Although I do not expect you to have any interest in my opinions or advice, I will offer them anyway.
I have been running public bulletin boards and mailing lists for many years and I am currently (amongst other things) the administrator of the Astronomical Sciences forum at the European Space Agency. As such, I am responsible for the conduct of around 30 moderators located in universities and scientific organisations around the world. I also run 3 large portal sites, 2 of which are public, and as webmaster I am responsible for all their content.
Although there are no written down, real life, rules on how a moderator should act, there are still conventions which have come about as a result of experience, and have become common practice. Allow me to share a couple of them ...
Moderators never summarily delete members threads except where they contain obscene, illegal, seditious or threatening material, in which case they should ban the member as well.
A more appropriate way to handle a "locally unaceptable" thread would be to PM the originator, explain the nature of problem, and ask them to remove or alter the thread themselves. In 99.99% of all non-bannable cases I have encountered, threads were started in ignorance of local rules or conditions, and the originators have been perfectly willing to remove or modify them once notified of the problem. Reference, in the form of a link to the relevant terms and conditions of use for the forum is normally provided, in order to identify what is considered "locally unacceptable". It might be useful to make sure the T&C are accessible via a link on the main template perhaps.
An open thread (as opposed to a restricted one, to which only moderators and admins can contribute) is open for discusssion. This means that even where a moderator originates an open thread him/herself, he/she should be obliged to permit it to remain open at least long enough for the majority of members to take part in the discussion.
The recent " Focus, Forumites, Focus!" thread was not only open for less than 24 hours (which automatically excluded part of the world from participating), but it was closed at 4:49 am WET, which effectively excluded most of the Middle East, Africa, and Russia, and the whole of Europe. This, whether by intention or design, also excluded me (being the person whose thread was deleted) from either providing a response, or voluntarily repairing my mistake.
Making it sticky only compounds the issue.
Moderators who feel they must issue public reminders or statements, would normally make them in a restricted or closed thread. That way the thread wouldn't get filled with unnecessary smartassery and off topic trivia. If, on the other hand, moderators decide to make an existing thread sticky because it has important content, they might reasonably be expected to close it and clean it up first.
I would hope that you will take the above comments on board, since they do come from someone with considerable experience in the subject. On the other hand, if you feel that don't want to take the time to apply sensitivity and consideration to your moderation, why not try to find someone else who will.
I don't suppose the consequent loss of one member, who doesn't even own an EB product, will be of any concern to either yourselves or your sponsors, but in all the companies I have worked for over the years, heavy-handedness and lack of consideration for your clients and potential clients, have never made for either good forum moderators or good salesmen.
2c
Ad the Chairman of one company I worked for was known to say to his sales team - "You may sell a thousand a month boys - but you still sell them one at a time".
I have been running public bulletin boards and mailing lists for many years and I am currently (amongst other things) the administrator of the Astronomical Sciences forum at the European Space Agency. As such, I am responsible for the conduct of around 30 moderators located in universities and scientific organisations around the world. I also run 3 large portal sites, 2 of which are public, and as webmaster I am responsible for all their content.
Although there are no written down, real life, rules on how a moderator should act, there are still conventions which have come about as a result of experience, and have become common practice. Allow me to share a couple of them ...
Moderators never summarily delete members threads except where they contain obscene, illegal, seditious or threatening material, in which case they should ban the member as well.
A more appropriate way to handle a "locally unaceptable" thread would be to PM the originator, explain the nature of problem, and ask them to remove or alter the thread themselves. In 99.99% of all non-bannable cases I have encountered, threads were started in ignorance of local rules or conditions, and the originators have been perfectly willing to remove or modify them once notified of the problem. Reference, in the form of a link to the relevant terms and conditions of use for the forum is normally provided, in order to identify what is considered "locally unacceptable". It might be useful to make sure the T&C are accessible via a link on the main template perhaps.
An open thread (as opposed to a restricted one, to which only moderators and admins can contribute) is open for discusssion. This means that even where a moderator originates an open thread him/herself, he/she should be obliged to permit it to remain open at least long enough for the majority of members to take part in the discussion.
The recent " Focus, Forumites, Focus!" thread was not only open for less than 24 hours (which automatically excluded part of the world from participating), but it was closed at 4:49 am WET, which effectively excluded most of the Middle East, Africa, and Russia, and the whole of Europe. This, whether by intention or design, also excluded me (being the person whose thread was deleted) from either providing a response, or voluntarily repairing my mistake.
Making it sticky only compounds the issue.
Moderators who feel they must issue public reminders or statements, would normally make them in a restricted or closed thread. That way the thread wouldn't get filled with unnecessary smartassery and off topic trivia. If, on the other hand, moderators decide to make an existing thread sticky because it has important content, they might reasonably be expected to close it and clean it up first.
I would hope that you will take the above comments on board, since they do come from someone with considerable experience in the subject. On the other hand, if you feel that don't want to take the time to apply sensitivity and consideration to your moderation, why not try to find someone else who will.
I don't suppose the consequent loss of one member, who doesn't even own an EB product, will be of any concern to either yourselves or your sponsors, but in all the companies I have worked for over the years, heavy-handedness and lack of consideration for your clients and potential clients, have never made for either good forum moderators or good salesmen.
2c
Ad the Chairman of one company I worked for was known to say to his sales team - "You may sell a thousand a month boys - but you still sell them one at a time".
