Lunatic Goofballs wrote:The Cat-Tribe wrote:
I appreciate your thoughtful input, but the sentenct/phrase I've highlighted disturbs me. Should the issue be whether a Mod's decision is objectively correct (or at least subjective correct to each of the Mods voting on the appeal who are trying to be objective) and not whether the decision made sense from the perspective of the Mod that made it at the time?
Again, this suggests a subtle presumption that Moderator decisions are always correct and should only be overturned if the Mod can't justify the decision (at least from their own perspective) to the other Mods.
That isn't necessarily wrong per se. In U.S. courts, for example, some parts of a trial court's decision are shown a certain amount of deference by the appellate court (it gets complicated as to what gets what level of deference). But, other parts of a trial court's decision aren't shown any deference. The problem is, the deference shown to trial courts is usually based on their being in a better position to judge things like the credibility of a testifying witness. Things the trial court experienced or looked at that the appellate court can't. Things the appellate court can look at as easily as the trial court aren't generally entitled to deference. Applying that logic to NS appeals, I see no reason why (given that posts and threads and posting history can be looked at by "appellate Mods" as easily as "trial Mods") initial rulings should be presumed to be correct all the time.
But I am open to hear explanations as to why I am wrong. This is really not about trying to be difficult. It is about trying to clear things up.
I bolded a key line above: I don't see it that way. I don't see it as a subtle presumption that a moderator decision is always correct; I see it as a blatant presumption that a moderator's decision has to be understood TO BE correct.
We have to apply very flexible rules to a very flexible population of players and in the difficult cases, when I'm not even sure where I fall, I find trying to understand the original ruling moderator's thought process helpful in understanding the case better. I don't presume the original moderator is right; I presume that if i can't understand their decision, I need a third(at least) moderator's input.
For the purposes of my concern, I guess I don't understand the import of the distinction you are making.
That said, those that run these forums (Mods/Admins/etc) are free to decide a blanket rule that a moderator's decision has to be understood to be correct. I don't like that, but you are free to do it.