Hi all,
I just deleted a thread with the above title. Normally something like that would be locked, and mods would deal with it, so this is to explain why that didn't happen.
The thread was started by Kyrusia, an ex-mod of this site, and calls for site admin to stand down two moderators, Sedgistan and Crazy Girl. There were five pages of following comments that I'd characterize as generally supportive and decreasingly productive, as it began to indulge in speculation.
It's very unusual for an ex-mod to post like this, because we have a site policy against it: mods agree that if/when they retire, they won't post on Moderation matters. This policy exists because it's been quite destructive in the past when an ex-mod has hung around commenting on moderation while current mods are prevented by our rules from responding.
I'm not sure why Kyrusia didn't want to contact admin directly but instead start a thread, but anyway, it briefly paralyzed our mod team, as there wasn't anyone senior (and uninvolved) enough to make a confident call on what to do. We have a formal policy for dealing with complaints of mod abuse: they go through admin, and anyone who might be involved can't touch it. So eventually I got called in and decided to remove it.
NationStates takes moderator integrity very seriously. We review any complaint about moderator bias/abuse at admin level, with relevant parties abstaining, and often involving the senior mod team. We don't allow moderators to be personally attacked, though, as occurred in this thread, or impugned with rumor.
I think people here have constructive intent, and post because they care about the community and that it be properly moderated. That's also our goal. I ask everyone to respect the processes we have, and to use them. Please also remember that we're all people here, doing our best, and deserve kindness.
--v
