I thought the General Discussion thread in regards to gays was a zone

[dsc]

where no punishment would happen for what was said. If that is the case, then why was a moderator removed as a moderator for what she said in that thread?

[Skinner]

1. I'm glad you asked.

It is true I said that I had instructed the moderators not to delete any posts so that members could engage in an unfiltered and unmoderated discussion. But (obviously) that did not mean the moderators were released from their responsibilities under the legally-binding confidentiality agreements they signed. Heddi herself said in the thread that she was not shocked that her moderator status had been removed. She knew what she was doing when she posted in that thread and she knew what the likely consequences would be.

Heddi lost her position for two reasons. First, there is a reason we make moderators sign a legally binding confidentiality agreement: because they have access to certain personal information about members (for example email addresses) that we insist they keep private, and because it would be virtually impossible to do the job if moderators believed some other moderator might betray their trust and take their disagreements public. In this case, the moderator gave her opinion regarding certain other moderators and things that she believed had taken place inside the moderator forum, which is a clear violation of the confidentiality agreement she signed. Our lawyer has always advised us that the agreement needs to be enforced when it is violated, lest we send the message that we are not serious. This was as clear a violation as I have ever seen -- Heddi really left us no choice. I understand that people who had their beliefs reinforced by Heddi's comments were delighted that she spoke out. Maybe they wouldn't be so pleased if it was their email address that she posted.

Second, the night that Heddi made her post -- before we removed her moderator status -- I sent her a PM to see if there was any way we could salvage this situation. Her response indicated to me that there was not. Unless she showed some interest in mending the breach she created, it would have been impossible to have her return to the moderator forum and carry on as if nothing had happened. There was no way that I could or would ask the other moderators -- not just the few she singled out, but the entire team -- to continue to work with Heddi given the enormous breach of trust they had just experienced.

It's not a good thing when any moderator goes and does something like this. Somehow I doubt you would be quite so sympathetic if the moderator in question were someone whom you disagreed with. You are not the only DUer who thinks they have a legitimate beef with the unfair moderators. How would you feel if some other moderator decided to reply to Heddi's public postings by listing some of her alleged mistakes or by explaining why they think she is tainted by bias? You wouldn't like it, and rightly so. To their credit, no moderator has done so. But don't for a second think it couldn't be done. Most moderators, and even administrators, have said or done things in the safety of the Moderator Forum that might not look so great if they were cherry-picked and posted publicly. That includes Heddi.

But any one-sided story that someone could tell about Heddi would not be the whole story. She made what I consider to be a terrible and hurtful breach of trust. But she also gave hundreds of hours of her time to help moderate this site -- a difficult and often thankless job. For that I am extremely grateful.

In my thread from the other day Heddi herself said "I'm a human. I have biases and prejudices and pet issues. everyone does. but as a moderator I try my best to recognize my bias towards issues or posters and recuse myself from a decision if I feel I cannot be unbiased in moderating that situation or post or whatever."

Exactly. I don't ask for moderators who are unbiased, I ask for moderators who try to do their best to set aside their biases and be as fair as they can under extremely difficult circumstances. And I still believe that all of the moderators do just that. They are all great people who are selfless and generous and hard-working and thoughtful. I depend on them to keep this site running. And I cannot thank them enough for everything they do. They still have my confidence.

But there is one thing they cant do. They cannot make people on DU talk to each other. And frankly, I dont think I can either. In fact, I get the feeling that my ability to do so has dramatically decreased in the last week. I think that the solution, if there is going to be one, is for people to start taking to each other rather than yelling at each other. The real irony here is that (believe it or not) our opinions on the issues here on DU are not actually that far apart. I know that sounds naive. But I'm still a liberal, despite what you may have heard about me on the Internet.

[dsc]

2. I would have stood up for any moderator in this

The thread was advertised as a zone of free speech and since she didn't name moderators I felt that she hadn't crossed the line. I have no problem with enforcing agreements that they have signed but I do have a problem with your promising that a thread would be a zone of free speech and then doing what you did. I have no idea if her perceptions were right, wrong or somewhere in between but I felt that they did help the discussion without violating trust since no names were named. If names had been named I wouldn't have asked the question. If it had been any other thread, I wouldn't have asked the question. I am glad she was given a chance and that seems fair enough. But I will say, I would have stood up for any member in this situation.