arcanists here in this thread.  But others as well, and even Yata, who I don't think is an arcanist.  I would be lying if I said I have not grumbled at my keyboard every now and then when I have carefully gathered my thoughts to present a theory or an idea, only to have it shot down and utterly destroyed by a WOB or direct page reference from one of you within 30 seconds of posting.  But that frustration is almost entirely with finding out that I am wrong, not with you for showing me my error.  I'd rather know I'm wrong sooner, than continue going down the wrong path for a longer period of time.

So I hope you guys keep debating with us, and forgive us our frustrations if they are misplaced.

[Calderis]

4 hours ago, Stark said:

And as a final thought for the arcanists - Directed mainly to Rshara and Calderis as they seem to be the representatives of the arcanists here in this thread.  But others as well, and even Yata, who I don't think is an arcanist.  I would be lying if I said I have not grumbled at my keyboard every now and then when I have carefully gathered my thoughts to present a theory or an idea, only to have it shot down and utterly destroyed by a WOB or direct page reference from one of you within 30 seconds of posting.  But that frustration is almost entirely with finding out that I am wrong, not with you for showing me my error.  I'd rather know I'm wrong sooner, than continue going down the wrong path for a longer period of time.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, a good chunk of my own theories never get posted, because I do this to myself too... 

[Stark]

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

Well, if it makes you feel any better, a good chunk of my own theories never get posted, because I do this to myself too... 

It does and it doesn't.  As I said, I grumble at my keyboard, not you guys - the ones who are providing me with information I didn't have, so that I can better support my theories, or allow them to die.  So I was not feeling bad.  And if ever I feel a response to me is out of line, I'll express that feeling.  If I've learned nothing else from this thread, it is that you guys are open to conflict resolution and discussion.

[Fifth of Daybreak]

So I thought it might be helpful if I jumped in here with my two cents, as sort of a bridge between the two camps. I've been a member of the forums since WoR, but due to a lot of craziness in my life (medical problems with family members, work-related issues, etc) I've also had extended absences from the forums. As such, I both have the feeling of being in with some of the older crowd as well as not meshing in completely since I don't participate in the discord, and don't participate heavily in a lot of areas of the forums. 

Regarding moderators: I wanted to weigh in to provide some benefit of the doubt for Chaos in regard to the public/private rebuke on the rules. While I feel like there's been a couple of times when there could have been moderation taken in conversations I've been involved in, I've only been addressed by moderators once, and it was in a public setting by Choas, and he did so in response to my having reported a post someone else made.

Personally, I feel like this speaks highly of his ability to be unbiased and take in a whole situation. As a member who has multiple years of participation, albeit, with long absences, under my belt, and quite a hefty reputation rank, he had absolutely no reservations in, deservedly, calling out my behavior that was not de-escalating the situation. He was also very instructive and provided specific examples of said behavior to me when I privately messaged him afterward asking for how I could improve my behavior. This is consistent both with his statements on being completely transparent and his follow through in this thread. 

My own personal philosophy is that being directly open and honest about when you feel the discussion is starting to turn south, and confronting those feelings, is the best way to resolve it, without having to involve the moderators. As @Alderant noted, we have had great success with this together and formed a bond overcoming that tension on the forums. I know that I'm not perfect about this myself, but I'd personally much rather someone address me directly and tell me that I need to stop being a wool-headed sheepherder, and I'll do my best to remove myself from my emotions and take better stock of the situation. From my own experiences, the 17th Shard as a whole has been absolutely wonderful about this. 

Which leads me to the next thing I want to address regarding the things said about the arcanists and @Calderis especially. I can understand the perspective being stated here, about feeling like you've been targeted or dogpiled on for having a dissenting opinion on a post, as I've felt the same way at times. However, Calderis has been unfailing, in my experiences, to either own up to any actions that could be perceived that way, or apologize for any comments that come across that way when directly confronted about it. I can think of several different specific occasions where I have directly stated that I was feeling a negative connotation from a response to a thread, and he apologized for it and made clear it was not his intention. I have a lot of respect for him, not just because of the wealth of knowledge he has, but because he has always proven to be willing to discuss in good faith.

Granted, I did not participate in any way in the ASK thread, however, I thought that maybe it might be helpful for some of you who I have not had extended interactions with to know that I've had some similar experiences, or that someone with a high rep and longer time invested in the site has had the "public shaming" option instead of the private message moderation. 

Regarding the reputation system, I was very happy to see the downvote system disappear, but I will be just as unhappy to see the upvote system disappear. While I can see the merit behind the arguments for not utilizing it anymore, it has always been a fun way for me to engage with other sharders, and vice versa. I'm not sure what the solutions are to this problem, or to the complaints against moderation in general, but I think that we, as general members, should also be looking at ways in which we can take ownership of the situation and find a middle ground that allows us to better facilitate communication with each other. Several months ago I decided to use my "about me" section to convey information about my personal style of debate and to reiterate that should any tension arise between myself and another member of the forum, that I will do whatever it takes to try to solve that situation if you bring it to my attention. 

Confrontation isn't easy, but I also think that putting the burden of this problem completely on the moderators, and then criticising them for not having an easy solution, is not the best path that we can take. The feelings I've seen presented are most certainly valid, please don't in any way think that I'm trying to make it seem as though I'm dismissing them, whether it's that you feel the mods are biased, or anything else I've read here. That's not my intention with this post. I don't have your experiences, and I would never try to dismiss them because my own experiences have been different. Rather, I thought it might be helpful to use my own experiences on the forum to provide a larger background picture for those who might be feeling this way. 

My feelings, of course, are my own, but I hope that we can find a way to figure this out that doesn't restrict people who obviously share our own love of Sanderson from participating in the forums themselves. I personally don't think it would be fair to expect them to put aside posting on the forums because they are trying to keep it a nice place for everyone. 

Essentially, I want to ask the same thing that is being asked of them, assume good intentions on their part, just as we want them to assume that both new and older members of the forums have good intentions themselves. 

Edited February 28, 2018 by Fifth of Daybreak