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During the final days of the reign of She Who Must Be Obeyed, many of us on here voiced concern over some highly erratic moderation decisions (Inoffensive messages removed for apparently spurious reasons while clearly deliberately offensive messages were allowed to remain). Afterwards, a more saner policy seemed to prevail, though.

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There might be a more saner policy, but many people banned or put on pre-mod from around that time remain so. Any talk about it, even between ourselves is banned, probably as there isn't a justifyable reason for the beeb's behaviour.

It's amazing that people still can't figure out, despite the number of times it's been explained, just how the moderation system works...

The two words 'Moderators' and 'Hosts' do NOT mean the same thing: Hosts are BBC employees who help administer these boards (in addition to their other jobs within the Beeb... You'll often see them posting to various boards (usually their names are in bold-italic print, and, depending on the individual board their name may be a different colour.

Moderators are there to check for breaches in the house rules, there are moderators on duty 24 hours a day... They deal with most of the boards and see the posts out of context - they NEVER post to the boards in their role of moderator.

Right, so, the various boards are moderated in one of three ways.

Pre-moderation - A moderator checks the post _before_ it appears on the site

Post-moderation - The moderator checks the post out within X-minutes of it appearing on the site

Reactive moderation - A moderator _only_ looks at a post if someone presses the "complaint" button.

In addition, under Pre and Post moderation systems, the moderator may end up looking at a post a second time if someone presses the complaints button... So, for example, the first time round the moderator may think a post is OK, but if someone complains, explaining the context (which the moderator doesn't see) the post may be removed later...

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Ok, what can the moderator do with the posts...

1) He can pass them... They stay where they are and are visible.

2) He can fail them... They are hidden from view and the poster gets sent one of half a dozen standardised e-mails telling them which one of the house rules they broke

3) He can refer them to a host... Usually happens in borderline or 'odd' cases... The post gets hidden and passed onto a host to deal with... The user doesn't get an e-mail unless the host fails the post completely... And remember, hosts work normal office hours so any post referred to a host at 6pm on a Friday is likely to remain hidden until the host in question has had the time to clear their e-mails on Monday morning.

If you have a post removed and receive the standard e-mail, replying to that mail will send the message to the hosts, not back to the moderators.

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So, yes, complain about a post at 2 in the morning and a moderator will see it... There is someone there 24 hours a day (even though this board is closed at that time of day, there are others still open, so there's got to be at least one moderator on duty).

However, as I've already said, Moderators and Hosts aren't the same people...

Query a decision at 2 in the morning and the query goes to the HOST, not the Moderator (Moderators don't post), so you're not going to get an answer immediately...

Yes, the hosts can see whole threads, but they often wash their hands of moderation decisions, saying they're a different department and it's not up to them.

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Must admit, I've wondered about that as well... Certainly the case used to be that because of Peta's experience and what her full-time job was, she had access to the Central Communities Team account and would, undoubtably, have been one of the people dealing with moderation-related queries...

Whereas now, I'm not sure who's behind the CCT account, and it might well not be one of our 'regular' hosts.
One of the negative points of not having full-time hosts on the boards.

However, there is one other alternative that shouldn't be totally ignored... In 99.9% of cases, in any discussion of an individual moderation query on the site involving a BBC Host, the conversation rapidly degenerates into a flame war... That's why hosts don't discuss moderation queries on-site and try to get people to e-mail any queries.

"Since Peta left us a few weeks ago there has been a noticeable drop in terms of an active host presence on the boards, however, this is something we are working to rectify."

- Pleased to hear that. Any comment on how the moderators are judging posts only seen out of context? I do think this is a real problem.

"In practice we have found that this to be the most efficient way of managing the boards."

- Well, if I am allowed a piece of constructive criticism, it really isn't efficient because it produces unfair results. Nasty, scarcastic insults are allowed to stay up, while other innocuous comments are whipped off. I'm speaking as someone who knows these boards very well, and has posted on them for several years now.

Well, if I am allowed a piece of constructive criticism, it really isn't efficient because it produces unfair results

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I've always found you get better results when you're complaining if you use the 'comments' box constructively - remembering the moderator won't see what's going on around the post you're complaining about... A polite note attached to the complaint telling them which of the rules you think has been broken and why tends to get the job done.

If the response is automated, does that mean that the 'decision' is indeed made by a machine in such cases and then only reviewed later by a moderator?

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The response isn't automated, it's just rather than have to type out an e-mail every time they fail a post, the moderators have a list of several standard e-mails they can choose from to send out if they fail a post.

It's always worked for me...

The problem is that the moment the 'complain' button is pressed then it's inevitable that someone is going to be annoyed. Either the original author if the post is removed or the person complaining if it isn't.

Sounds like you've been on the receiving end of a run of bad luck or something.

Don't worry, you're not paranoid, they're not out to get you - they're actually out to get everyone

And I suppose the other problem is that there's a thin dividing line between someone actually breaking the house rules and simply being a prat - which, unfortunately, they seem to have left out of the rules when they wrote them.

It's the inconsistent application of House Rules, used in a way that targets an individual, that concerns me.

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Now, I'll admit I'm not 100% certain about this (CCT could confirm it if they come back) but I'm pretty sure that the moderators don't actually see the name of the person who made the posting when they decide to pass it or remove it to avoid any such bias.