Moderator Role & Implementation #4059
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marksjc
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I recently added comments to an issue I'd been following for some time when I read 2 comments by the same person that were, in my view, outside the guidelines and objectives of civility and blaming. I quoted the specific phrases and asked the commenter to stand down and follow the gudelines.
The response was denial and anger directed at me, although another commenter (I don't know any of the individuals) backed me up. I feel good about what I said and how I said it (and not having knee jerked) yet the defensive response and lack of self awareness was troubling. My concern is that baring an "athority" like a moderator involvement early in an "out of guidelines" interaction contributors can become abusive, angry, hurt and withdraw from participation. I had this happen on XDA when asking for help got attacked for not answering a question I didn't know the answer to (and stated so). When I responded that I didn't know the answer (specific to a backup file that didn't exist) I was told the file must exist, yet it did not. Eventually the moderator stepped in to freeze. I then had to ask the moderator to delete the non-productive and abusive (to me) comments. After pushback the moderator agreed to delete My error was responding in that thread rather than in private. The bully was arrogant and faux suprized bring squelched. I had carefully corrected the bully's statements, tried to be understanding but he just wanted to bully. I stopped participating in that thread and resorted to less reliable sources (for Android dev work, all resources are less reliable then XDA).
I think these rare (only time I've ever seen this behavior in GitHub) situations might resolve better for everyone if the moderator could make the first contact, with all users able to flag any post for monitor review. This would then institutionalize the process of initial contact and filter out "resentment/response," give advice/instruction based on written policies, and determine appropriate steps if contributors remain non-compliant. Locking the thread is a measure potentially negatively impacting all contributors, and generally not required if issues are addressed directly at source of problem. Please note I'm not criticizing the moderator's action in any way (in this example). they just have limited tools and early intervention could prevent distracting public spats. Wanted to add that the NY Times & Wash Post implement (differently) moderator flags in a way consistent with my suggestion. Likely motivator is that one story might have well over 1k comments and moderators need some flags to address most obvious issues first.
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