Originally Posted by
Markon
I have gone through a number of stages since the issue regarding Irish came up. I think I go through the astonishment stage fairly regularly on this forum. It always astonishes me when moderators ( including community managers ) make an obvious cock-up, have it very clearly, politely, and repeatedly pointed out how idiotic the decisions were ( and I'm being very careful to criticise the decisions here, and not the person making them ), and then dive squarely behind the rule book for cover, stubbernly quoting the rules, as if they were reading from Bunracht na hEireann.
Sometimes this progresses to Rage. Seeing the rules facilitate injustice, and the moderators enforce that injustice, moves me from the astonishment stage to Rage. A couple of examples spring to mind. The prolonged refusal to unrat JessicaJessys review when not only did both the reviewer, and a reputable escort confirm the meeting took place, but the reasons behind the original ratting, were thoroughly discredited. Giving Don an infraction for providing a community service, substantiating a warning placed on the warnings forum, seemed to be a little immature. I could go on; there are many more, but I hope these two examples serve sufficiently to get my point across.
Today however, the rage grew so great, that while preparing to post an outline of moderators relationship with their mothers, and farm animals, which no doubt would have gotten me at least infracted ( more likely banned ), the rage passed over and was replaced with pity. I realise that these people, have lost the confidence, and respect of the user base, keep going none the less, and how difficult this must be. Indeed I recall many occasions, of the moderator informing us of how difficult the job was. I can only imagine this job would be easier, if they earned, and were allowed to earn the support and respect of the community.
Before continuing allow me to clarify two things. Firstly, I'm not criticising the rules. They are needed to serve a very important purpose - just not the purpose they're serving now. The mods on this site enforce the rules, as I'm sure they've been instructed to by management, and this I believe is the crux of the problem. Mods need to enforce good order, and justice, using the rules as a tool to achieve this, and management need to trust their intelligence to do that, or find more intelligent moderators.
Secondly, I'm not criticising the moderators either - since they all, seem to behave in the same manner ( presumably to achieve some sterile form of "consistency" - what's the point in being consistently wrong? ), I'm assuming this iron-fisted, infallible rule book, has been handed down by management. I'm sure thehighwayman knows as well as I do, that there was nothing wrong with the Irish Translator thread ( considering that everything said in Irish, was a translation of something previously said in English ), but was bound by the rules to shut it down.
I am however criticising the management ( isn't that what management is for? ), since no matter what, that's where the buck stops. Even if they do decide on Monday to allow the Irish Translation thread, they've fostered, and allowed to grow, an environment where a thread can be stopped by a rule-book, without any application of common sense, and where the moderators get the backlash, disrespect, and ill-will that comes from this environment.
