I love these John Michael Greer guidelines. They cover pretty much all the key behaviours that can rapidly ruin a board. I have mixed feelings on profanity. I personally do not use it on public discussion boards or social media (which sometimes requires considerable self control not to 
) but I don’t mind a bit of light swearing or profanity shorthand like WTF?? in a post if it is not directed aggressively at a particular individual. I think used as an intensifier or a descriptor relating to a particular situation etc it is fine, but not as a form of abuse of another poster - although that starts to introduce subjectivity in to the Moderator decisions. I don’t remember seeing a lot of profanity on this board so far though so it seems most people posting are avoiding it anyway.
I’ll have a go at answering this. I am sure others will correct me if I have anything wrong or their memory/understanding of the background is different.
This board was established about a year ago by a group of refugees from TLN. Most of us had been long term posters on both the old MLMB and on TLN from the beginning. The group, which consisted of about 8 people (some of whom either elected not to join in the end or joined but haven’t posted), had been discussing ideas for a new board for probably 2 years or more before one member “bit the bullet” and launched the board. The original 3 moderators were chosen through consultation among that initial group (no-one else was really on board at that stage) with the aim of just keeping an eye on things to keep things legal and to ensure that discussion did not descend into slanging matches/hounding/ad homs etc.
After 12 months, it was decided it was time to revisit the Moderation to ensure that people were happy with how it was running now that the board had expanded well beyond the original group and to discuss whether things should stay as they were, or whether there should be a regular change to Moderators or basically anything else to see what people wanted. So the “debate” was precipitated by @PontiusPrimate opening the topic for discussion. Currently the Mods have the power to edit or delete posts, add comments to a post, respond to instances where another poster has flagged a post (although I don’t think anyone ever has), “approve” new applicants (this was standard on the MLMB & TLN as well ie anyone applying to join the board had to be approved) and to suspend or ban posters. There has been very little moderation required over the past year and every intervention (which have been very few and far between) has been a joint decision between the three moderators. That is how it has worked in the first year but it doesn’t have to stay that way which is part of what @PontiusPrimate was questioning in his post at the start of this topic
No. No-one has (yet) been banned or even suspended.
I agree. I have not been posting anywhere near enough myself on any issue, but especially not on environmental issues so I think if people are concerned about the board being “single issue” we all need to get involved in posting about other issues that we are passionate about and hopefully that will also help engage people who perhaps are not willing to post on Covid but will on other topics.
Hope that helps answer your questions @spike
Best wishes
J
I agree completely. @JMC and @spike have now made me feel less guilty about posting non-Coroni stuff. Thanks
I’d like to see that. The Pseudopandemic has become a sort of background noise in all our lives. Probably a big reason why it’s so salient here.
Maybe we need a cute cats category?
I’ll get my coat
Sorry for delay in responding.
Broadly speaking I go with:
Yes, well said. We disagree on the Covid thing, but that’s one of the main reasons I come to this site - to get information that I definitely would not have seen elsewhere. It’s extremely important to me to get info (on everything) from a multitude of informed sources and heaven knows they are thin on the ground. So I’m extremely grateful to have somewhere I can come and pick up real gems of stuff - like the stuff on Midazolam that came up a while back - that are completely missed/unknown/unpublished (etc., etc.,) elsewhere.
Your key point (and that of others also), though, was, of course, about the nature and tone of exchanges and I agree with you wholeheartedly on that point. It would be extremely sad to see this place descend into nastiness. I couldn’t come here. I’ve only recently even felt brave enough to post a comment in a thread (it wasn’t as scary as I expected). Not as hot a topic as this one, though.
“Togetherness” and so on, eh?
Hello. Well, I have replied to one of RG’s comments, but that was on the more general question of tone of exchange. I don’t really feel qualified to comment more broadly on the question of moderators/moderation. I am only really looking at specific topics and don’t come here as often as I would like, so probably miss the stuff that causes problems, or has caused problems. It seems to me that mostly the moderators do a pretty good job but if people feel they’d like to change the moderation then I think the question becomes “how?”. Perhaps, instead, it might be better to have a moderation policy so that the sorts of problems that started happening in “the other place” can be avoided. That was all a very sad affair and not very dignified, frankly.
It was.
I’m glad I didn’t see it. Mostly what I have seen over the time I have been coming here is a community of intelligent, thoughtful people examining and exchanging ideas about/offering comment on (often) very interesting articles and such like that have been posted. Personally, perhaps weirdly, this thread, and being asked to comment by PP, has made me feel more part of that community. It has also made me realise the importance of contributing to that community.
Mods, I protest the hiding of Rob’s comment. It’s forthright, but not insultingly so. I too have noticed that the resistance does seem to be doing rather a lot of chattering about this huge scam in like-minded ‘safe spaces’, rather than getting out on the streets and making it politically impossible for the scammers to keep going with their scam. You could, quite fairly, compare that to music-making on the sinking Titanic, or at Auschwitz. It’s about as pointless. Obviously we need to talk about it all, to try to get our minds securely straight about what’s really happening. That has to continue. But meantime it’s HIGH time to be into direct resistance ACTION. I see no direct personal insulting remark in Rob’s post. Please re-instate it. - RhG
Hi Rhis
Rob’s comment was flagged as off-topic, that’s all. This thread is about our process for choosing new mods, and other issues relating to the running of this community. We have precious few such threads and we’d prefer not to derail this one. I’ve still not heard from a lot of folks I’d like to hear from, and this sort of comment will not encourage them to come forward.
If Rob wants to start a new thread about Nazis, orchestras, and the resistance etc, he’s welcome. In the meantime the other two mods and I will consider what to do about this one.
It’s active moderation-in-progress. Thanks for your thoughts - we’ll use them in our discussions.
Cheers
PP
Seems to me that the simple answer is to move the comment (assuming that is possible) to a suitable thread.
Morning Pat,
Rob is welcome to start a thread if he feels like he wants to, just like all of us here. Moving the comment, out of context, might not be what he would want.
Having discussed the above comment with my fellow mods, we won’t be reinstating it on this thread. I’ll reach out to Rob and let him know directly.
Cheers
I get it, P. Fair enough. But be advised that I first interpreted this move by the mods as silencing Rob. Quick judgement that seems to have been wrong. Sorry if I was too hasty.
Yes, different thread perhaps. It’s very noticeable in btl threads that they veer wildly off original topic very quickly. If the topic is moderation, then sure we should stick to that.
Fact remains, though, that I can see nothing offensive in Rob’s robust habits of speech. Well, one or two smallish oversteppings of the mark, perhaps. But this is a war, really and truly, and troops always need inspired - and inspiring - generals to boost morale constantly. Fiery speakers are the necessary ingredient here. Reason and sound data have to plod restrainedly alongside to make sure that the generals don’t run us all futilely into a ditch. That’s true enough, but in a time of active - and desperate - struggle like this, the inspiring general is also an absolute necessity.
Cheers RG
No arguments from me.
This is a final call out to all those who have yet to have their say on the topic of choosing new mods, and any other thoughts around moderating this space in the most open way we can.
@rippon
@JackieL
@Poster123
@Sanjeev
@AlanG
@Jamie
@NewSi
And anyone else who wants to add their voice - hoping to hear any thoughts you have on this before we wrap this discussion up.
The best way for us to keep going with this forum is to get as much input from the community as possible.
Cheers
PP
“Speckled Jim!”
You took the words right out of my mouth. 
I appreciate your efforts to collect community input on this and apologize for failing to weigh in. I don’t spend a lot of time here so almost don’t feel entitled to weigh in. (I can’t keep up with the volume of content and some of it causes me cognitive dissonance when combined with other strong influences around me.)
The moderation here as far as I’ve seen is so gentle as to be almost undetectable. Discussion is lively, mostly civil (between posters, not necessarily toward others), and pretty much unfettered.
I thank those of you who took the effort to set this up and those who have served as moderators. You’re providing an important public service by providing a place for free discussion. I can see that you’ve put considerable effort into it.
Three moderators, with one year terms and no limit on number of terms sounds good to me. I’m not sure what to suggest for replacing a moderator who chooses to give it up or for times when posters disagree strongly with the moderation. Seems like it should be democratic but again, I can’t think how that would work.
I’ve spent a lot of time as a community volunteer and my experience is that there are a lot of people who like to use the services while criticizing the work of the volunteers who make them available, but few who will actually step up to do the work. But that may just be my jaded view.
When the need arises for a new moderator, it is posted on the board and anyone who is interested in serving puts their name forward. Those people are provided with information detailing the duties of a moderator.
If they are still interested, a list of candidates is posted on the board. People can pose questions on the board to the candidates and then submit first, second & third preference (if there are three or more candidates) via email to the current moderators.
Current moderators tally the votes and announce the results.
Many thanks @JackieL and everyone who contributed to this thread. We’ll take a look through and distill out the main ideas.
Thanks all for helping to build a small but democratic community here.
Cheers
PP