Another source of confusion is that often, the stated rules presented as concise or comprehensive are just lies not meant to be taken seriously, and the only real rule is “The moderators shall do whatever they want.”
On the one hand, this is true. On the other hand, it may be useful to have a system where the only real rule is “The moderators shall do whatever they want”, but there are nonetheless a bunch of other rules which (explicitly!) serve to give users some idea of what the moderators in fact want.
After all, if I am the king and I say “the only law is whatever I command”, surely the response of my subjects will be “yes, Your Majesty; and what do you command?”. Given almost any plausible goal I might have, it seems like I will achieve that goal more effectively if I provide a practical answer to the question, rather than “nothing for now, but be ready to carry out all my whims at a moment’s notice”. Yes, the latter is in some sense implied, but it’s not actually very useful by itself. If my whims are inconstant, then my kingdom will just be less effective, at almost anything.
Mhm, I do think that sometimes happens and I wish more of those places would say “The rule is the moderator shall do whatever they think reasonable.” That’s basically my moderation rule for like, my dinner parties, or the ~30 person discord I mostly use to advertise D&D games.
But uh, I also suspect “The moderators shall do whatever they want” (and the insinuation that the moderators are capricious and tyrannical) is a common criticism leveled when clearness is sacrificed and the user disagrees with a moderation call.
Imagine a forum with two rules. “1. Don’t say false things, 2. don’t be a jerk.” It would not surprise me at all to hear Bob the user saying that he was being perfectly reasonable and accurate, the other user Carla was lying and being a jerk, and the mod just did whatever they wanted and banned Bob. Maybe the rule was secretly “The moderators shall do whatever they want.” But maybe the rule wasn’t clear, the moderator made a judgement call, and the correct tradeoff is happening. It’s really, really hard to legislate clear rules against being a jerk. Even the ‘false things’ line has a surprising amount of edge cases!
Another source of confusion is that often, the stated rules presented as concise or comprehensive are just lies not meant to be taken seriously, and the only real rule is “The moderators shall do whatever they want.”
On the one hand, this is true. On the other hand, it may be useful to have a system where the only real rule is “The moderators shall do whatever they want”, but there are nonetheless a bunch of other rules which (explicitly!) serve to give users some idea of what the moderators in fact want.
After all, if I am the king and I say “the only law is whatever I command”, surely the response of my subjects will be “yes, Your Majesty; and what do you command?”. Given almost any plausible goal I might have, it seems like I will achieve that goal more effectively if I provide a practical answer to the question, rather than “nothing for now, but be ready to carry out all my whims at a moment’s notice”. Yes, the latter is in some sense implied, but it’s not actually very useful by itself. If my whims are inconstant, then my kingdom will just be less effective, at almost anything.
Thus also with moderation.
Mhm, I do think that sometimes happens and I wish more of those places would say “The rule is the moderator shall do whatever they think reasonable.” That’s basically my moderation rule for like, my dinner parties, or the ~30 person discord I mostly use to advertise D&D games.
But uh, I also suspect “The moderators shall do whatever they want” (and the insinuation that the moderators are capricious and tyrannical) is a common criticism leveled when clearness is sacrificed and the user disagrees with a moderation call.
Imagine a forum with two rules. “1. Don’t say false things, 2. don’t be a jerk.” It would not surprise me at all to hear Bob the user saying that he was being perfectly reasonable and accurate, the other user Carla was lying and being a jerk, and the mod just did whatever they wanted and banned Bob. Maybe the rule was secretly “The moderators shall do whatever they want.” But maybe the rule wasn’t clear, the moderator made a judgement call, and the correct tradeoff is happening. It’s really, really hard to legislate clear rules against being a jerk. Even the ‘false things’ line has a surprising amount of edge cases!