Locking this thread - seriously mods??

I know what it's the start of.  Enforcing Newspeak, where there can only be one word to say everything. Then there will be no dissidents

Apparently playing chess in the forums (which I used to see once in a while) is banned now as well.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/lets-play-blindfold-right-now

I have seen a few tropics locked for that. The site has ample methods of playing that playing in the forums is something that is frowned upon, though I don't know how stringently that is enforced.

It's a pretty normal thing at some forums, especially chesspub.

Well, this is the reason why I pretty much stopped using Chess.com's forums. Their double standards are unbelievable.

[It's never been permitted in the years I've been here. If you see a game going on it's because it's some variant that the site doesn't support the way it does orthodox chess. Mod.]

That's an odd rule.

The OP has some good points and several people have also added interesting points. Bottom Line: What does our leader Erik think about this situation ???  

I read it. We have a lot of different moderators who all volunteer to do their best. Some are a little more strict, some a little more lax. We are always trying to find the right balance, and I'm constantly reminding people to have a lighter hand. My apologies for when it doesn't come across right. 

That bolded line says you have no standards and they can do what they want. If there are standards then they would be followed or they lose their mod status. Pretty simple.

This is what has made this site a joke. The mods are free to do what they want and the rules change with the wind. One day something is fine, then the next it is not. Two days later it is fine again. Or, for some reason, it is allowed for some but not for others.

I was actually told by a mod - oh wait, by someone who said they "head up the mod team" - that what I posted was - and I quote - " I think we can both agree that they are not super kind".

So now we not only have to be "relevant, helpful and kind", now we have to be "super kind". What a joke.

You also have no standards for things like dupe accounts (which are supposedly against the rules, but nothing gets done to the person who creates them). You say you do but in reality you don't. People actually brag about doing it.

   ---   Thank you for the post on this subject. I spent many years working in a large shop on a major railway here in Canada. We had quite a number of different supervisors working there over the years and I can understand that it is hard to get everyone to hold to the same standard. I do feel that the mods are doing a good job on average but of course it is probably impossible to please all of the people all of the time   lol.

Thank you for having an eye on things Erik.

Speaking of which, there are a few things that have always seemed a bit strange to me in regands of moderation and moderator accountability.

1) While there are accounts who say "Staff" on them, there seems to be no indication of wether an account is a volunteer moderator. I've always found that to be less transparent then could be wished for. Other sites seem to do fine with such a sign, is there a reason you didn't want that here ?

2) Is there a proper supervision of moderation and a regular check on who has moderator powers ?

I'm asking because quite a while ago I remember a known moderator came back after a time of inactivity and was asking whom to talk to for current guidelines and moderation process.

Now I didn't see anything wrong with her actions (indeed, she seemed quite nice) but that had me thinking... do volunteers who go inactive keep their moderator powers forever ?

This could surely cause a major problem if someone was inactive long enough to be practically forgotten and then went rogue and did act wantonly with his powers in secret. Do you have mechanisms in place to prevent that ?

3) While moderation action is necessary, I am surprised how often I read a comment just signed my "mod". If the moderator in question acts fairly and according to guidelines, why is this moderation being done anonymously ?

I dont agree with Rsava above who claims "The mods are free to do what they want and the rules change with the wind." but I can see how that impression can come to be.

With anonymous moderation it becomes indeed very easy for a moderator to act more or less strict or to play personal favourites in moderation because the users can't see who does what and therefore can't point out such behaviour to the staff who can't watch their mods all the time after all.

It would be far easier to point out a mod who weighs things differently than the others and interprets moderation guidelines differently.

4) Just out of curiosity, since we can't tell who is a mod and who not unless they choose to reveal themselves: is any one of the major forum trolls a mod currently ? Are several ?

Yes, sharing similar sentiments as the above posters. Thank you.

Nice to see a response from the owner, doing a non-Oscar Munoz (which is a good thing).

Moderators have a blue pawn icon on the default site and on v2 they are listed as staff.

   As a rule I don't like responding to comments as a "moderator" (though granted as a "member" I probably have too big a mouth).   But, first let me say, I've been here 10 years, mostly as a writer but also as a denizen of the Forums and I've never developed the perception of the Forums as being a joke.  There's always an ebb-and-flow; sometimes they are better than other times, but the value of the Forums -to me- doesn't lie with the moderator, but with the contributors.

   Moderators have guidelines some of which are absolute for the most part while others are more flexible. When dealing with people from all over, people with different customs, people of different ages, gender, education, experiences, as well as people with varied facility of the English language, primarily used here, Black-and-White can't be the rule and flexibility is a necessity.  Remembering also that each moderator is an individual with his or her own values and priorities, while at the same time sharing with other moderators the commonality of wanting to make this site as enjoyable as possible for as many people as possible, the reality is that the goal is altruistic and probably unattainable but the effort is honorable whether appreciated or not.  There are areas where we fail miserably but we are constantly striving towards clarification, balance and improvement.   Cherry-picking little things one doesn't like and projecting that into a generalization doesn't seem fair to the people who devote and extraordinary amount of their time and energy towards keeping this site sane and in making it welcoming.

Batgirl, I appreciate your response however I have to take exception to some of it.

First, I agree that the the forums ebb and flow. But then you have posters who completely abuse the forums and do not get dealt with. That is totally unacceptable. TOTALLY.

When you have things like I was talking about, things being ok one day then not being ok the next it makes the website a joke. There is no consistency.

Being a moderator for a site does not allow them to have "his or her own values and priorities" as you state. They need to be the same or the users have no way of knowing what is acceptable and what is not. It is merely up to the whim of a particular mod.

You either have standards that are followed or you don't. Currently, it appears that chess.com has very few standards that are followed. Having a system where, as you state, "each moderator is an individual with his or her own values and priorities" just does not work in my experience (which includes running multi-million dollar businesses, being on the management team of a billion $ a year business and being in charge of a large all-volunteer group). 

As I pointed out, I was basically told that I now need to be "super kind". And that came in a private message from the so-called leader of the mods. That is a prime example of different rules from different people since most of the time we are told to be "relevant, helpful and nice". But apparently the rules changed for me that day. (For another GREAT example, see this post: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/lets-play-blindfold-right-now and notice post #2 and #3. Apparently there are no rules concerning this and mods can make it up as they go? Or as Erik says, it is ok and the mod who said no did not know that there is actually a policy on it.)  

I did not "cherry pick" little things. As can be seen, this lack of consistency in rules is a major problem that is talked about on the forums (at least until the threads get shut down) on a regular basis. I in no way 'generalized" things. I was very specific in saying:

The mods are free to do what they want and the rules change with the wind. One day something is fine, then the next it is not. Two days later it is fine again. Or, for some reason, it is allowed for some but not for others.

That is a specific. It is about the rules in the forums. 

I also gave a specific example of what I was talking about with a quote from a message I received.

And finally I gave a specific example of dupe accounts. 

Nowhere did I use generalizations in my examples.

I did use generalizations about mods, for which I apologize. But there are quite a few that have no clue and are just on power trips. I complained about one (at the beginning of March), the person had joined chess.com in January of this year and was already a mod. Really? And when I mentioned that fact no one said "Oh, that person has been around for a while they closed their old account and opened a new one" (which would have been suspect also).

I appreciate what the mods do and I appreciate that a number of mods do what they do in the background. But I will stand by what I have posted as being an issue and something that has made chess.com less of a site than what it was when I joined a number of years ago.

Rsava, I just hope you didn't seen my posting as an attack in any way because that was never my intention as you have my utmost respect. My purpose was to demonstrate that moderating a site such as this is a big job and usually an unclear one. Mods are people, plain and simple.  I'm not sure any are on "power trips" but it's true many are inexperienced, a bit gung-ho and sometimes confuse strictness with duty.  There tends to be a certain lack of consistency. Some of this is a natural consequence of the environment, but to me too much emphasis on consistency in itself can be detrimental since that type of consistency requires rigidity. I want people to have fun even if means skirting the rules, but at the same time I don't want people ruining the enjoyment of others. 

Anyway, thanks for your posts... they're definitely worth some examination.

 Nope, I appreciate you Batgirl and your reputation with me is grade A+. I respect you immensely.

C'mon folks, don't expect consistency from the mods regarding the rules.  There's no rhyme nor reason to explain some threads being locked except maybe the mod had a bad head from the bevvy the night before.  As one ex mod explained the reasons he jacked in that job.  He said the instructions vary by the day; what may be ok one day won't be the next.  I'm voting with my feet, as many others have done :-)  For more info see 'This Site' in Off Topic.

Thank you for your attention to this topic Erik! I created this thread because I do not think that threads should be locked if they do not need to be, for a good reason. The two that I mentioned violated no rules stated in the terms of service, so I believed that their locking was unjustified, and I'm glad to see that you seem to agree.

That's all I have to say on the topic of this thread, at least for now. I will let the discussion that has ensued in the last few hours continue.

Yes, that's resolved your original question pretty conclusively  If @erik is okay with repetitive threads, then I'm not going to lock them in future, and I apologise for doing so  I'll have a look at the moderator training materials and see if it's covered in there somewhere to try and prevent this particular example from happening again.

It's another demonstration of how open Erik is to people of all sort of opinions and their foibles. I've posted elsewhere that I think consistency is especially hard to achieve because I think hard & fast rules lead to even harder & faster arguments about the minutae of those rules and how they are applied, and to even more complaints like "why isn't X being sanctioned for doing the same thing as me" etc.

@Batgirl's point about the level of experience of the different mods is an excellent one: new moderators do sometimes make decisions that look a little different to how it's been traditionally done, and usually those things are raised and discussed in the Moderator group to help all of the mods get on the same page, or at least understand the thinking of their fellow moderators; most of the time those decisions will be left in place even if it was a little unusual, because we don't want to contradict the original decision (there's that consistency thing again) or to make that moderator - who is volunteering their time, effort and emotional energy - feel like they're being "thrown under the bus", so to speak.