[Discussion] Senatorial Status of Moderators

[The Yosemite Bear]

????

When did Shep become a senator?

[fgalkin]

????

When did Shep become a senator?

When he became a Moderator.

Today.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[phongn]

Shep is now a full moderator with History's promotion to a full forum, AFAIK.

[The Yosemite Bear]

ahhh

ok

[Dalton]

Wait. Was it ever decided if moderators are granted automatic Senate status? We really should discuss that.

[Darth Wong]

Wait. Was it ever decided if moderators are granted automatic Senate status? We really should discuss that.

Mods aren't supposed to vote, but they do have the right to participate in discussions here. That's always been the case.

[Darth Wong]

What are the specifications of the forum icons in pixels. Is transparency allowed? Alpha Channel Transparency?

To be honest, I haven't got a clue. I assume that the forum would allow arbitrary size, although we wouldn't want to go so big that it forces the table rows to enlarge. As for transparency, I'd imagine that's more of a browser issue than a phpbb software issue. Those damned IE6 people can't see 24-bit transparency on PNG files, but other than that, we're good to use any of the standard web formats.

[Surlethe]

Wait. Was it ever decided if moderators are granted automatic Senate status? We really should discuss that.

Mods aren't supposed to vote, but they do have the right to participate in discussions here. That's always been the case.

That goes for those of us who were Senators first?

[Dalton]

Wait. Was it ever decided if moderators are granted automatic Senate status? We really should discuss that.

Mods aren't supposed to vote, but they do have the right to participate in discussions here. That's always been the case.

That goes for those of us who were Senators first?

No, you're still a Senator. My question is that is it just moderators who have this restriction, or does it go for supermods too? Like I said, I think we need to have a solid policy on this posted somewhere just so that everyone knows where people stand.

[Edi]

I'm just fine with having my voting privileges revoked since I was already a mod when the Senate was created (and have since become a supermod). So long as the rules are clear, but if there has been a ban on mods voting before, I wasn't aware of it. My mistake in that case.

[fgalkin]

All of the mods were also original members of the Senate- they weren't supposed to nominate people, but otherwise had the same rights as Senators, IIRC.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Dalton]

Let's start a discussion thread.

EDIT: Split from here.

[MKSheppard]

Wait. Was it ever decided if moderators are granted automatic Senate status? We really should discuss that.

This has always been the custom. Unless it's being changed now?

Additionally, because moderators have to clean up after users and keep their forums nice and presentable, it only follows logically that they should be allowed to discuss and vote on issues affecting the board.

For example, on board rules, because we have to enforce them; and for ban votes because this ties into the "clean up after users" aspect.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I see nothing wrong with the way things are now. As far as I know, the only difference between a moderator and a plain Senator is that the moderator cannot nominate new members for the Senate's consideration. While we've always been operating under that unspoken assumption, perhaps we need to add that to the language of the rules so that this is crystal-clear.

To play the Devil's advocate for a moment: Alternately we could change track, and make the moderators non-voting members of the Senate. They can discuss, but they can't nominate or vote. The advantage to this, that I can see, is that it would remove this pressure we've had regarding the Senate's size, since we'll be removing at least a third of the people who actively vote in one fell swoop. The obvious disadvantage is that it makes sense for the moderators to vote on certain things, such as policy changes and bannings. To a certain extent, it makes sense to allow them to vote on newly nominated members to the Senate as well; since, among other things, the Senate nominally represents the pool from which future moderators may be drawn.

[CmdrWilkens]

Wait. Was it ever decided if moderators are granted automatic Senate status? We really should discuss that.

Mods aren't supposed to vote, but they do have the right to participate in discussions here. That's always been the case.

Mike we switched that around when Mods could vote and begin to nominate new entries. I stated this early with Mayabird that while I would happily see her in a vote for elevation Mods should not be auto-Senators. If this is an Imperial rule then I'm fine with it but I really would prefer that the Senate elect its membership and have no auto-senators.

I see nothing wrong with the way things are now. As far as I know, the only difference between a moderator and a plain Senator is that the moderator cannot nominate new members for the Senate's consideration.

Incorrect. I don't mean to jump on you dude but that hasn't been the rule for 2 freakin years. I'm honestly tempted to temporarily knock everybody out of the senate until they send me a PM stating that they've actually read the rules because this is about the 10th or 11th time somebody has said this and, again, it hasn't been correct for 2 years.

[CmdrWilkens]

I'm just fine with having my voting privileges revoked since I was already a mod when the Senate was created (and have since become a supermod). So long as the rules are clear, but if there has been a ban on mods voting before, I wasn't aware of it. My mistake in that case.

Mods have, and should vote. The problem with creating a class of folks who can post but aren't supposed to vote is that there is no method of actually confirming that this is happening. In other words the transparency for which the Senate was created is lost because there is no means of enforcing a rule of "Only Senators vote" or "Only Senators and Mods Vote". Right now I honestly think its a precarious enough situation because the Admins obviously can vote twice but if you extend the number of folks who could abuse the system then you've undermined the system even if no one ever actually does abuse it.

Again I am heavily against the automatic conferring of Senator status on Mods especially as Mark, all else aside, you were supported for History mod but it was never discussed in this board whether there was support for you as a general Mod. In the past we never auto-elevated mini-mods and sub forum mods so while the Senate supported raising History to full forum status there was never the consideration of whether the mods of that sub-forum should be promoted to full mods.

[fgalkin]

Yeah we did- it's how Aya got his modship. Promoting minimods to full forum mods has happened before.

And, since forum mods outrank Senators, anyvay, it would be silly not to include them in the Senate- they are trusted with setting policy in a forum, but cannot discuss it in the Senate?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Steve]

One could argue that letting mods vote is akin to letting a nation's Cabinet vote in the legislature, but then again, tell me if I'm wrong, but in some countries the ministers and such are legislators, though I don't recall if they're required to give their seats to another voter while serving in their ministerial post.

Anyway, unless we had a way to track who actually votes it's a moot point and we should just accept mod voting. I think mods should be able to post in the Senate anyway to present the mod staff's position and perspective, much as a Cabinet member might address or brief the Legislature.

Of course, a major question is if a mod should voluntarily recuse themselves from actual votes. Again, this is primarily up to the individual mods and if they feel it necessary.

[Coyote]

My only concern about this was that this may give an artificial sense of "inflation" when discussing how many Senators there are, and who/what makes a quorum for voting.

Do "pure Mods" count towards deciding a quorum? Or only the "registered Senators"?

And let's face it, does it matter, really? As mentioned, a Mod is trusted to set certain policies in certain forums; and the Senate is the place to discuss policies. So I don't see it as a big deal. But if it comes up that "there are XYZ number of Senators, and that is too many Senators" is it worth bearing in mind that only "X" are Senators, while "Y" and "Z" are Mods and Supermods, not Senators?

It really just seems to be a matter of semantics, given the overall goal, but it may be a good idea to nip the matter in the bud so some wanna be rules lawyer doesn't decide to go stretching things.

[Steve]

I think the only real issue is that given complaints about the Senate's size, we have to consider how many Senators are in fact Mods, and not counting those Senators who volunteered to become mods to fill needs.

[CmdrWilkens]

Honestly most of my concern is case specific. I approved when we discussed it of Mark as a mini-mod but not as a full mod. While we discussed moving History up to full forum status we never covered, because I don't think we thought about it, what that meant for Mark and Thanas.

To fgalkin's point I don't have an issue with mini-mods making full mod status (It happened just recently when Stas moved up to help take on N&P) but I do take issue with the move happening without comment.

[MKSheppard]

While we discussed moving History up to full forum status we never covered, because I don't think we thought about it, what that meant for Mark and Thanas.

It's not my fault you didn't read the fine print before approving the promotion of History to a full forum and by extension the promotion of any micro-mods within it to full moderators.

[Steve]

I don't think you're being blamed, Shep, I think Wilkens is making the point that such promotions should at least be considered in the Senate and that we failed to see this result and should thus plan on it for any future occasions like this.

[fgalkin]

Honestly most of my concern is case specific. I approved when we discussed it of Mark as a mini-mod but not as a full mod. While we discussed moving History up to full forum status we never covered, because I don't think we thought about it, what that meant for Mark and Thanas.

Speak for yourself, please. Others did think about and discuss that.

To fgalkin's point I don't have an issue with mini-mods making full mod status (It happened just recently when Stas moved up to help take on N&P) but I do take issue with the move happening without comment.

Why? Moderators serve at Mike's pleasure- they can be elevated or dismissed at any time, for any reason. The staff is not an elected position, at least not by regular board members. Never has been, never will be. Why discuss it with the Senate, when you have no say in the decision. The only reason why Mayabird was even brought up at all is that her candidacy was suggested to us by the Senate- you can do that, suggest a person for our consideration, but you have no say in the outcome.

Besides, Subforum mod=minimod. Forum mod=full mod. It's not that hard to figure out, you know, unless you think that we have forums run by minimods (which we don't because the Mod forum helps us make sure we're all on the same page when it comes to enforcing policy). So, it was really kind of obvious, from the start what it entailed. I'm not sure how you all missed it.


Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Steve]

I think everyone overlooked it.