From time to time when we someone reports a post or we give out warnings or infractions we get, um, feedback. Sometimes that feedback is well thought out and constructive, sometimes that feedback is shrill and insulting (though often with some useful kernel in it somewhere).
But quite a lot of the feedback is based on assumptions which are at best shaky and at worst completely wrong.
So I wanted to sum up some of those issues here so they don't have to be typed out over and over.
Often the feedback revolves around some aspect of fairness. We're under no obligation to be fair (life isn't fair), but we do try to be fair so it makes sense that people would complain when something doesn't appear fair.
So often the complaint is something along the lines of "I got an infraction for X so why does Y go unpunished?" or "You guys treat X this way but all treat me differently". There's often no actual defense of the behaviour, and to me "Well Billy did it" or "Sally got away with it" responses are obviously flawed, but apparently not obvious enough so here's a detailed response.
Most of the unfair or biased treatment accusations are flawed because they are based on incorrect assumptions:
Assumption #1: Moderators read every post.
The result of this assumption is that if a post stands without being edited or having action taken against it that we explicitly endorse the contents.
Of course we cannot read every post. We rely on posters to report posts so that we can look at them and evaluate them. If a post is made that a moderator doesn't read and no one reports it can't be evaluated.
Not to mention that moderators aren't paid employees, and sometimes they are reading the forum in "poster" mode rather than "moderator" mode.
So the conclusion that the moderators are unfair or biased because a post went by unedited or had no action taken against it is flawed because not every post is read.
Assumption #2: Everything is instant.
The result of this assumption is that if a post stands at a specific time without being edited or having action taken against it that we explicitly endorse the contents.
Moderators have jobs, lives, things other than moderating the forum they do. Sometimes there's a few moderators on and things get looked at right away. Sometimes we're all busy doing other things and can't look at it right away.
Sometimes a thread is a mess and we can't take the 45 minutes it'll take to sift through all the posts and figure out where it started and who's at fault right away.
So the conclusion that the moderators are unfair or biased because a post went by unedited or had no action taken against it at a specific moment is flawed because sometimes it's hours (or even days) before a specific post really gets addressed.
We've also tried to help this by adding more moderators.
Assumption #3: 100% of Moderator read or reported posts get looked at.
The result of this assumption is that if a post stands without being edited or having action taken against it that we explicitly endorse the contents.
Sometimes no one can look at it right away, and then we all get distracted by other things and everyone forgets to go back and address it. It simply gets missed.
Or sometimes the moderator is tired of all the stupid **** that's being posted and would rather do something else than spend their time trying to sift through a bunch of childish behaviour to figure out who is more at fault.
That doesn't imply that we are selectively enforcing the standards any more than speeding without getting a speeding ticket means the police are selectively enforcing the law. It just means that someone got away with it.
So the conclusion that the moderators are unfair or biased because a post went by unedited or had no action taken against it is flawed because sometimes they just slip through.
Assumption #4: No action was taken against a post.
The result of this assumption is that if a post stands without being edited or having action taken against it that we explicitly endorse the contents.
This one happens a lot, people complain about warnings or infractions because the other person didn't get one, but infractions are invisible to anyone except those who got them.
To accuse someone of bias when there's no way of actually telling if there's bias is actually bias itself. A bare assertion it's called.
Now this one I can understand a bit because there is no visible feedback to everyone else.. in hockey both guys go to the box or only one does, but you can see that. But you can't see if the other guy got an infraction.
So in an effort to help that the moderators are making more of an effort at making visible edits of posts as well as giving infractions and warnings.
However that is a change of habit for the mods and requires more time on the part of the mod, so it doesn't always happen, but the effort is being made and the goal is to make it more visible that an offending post is being addressed.
So the conclusion that the moderators are unfair or biased because a post went by unedited or had no action taken against it is flawed because often action actually was taken, just not visibly.
Other smaller things we get:
Comment: You could have just sent me a PM rather than giving an infraction.
Response: Infractions are PM's!
The infraction system is just a way of keeping track of what's going on, so rather than some person getting a PM from 5 different moderators before we figure out that there's a problem, the infraction system keeps track of it so each moderator can see what the history is, so if it's the 5th time someone's been spoken to about something we can know that maybe something else has to be done. We've also made an effort to use more warnings for smaller issues or first time issues because the word "infraction" carries maybe too much negativity.
Comment: There's a conspiracy against me, I'm not part of the "old boy's club", you just don't like what I have to say.
Response: This is amusing because if we wanted to get rid of you we would, period. The whole point of a conspiracy is to get something done despite obstacles. But there's no obstacles for the moderators to get rid of someone, so it'd be the shortest and easiest conspiracy ever, 4 seconds to type in a user ID and click ban.
Anyway I hope that helps make some things more clear.