Open Letter to the Moderators

cmr164

Moderators;

You have a lot of power here. Please do not abuse it. If you have a personality issue with someone here then it is wildly inappropraite for you to censor or move that person's threads and posts. There are many moderators here and if there is a problem another moderator will pick it up without you exercising your power and without you trying to egg them on. If the other moderators do not see a problem in the absense of your intervention then maybe you were letting your personality inject into your judgment.

Charles

lynnma

cmr164 wrote:

Moderators;

You have a lot of power here. Please do not abuse it. If you have a personality issue with someone here then it is wildly inappropraite for you to censor or move that person's threads and posts. There are many moderators here and if there is a problem another moderator will pick it up without you exercising your power and without you trying to egg them on. If the other moderators do not see a problem in the absense of your intervention then maybe you were letting your personality inject into your judgment.

Charles

Hi Charles.. I sincerely believe that we moderators take our "powers" very seriously.. we would not take time and energy doing this if we did not believe in what we are doing. I personally do not abuse my position and I have seen no evidence of anyone else in the mods doing that either. If there is an issue regarding sensitive posts that may or may not conform to the standards of the forum we always discuss it at length to be sure of fairness and open mindedness. It's not always easy but we try very hard.
Sincerely
Lynn

cmr164

lynnma wrote:

Hi Charles.. I sincerely believe that we moderators take our "powers" very seriously.. we would not take time and energy doing this if we did not believe in what we are doing. I personally do not abuse my position and I have seen no evidence of anyone else in the mods doing that either. If there is an issue regarding sensitive posts that may or may not conform to the standards of the forum we always discuss it at length to be sure of fairness and open mindedness. It's not always easy but we try very hard.
Sincerely
Lynn

I know you do Lynn and I have the utmost reaspect for you and most if not all of the other moderators.

Andy

charles,

for the record, your post was moved for moderation. i pm'd you about a title change. you pm'd back the change, and then i moved it back to "shots" where you could further edit it if you like. there was no censoring at all, i kindly asked you to change the title, and you replied with a change. i see now that i didn't get that new title exactly right, but once i moved the thread back to the shots forum, you were free to edit it, which i saw that you did. that's certainly not censorship. now, it's totally moot becuase you asked another moderator to delete the post...

to make this out like it's a personal thing, hmm well now, as i said in my note to you, i'd have done the same thing regardless of who the poster was. by the way, please don't pm me anymore about your beefs with the challenge judging - if you have something to say about the challenges, bring it up in the challenge forum, for all to see, and debate.

we're fortunate that we don't have to moderate much at all here on dgrin, it's a community that fairly much takes care of itself. as i said to you, it's kind of like a gathering of friends and family in one's living room, with the kids, too. if it's okay there, then it's ok here.

and so, in closing, charles, i do not let personality come into this sort of thing whatsover. who the poster is is transparent to me.

wxwax

Not personal, just business, Charles. dgrin's associated with smugmug, and is intended to be a safe place to visit for smugmug clients of all ages, sexes and creeds. I know you know all this.

dgrin is milquetoast by design.

I don't think the mods have ever explicitly discussed this, but I'd say that ensuring that dgrin remains G-rated is close to the top of our list of duties. Folks here are great, which means the mods usually don't have much to do. But every once in a rare while, something will pop-up. And whoever catches it tries to do the right thing.

David_S85

Thank goodness there *are* moderators here
I'm fairly new at DGrin, but I am more than content knowing there are moderators in every forum section that actually take the time to be involved enough to actually read and respond personally to threads and postsers, and can and do take action when its necessary -- even if its a trivial affair of a title of a thread. It's because this is a community that isn't out of control, as some other sites out there.

Moderator action, whatever the reason, is quite refreshing. Some places out there, just make one disappear without notice or discussion... and Andy knows just what I'm talking about.

Baldy

I'd like to introduce you to some of smugmug's most avid customers:

wxwax

Is the dog a Nikon or Canon man?

dragon300zx

He's got that funny look in his eyes. I'd say nikon.

Andy

dragon300zx wrote:

He's got that funny look in his eyes. I'd say nikon.

that's kobe (i think) baldy's dawg.... definitely a canon shooter

cmr164

andy wrote:

charles,

for the record, your post was moved for moderation. i pm'd you about a title change. you pm'd back the change, and then i moved it back to "shots" where you could further edit it if you like. there was no censoring at all, i kindly asked you to change the title, and you replied with a change. i see now that i didn't get that new title exactly right, but once i moved the thread back to the shots forum, you were free to edit it, which i saw that you did. that's certainly not censorship. now, it's totally moot becuase you asked another moderator to delete the post...

For the record even though I clearly did not think the title was inappropriate I did not argue with your censorship even one bit. I instantly responded to expedite a change.

For the record, your 'accidentally' incorrect title stayed in the forum listings as the thread title. Which you were informed of.

For the record I asked you multiple times to delete the thread and you did not.

andy wrote:

to make this out like it's a personal thing, hmm well now, as i said in my note to you, i'd have done the same thing regardless of who the poster was.

Perhaps you would have done so and up to the point of the following I accepted that you were acting as objectively as you are able to.
1...not fixing the results of your accident,
2...your failure to delete the thread even when asked multiple times
3...your childish insistence on changing the forum

After that I asked another moderator to delete the thread. At no time did I complain about your initial judgement on the title.

andy wrote:

by the way, please don't pm me anymore about your beefs with the challenge judging - if you have something to say about the challenges, bring it up in the challenge forum, for all to see, and debate.

Now you are out of bounds completely. I PM'd you after all the issues about the thread were taken care of to ask you:
"Given our history I would appreciate it if you keep your hands off of my posts and threads from now on. There are plenty of other moderators and their judgment is likely to be more objective."

There is *nothing* there about the challenge. *YOU* PM'd me about the challenge and frankly I hope you will never PM me again. Let other moderators look at my posts. Even here you did not need to reply here at all. A moderator with a level of professionalism would have left well enough alone. I had not mentioned your name and the vast majority of the members would not have had a clue about our issues if you hadn't felt the emotional need to spew. It is just that emotionalism that makes me ask that *YOU* forebear from moderating my posts.

andy wrote:

we're fortunate that we don't have to moderate much at all here on dgrin, it's a community that fairly much takes care of itself. as i said to you, it's kind of like a gathering of friends and family in one's living room, with the kids, too. if it's okay there, then it's ok here.

and so, in closing, charles, i do not let personality come into this sort of thing whatsover. who the poster is is transparent to me.

Sure.

Andy

hiya charles,

fish

I think this thread has run its course. Before I close it, I would just like to quote an excerpt from the user agreement everyone agreed to prior to registering on dgrin.com:

The owners of Digital Grin reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.


I'm not passing judgement on anything posted in this thread, just stating a fact.

Let's move on.