Board Thread:Wiki discussions and announcements/@comment-27010991-20140328091459

Lately, through observation and participation in numerous discussions, as well as directly becoming involved myself, I've come to realize that people on the wiki (mainly taking about chat dwellers, however), have a very different understanding on what a chat moderator is or should be. Realizing that the lack of mutual understanding and agreement is hindering our efforts at making the wiki and the chat a better place, I figured it would be a good idea to have gather together and talk the issue out, sharing everyone's thoughts on what a chat moderator should be all about.

Personally, I see chat moderation as a responsibility, in many ways not unlike a real life job, which I happen to have and can therefore apply my experience there to my situation here. To an employer, it really does not matter if you're too kind or too harsh on other people or whether you'd like them all to go die in a ditch - if you want to get paid, you will model your behavior to meet the requirements of the job - otherwise, you get fired. It should be no different here - a moderator nominee can and should adjust their behavior in order to meet requirements - a nice person would be required to "man up" and face tension should the need arise, regardless of his own feelings, while somebody with a lack of respect for one's peer and affinity for edgy remarks would still be expected to be nice and welcoming to new users and maintain a pleasant atmosphere in the chat. All this may not come immediately, but people learn best through experience, so just giving a guy/gal a chance is usually all it'll take. Of course, if a newly-appointed chat moderator is unwilling to alter his behavior, that's a clear sign of incompetence and should therefore addressed immediately.

Upon bringing a simplified version of the paragraph above to another chat user, I received doubts on whether somebody would be bothered to moderate whether cmods are competent or not and that we'd potentially end up with incompetent nominees with nobody concerned enough to fix the situation. However, I believe that our body of government is involved and competent enough to make a correct judgement on an appointed moderator's performance. Another recent developement - chat logs - can also be a powerful tool in evaluting one's competence, seeing how all your actions and outlook on things will be recorded in them. The way I see it, lack of oversight isn't something to be feared.

Those, however, are just my thoughts and I'm sure everybody has their own. Therefore, I heartily welcome everyone to share them with me and the rest of the wiki, so that we could gain a better understanding on the issue. 