Discord Questions from Andrew - June 18

Andrew's questions:
1.) If a server owner were breaking his own rules, is there not an inherent duty to cut the shit and tell the owner he is wrong and being a hypocrite (don't imagine this one would exactly fly.

2.) What's the likelihood that the mod team actually reads the rules and sees how there is too much gray room? This is where consistency becomes a problem for you guys.

3.) How's the transparency issue coming along? I haven't heard anything relevant, and frankly that was the biggest thing at the last mod meeting. I don't imagine it's done as you said a few weeks, but an update would be nice.



Yokel's Answers:

1.) I can't answer on behalf of sunny, but if any Discord Moderators are breaking server rules you are permitted to *politely and respectively* remind them of the fact. They all work hard to do their jobs well, sometimes they can slip.

2.) I know that I personally (Yokel) read over the rules on a mostly regular basis (i.e. whenever a suggestion is made that involves the server rules in any way). However, there's a problem with that. Moderators and Users are biased in their own ways; as a result, it's difficult for us to rightfully determine what is "grey area" and what is not, along with what needs more or less clarification and detail. This is where Trusted Members come in. The main idea for Trusted in respect to the Discord Mod team is that we have ~5 good standing representatives of the average /r/teenagers discord user who can provide their perspective as regular users. Through this, we can try to gain more insight in to the opinion and perspective of the Discord server from a user standpoint in regards to rule changes and the like. This isn't to say that the opinion is restricted to Trusted members. In fact, I highly encourage the users of this discord to voice their concerns and suggestions as much as they can. Doing so will provide us with a better idea of what the server really wants as opposed to the moderators. This is aided even more with the addition of our new suggestion system through Google Forms, which makes it much easier for us to receive, track, and properly receive suggestions. A minor downside to this system is that it does not warrant immediate discussion between other discord users and moderators, but that can be done in other text channels on the server.
In regards to moderator consistency, we're still working on that. It's akin to a "good cop, bad cop" situation, where some discord moderators may be enforcing rules more strictly while others may be slightly more lenient. The point is that the rules are being enforced. Offence punishments have become increasingly standardized over the past month, with the introduction of a reduced and progressive punishment system (Mute 300, 900, 2700, 3600s; Restricted Role [Serious channels only] 1, 3, 7 Days; Temporary Bans for 1, 3, 7 Days; and then a Permanent Ban. We're working on it as much as we can by making improvements wherever we can think of. It's not always immediate of obvious but that being said, if you have any more suggestions about the subject please message me (Yokel) or write us a suggestion (preferred option).

3.) Moderator Transparency is something I think we've improved on significantly in the recent months. As mentioned many times before, ban and mute logs will never be revealed for sake of confidentiality, but there are other ways we can improve. One such way was publicly disclosing the resolution to suggestions discussed in Discord Mod meetings. Previously, the suggestion procedure was informal: User would ping or DM a moderator with their suggestion, some brief discussion may occur in regards to the topic, suggestion is either forgotten or properly added to the mod meeting agenda, suggestions that are on the agenda are discussed, internal decision is made and changes are rolled out quietly unless they are a major server change. As a result of a major procedure overhaul we have completely flipped this process. The suggestions were previously made in a text channel which warranted discussion but still presented the issue of being overlooked when added to the mod meeting agenda. With the new suggestions form everything is extremely organized and due to the way it is set up we are able to quickly see which suggestions need to be discussed for the month, the basis for the suggestion, how it would improve the server, and any other relevant info (seriously, everything it's amazing how much more organized we are now). We started this back in April and plan on continuing to do so while trying to improve consistency (we still haven't had a mod meeting while using the suggestions form yet) but we plan on making sure that every serious suggestion that is made will be discussed and the resolution publicly disclosed. There are probably a lot more areas that we could improve on in regards to transparency, but right now we are focusing heavily on the voice users have in the server. The Discord Moderator Team isn't completely disconnected from the users but instead tries to do the complete opposite, and we hope our recent efforts as a mod team show this. Again, if you have any more suggestions please use this link so we can properly receive them:
https://goo.gl/forms/czF6acUsw5VsFaJC2
If you'd like to discuss this further, feel free to DM me (Yokel) or any other moderator.

Cheers,
Yokel