Woodbine

Firstly, I'd like to apologise to @woodbine and others for how long they've waited for post approval this weekend.
As mentioned, sadly the community team were not available yesterday so his posts (and those of other members currently on moderation) were sat in a queue until we looked at them today.

I do however stand by my earlier comment that circumventing moderation is not acceptable. I'm sure many of us remember certain members who were placed on moderation (or banned) and would return on new accounts or have friends post to circumvent the moderation policy. It wasn't acceptable then (and many of you were quick to complain), and while the circumstances may seem different, the rules, as everybody is quick to state, should be applied universally. 

That said, it's been touching to see all of the support Woodbine has been offered here and this is the community I remember and we should all strive to be - one that bands together.

MarkN88 said:

How do you know other members that you perceive as doing something wrong have not been dealt with privately by the Scope team? No one would know this as it’s not made public. 

I'd like to highlight this post as I think it makes a very good point. While Woodbine has been quite public about being on moderation, it is handled by the team as discreetly as possible and there are a number of active members currently on moderation. Further to this, we are in regular contact with many members of the community working towards a more positive outcome. 

chiarieds said:

Did another member accuse him of any wrong-doing, or was the perceived 'harm' from a moderator? I feel there's a difference between the two; perhaps not? The community's guidelines should perhaps just be that, 'guidelines', & then any judgement should be made with some understanding of the individuals concerned, together with a tad of common sense.

I do feel everyone here should be 'moderated' in exactly the same way regardless of how long a member has been here, but perhaps with a modicum of respect as to what some have tried to do to help the community. 

Thank you for your thoughts on this @chiarieds. It may not always feel like it, but this is exactly how we try and moderate. When we receive a report we look at the intent and apply common sense to the situation. It would be unfair of me to comment on this specific incident and Woodbine's moderation so I'll address this more generally.
Unless in cases of a clear rule breach, the team try to take a step back from over-moderating and are guided by the reports we receive and any escalation on threads. Many people don't like to complain publicly or highlight they've been upset but as an example, this morning I had over 120 emails relating to reports from the community. The overwhelming majority of which were from members feeling attacked or offended by another poster or on a poster's behalf. 

Username_removed said:

There is apparently a four stage model of moderation. Took me the best part of five years here to learn that. Even then, only because I asked why two weeks moderation had turned into three months. 

The 4 stage moderation process hasn't been around 5 years, in fact it's not even been in place for 1. It's a fairly recent internal addition introduced to help the team deal with the growing problem of repeat "offenders". Previously the model was shorter, but left little room for the rehabilitation of members we judged to be of value to the community. Under the former model, a member who may have found themselves on extended periods of moderation would have previously been banned. Instead, we wanted the room to remove people from moderation..

Username_removed said:
I’ve been in moderation for long periods at least three times. That has usually been because people didn’t like my tone. Two issues with that. Firstly it was not clear whether the complainant was a poster or Scope themselves. In one sense it doesn’t matter but when you realise that “tone” is not detailed in the site T&Cs then the alarm bells start ringing. Was there a complainant or was the complainant actually Scope? If the latter then you’re not applying a policy. You’re basically just making something up to justify your own discomfort. 

I believe this is addressed in my response to Chiarieds above, but with regards to 'tone' I would imagine this is covered by the 'keep it friendly'. I would be reluctant to add a specific rule as tone is subjective, but I think as a community we all know 'keep it friendly' includes not being rude, passive-aggressive or committing the micro-aggressions which are sadly rife across the community at the moment. In the interest of confidentiality we don't reveal the sources of complaints and have no intention of changing that policy, although if you'd like some specific instances of where concerns have been raised to us over tone you're more than welcome to email me.

Username_removed said:

The current policy of allowing all kinds of abuse but editing them out to allow questions to be posted is untenable; beyond ridiculous and, frankly, we should publicly ridicule it at every opportunity. 

Thank you for this useful piece of feedback. While I don't agree that we should pull entire posts for the odd wrong word and feel editing still serves a purpose, I do agree that there should be a line drawn somewhere and this is something the team will discuss and review.


On a final note, I am very disappointed to see personal attacks and accusations being levelled at the team. We have always been quite open in allowing criticism of Scope but personal comments on character, calling them 'over-zealous' or (to paraphrase) 'power-mad' isn't acceptable. While their duties do include the moderation of the community, there is a lot more to the role and it can be challenging and draining both mentally and emotionally. The three of them work incredibly hard, under difficult circumstances, and are extremely passionate about the community and its members. Yet they load the community every day to see messages telling them they're bad at their jobs. If there are genuine concerns or complaints about a member of the community team, then you are welcome to email me, but public posts relating to this topic will not be tolerated.