[Rules] Remove backseat modding rule | Rewriting Backseat modding Rule

[Bricket]

Hello everyone,

I would like to remove the rules around backseat modding since this is in my humble opinion a rule that shoudln't exist.
Punishing people for backseat modding is basically the mods admitting they weren't able to keep the situation under control.

My proposal is short: no longer punish backseat modding with a warning % but allow it.
Why allow it? When users remind other users about the rules this is positively perceived since it's just one user helping another and thus a positive low entry enforcement which shoudl be applaud at instead of punished.

Title changed on 02/04/2017 12.38 GMT+1

[Alistair]

Firstly, no. It does not mean we were unable to take action at the time, we all have lives outside of this forum and there is not always someone to watch for reports and take care of things the second it comes in. We don't get paid to do this, we do this voluntarily and on our own time when we have it. That being and allowing users to police others on rules leads to harassment eventually and requires us to actually step in and clean up a bigger mess than was there to begin with. You as users of the forum are responsible for hitting that report button if you see something out of place or clearly breaking rules. It helps us keep on top of things if you catch something we don't. Hope this clears things up.

[Bricket]

But is it needed to report of an user can intervene and prevent a mod sacrificing his valuable time to intervene and also prevent a potential warning level for the person who made the "error"? 

[Timmy Fox]

The rule does imo serve a pretty good purpose; It's not as much about punishing someone for reminding someone else about a rule but more about preventing people from trying to take the role of moderator upon themselves as opposed to calling in one do deal with the situation. And a lot of the time it can lead to misinformation and all that because someone might suggest X is against the rules whilst backseat moderating when the person being told off did nothing wrong.

Friendly reminders aren't the problem here, as you say, but users creating an argument over whether or not a rule was broken or someone believing they know the rules better than someone else and acting as if they were a moderator is.

That said, one could question how strictly enforced this rule needs to be; A simple heads up here and there may be harmless enough that it might not warrant being considered a rulebreak. So perhaps it could be more lenient toward minor such infractions?

Basically more of a discouragement with a little bit of a gray zone rather than a hard rule of no backseat moderation whatsoever.

[Ventus Fall]

But is it needed to report of an user can intervene and prevent a mod sacrificing his valuable time to intervene and also prevent a potential warning level for the person who made the "error"? 

1) It's why we're mods. We're not sacrificing anything. As Alistair said, we do this in our free time when we can (and want to).
2) The main reason for backseating to be a rule-breaking offense is mainly as it causes users to argue and make the whole forums sour. If there are consequences to it, then users won't backseat. Besides, no one enjoys a kill-joy, best to have mods as the kill-joys and have regular member simply enjoy their time on here.
3) Perhaps a good example is real-life too: We have the police. There are rules against people policing themselves. For good reason. Vigilante-behaviour is strongly discouraged for a variety of reasons. The main reason is to let the cops do the cop-work. They know the rules and can do things 'regular' non-cop people can't do. Helping the cops is fine, but being a cop when one is not is rather discouraged. It's also for the safety and well-being of the person themselves. So various reasons.
4) If you tell someone more than once to stop doing something and they keep continuing? They're clearly not listening? Just report, don't let it continue. It's not nice of them nor it's nice for you this thing is happening. When a mod steps in and sees it happening (on time) these things can be stopped sooner and less drama ensued.

And I agree with Timmy; Friendly reminders aren't a problem. However, as stated above, if someone would remind another person over and over again, or creating grounds for an argument, that's when the report-button should be clicked instead of backseat moderating.
There is a fine-line sometimes between a friendly reminder and backseating. We check case-by-case and determine per case if something is backseating or not.
Besides, we don't warn for any mis-reports. Best to click the report button if you think a rule is being broken. "Better be safe than sorry" kind of thing.

[Bricket]

1) It's why we're mods. We're not sacrificing anything. As Alistair said, we do this in our free time when we can (and want to).

But what for some reason this takes more than one day to notice, doesn't that mean the mods weren't watching the topic?

2) The main reason for backseating to be a rule-breaking offense is mainly as it causes users to argue and make the whole forums sour. If there are consequences to it, then users won't backseat. Besides, no one enjoys a kill-joy, best to have mods as the kill-joys and have regular member simply enjoy their time on here.

But isn't it better that a member intervenes quickly and prevents a potential punishment for the person and thus preventing a much bigger buzzkill by helping someone?

3) Perhaps a good example is real-life too: We have the police. There are rules against people policing themselves. For good reason. Vigilante-behaviour is strongly discouraged for a variety of reasons. The main reason is to let the cops do the cop-work. They know the rules and can do things 'regular' non-cop people can't do. Helping the cops is fine, but being a cop when one is not is rather discouraged. It's also for the safety and well-being of the person themselves. So various reasons.

Take this real life example:
you park your car wrong. Do you prefer your neighbour saying that you parked your car wrong and giving you a shot of parking it right or immedialty calling the cops and having your car towed away? 

4) If you tell someone more than once to stop doing something and they keep continuing? They're clearly not listening? Just report, don't let it continue. It's not nice of them nor it's nice for you this thing is happening. When a mod steps in and sees it happening (on time) these things can be stopped sooner and less drama ensued.

Here I agree with you, but a mod should only intervene after a while



I think we can all agree the consensus is as the following: don't punish someone for backseat modding nor give him a warming.
But removal of the rule should maybe not happen, just don't enforce it.

Yet I still pledge for a removal of said rule since it is redundant

[Timmy Fox]

See, there is still a line between friendly reminder and the "bad" type of backseat moderation.

Sure mods are busy and can't always enforce the rules immediately for every situation but if it's a serious issue that requires more urgent action it's probably already at the point that backseat moderation will just lead to arguments and more trouble than when it started and will possibly even lead to more people getting in trouble over it rather than the single one that broke the rules in the first place.

Eventually, continued backseat moderation will more often than not just lead to people getting upset with you for telling them off all the time.

Briefly reminding someone that X is, in fact, against the rules is one thing; Asking someone to tone down a heated debate or a trying to intervene a drama that's happening or something like that will more likely just end up getting you involved in it and make an even bigger issue of it.

[Ventus Fall]

1) a) Arguably, why did no one report it?
b) It was eventually all found out, and it didn't take a whole day
c) Once again, we're all volunteers. We need the time to go through every single post, we do this in our free time. As of which, are you able to read and check every single post made on the forums? Certain threads (counting threads for example) a lot of posts can be made in such a short amount of time.
d) By not reporting it on time we have to spend in more time sorting this stuff out when we could have dealt with it from the start, thus giving us more work by not reporting it.

2) Hence the report button. You intervene on time by using that

3) Friendly reminders are fine, but backseating is not. So more kind of like if someone parks their car wrong, you can say "Oh, perhaps you can take another look at that?". You give a friendly reminder. But if they don't listen and create an argument over it, then the police needs to step in.

4) That depends from situation to situation. The rules are there for a reason. I have seen in my time I've been on the forums that people remind people of the rules in a friendly manner and sometimes get quite angry responses from them. It all depends how you say it. But if you clearly say "Gjee, that is against the rules, you shouldn't do that" then... why don't you report it. Sometimes it might need a warning, or not. In certain cases we don't warn (be it because a rule is being broken or not) and sometimes send a friendly reminder to read the rules. We can also be lenient for a variety of reasons.
Moderators moderate and oversee the forums and its members. That also means we might know things 'regular' members don't which lets us as moderators have a better judgement how to deal with a situation.

As I've read we don't all agree as consensus to remove the rule or the punishment. Others and I have already stated it's there for a reason and I personally think it should stay. (Even before I became a mod, I should point out.)
There is nothing stopping anyone from pressing the report button to inform the moderation team and we want to enforce that we want to have people help us to make things easier, not harder.


(PS: Timmy, you worded that part really well. That's what I mean as well, thanks!)

[Bricket]

I think we have to make the distinction between frequent backseat modding or helping.
If there is a topic where someone frequenctly backseat mods then it means there are some issues with the subject or posts themselves and thus a mod should intervene to resolve the issues.
But helping is now also seen as backseat modding thus both cases lead to a punishment.

What becomes clear here is that the rule is archaic and should be modified and adapted to the way the forum works now.

Biggest advice I can give here to every mod on this forum: if you see someone frequently backseat modding, talk to the person and don't just give punishments because you want to apply the rules. Talking helps so much


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Reaction on Ventus-post.

1-2, why did no mod check it on time?
If you're volunteering this and you don't find out on time, shouldn't that mean that there is a shortage on staff?

[Ventus Fall]

As said, it's looked at case-by-case

Reaction on Ventus-post.

1-2, why did no mod check it on time?
If you're volunteering this and you don't find out on time, shouldn't that mean that there is a shortage on staff?

Arguably I think there is a shortage of members reporting

[Bricket]

Looks like there is a need for some good ol' propaganda then 

[Timmy Fox]

I have seen in my time I've been on the forums that people remind people of the rules in a friendly manner and sometimes get quite angry responses from them. It all depends how you say it.

[...]
Moderators moderate and oversee the forums and its members. That also means we might know things 'regular' members don't which lets us as moderators have a better judgement how to deal with a situation.

Yeah, very much agree there. I've been here for quite long as well (longer than most, I believe) and I may not be a mod but I can definitely say I've seen (and experienced myself as well) just that how people respond differently to what might very well be intended as a friendly gesture.

What becomes clear here is that the rule is archaic and should be modified and adapted to the way the forum works now.

Biggest advice I can give here to every mod on this forum: if you see someone frequently backseat modding, talk to the person and don't just give punishments because you want to apply the rules. Talking helps so much

What's there to say this isn't already being done? I think the majority here seems to agree the rule is there for a good reason and should stay. I'm not really sure if a rewrite/rephrasing would help to be honest, it's better to keep it there and clear as is to discourage this behavior as an alternative to the system that is already there in place to inform the mods there is an issue.

It should be up to the mods and not the users to determine the severity of the situation and the eventual action that needs to be taken. The mods aren't all black or white on this and they already do, as mentioned, judge these things on a case by case basis.

You don't need to always get a warning for breaking a rule, you know. If it's a one-time thing that can be justified and considered harmless enough you can very well get away with only a simple heads up from one of the mods.

Plus, people need to learn things the hard way sometimes, and a lot of the times getting told off by a mod will have a much better effect than if told off by a random user.

(PS: Timmy, you worded that part really well. That's what I mean as well, thanks!)

Haha, that's so nice of you to say, thanks!

[Bricket]

If the rule as you say isn't severely enforced then a rewriting it needed since it no longer fits in the current context/situation of the forum.
That's how simple it is.

Is it needed to punish people for backseat modding? Absolutely not! It just does not make any sense to punish people, yet people are being punished for doing that.

Just talk to the backseat modder about the situation, ask him why he does that etc. Talk instead of punish.
Rewrite the rule so punishing is no longer the logical outcome of the rule but a conversation is.
That is the essence.

[Michen_S]

I think the rule certainly has value. I haven't seen any angry responses to friendly reminders, but there certainly are people who would react that way. Besides that, back-seat moderating can create drama and ruin the fun for everyone in the thread, and that's something we should avoid. Moderators have the position to deal with the situation, so we should leave it to them.

[MrRazot]

Hey Bricket


I suppose it'll help to tell you that Backseat moderating is actually one of the infringements that receives a very low warning. If we wanted to really punish someone for that, we'd revoke their posting capabilities until they've sent us a 100 word essay saying why they shouldn't Backseat moderate


We are deterring members from backseat moderating here. When a member does take it on themselves to see to a problem instead of simply reporting it and moderating, it actually save a lot of time. As soon a post gets reported, mods have something to go on and can evaluate the situation from there. Usually the report is made quite early on and then the mods can see it and handle it as soon as it is possible for them. In the case of a member not reporting and "handling it" themselves, things get very messy.


Is this down to the efficiency of the mods? perhaps, but I'm not omniscient/omnipresent to be able to foresee this stuff happening.
Perhaps instead of bashing the mods and saying this should be like that and that should be like this, maybe we can all work together in the way that we're all supposed to? Come on dude, there's a report button on every single post made. you don't really have an excuse here


I want to finish of with saying that it's a bit weird that you're complaining that members shouldn't have to follow the system we have set in place, then complaining that the system isn't working because people aren't following the system:P