I love @romanigypsyeyes thread! Hope it continues. I do think the admission that “we’ve made a few exceptions” may be part of what some are wondering about. Some threads allowed to continue , others heavily moderated, sometimes shut down abruptly. There are interesting threads sometimes lately about very individual, specific college journeys that get a lot of traction. How will those kind of threads fit in down the line, since many seem very personal and specific? It will be interesting to see how this continues to evolve. Thanks @MaineLonghorn for your dedication .
My personal understanding of the TOS is a desire to create an inviting and welcoming environment. For all.
That is expressed as avoiding race issues, religion and politics. Like a healthy Thanksgiving dinner. Also being rude or abusive, obviously.
These seem like pretty good rules in general.
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CC is always a welcome respite from this societal clamor, acrimony and endless arguing.
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Perhaps there can be a completely unmoderated ”Covid 1” thread where the TOS rules are suspended, short of abuse and spam.
Create a “Covid 2“ where the mission is the same but with very strict moderation.
Let folks choose the one they prefer without shutting anyone out from the info.
The personal journey blogs, @romanigypsyeyes thread, retirement, movies, books and weddings are all very enjoyable to read.
Moderation is a CONSTANT juggling act. We have to apply the Terns of Service the best watcher can. If some of you would review the TOS and make specific suggestions about how they can be improved, I know Jon would appreciate your input.
I disagree that most threads are shut down abruptly (I’m not talking about the obvious problem ones such as, “How hot are the girls at State U?”). You may not realize how many, many posts are deleted and how many complaints are received before we close a thread. A lot of times a moderator will ask the other moderators if it’s time to close a thread. Users may also not understand that moderators don’t work alone. We are a team and consult with each other often. If one of us disagrees with another moderator’s action, we don’t hesitate to bring it up. That’s probably what I’ve enjoyed most about moderating, the chance to work with the other moderators.
@CCadmin_Jon I was really struck by your reference to “our conflict.” If you start from the perspective that you are in conflict with the posters, there can be no good outcome. The forums are organic and they will go where they will go, subject to the TOS, which @privatebanker has summed up nicely. I think your focus should be on how to make things more manageable for the moderators without interfering with the organic nature of the forums. I can say from experience that it is pretty easy to skip through long threads or past posters I’m not interested in. I am in Asia, so when I wake up in the morning, there can be a 100 or more new posts on some of these threads. I certainly don’t read them all, usually just skip to the most recent page or two if it’s a thread I am following. No big deal.
For me, the more specific a thread is the easier it is to skip. It doesn’t matter if it’s one asking about colleges in Oregon (way too far for 99.9% of our PA public school students to consider, so no need for me to brush up on my knowledge and I certainly can’t contribute to it) or if it’s a life journey (birth, death, or anything in between).
And some of those I do read and/or contribute to and I like them often learning a bit. It’s all my choice. I’ve even asked some specific questions and gotten great advice in my past from those who were interested and able to contribute.
Having a vast wealth of knowledge on cc to be able to answer so many different questions is one of its strengths IMO.
First, come up with clear and unambiguous TOS on what is considered a political post. Is it political to say abortion laws or gun laws need to be made stricter? Is it political to express disapproval of current abortion laws or gun laws? Is it political to give opinions about lobbying organizations such as the NRA or Planned Parenthood?
Please be consistent with the TOS. Exceptions to what is allowed need to be noted, to include why. To not do so is to invite accusations of playing favorites. Better yet, don’t have exceptions at all. I saw people pushing the boundaries of politics more and more, on the original covid thread as they saw that nothing was being done.
@jonri brings up some interesting points about mods. There is definitely the opportunity for bias if the mod is participating in the thread. And yes, maybe it is a conflict of interest to have a mod post anywhere on the site at all.The potential is there for them to warn or ban the posters their friends don’t like. So why not pay the mods?
And why aren’t the names of the mod or mods for a thread posted at the top of the thread?
I’ve repeatedly asked just who the mods are, and have gotten no answer. Why? I suspect it is because there are only two or three mods now. It’s their “job” to moderate all of CC now, and if people realized that, they would also realize how very challenging it would be (is?) to enforce TOS for all the areas and all the threads, and how easy it would be to post whatever they wanted, particularly in an area where posters don’t report things.
So, Jon, tell us – in your previous job did the mods for all those discussion areas get paid? Or were they also volunteers?
One more thing – I’ve also been confused about the “can’t ask for a friend” rule. There are threads “asking for a friend” about relationship issues, divorce, medical issues, etc. Why are these allowed? The point was someone could be identified, so “asking for a friend” wasn’t to be done. Yet I see it done all the time.
I think there was this thread about picking some northwest college ( “wild rumpus” in the title I think ) that had me thinking that this was a personal blog. I rolled my eyes a bit but who cares. I didn’t have to read it for goodness sakes.
I completely agree with all your sentiments here. The “ stay on topic” is particularly irritating to me because it only shows up in certain threads. Moderate for spam, personal attacks and foul language. Leave the rest of the Cafe to work itself out.
In the interest of full disclosure I will say that I “ hate read” that Wild Rumpus thread. Lol. Its not the only thread I’ve hate-read here. Why do humans hate watch and read? I don’t know but we do. Perhaps some of heavy handed reporters are big hate readers.
“One more thing – I’ve also been confused about the “can’t ask for a friend” rule. There are threads “asking for a friend” about relationship issues, divorce, medical issues, etc. Why are these allowed? The point was someone could be identified, so “asking for a friend” wasn’t to be done. Yet I see it done all the time.”
@CTTC - thank you for this question - it elucidated what “ask for a friend” meant! For years I thought “you can’t ask for a friend” meant that you can’t seek a social connection on the CC forums because it’s crossing boundaries to look for friends that way. (!!) Now it seems obvious as of this morning that all along, CC has meant that you can’t ask a question couched as if it is about someone else. LOL
I have been trying to help for many years on the music forum, parents forum, essays, and sometimes Ivy League. Some of us have gone through strugles with kids with health, mental healthy or other challenges and like to share what we have learned, especially hope.
The music forum has become hard to access and beginnning with “Go’Forth’s Journey” there are yearly blogs that are quite personal. That’s what people want, and they are very long threads. Nomoderator has had a problem with those long "journey"threads.
I think there are a lot of folks on here for many years. I discovered the Parents Cafe after 10 years on here and it is so helpful with my parent caregiving.
The DosChicos thread saved us time and gave us so much information. That said, with long threads, I check in closer to the end when I have missed hundreds of posts. Unlike other threads, the COVID ones move along in time and the more recent ones are more accurate anyway. I am unclear: are the moderators obliged to read all of them?
I think people were a little confused about what was political. I was careful and then made a little mistake (about my blood running cold about something) and apologized in another post. The another poster asked why I was concerned about being political.
Maybe moderators could dip in in a friendly way with reminders on how to best continue the discussion and avoid moderation. This could be done in a friendlier fashion rather than the kind of threatening tone used now. We are all (or mostl) adults. As that thread progressed it became a little confusing as to what was propoer and I would have appreciated some friendly guidance, in the right tone.
One other thing: Jon you said something about the focus of CC being the best colleges as paths to career goals, or something like that. I know I am old fashioned but I would at least hope that best colleges for learning and growing would still take precedence over career goals. This is the subject of debate of course, but as a site, I would hope focus would be on education alone. Too many 13 year olds planning their lives out and too many 18 year-olds and parents stressing about a “backup” plan for a humanities major.
My understanding is that all the mods can moderate on any thread. They aren’t “assigned” threads to moderate. Plus with less than a handful of current moderators (my guess), and hundreds of threads…just expect that any moderator will moderate if needed.
There is a whole thread that was posted in 2017. It’s a short list, and I’m not sure if there are any new moderators that have been added. @CCadmin_Sorin can answer that one.
Here:
There were reminders on the general covid thread, but the impression I got was that unless someone complained, it wouldn’t be stopped. And that is because the mods want people to report violations, as they can’t read every post in every thread themselves. I didn’t see the reminders as threatening at all, but they were unclear. Definitely.
But I guess there were an awful lot of “I don’t want to have to close this thread down” warnings, which I suppose could be considered threats. The way it’s done is similar to the way ineffectual parents keep “asking” and “warning” young children to stop doing something, and then eventually lose their cool and punish. The punishment at CC is that the thread is closed.
My thought is that unless you are reporting things like spam or blatant abuse against a poster (like the “fat” comment)or reporting more than occasionally (more than once or twice a month?), then you are treading on looking like a “moderator-wanna-be”.
And then there is essentially no moderation for things like political statements. That would just make things muddier than they already are.
We haven’t heard back from Jon yet.
^^^ @CCadmin_Jon popped in a couple pages ago. 
Yes, he did, but he didn’t really tell us any decisions, did he?
I believe he is on the west coast. Its probably still early there.
@CCadmin_Jon , I’ve not commented on this thread up till now. I think the moderators on that popular COVID19 thread were way too heavy handed and that you are off base here. I think it was a mistake to have closed the thread.
I don’t tend to complain about the moderators and moderation quality here on CC though I do believe it’s a bit too much especiallly in Parent Cafe topics. You want to keep experienced parents on board, who aren’t currently emotionally charged with personal feelings going through the process now, it’s nice to give a little leeway in an OT venue.
Just posting to see if this thread is showing up in “Latest Posts” because I couldn’t find it earlier.