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The events of the past month (especially, but not exclusively) have led me to suspect that that there may be some confusion surrounding the powers, duties and responsibilities of the moderators. I had a look around before deciding to post this topic, and it seems that while we have a clear, visible set of rules for regular users, no such information exists on the duties and responsibilities of the moderators. The Forum Rules topic does contain a section regarding moderators, but this reads to me as information about moderators, aimed at regular users. What seems to be missing is a topic that is instead aimed at moderators, outlining their duties and responsibilities as a moderator. I feel that this information should be created and made available to regular users, as it would serve to clear up any confusion surrounding the role of a moderator, and help align the community's expectations with each moderator's own perception of their duties and responsibilities.

These will mostly be simple things like how much time a mod is expected to spend on the forum each day, how quickly they're expected to reply to PMs, what issues users are able to contact them with, what each moderator rank means (including the "Mod On Leave" rank), how and how quickly moderators are expected to handle various issues, behavioural expectations etc. I suspect that most users agree on most of these issues and so there are only a couple of points that I feel the need to raise for discussion.

While I have used the term "rules," I have no interest in proposing any kind of disciplinary system to deal with the moderators who do not follow them. I am happy for the current mods to deal with this issue however they see fit, but my own vision is for these "rules" to function more like aspirations, rather than strict laws that need to be enforced.

One responsibility that I would like to see included is the responsibility of the mod team to build and maintain a strong rapport with the community. This is, in fact, the issue that led me to post this topic in the first place. It is quite clear that the mod team does not have a strong rapport with certain members/groups of members, however there seems to be some confusion as to whether or not the mod team sees this as a problem worth addressing. The lack of clarity on this issue, I believe, is central to some of the problems currently facing these forums, and so I think that this is something that needs to be discussed and eventually resolved. If it is decided that building and maintaining a strong rapport with the community is not the mod team's responsibility, then users can stop expecting it. If it is decided to be the mod team's responsibility, then it will be clear to them that they should be working on it.

While discussing this topic one time in the chat, the idea that some users might be "impossible" to build a rapport with was raised. It must be acknowledged that certain users will be harder to build a rapport with than others, but the idea that any of us deserves to be labelled "impossible" is something that I personally disagree with, and applying that label to a group of users, I think, is just being lazy. If you talk to a social worker about rapport building, they'll speak about building rapport with all sorts of extraordinarily difficult people - and they haven't necessarily been trained to do so. It silly to imply that it's even more difficult here on these forums. I can imagine the mods being somewhat uncomfortable with that idea, but that's kinda the point.

I also want to touch on the idea of this being a "two way" thing - suggesting that it's the users' responsibility as well. I disagree. It might be in our interest, but it certainly shouldn't be our responsibility. It would be like suggesting that it's a customer's responsibility to build rapport with a salesman, a child's responsibility to build rapport with their teacher, a patient's responsibility to build rapport with their doctor etc. In each case, it's likely in their interest, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds it ridiculous to suggest that it's their responsibility. If you think it should, then I suppose it should be added to the forum rules, but I confess that I'd be embarrassed to see it there. Making rapport building the responsibility of the moderators would be in line with pretty much every other industry. I can't see any justification for an exception.

I swear I had one more point, but I seem to have forgotten it. Oh well - I guess I'll post it later.

I have made a poll so that we can get some kind of consensus concerning rapport building specifically. Feel free to PM me if you feel like none of the options represents your view. I might add some extra options. You can always change your vote.

I think the act of not building rapport with members should be a moderator's responsibility. Mods tend not to reprimand users they've built rapport with. They become biased in decision making.

However, given the nature of the moderating system on this forum(mods are users too, just like you and me, blah blah blah), this isn't possible. Forcing a connection with another user is weird to me. Users are going to like other users more than usual. All you can really ask is that the moderators think extra hard before making a decision against a user. They should asks themselves questions such as "Am I only reprimanding this user because I personally am not on the same wavelength as this user?", "Would I reprimand my good pal User X had User X done something similar?", etc.

Really? We have to make another rule to ask people to like/dislike us? Seriously. Common sense here, and if the Moderators want to get too controlling, then the backlash will happen again. Don't over think the rules, that's conjecture. Enforce just to keep things from getting out of hand, and only discipline people on PM. That should be good enough. It is difficult for the Mods to NOT put their own feelings into something they don't like, but as long as the Mods just enforce the aforementioned guidelines and keep their personal FEELINGS out of it, then that is building rapport. This site can be boring if people can't get into a heated debate occasionally. Again common sense.

Oh, then I guess they should read what I wrote.
and tiny puppy friggin cute.! (tension breaker)

There seems to be some confusion surrounding the meaning of the word "rapport." Here is a definition straight from Google, "A close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well." This contrasts with Google's definition of a friend, "A person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection." The point of difference being that rapport is about communicating effectively, where as friendship is about mutual affection. Saying that two people do not have a good rapport is essentially saying that they are unable to communicate effectively (they might also dislike each other also, but not necessarily). Since rapport is about communicating effectively, it is generally considered to be important in every professional relationship. This includes law enforcement, which, I guess, is an appropriately similar position to the moderators on this forum.

Also, this is not about forcing people to feel a certain way - I agree; that's impossible. Instead it is about acknowledging (or not) that a lack of rapport is a problem. How (or if) they choose to address that problem is up to them.

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that some of the information that I suggested should be available is actually already available. Specifically, I'm referring to descriptions of the moderator ranks. These are available , and . However, apart from being available, this information should also be visible, and spreading three clearly related pieces of information out over three separate, regular (except for the FAQ, which is part of the rules) topics that contain no links to each other, certainly is not an adequate level of visibility.

Forgive me if i've misunderstood it but it sounds like you want to make moderators interact with everyone because they have to not because they want to. If they are required to do that, it could turn it into a chore and cause them to hate giving back to the community. As that is the main reason why many people accept the position when offered it.

I personally don't see a lack of communication as they have always told me their reasons when i've asked if Thread X is okay or got back to me about my concerns about a member. And they do have busy lives as well so they can't always get back to us on the same day.

Regarding the mods playing favourites. I disagree. They treat everyone the same. If I broke a rule here, Alarra would treat me as someone that broke the rule not as someone that she likes chatting to. Same applies to everyone else. As they put the rules above everything and even discuss it in their forum to see if it is fair or not. If it's not, they are likely to apologise to the user and try to avoid it happening again. But I don't know if this has ever happened so i may be wrong.

You are forgiven for misunderstanding, as this is quite a complex topic. As such, this might take me a bit of time to explain. Bear with me.

The way you worded your first sentence makes me suspect that we're not really talking about the same thing. Here is (part of) your first sentence, with the words that made me unsure in bold, "It sounds like you want to make moderators interact with everyone because they have to not because they want to."

First up, "make." In my original post, I stated that these "rules" should be largely aspirational, and that I had no interest in proposing any kind of disciplinary system for mods who did not follow them. With that in mind, "make" is a word that I find slightly misleading. Of course, I understand that stating something as an aspiration, still implies that an effort should be made to achieve it - and I guess that's what you meant - but technically nothing would be forcing them to make an effort. Also, just before the word "make" are the words, "you want to," and I have a slight issue with those as well. Just so that it's clear, I don't want to "make" anyone do anything - and even if I did, I am but a regular user, and so my powers are essentially quite limited. The only way the mods will be "made" to do anything is if they agree that a strong rapport with the community is something that they should aspire to. And if they agree, then whatever they decide to do about it will be done because they agree, and not because I am somehow forcing it on them.

The reason I'm commenting on you using the word "interact" is because it's clear that we are talking about different things. Interaction and rapport are not synonymous - interaction, in this context, broadly describes communication where as rapport is a type of relationship. Of course, building rapport requires interaction, but no amount of interaction guarantees a good rapport. And in this case, I don't think that a lack of interaction is the cause of these problems. If the mods choose to address this problem, then they are free to do it however they like, but I personally don't see it requiring any significant increase in interaction. They might think that, but I don't.

The last few words that I bolded were, "have to" and "want to." My issues with these words are essentially the same as the issues that I mentioned earlier in regards to the word, "make." If you read over that stuff again, you'll see that a lot of it applies here too.

I actually agree with your next paragraph - it's a lack of rapport that is the problem, not a lack of communication (again, you may have thought that the terms are synonymous, but they're not). However in the last paragraph you mentioned something about mods playing favourites, and I wonder if that was directed at me because I don't recall having ever made that claim, and it certainly was not my intention to. I apologise for miscommunicating if that's the impression that you got from reading my posts.

Anyway, a part of me thinks that this is simpler than it's being made out to be. At the moment, it sounds like you (personally) have a good rapport with the moderators. I doubt this is because anyone ever made a conscious effort to build a good rapport - it's most likely just formed naturally from you having somewhat similar personalities. All I am proposing is that if this were to ever change, and you found that you did not have a good rapport with the mods, then the moderators would recognise it as a problem and aspire to fix it. That is essentially what it all boils down to.

Moderators soothing ruffled feathers, is that really what you are talking about? That is after the fact, no? So far the moderators seem to be getting that things were not right and with the new rules change, they are trying to fix the discontent. Are you having problems with moderators yourself? PM them. Just the fact that the moderators are interacting with people in the threads as community users is rapport building. My point was just that when the Mods are moderating, they detach from "friendships" and simply enforce the rules. (I think they can and do this already mostly)
Rapport when off duty/ rules enforced on duty. They will overlap naturally.
So, still not sure what you are proposing is different than what is already happening.
Since this is going in a circle I have said all I need to.

No, I am not talking about "smoothing ruffled feathers," I'm talking about rapport.

I voted no. I'm not saying that they shouldn't build rapport, but it shouldn't be their responsibility.

I was the first person to vote no, but once more people voted yes, it made me really nervous.

Absolutely yes. This isn't an observation about the current mod team from me, just something that I think is beneficial in any community. Rapport is always a good thing.

I may have misunderstood, but I don't believe that anyone is saying that rapport building should rely entirely on moderators, just that it's more important for them to do so. A uncommunicative member will eventually break the rules and be punished for it. A moderator who is uncommunicative on the other hand, is a much more open-ended situation.

Having reviewed this topic and considered the things that have been said, I want to apologise for using the word "responsibility" in relation to rapport building. It was a bad word to use because it doesn't represent what I actually had in mind. In my original post, I proposed the creation of a topic that outlined the "powers, duties and responsibilities" of the moderators. I mentioned later in that post that the duties and responsibilities (I used the word "rules" originally - probably because I had used it in an earlier draft) should function more like aspirations, but I am now thinking that some of them should actually be listed as aspirations, and not as duties or responsibilities. This applies especially to rapport building. "Aspiration" represents my position far more accurately than "duty" or "responsibility". As such, I have changed the poll question to the following, "Should the mod team aspire to have a good rapport with the community?"

I also want to parrot what Duruza said about my personal relationship with the mods being irrelevant. In my original post, I said that "the mod team does not have a strong rapport with certain members/groups of members." I have no problem admitting that I am one of them, but it's an irrelevant fact. Even if I was not among the users who do not have a strong rapport, I would still recognise it as a problem and support this proposal.

TL;DR - the question poll question has changed slightly. Please review it and change your response if necessary. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Mars seems to be saying essentially what I said in that quote, which I believe is still relevant in the following way: If the mod team is to aspire to having a good rapport with the community, then an individual moderator has an implied responsibility to help build and maintain that rapport.

The last part I'm having trouble interpreting. It sounds like your decision might be influenced by a belief that the mods are already doing everything that they can, in which case you perhaps agree that they should aspire to have a good rapport with the community, but disagree that they should be doing more than they already are. Just assuming here; please correct me if I'm wrong. But if that is the case, then you've selected the wrong option. This isn't about what or how much the mods do to build rapport - that's up to them - instead this is about what kind of relationship they should aspire to have with the community.

Anyway, you asked how moderators should build rapport (you used the word aspire, but I'm guessing that was an accident). Basically, I don't see the relevance of this question. Unless a lack of rapport is recognised as a problem (as it would be if a good rapport was an aspiration), then there's no real purpose in discussing how they should do it, since there's no real reason for them to do it at all. Those things that you mentioned are good, and I support their existence, but it's irrelevant.

Just quickly; while I did say that I believe that it only be the responsibility of the moderators, I also said that it would also be in the interest of regular users anyway, so some effort on their behalf can be reasonably expected. I'd prefer that you included that part of the quote as well, as I don't feel like my position is represented accurately without it.

The reason I want to see this as something that the mod team aspires to is because, when a lack of rapport exists between a user/group of users, then that sucks for the user much more than it does for the moderator. Imagine a user who has made every effort to build rapport with the mod team, but no rapport has been established. If the mods aspire to have a good rapport with the community, then they would recognise this as a problem and attempt to solve it (how they actually did that would depend on the circumstances). However, if having a good rapport with the community was not stated as an aspiration, then they may or may not make recognise this as a problem, and may or may not choose to do anything about it. That is essentially why I support the former.

You asked specifically about the problems on the forums at the moment. However, the fact that these forums have problems is incidental. Their existence should have no impact on this discussion. This should be all hypothetical.

The discussion that you seem to want to have now - about what the mods should actually do - is the one that I would to have later on, once this issue has been resolved. See point 2 below.

If having a good rapport with the community is stated as an aspiration then I'm hoping it will have two effects:
1. Moderators will be aware that it's something that they should focus on, which may or may not be the case at the moment. Perhaps it's something that some moderators just aren't thinking about at the moment? Stating it as an aspiration would move it further forward in their minds.
2. It will open the moderators up to criticism. True, they're already open to criticism, but it's hard to criticise them for not doing their job, so to speak, when it's not stated anywhere what their job actually is.

I'm just going to touch briefly on a couple of key points, but I foresee us simply continuing to talk in circles beyond this point.


Short version; if lack of rapport such an issue that it needs to be made a "rule", "aspiration" "guideline" or "suggestion", then throw it in the forum rules and apply it equally to all members across the board. This is not the burden for the mods to carry alone with "some" effort from the rest of the community.

I've cast my vote, I've said my piece, and with that, I'm bowing out of this thread and going back to playing Oblivion.