Notice on moderator policy and member behaviour

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hmm I recognise this place! And some of you!
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I'd just like to take a moment to outline a few points about how moderation takes place on the forums and how best members can conduct themselves when they see posts or threads breaking rules or causing disruption; whilst not adding to nor creating new points of disruption.


1) It is the job of the moderators to enforce the sites rules and policies as set down by the admin.

2) Moderators aim to remove any spam and deal with disruptive behaviour or arguments between members as and when they come across them.

3) As part of the moderation process moderators rely upon users to also make use of the report feature when they see disruptive behaviour, spam or have other concerns.

4) When a report is made the entire moderator and admin team gets a notice of it on the forum and an email sent to their linked email account. This combined with the fairly large team we have on the site generally ensures that moderators and/or admin will be on site to deal with problems often only moments after they are reported.

5) In the case of spam its typically a very simply procedure to remove the content and the member from the site to prevent more spam. This is a quick process to deal with and typically spam spends very little time active on the site

6) Where the reported matter concerns behaviour of a member of the site - be that member new or established the situation can take longer to sort out. In these cases there isn't always a clear cut answer and the moderator team will discuss the matter in private. This can result in a delay between the report and when action is taken.

7) When moderators deal with behaviour problems of members the ban button is a last resort and often we will discuss things with the member in private. This can often resolve the problem without any disciplinary measures being needed and without any overt warnings being made in the open site.

8) When we encounter a situation where more than one member is involved we aim to remain impartial and also take into consideration the viewpoints of all parties involved.
As a direct result it doesn't matter who started a fight; if you've gotten involved in a fight or are using harassing behaviour toward another member then even if that member broke a rule before; you're also now breaking a rule by targeting them.
This policy helps avoid vigilante style behaviour on the site





This reminder notice has come about because in recent months we've noticed an increase in people "backseat moderating" on the forums as well as attempting to take the law into their own hands to issue insults upon those they think are breaking site rules.
This is a worrying situation for moderators because as we remain impartial we have to deal with both the initial rule breaking, but also the following harassing behaviour. As a result users who might think they are simply standing up for the forum are in turn being punished.

We do not want this to occur, indeed if we could we would reward those members who take their time to find and report problems on the site to us. But we need members to trust in the moderating team to do our job and not try to do it for us. We also need members to remember that things sometimes take time; just because you've reported something doesn't mean anything will happen within moments and the lack of action is not an excuse to start your own.


We are always approachable and if users are concerned you can talk direct to and moderator and to the admin if the behaviour of a moderator concerns you.
 
It`s only really spam i have had the need to report, or when some person quotes a load of photo`s a member has posted that does my head in it`s such a waste of screen space and bandwidth.

John.
 
Meh…who needs rules.
 
Meh…who needs rules.

The forum software does not currently support "THUNDERDOME" as a feature. We are putting the case forward and hoping that VB listens to its users and adds a Thunderdome. Until such time as we have this feature we'll have to continue with the rules things - sorry about that. ;)
 
MehÂ…who needs rules.

The forum software does not currently support "THUNDERDOME" as a feature. We are putting the case forward and hoping that VB listens to its users and adds a Thunderdome. Until such time as we have this feature we'll have to continue with the rules things - sorry about that. ;)

I've seen "anything goes" forumsÂ…it gets really crazy with VERY relaxed rules lol

Anyhow, I'm just playing around :mrgreen: If you don't have the Stopforumspam mod, I highly recommend it. You can down load it from Vbulletin.org.
 

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