I had a comment here before but Jay removed it and called it inappropriate as he took it out of context, hopefully this one though is written in a way where such exception cant be so easily taken to it and it can remain as the helpful post I would like it to be?
Stu, as I know you always like people to back up any comments with a clear example that you can refer to, here is one on topic with the comments earlier in the thread about moderator consistancy which seems particuarly relevant as it is something that has just happened.
https://passionford.com/forum/passio...ed-please.html
While in this thread people have been calling other users twats and idiots etc, and received utterly no punishment for it at all, someone making a joke about how a new name could be read, is given 50% of a ban from the site, despite the fact that person on the receiving end of the joke clearly wasnt upset by it anyway.
THAT is the big problem with passionford moderation IMHO, its not the rules, its the fact that it is totally and utterly at random how they enforced with soemtimes it appears to be done like this with utterly no application of any inteligence or reasoning at all.
Now Markyd3 has kindly said that he will look into it, so hopefully the outcome will be some sort of fair one in the end (I have a lot of faith in marky, he like myself, genuinely seems to want to make PF a better place), but if moderators could refrain from wading in with their size 10s on in the first place to such an extent as Tony did then it will mean that two things happen IMHO:
a) Users wont feel that mods are inconsistant and unfair
b) large amounts of extra work for the already busy mod team wont be created
No one ever respects any form of authority if it is inconsistant.
So my suggestions is that mods should think before they act, especially when the actions are to adminster a fairly severe punishment.
Perhaps before infaction points are applied there could be some sort of process where they are seconded by another mod, or where a discussion is had with the user.
I know that will be an increase in admin overhead in itself, but I believe that it will save far more time than it costs.
TRANSPARENCY IS THE KEY TO FAIRNESS!