Friday BP, 7/6/18

Happy Friday!

So today we’re going to do a little housekeeping, and this is about moderating. We’ve talked in the past about how important it is to flag comments, and that remains true! Please flag things you find to be in violation of the site’s rules.

However, there are a couple of things we need to clear up:

1.) Please do not flag people as a joke or because their comment is off topic. When someone is flagged, their account and all their recent comments are reviewed and it’s a big pain to pull up all of that only to find someone flagged them because they were off topic or because they said something nice about a Dodger player. Neither of those things are against the rules and it bogs up the system for the moderators.

2.) Contrary to popular beliefs, flags do not send out a Mod Signal alerting all of us that something is going on. I tend to check for flags about once or twice a day when I can, and unless I’m actively in the thread where the flag is, I’m not going to see it until then. Same with other moderators, if they aren’t in the thread, they won’t know at all. So if there is something truly heinous that needs to be addressed, please alert one of us directly. My contact information is in my profile.

A few of you may have noticed that you’ve gotten warnings or messages recently. We are assessing each flagged comment and if the flag has merit, we will send a warning or a message to the community member. We’re not about to get crazy with the ban-hammer or impose any new rules or anything, but I think it helps to be consistent in moderation, and not only when it gets to the point of someone being banned.

The rules stay as they are. Don’t be abusive, don’t harass people, don’t be a troll, don’t make bigoted comments, no ad hominem/personal attacks or insults. And the golden rule: contribute more than you distract.

For the most part, we don’t have to send many warnings or messages and bans are even rarer than that. We’ve got a good group of people here, we’re just trying to keep it that way.