Originally posted by Horrificus
I would also like for the Mods to have less power, and be placed in more of a "peer" position.
Has anybody else experienced harassment, or unfair reprimand from these Mods, or been told that you were unable to tell other members about these
negative experiences?
Look man, I'm sorry if you had a bad experience with a Mod from here. Rest assured that's not the status quo. With almost any thread except the most
obvious breaches of the TAC, before taking any action, we post a link to the thread in the moderators forum, where all the staff see it, and a sort of
democratic decision as to what to do with the post takes place.
Sometimes we're even of a split mind as to what to do about a post, but ultimately, pretty much every "violating" post has a fair trial. We try to
avoid immediate punishment by doing things like U2Uing members and asking them to change the post, or to change their ways. When we do issue some sort
of corrective action, it's usually just a handful of points subtracted from a mostly meaningless total. Generally those two things are enough to turn
posters around and help them be a better contributing member to ATS.
We do not censor "unpopular" or "out there" posts. We censor bad language, not for any particular moral reason, but rather because we don't want
to be added to adult filter lists, which would get us blocked from most workplaces and public libraries.
If you (or anyone else for that matter) ever feel you were unfairly treated by a Mod, then you are always welcome (and in fact, encouraged) to use the
complaint feature. This goes straight to the SuperMods, Admins, and Founders.
While I certainly won't dismiss the possibility of excess or abuse of mod powers in isolated incidents, I can personally vouch for my fellow mods as
being very judicious in the use of their powers. None of us ever log into ATS for the day thinking "Oh, boy, I can't wait to postban some bitz!" or
"I can't wait to lock a thread today!"
When those things happen, they happen because of a lack of cooperation in maintaining the ATS standards of quality and courtesy, not because we
didn't like what was said.