NationStates

I just read through a thread about moderation bias that was locked rather quickly. I'm aware that the specific event was not necessarily under the jurisdiction of NS mods, however, out of interest is there any kind of block against moderator biases? It seems like a real issue for people with so much power to be held accountable for things like that. Shouldn't a different mod be required to dish out punishment against the same person if they have different offenses or something?

EDIT: And can this not be locked instantly? Even if you answer I might have something to say..

I think the real question here is does someone hold power OVER the Mods? Which would be the Senior Mods and Max. So unless they intervene, no, there is not real block on Mod Biases.

One-Stop Rules Shop talks about Mod bias. Furthermore, if you disagree with a ruling you can appeal it and a panel of Moderators will take a look at it (Minus the one who made the first ruling and any other who feel they have a conflict). If you disagree with THAT, you can make a final appeal and go through another panel, this time with a senior game mod in attendence.

So pretty much we have mechanisms in place to deal with any bias, not to mention Max holds our feet to the fire quite a bit.

In my opinion though (And this comes from 5 years as a player prior to being Modded) a lot of the complaints about Mod bias tend to boil down to "This Mod won't let me break the rules! Waaaah!"

We're also held accountable, both by other moderators and ultimately by Max himself. When there's a dispute of a moderation decision, you can request a review in the Moderation forum. If there has already been one, the next step is to file a GHR here: http://www.nationstates.net/page=help

The original moderator will not be involved in the review process.

One thing to keep in mind is that though we act with consensus, that consensus is built privately. We come from different walks of life and different parts of the globe. We have to resolve our own disagreements before we act as one. It's important because we DO have to work together. We do occasionally make mistakes and our fellow moderators do occasionally have to let us know we did.

We aren't some all-powerful despots lording over you all with an iron fist. That's Max's job.

What about admins, like [violet]'s nation?

*bumps into Nervun* 'scuse me. Pardon me.

I think the issue here is you're questioning this as if a real government is at stake...who cares if the mods on the darn game have a bias it's only a game. If I got deleted (even though I very much enjoy this game) i would move on and play another rp game.

The Sentenial Empire wrote:I think the issue here is you're questioning this as if a real government is at stake...who cares if the mods on the darn game have a bias it's only a game. If I got deleted (even though I very much enjoy this game) i would move on and play another rp game.

well see... if you don't come close to bending the rules, the Mods have no reason to delete you.

This is a reasonable question and I'm happy to answer it. We do make an effort to avoid bias in our judgments; where we feel we're unable to judge things impartially we voluntarily recuse ourselves from judging that issue. For instance, I don't judge anything relating to pedophilia, due to strongly held personal convictions about the subject.

Also, in most cases - and certainly for things like long-term bans or deletions - decisions are made by a consensus of moderators. Three is quorate, but we usually try for more.

We also try to recruit people we feel can be trusted to behave impartially. This doesn't always work, as anyone who remembers Stephistan can tell you, but we've been remarkably successful so far.

And of course if someone submits an appeal against a particular ruling or against a particular moderator, we do go over those to see if there's any weight to it.

Harley Quin wrote:What about admins, like [violet]'s nation?

Admins usually are the ones coding the site so they don't get involved UNLESS 1. The Moderators cannot come to concencus about an issue, an Admin might act as a tie breaker then. 2. The issue is one of Moderator misconduct. At which case [violet] and/or Max himself might get involved and if found to be so and a Moderator did abuse their office, that Mod would be stood down.

Lunatic Goofballs wrote:*bumps into Nervun* 'scuse me. Pardon me.

No worries!

I just want to thank the Mods for replying to this thread and letting us know what goes on.

THANK YOU MODS!!!

*totally not bumping into like 4 or so other mods. TOTALLY *

If a moderator is involved with a specific situation, they pass it off to an uninvolved moderator, barring particularly clear-cut instances of blatant flaming/spamming/etc. (For instance, even if I'm involved in a thread in NSG, and someone in that thread calls someone else "a goddamn fucking waste of carbon that should be put out of our misery," that's a pretty much open-and-shut flame right there.)

Most cases are also not handled by a single mod's unilateral action, often there's discussion over in the sekrit mod lair (and bar & grill) where a second opinion and often third or fourth opinions are taken and discussed before a ruling is handed out. Above and beyond that, [violet] and Max can (and frequently DO) review all moderator actions. Every time a game mod so much as LOOKS at a nation in the mod control centre, it's logged. Every WA cheat check, every deleted WA proposal, every warning issued, every deletion, all of it. That's how [violet] generates the data for the "Mod Olypmics", is by analyzing those logged actions.


~Evil Forum Empress Rep Prod the Ninja Mod
~She who wields the Banhammer; master of the mighty moderation no-dachi Kiritateru Teikoku

Just my 2 cents, from personal experience I'd say the moderators are pretty fair, even if there is some "bias". That is to say, I've detected that a mod may have a certain opinion towards someone or something (although of course my bias detection equipment may have been acting up, and I don't refer to myself), but acted the same way as I would expect them to act with anyone or anything. Plus then there is of course the review process, which has another moderator who is not likely to be bias to take a look at it and judge if the original ruling was heavy handed or not.

Overall it works well, much better than another game-based forum where I was banned (well, suspended but I never went back) for disagreeing (respectfully mind you, no flames or anything) with a moderator's opinion on global warming (and hopefully you'll realise that I'm not the sort who cries about "mod bias" when I've blatanly broken the rules) in a "general" type forum.

So yeah, I think the moderators here do a good job and the system works pretty well. Those who cry about it usually have a persecution complex and have blatantly broken the rules and so decide to go about not getting banned in the worst possible way.

Mahaj wrote:I just want to thank the Mods for replying to this thread and letting us know what goes on.

THANK YOU MODS!!!

Lets not spam, please ... seriously. If there's any further questions, fine and well. If not, leave well enough alone.

Thanks, that answered my question pretty well. Though fair or not there is a lot of talk lately about moderation and its actions. I'm wondering if the mods have any plans to address the unrest or just let it pass?

I'd think its been addressed fairly succinctly in previous posts here. How's that go - haters gonna hate? No matter how transparent we are about how things are handled, no matter how fair we try to address things, no matter what sort of oversight is in place, there will always be those who cross lines, then believe they have some sort of war on with the moderators over being treated, in their eyes, 'unjustly' when in fact they've been handled the same way any other player has been when crossing lines.

There's not much real point to arguing with people who can't be reasoned with. It is what it is, and in the end, we'll continue to carry on as we've been instructed under Max's watchful eye. And if we step out of line, you can bet steps will be taken, because that sort of thing just doesn't fly.

Zukariaa wrote:Thanks, that answered my question pretty well. Though fair or not there is a lot of talk lately about moderation and its actions. I'm wondering if the mods have any plans to address the unrest or just let it pass?

I've not noticed all that much--just from one group of people. In any given year there's likely to be at least one moderator "scandal," but so far none have had a shelf life in excess of about six weeks. This one doesn't strike me as very different in character than any of the others.

Generally they occur when some high-profile player gets warned or deleted, at which time his buddies come out of the woodwork to try and make our lives harder in various ways. Generally either they get bored with this, or realize how much time they're spending second-guessing a volunteer moderator's decision on a free webgame and buzz off. Most of them would be better off simply coping with the occurrence

Well, most of the "talk" is on IRC. I just want to say, hopefully without venturing too far off the original topic, that because I'm a member of Haven and #draftroom on IRC I actually was somewhat afraid for my account by posing any sort of question to the Moderators based on affiliation. Despite having no issues with moderation the entire four years I have been on NationStates (though I may recall a 1-week ban or something? It may have been another site..), and I don't particularly feel that is a good atmosphere. It might be unwarranted in your view but of the active members of my region our numbers have been nearly halved by the moderators and its a bit worrying.

Zukariaa wrote:Well, most of the "talk" is on IRC. I just want to say, hopefully without venturing too far off the original topic, that because I'm a member of Haven and #draftroom on IRC I actually was somewhat afraid for my account by posing any sort of question to the Moderators based on affiliation. Despite having no issues with moderation the entire four years I have been on NationStates (though I may recall a 1-week ban or something? It may have been another site..), and I don't particularly feel that is a good atmosphere. It might be unwarranted in your view but of the active members of my region our numbers have been nearly halved by the moderators and its a bit worrying.

To give you the God's honest truth, until you just tole me, I didn't know your affiliation. We don't bother to check them. All we do check is "Is such and such violating the rules as set forth?" and go from there. It really doesn't matter to us if you're a member of Haven or The GeoFront.

We also don't usually smack someone for asking a question of us.

Perhaps instead of listening to a bunch of biased rumors on channels that are not officially associated with NationStates (which goes for our own #nationstates channel as well), you might take a moment and consider the actions that lead to said deletions.

There is no conspiracy against any given region, group, clique, or any other division. There is a decided issue with players who think the rules do not apply to them, that longevity earns them a free pass, or that their popularity with any one given group means they can do as they like on the forums.

You're free to harbor whatever opinions you like, but that's the facts as they stand. Which I'm sure will be argued against elsewhere. Which is, frankly, not my problem nor concern. Just what happens here.

(And dittos to Nerv's statements. When I look at a nation who's being considered for action, I look at posts, I look at history. I don't look at region or affiliation. It's largely irrelevant.)

Zukariaa wrote:Well, most of the "talk" is on IRC. I just want to say, hopefully without venturing too far off the original topic, that because I'm a member of Haven and #draftroom on IRC I actually was somewhat afraid for my account by posing any sort of question to the Moderators based on affiliation. Despite having no issues with moderation the entire four years I have been on NationStates (though I may recall a 1-week ban or something? It may have been another site..), and I don't particularly feel that is a good atmosphere. It might be unwarranted in your view but of the active members of my region our numbers have been nearly halved by the moderators and its a bit worrying.

With all due respect then, perhaps those of you who have never had a problem should look at the differences in posting behaviors and the correlation between deletion and rulebreaking.

Despite what some might have you believe, there is not a war on Haven or #draftroom.

Katganistan wrote:Despite what some might have you believe, there is not a war on Haven or #draftroom.

Quite. If there was, why wouldn't we just go for the gold and DoS them all? Surely, if we have such poor judgment and rampant bias we wouldn't think twice?

I do feel a little heat coming from Nathicana only after mentioning my affiliation.. but the rest of you have all been very succinct and understanding. I think more calm threads like this that don't result in any bans would do both the mods and Haven a bit of good.

Nathi's just snarky with everybody