Okay, that makes it clearer. Thanks.*

To add some clarity of my own: We Will Never. Ever. EVER. ignore what regular users are saying. If there's a policy discussion on the public forums involving myself, Fire, or Bun, that's the stuff that's important. If the same topic's also being discussed in the mod forum, that's the side discussion of secondary importance.

If there's already confusion, I don't want to make it worse.

The inconsistency in moderation is partially to fully a matter of a lack of training--nobody on the staff other than myself has much moderating experience, we didn't get a chance to do any training before the site went live, and we haven't had the time to do it since. Consistent moderation at a reasonable level across the forums is something I desperately want to achieve.

All I can really ask is for you to give us time on that matter.


*I'm a very literal reader; I tend to take words at their face value and miss subtleties. Upper-level literary analysis classes at university? Not my best friends.

I'm not sure you should be going for consistent moderation necessarily, though. M:EM needs a lighter touch when it comes to actual fiction, but it needs a heavier one in respect to unduly harsh comments. OTR needs a lighter touch if you don't want a rebellion on your hands. It's not a HUGE variation, but I think too much consistency could be counterproductive.

Regardless, and I'm actually thinking aloud at this point so some of these thoughts may be a little unformed, I think presenting a unified front in the face of such difference is actually counterproductive, because it makes it seem like things are already settled when they're still very much in flux. Part of the confusion comes from the belief that we have consistency banging against the reality that you guys are still learning the ropes, you know? So being open in disagreement might, in theory, and I fully admit that this is speculative on my part, actually reduce confusion.

Thanks for the clarification on the mod lounge discussions--and for directly asking for clarification on what exactly I was seeing. That clears things up considerably. If Fire was thinking as literally as you, I can see where the communication breakdown happened. I'm trained to basically ONLY read words as having two or more meanings, so I'm hypersensitive to connotations and implications that others might not be aware of... -_-

Really, it was the perceived demotion of the main board conversation that I was concerned with. If that's not occurring, and not going to occur, then I have no problems whatsoever with the mod lounge.

When we say consistent moderation, we mean internally consistent, not necessarily across the boards. Definitely I agree that MEM will be moderated differently than the OTR. But I want any post within the same area to receive the same consideration irrespective of which user posted it, and for the moderation to happen the same way regardless of which mod takes action, in the event the specific forum mod is unavailable for whatever reason.

I also realize that even once everyone is on the same page, it is literally impossible to have perfect consistency on everything. Some posts may not get reported, and are less likely to be moderated as a result. No two people will review anything exactly the same, either. And the context of a post or conversation can alter its meaning. A joke might be fine, or might be taken the wrong way, or might not be intended as a joke at all, depending on how it is read.

Basically, I like everyone here, and I think we can hang out and have a good time and grow the community productively while we do it. If it were possible for everyone to be perfectly in sync, that would literally be the entirety of the code of conduct. The only reason we have any other words in our code of conduct is to get as close to that idea as possible for everyone.