The internet is serious business.
That said I agree with CM that the mods get a carte blanche to instigate because they can lay the noob hammer down to "discipline" us...
I was going to post something to the same effect. It does seem like the rules aren't universally enforced, and some posters get hit harder than others. That would be my one suggestion for improvement.
While I understand many posters often feel this way, I just want to point out that probably 80-90% of the work we do as mods is not seen by the community. I think you would be very surprised in the number of posters who have received warnings privately, and have simply heeded them.
We do miss things though. We are all volunteers here, and have other jobs/families/commitments, so we do rely on the rest of the community to point out when rules are broken, in case we miss them. Then every single issue is addressed in a thorough manner, allowing the entire staff to weigh in, so that there is less chance of bias.
My issue is more when a moderator jumps into a situation which other posters have been warned about doing. Even if they are baited, the mods should have to refrain from jumping into situations like these. In that case, they are antagonizing behavior that doesn't belong on the blog, but appear to face no public consequence for contributing to some of the problems which CM is alluding to.
Well, its something to think about. Can I just say that we're not paid, we're not police officers, heck we're not even really trained..most of us learn on the job the line to toe. As a moderator, I've made mistakes enforcing rules before, and I have no doubt I will again..I've broken a rule or two, and been told about it and apologized like I should. I'm human. Me, Chris, G17, Wd, Redz. Edgar, Roy, Steve, Dons, Jeff, and now Fafnir...we're all human. We're gonna make mistakes.
Also as mods we log dozens of hours a week, hundreds of hours a month, and countless hours a year doing our best to make sure this place stays the same as it ever was.
We have some pretty strict guidelines. They're hard to live by sometimes, but for the most part they work. If you think we're stepping outside of where we should be, don't keep it all bottled up. PM us. If you don't feel like you can discuss it with the mod you have an issue with, tell another. We'll all talk about it. I've been told to cool off before, and yeah, sure I was angry, but it happened and I get over it.
We're not teachers, we're not hall monitors, and we're not cops..we're just people who really love this community and consider you all our friends, and we want to keep this community great. If we falter, I ask only that you have some patience, and discuss it with us like adults.
Sorry if I am behind in the comments, that took like 10 mins to write, and I feel like its an issue that needed to be addressed.