User:Blue/RWW/Moderators

The Moderators are here! the Moderators will solve everything! The Moderators will definitely not go the way of the Loya Jirga! There never was a Loya Jirga! All is well! Peace and harmony prevail! Return to your duties!

The most visible change in site structure caused by the Trial of Human and The Saloon Bar Putsch was the creation of moderators. Tmtoulouse|Trent first proposed the idea for seven moderators on May 17th, 2011, waited for feedback, and initiated the plan in mid June. The first elections were held from June 14th to June 28th, resulting in the the first batch of the mysterious new moderators.

How to tell if someone is a moderator
They might have a silver brainstar in their sig, though most do not observe this practice. RW's ListUsers page lists current mods.

Duties of Moderators
According to here:


 * The main function of the moderator is to monitor conflicts and use the tools they are given to keep discussions from veering off in directions that are harmful to the community and the site.
 * The second function of the moderators is to help boot-strap certain policies or procedures that we struggle with. A great example of this is how to vote for something, how long does a vote last, when does it pass or fail, what should even be voted on? There is no way to address these issues without some people having the power to set a certain amount of basic policy.

Moderators, in consultation with the community and each other, can begin to help us develop a structure of procedures for running the site.

In effect, their role is to close votes, as that is the only thing they can do without anyone claiming that they are overstepping their mandate, which remains ill-defined.

Effectiveness
Mods have shown an effort to reform the community standards, which fits under the second job. They have enforced community consensus, such as the banning and reverting of MarcusCicero and MC-esque BoN edits. And they've closed a few chicken coop cases.

Questions about the extent of their authority have arisen, especially in the face of what several have argued was sloppy handling of the resignations of P-Foster and Ace McWicked. AD and Blue were criticized for overzealously enforcing the various bans of MarcusCicero and his IPs.

Nx has been criticized for desysopping both Ace McWicked and BbMaj7 for 9 hours after "abusing" Brxbrx.

Resignations
P-Foster was the first to resign, and once the moderators noticed, they appointed the runner up, Blue, as a replacement. Ace McWicked resigned the next month, and the few moderators who bothered to weigh in on a replacement felt an election was necessary after the next runner-up (Psygremlin) declined the position. After several users pointed out the inconsistency, Blue resigned after a very short tenure. An election for two replacement mods was implemented in mid September.

Timeline
* Not contested by incumbents, save Ace McWicked, who had recently resigned.