Re: Moderate in moderation [was: Re: an algorithm with interruption in the middle]
Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
* Andrei Alexandrescu:
Definitive answers to on-topic questions
outside FAQ do not belong to moderation comments, period.
This is an interesting point of view.
Is it a request for changing, or least discussing changing, the
moderation policy in that regard, points 4 and 6 below?
The current policy -- see the link in the banner at the end
of this article ;-) -- is, and has been since at least July
28 2003, according to the Wayback Engine,
<quote>
3. Any part of the article which is an FAQ can be answered by a
moderator by adding a moderator note (see below) of the form {FAQ:
27 -mod}. This is an indication to other posters that they should
not answer this question.
4. Any part of the article that raises an issue for which the
moderator knows of a published reference may include a moderator
note which cites the publication. e.g. {see: Stroustrup, "The C++
Programming Language", 3rd. ed., p. 234. -mod}
5. Any part of the article that is related to some other thread on
this, or any other newsgroup can have a cross reference added by
the moderator. e.g. {See "Why I like overloading operator&&" in
comp.lang.c++. -mod}
6. Occasionally, there may be some issue raised in an article that a
moderator is extremely familiar with, or has unique knowledge of.
The moderator may inject a comment, if and only if the comment is
a statement of fact rather than the opinion of the moderator, is
brief, and there are no more than two such comments in the
article. e.g. {I tried this recently with similar results. -mod}
That's interesting. I'm curious if the policy always said this,
or if it was modified at some time.
I'll admit that my knowledge of the policy is somewhat
particular; it mainly comes from my memories of the emails we
exchanges when writing the original policy, and not from any
particular wording in the policy itself. And I definitly
remember that the issue Andrei is raising was discussed, and we
decided that a moderator shouldn't participate in the actual
discussion via moderator comments. Practically, as I remember
it (which means that I could be wrong), 4, 5, and 6 would
definitly not have been acceptable, and 3 would have been
marginal.
(For those who are unaware of the fact, I'm one of the founders
of this group, and actively moderated for many years. I would,
in fact, be actively moderating today if I had a reliable email
address that didn't involve going through some browser
interface.)
This seemed like a reasonable policy at the time. And I know
that unique knowledge or not, we didn't make technical comments
in a moderator's note back then---at the most, a reference to
the FAQ.
7. Moderators may elide quoted banners and signatures (as well as
"closing greetings").
Moderator Notes
Moderators may add a note to an article for the reasons and according
to the policies stated above. The form of those notes will always be
the same. They will composed of text in braces. The last four
characters of the text in braces will be -mod or a similar form
involving their initials (such as -mod/jk) if the article is
accepted. Thus: {text of the note. -mod}. Moderators will be
extremely conservative with their use of notes. Most articles should
not have any notes. Those that do should have only one, or at the
most two.
</quote>
(Points 1 and 2 concern reformatting and removal of quoted banner).
The "statement of /fact/" criterion and limit on the number of such
comments should, I think, if followed to the letter, ensure that a
moderator's comment will almost never be an unmoderated viewpoint.
I think that the main reason we were more conservative back at
the beginning was that we realized that whether something is a
statement of fact or not is already an opinion. I'm sure, for
example, that every one of the moderators, both then and now,
know that "i = i++" is undefined behavior, and are confident
that it is a fact. But what if we are wrong? We aren't, in
this case, but where do you draw the line? How sure is sure?
Even the best of us isn't infallible, and some of the "facts" we
know are probably wrong. Stating such facts in a moderator's
comment gives them an air of infallibility which I, for one,
don't want to assume.
However, playing Devil's advocate, it is of course always possible, at
least in principle, to select facts supporting one's own personal view
or putting down someone else's -- but I don't think that's ever
happened.
I'm not even worried about it happening intentionally. There
is, however, a slight possibility that a moderator could be
honestly mistaken in his facts, and treat something as a fact
that in fact is only an opinion, or is even factually incorrect.
I think or want to believe that the moderators are moderators
not just because they have accepted to volunteer this work, but because
they can be relied on to generally (learn to) show good and impartial
judgement, including of when a moderator's comment stating a fact may
really help a poster or may help a thread from developing further on the
basis of incorrect assumptions. Of course, mishaps may happen! ;-)
Regarding the last guidelines paragraph quoted above, it seems there is
a strong consensus, with absolutely no-one disagreeing so far.
You mean the form of the notes. Yes.
But we
newbie moderators have probably overdone the commenting: it takes some
time to ascertain what the written rules mean in practice, and what the
unwritten rules, e.g. of procedure, are (we've had some internal
discussion on that, starting a round of clarification with a list that's
not yet finished). Is it possible that your viewpoint here is just a
very strong interpretation of points 4 and 6?
I don't know. I do know that for the longest time, we rarely
had moderator comments, maybe a couple of times a year at the
most.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have moderation. To be frank, I
don't like the idea of moderation. Experience has shown me,
however, that without it, the group rapidly becomes unusable, at
least for technical groups in the English speaking hierarchies.
But IMHO, the moderation should be as unobtrusive as possible:
one only notices that the group is moderated because there are
no flamefests.
--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze@gmail.com
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