In reply to Marius Jensen.

This is a lengthy reply, Marius. I hope you read it to the end.

"I will say, however, that a suggestion of a system to rank moderators is just outright cruel, and isn’t something we will even consider."

You need to explain your objection to the introduction of a feedback mechanism that will help improve the quality of .org's support forum moderation.

Feedback is important when user satisfaction is important. We are not talking about ranking mods but about ensuring end users feel comfortable in the .org support forums and that they are content with mod behaviour. Votes can be kept confidential and still be used to inform business decisions.

"The moderators role is to uphold the guidelines to ensure a safe space for all users, and to moderate in discussions where things get heated, the outcome of that moderation depends on the scenario unfolding at the time."

You might believe that. You might be one of the mods who follows the rules without being trigger-happy or power-mad. I assure you that many mods do not apply reason and common sense to their logic w.r.t. the removal of contributions from the forums.

"If a post has been removed, it would have been for violating the guidelines in one way or another, or because it was outright spam."

Big assumption there. I forgive you.

The forum guidelines issued to mods need to be changed.

Any set of guidelines that includes 'Thou shall not contribute to an open thread' is poorly considered. It allows overeager mods to exclude user contributions for reasons such as, to paraphrase the various excuses I have received: 1) 'Do not post new issues under existing threads' given when the issue is (or issues are) clearly the same or related, 2) 'Do not offer alternative [free and in the WP Repo] plugin recommendations' given when a plugin with faults is no longer maintained, 3) 'Do not link to patched versions of plugins' given when the WP Repo plugin is unmaintained, 4) 'Send patches directly to plugin developers.' without first asking whether this has been attempted etc.. etc.. etc...

I expect many .org mods would see the above paragraph and respond with 'I see a number of violations in your examples.' The irony of that response would be lost on them; attempts to fix a broken system being met with cannon fire i.e. the guidelines used to justify a problem rather than inspected to find error in the guidelines.

"On the bright side, if it wasn’t spam, it is never deleted, we just archive it, so moderators can check up on any such claims, so feel free to reach out on Slack and I’d be happy to take a look."

Dress up a gloomy experience as much as you will but there is ever dwindling sunshine in the .org support forums.

The forum mods must respond to complaints openly within the support forum under a 'Mod Complaints' board or use an open complaints procedure elsewhere.

I have neither wish nor desire to create a Slack account (nor remember my existing login) just so I can raise complaint about the behaviour of .org support forum mods. I have enough accounts to work with as it is. If the .org support forum is too moderated to allow an open complaints board then I recommend WordPress use GitHub, where WordPress has an open presence. Complaints about forum moderation, as well as responses to complaints, should be in the open so we can all review the mod team's behaviour and recommend changes where needed.

"One of the moderation tools we have is the ability to flag an account, if they are found to be in violation of guidelines, and we suspect it is likely to repeat it self."

No wonder many of us feel harassed by .org forum mods. Do you think this might be the problem; that this sets up a realm of unintended vindictiveness?

Flagging accounts in secret, and doing so without a proper and open review system, has potential to promote a default response from some mods who might see contributions from flagged accounts, see the flag and think 'Uh oh! Trouble maker here; better not allow this post: what excuse can I use?' It creates a negative team culture.

Not telling contributors their accounts have been flagged serves to create a feeling of alienation in affected contributors. This behaviour increases the likelihood flagged contributors will walk away from .org without ever raising complaint because they are unaware they need to do so in order to defend their account from mod harassment sanctioned by virtue of their account being flagged. An unintended consequence is still a consequence to be dealt with.

Marious, I appreciate your attempt to justify the behaviour of .org support forum mods but you have only given more reasons for .org contributors to question mod behaviour, mod attitude toward contributors and the suitability of mods to reliably fulfil their task fairly. There is clearly something very wrong with the .org forums.

You might be one of the good mods who applies common sense to decisions. Experience tells me this would make you one of the gems in the pile of rotten apples. In my recent experience, not many .org forum mods pass the commonsense test. Mods of the past were much better suited to the task.