The Mods

Author: Theweakeredge

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#1
Theweakeredge
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First of all - I personally feel gratitude to the mods - Debate.org used to be a prime example of everything a website about debating should be, but a lack of moderation has made the once great site nothing but a shell of its former self. It is the moderation that keeps DebateArt.com from joining Debate.org in its fate. It has also come to my attention that many people either find the mod team incompetent with their job or inherently biased. 

First things first - obviously.

Every single person is biased, this isn't something people don't know, it isn't something new. No judges in the court of law aren't biased; however, as long as you recognize those biases you can mitigate them.

For example: Ragnar voted on a debate of mine recently; On average, a bear would beat a gorilla in a fight. Despite perferring my argument with my sources he did not award me any points to me for my sources. Why? Because even if he didn't buy Intelligence's argument, he recognized that his sources did provide impact for his arguments! That's a prime example of: recognizing bias in yourself, acknowledging it, and making a decision despite it. Judges do it all the time.

That is what the mods mean by objective. The fact that this has to be explained to a bunch of people this intelligent is sad.

Maybe I'm completely wrong though! Maybe other people think they could do better? Make your arguments - btw - this isn't trying to call the mods out, more thank them, and acknowledge the controversey happening and trying to open a more topical discussion forum for better orginization.
#2
Vader
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@Theweakeredge
Not a mod, but do talk with mods regularly. Same with the average user.

Moderators do their job by enforcing the CoC and they doing their fucking best job doing that. The active moderation on this site is beneficial. Anyone arguing against that is simply wrong

The people who criticize the mods are criticizing the CoC. I believe that this site is fairly moderated, and the bans that are in place are for people who repeatedly violate the CoC to a degree. The question is, do you believe the CoC is fair or is it not. My answer is that it's fair, but there are changes that should be implemented. I said many times (and have told mods before, so this isn't new info) that having restraining orders on this site is a losing battle and to ban someone over them does more harm than good. If there should be a RO in place, it should more relax than others. I've said it from the start, (especially when I got banned 7 days for putting my top 4 hottest girls in a thread created by someone having an RO, like seriously, this isn't direct contact with someone, it shouldn't have been a 7 day ban) that RO's hurt the site.

Ultimately, people respect the mods, but disagree with their level of moderation. While personally, I would be a much more relax mod if I were a forum mod, I understand the position they take and don't oppose to it.


#3
RationalMadman
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David/Virtuoso I got nothing nice to say about anymore. Those that know already know and those that don't needn't pay attention to the absentee (silently string-pulling) chief moderator.

Ragnar is a decent guy, in terms of his moral compass, with poor decision making skills. That is how I see him, you can call it 'bias' if you like; I prefer the term 'rational observation'.

Bsh1 went too far with something that wasn't at all funny. He had good intentions but even worse decision making skills than Ragnar.

Of these three, Ragnar is the best option to lead the website, not that Bsh1 is even a viable option since he left the site.

As for the subset moderators... I respect MisterChris because he stays as some kind of island, impervious to corruption and bias. That doesn't mean he's great at moderating, but it definitely is a good foundation on which to begin striving for greatness. Speedrace was alright and didn't make a move that I disagreed with in his rank and situation. I'm not a fan of Drafterman and the others aren't really worth mentioning, they do too little anymore.

Ramshutu was ironically an okay voting moderator in all honesty. He was a very corrupt voter but his moderation of votes was pretty spot-on.
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#4
Theweakeredge
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->@RationalMadman

Who then, would you recommend replace them?

#5
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@Theweakeredge
Ragnar and David/Virtuoso have this 'thing', I don't even know what it's like a brotherly bond. So nothing can pragmatically be done about it. Ragnar will remain and he has this obsession with letting David sit there ruling. David only recruits 'yes men' of varying sorts, which is exactly why and how Supadudz lost his status as a 'moderator' of any kind once Virtuoso took over from Bsh1.

In fact, this is also why Virtuoso alienated and refused to reassure Castin once he 'took the reigns', resulting in her quitting in exasperation. It is easy to say she quit because of other reasons but the reality is that Bsh1 recruited her because she was very popular in the Religion Forums and he predicted she'd maintain peace there and elsewhere on the website. He was correct about the well-liked part but the issue was that Castin had a very Libertarian way of going about moderating that began to confuse everything, so Bsh1 decided to randomly dump one of Wylted's temp-bans onto her, for no real reason. Then, following that she became phobic of the drama and Virtuoso/David simply posted as if she didn't exist when she expressed all these concerns publicly in an outcry before quitting the website (she uses it on and off now but much more rarely).

The entire Moderation team is designed about an extremely simple concept; you do what Virtuoso tells you to do when he tells you to do it. If not, then do what Ragnar tells you to do. Even the 'island' MisterChris is careful about stepping on their toes but he does it out of practicality, not sycophancy. At least that is my take.

Others will tell you differently, some think the problem is with the CoC itself... Guess who designs MEEPs and cleverly spaces them out so they change very little very often? Not Ragnar, no. David. Everything wrong with this website's moderation lies in a culture of 'yes sir' that has been cultivated by David and his means of recruiting and discussing moderation in a very conniving matter behind the scenes. He literally lied about what I did in order to justify a ban, then got Ragnar to push the bullshit forward. Ragnar isn't the type to leave his Chief Moderator in the dirt, so of course he took all the flack and I am not denying that Ragnar is fake or whatever else but this entire website is constructed in a pyramid scheme where everyone answers to David/Virtuoso. I used to like the guy, let's just say some leopards do change their spots... Not always for the better.
#6
SirAnonymous
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@Theweakeredge
I don't know if he would still say this, but RM used to say that he should be on the moderation team.
#7
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@Theweakeredge
Overall, I think the mods here do a good job, though they aren't perfect.
#8
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@Theweakeredge
The site seems to function O.K.

So someone is doing a good job.

Well done Mods.
#9
Barney
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@Vader
I said many times (and have told mods before, so this isn't new info) that having restraining orders on this site is a losing battle and to ban someone over them does more harm than good. If there should be a RO in place, it should more relax than others.
Glad my weekend got too busy to push ahead on the referendum (I'll probably do it Sunday or Monday). If you have an RO policy in mind, please post it in the Upcoming Referendum thread.

I just did a write-up on RO's for the religion forum, which may be a useful place to start.
#10
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@Theweakeredge
That is what the mods mean by objective. The fact that this has to be explained to a bunch of people this intelligent is sad.
Why can't we just stop using the word "objective" to describe OPINIONS?

If the goal of moderation (and science in general) is to be LESS-biased (and more logically-coherent), WHY CAN'T WE JUST SAY THAT?
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#11
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@3RU7AL
Because colloqualism 
#12
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@Theweakeredge
Because colloqualism 
The word itself seems to hold some implicit religious concept and leads to the worst aspects of scientism.
#13
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@Barney
#14
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@MisterChris
That was funny.
#15
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@Barney
Right. I have posted. The issue with that is you set those boundaries in the religion section, but I believe there needs to be universality of these RO's to make it a fair and effective system that does not actively censor an user for discussion
#16
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@Vader
I called it out the main place the issue was occuring, which is not to say only members using the religion forum are capable of any of the things mentioned in that post or the one which preceded it.

11 days later

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#17
Theweakeredge
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@3RU7AL
What? That seems a tad too conspiratory for me, whenever somebody says objective in regards to being it, it is understood that they mean to mitigate biases or to make a decision in spite of it, it is simply easier and more succinct to say "objective", and because most people aren't this pedantic, they understand what the mods mean.
#18
fauxlaw
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I'm not a little concerned with a mod-word that has definitive creep: Borderline. In my DArt experience, which is, admittedly short [11 months], that word is used and applied too liberally to establish a clear border. My personal belief is that this is due to a similar phrase as "borderline" that is STILL allowed to be a voting criterium, and that phrase is to vote only on "at least the main points." If any voter, including a mod, is going to vote on only "the main points," whatever that means, it clearly misses what some may consider minor points, which are still valid argument points. They end up being ignored, and that has happened to me as a debater. Everyone has bias, and that bias includes making personal voting decisions, including what's major and what's minor. That bias may not align with a debater's intent. When I voter, I read all arguments word-for-word, and most sources, as well. Yes, I have the time to do that, and I appreciate that not all voters have that liberal time to devote, so it's not fair of me to impose on other voters. I just wish more members did include voting regularly. After all, it will improve debate skills.
#19
Barney
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@fauxlaw
In the new voting policy, borderline is mainly used to denote hesitation in non-removal but ultimately still non-removal.

It of course does have potential for scope-creep. 
#20
3RU7AL
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@fauxlaw
it clearly misses what some may consider minor points, which are still valid argument points.
The last time I tried to vote I asked each participant to please let me know what they considered their 3 main arguments.

One participant responded, the other did not.
#21
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@Theweakeredge
What? That seems a tad too conspiratory for me, whenever somebody says objective in regards to being it, it is understood that they mean to mitigate biases or to make a decision in spite of it, it is simply easier and more succinct to say "objective", and because most people aren't this pedantic, they understand what the mods mean.
The misuse of this word demonstrates a foundational misunderstanding of science itself.

The goal of a "neutral 3rd party" is to adopt the shared biases of BOTH interested parties.

Bias is not a quantifiable, one dimensional scale with a gigantic "MORE" painted on one end and "LESS" on the other end.

EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE IS BIASED.

SOME ARE SIMILARLY BIASED AND OTHERS ARE DISSIMILARLY BIASED.

A TRULY "NEUTRAL 3RD PARTY" WOULD NEVER GET INVOLVED IN 1ST AND 2ND PARTY DISPUTES.
#22
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@Theweakeredge
BIAS is just like an accent. Nobody thinks they have one. And they think other people who have their same accent also don't have an accent.
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#23
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@3RU7AL
You see thats what we call a strawman, did you not read my original post, the key to mitigating bias is to realize you have one! That is literally the first step. Then you actively decide as if you did not have that bias, which, is quantifiable - we call it logic. 
#24
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@Theweakeredge
You see thats what we call a strawman, did you not read my original post, the key to mitigating bias is to realize you have one! That is literally the first step. Then you actively decide as if you did not have that bias, which, is quantifiable - we call it logic. 
Bias is not a quantifiable, one dimensional scale with a gigantic "MORE" painted on one end and "LESS" on the other end.
#25
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@Theweakeredge
EVERYTHING YOU DO IS MOTIVATED BY E-MOTION.
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#26
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@3RU7AL
Of course not, it takes a delve into your psyche and an evaluation of the content in mind, and your positions.  Just because something is difficult to do, does not mean that it is impossible to do. You have made a claim, I would like you to demonstrate it.
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#27
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@3RU7AL
Sure, but being motivated by and because of are two different things. You can do something entirely motivated by logic while still having "e-motion". The two concepts are separate. Also, please demonstrate that claim.
#28
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@Theweakeredge
You have made a claim, I would like you to demonstrate it.
pLEASE BE sLIGHTLY mORE sPECIFIC.
#29
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@Theweakeredge
You can do something entirely motivated by logic
Please demonstrate an e-motionless human action or activity or goal.
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#30
Theweakeredge
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@3RU7AL
Um... did you actually read the sentence? I said you will have emotions, obviously, but you can be motivated by solely logic. Perhaps the enticement to do the logic was initially by emotion and then died down, perhaps it wasn't there at all. As for the claim, the whole humans are only motivated by emotion thing, as it was your central claim I don't get why that's hard for you to understand.