(Apologies in advance for the novel. If anyone is wondering whether or not this is worth reading, it’s all just a response to @hominid‘s reply to me. I don’t say anything new here.)
@hominid “I’m not sure privacy in this situation is that valuable.”
I was speaking broadly. As a general rule, moderators need to balance transparency with privacy. Most people are unwilling to have the reasons they were modded publicly announced, and few are willing to frequent a site where the powers that be engage in such behavior. That’s why the line needs to be drawn: neither absolute transparency nor absolute privacy is a stable way of running things.
“The thing is – I have no idea what could get the person in question suspended. None.”
People are suspended for continuing to break the rules after being warned.
“I watch people say all kinds of asinine things here all the time. The person in question was one of them. Was that what got him suspended?”
I do not know who was suspended, nor do I know why the suspension occurred. Historically, though, merely being asinine was insufficient for moderator action. There’s plenty of evidence on Fluther to confirm this.
“If I have a really bad day and I come on here and go ape shit all over everyone, would I be suspended? Banned?”
No. You would, at minimum, be warned first.
“What if there was a post in meta or someplace explaining that the mods had to suspend @hominid for two weeks because he had a meltdown and sent PMs to everyone expressing his wish that they would die? Are we that concerned about my privacy? Can’t we just say something like ”@hominid was suspended for personal attacks. We asked him to stop, but he sent us a photo of his genitals.”?”
I’m not positive I get what you are trying to say here. If there were a post in meta like that, it wouldn’t show much concern for your privacy—which is why the mods in fact say something more like the second part. Except I think they’d be slightly more discrete and say “User @hominid was suspended for personal attacks. We asked him to stop, but his response suggested he was unwilling to change his behavior.” You seem to think that the mods just maintain silence, but that is false. They don’t always answer as fast as some would like, but time zone coverage has always been a problem for the mods here.
“If the user just disappears and has no recourse – no way to say goodbye or plead his/her case, then privacy certainly would seem like a pretty flimsy excuse.”
Except that the user does have recourse. They can email the mods and plead their case to their heart’s content. And if they continued breaking the rules after receiving a warning, then they have not lost their ability to say goodbye so much as forfeited it.
“If anything, privacy can be used to keep mod’s actions from scrutiny.”
Privacy rules can be abused, of course. But mostly they are abused by non-mods. I recall a few members from my tenure who would publicly complain about moderator silence immediately after sending the mods an email reminding us that we’re not allowed to reveal details without their permission. It’s a great way to play both sides.
And while I understand curiosity about the secret details of why certain people were banned, I’m not sure why anyone thinks they have the right to know every sordid detail. Sometimes horrible behavior is uncovered that the remaining victims would prefer not to hash out in public. And of course, the standards for banning are not the same as the standards for court. There are details of some bans that cannot be released for legal reasons. As such, I don’t see what’s wrong with vaguer statements like “he was sending inappropriate PMs and refused to stop” or “she abused the right to use multiple accounts.”
“But if they are doing what they feel is a solid job in moderation, there should be nothing to hide.”
As someone who has Auggie’s old job on another site, I am here to tell you that this is the purest, most grade-A bullshit line that people pull against moderators. For one thing, it’s just the same old fallacy trotted out every time someone wants to invade someone else’s privacy (“if you’ve got nothing to hide, then you’ve got nothing to fear”). For another, too much explanation will just lead to reinstating the removed content, which negates the purpose of moderating in the first place. Moderation is editorial work. Removing content from public view to avoid distractions is the name of the game—because there are lots of bad contributions to hide, and it’s for the good of the site and the conversations on it that those bad contributions are hidden.
“Are you serious that there is sentiment here that mods are too slow or lenient?”
Like @Seek already mentioned, yes. Some have complained that bad content was allowed to stand too long (sometimes so long that nothing was ever done about it). Those complaints have been made on Facebook, but they’ve also been made here from time to time.