In article ,
Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 8:12:57 PM UTC-5, Fritz Wuehler wrote:
Attempts at moderation are usually futile because enough people

disagree with moderation decisions and begin to leave or argue with

moderators.



Moderators are the biggest problem with walled gardens. A good

moderator only blocks spam, not controversy. Alas, most moderators

censor opinions that counter their own, or are unpopular, despite the

fact that phbb has an "ignore" feature.



Good moderators are so rare, that I no longer find it worthwhile to

contribute to any private walled-garden forums. It's not worth it to

have a spam janitor combined if he's going to block interesting posts

at the same time.

You make an excellent point. In any moderated forum the quality of the
moderators and the format under which they moderate in my opinion should take
precedence over any and all other aspects concerning involvement on the
forum.
The reason for this is quite simple. Control of the users and all that comes
with a user is impossible to deal with as a pre-post factor. Control of a
forum by definition will be reactionary, and this places the control directly
in the hands of the moderator. If the moderation is poor the forum won't
survive. Excessive control where not warranted will lose forum posters.
Conversely, lack of good moderation will almost certainly result in a steady
degradation into the constantly present probing by posters into the areas not
being controlled by the moderators.
So what is the answer? The answer lies in the forum founders properly setting
the ground rules for BOTH the posters AND the moderators, then strictly
controlling what follows.
As to what constitutes good moderation, the formula is actually quite simple.
Argument can be presented in various ways. The trick to good moderation is
control of the issue. ALL posting should address the issue and NOT the person
addressing the issue. The instant a poster departs from the issue and crosses
the line into ANY area related to the poster being addressed the post should
be moderated.
There are moderators who understand this and those who don't. So the ultimate
success or failure of a forum depends primarily on the people controlling the
moderators.
Dudley Henriques

It is the same principle as "government by law," which has to be
administered equally , fairly and within the constraints of its rules.