Administrative Policy Statements

I'm starting this topic to be a place where admins can make statements and comments that should not have member responses. Indeed, in this forum members can't post.My vision is that this topic be only for major statements - A kind of "Read Me" type topic. To keep clutter down, other admin comments should go elsewhere. Perhaps ultimately, when such things are possible in the general forum software, this should be a "sticky" topic that is always at the top of the list.A second message from Adminnemooseus is pending.Adminnemooseus

Here at we used to have "General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures" topics, the most recent being version 14 here. This is where questions/comments about moderation actions were directed, rather than having them discussed in the debate topics themselves. While there was much to be said for such topics, unfortunately at said topics the discussion of administrative procedures got way out of hand and having such topics was discontinued. Now we have much more a "Don't debate with the admin, just heed his/her suggestions" system.Instead of having a "General Discussion..." topic, we now have the Report Discussion Problems Here: No. 1 topic, with guidelines for posting to that thread in the first message (see more about that below). Note it says "any message" - I would say this includes moderation messages. That topic is a good way to flag a moderation message such that it can be reviewed again by the writer and by other admins. Perhaps the admin was wrong - I think we can all handle being reviewed and overruled. Now it is still generally frowned upon to respond to an admins moderation message in a debate topic, which often contain a statement along the lines of "Please, no replies to this message, unless you're looking for a 24 hour suspension".You may notice that members sometimes still do respond to moderation messages within a debate topic, without being "punished" for doing such. I (as in, the other admins might not agree) do find such replies to sometimes be acceptable. The key is, does the reply do something to actually move the on-topic debate forward?1) Posting cranky messages about moderation procedures or in general questioning or criticizing admin statements and guidelines will have you on thin ice - You're very likely to get a suspension.2) Sometimes messages are posted as replies to an admin's message, even though they are actually a general reply type posting of material moving the debate forward. I'm not going to "punish" anyone for having clicked the wrong reply button.3) Sometimes there may well be a real need for further clarification of the moderation message. This is really getting into a gray zone. What may seem to be obvious to some may be unclear to others. If you feel you must reply to a moderation message, do it calmly and not cranky. Also having material that will move the topic theme debate forward sure wouldn't hurt.4} Some admins have an e-mail address available. You might want to try e-mail instead of posting at the forum. Again, be calm not cranky. There's no advantage to you in pissing off an admin.An example of a "reply to moderator" type message that I find to be acceptable is this one from Randman. Note that he's not getting cranky and in general does post material suitable for moving the on-topic debate forward.Or something like that. This message subject to future modification via edit. AdminnemooseusEdited by Adminnemooseus, : Despite carefully working on message for quite a while, with many "previews", I still needed to "add by edit".Edited by Admin, : Improve clarity and fix typo in paragraph 2.