A Request For More Transparency in Moderating

[Caleb Sykes]

I would like to request that moderators, when modifying threads, closing threads, or splitting threads, clearly explain why they undertook the actions they did (except the spam threads, just get rid of those as soon as possible). I respect the moderators' right to do what they will to better serve the majority of members, as this right is clearly specified in the forum rules, quoted below.

ChiefDelphi.com reserves the right to remove a post which does not relate to the topic being discussed in the forum. In addition, ChiefDelphi reserves the right to reorganize discussion forums in order to best serve the majority of our members. (ie: topics may, at a moderators discretion, be relocated to a more appropriate discussion forum, or deleted entirely). This also applies to any media uploaded via CD-Media, items in CD-Swap, or any other content on ChiefDelphi.com

However, I do take issue with major actions being taken without explanation. Even if the moderators have no malicious intent when performing a controversial action, a lack of transparency can easily make some feel that they are being shunned solely because they hold an unpopular opinion. Additionally, more transparancy will help everyone to better understand what actions are prohibited so that all threads will better meet the forum guidelines. Remember how frustrating it was to try to interpret actions HQ undertook in the era before Good Guy Frank helped to clear the smoke for us? I don't want CD to become anything like that.

I don't envy the moderators' job, and I appreciate everything they do. I have strong faith that they all have FIRST's best interest at heart, but they need to realize that performing controversial actions without explanation will eventually call the integrity of this site into question.

I am not sure if this is possible or not, but it would also be nice for moderators to explain that they split off a thread at the very start of the new thread, with a link to the thread that the discussion was started in. Occasionally I have seen Original Posts which seem to make no sense without context, and I only find out 20 posts later that the Original Post was actually a response to something on another thread.