I think there have been some instances of unhelpful behavior for which an Official Moderator Comment might be too heavy-handed, even if not phrased as a warning. The problem with generally encouraging people to call out unhelpful behavior is that the disputants would probably just start weaponing that.
It would be nice if there were a few well-respected, calm-headed people who could (if willing) be semi-formally recognized as non-moderator neutral promoters of Forum norms when a heated topic arose, and feel empowered to point out this kind of behavior. They would need to abstain from taking any substantive position, at least while things were heated, but could decline appointment if they did not want the role for a given controversy for whatever reason.
Yea. I like the idea of more/better moderation. I would note that it’s a pretty thankless+exhausting job (many thanks to the current mods), so one big challenge is finding people strong enough, trusted enough, and willing to do it.
I think there have been some instances of unhelpful behavior for which an Official Moderator Comment might be too heavy-handed, even if not phrased as a warning. The problem with generally encouraging people to call out unhelpful behavior is that the disputants would probably just start weaponing that.
It would be nice if there were a few well-respected, calm-headed people who could (if willing) be semi-formally recognized as non-moderator neutral promoters of Forum norms when a heated topic arose, and feel empowered to point out this kind of behavior. They would need to abstain from taking any substantive position, at least while things were heated, but could decline appointment if they did not want the role for a given controversy for whatever reason.
Yea. I like the idea of more/better moderation. I would note that it’s a pretty thankless+exhausting job (many thanks to the current mods), so one big challenge is finding people strong enough, trusted enough, and willing to do it.