Just an idea. One of the perceived issues with moderation is the lack of transparency and I know more than a handful of people find it counter-productive to be met publicly with "take it to AAM" where everything is in secret and where there is no public accountability (I do understand that the site is not a democracy but hear me out).

I wondered what people's opinions would be (mods or others) on the creation of a public AAM forum alongside the private one where the user is given the choice regarding whether they wish to receive the responses publicly or in private. Either this, or relax the rules on talking about moderation decisions in public considerably. Or both. The latter could have a dedicated area so it could be watched for lies on the part of users (although this is why I suggest the process should be open - so both sides are laid bare).

I feel this would be a very positive step towards strengthening the relationship between the moderation team and the user base en masse which can broadly only be a positive thing. People would presumably see the amount of quality responses given and it would serve to dilute the opinions that amount to all mods being horrible or unfair or whatever which isn't the case (not to say that some responses aren't poor of course but that is a rather different assertion).

Perhaps you could have the open forum as an option for people who feel they have been provided an unsatisfactory response. I don't know - I just thought I would throw this out there.

There will probably be various good reasons why this wouldn't work but there is no harm in people seeing them even if that is all this achieves - as I'm sure will be agreed.

Thanks

Note: I am aware of the reasons why AAM is private and this is why I suggest simply having a non private but still dedicated forum for questions to be placed. I also wrote this while rather tired so please excuse any nonsense. I really need to stop doing it haha.

View the original article here