Implementing threadbans site wide for minor infractions. This is hopefully a way to keep discussions on track in cases where site bans are not required, or when a warning is not sufficient on its own. Moving to another thread to continue whatever caused the threadban, or repeating the offense that resulted in a threaddban in the first place would still be cause for escalation.
Try to strike the right balance between bans, warnings, and threadbans, or even just a mod coming to tell people to chill, to ensure that threads don't get derailed by a ban and that penalties are proportionate to the infraction. Better communication through mod participation in threads can help with this.
Their problem isn't that moderators don't have
enough punishment options available to them, it's that the only one they routinely use is bans, and for stupidly long periods right off the bat unless its
a) a mod butt-buddy / snitching informant / prominent member
b) something the mod in question doesn't give a fuck about and doesn't think is ban worthy but is going to go ahead and ban anyway
The ban-proof assholes who enjoy starting fights aren't going to be happy with the person they started shit with just being removed from a thread, so they'll just follow them into another thread and try and start shit again until they get that ass banned.
Mods have zero chill at least partly because the minority of posters who dictate the terms of discussion for the site have zero chill and throw a tantrum when things don't go their way.
Criticizing moderation and the practices is fine. Being a complete asshole to the team or any member of the team is not. Neither users nor staff should have to just sit back and take verbal abuse. If you can't at minimum realize that there is a person, not a robot, on the other end of your words, then nothing productive can happen.
mods are petty thin skinned bitches and everyone knows it
In general, just be nicer to each other. This shouldn't be Twitter, where people just respond to a post with a petty snipe and move on about their day. This is supposed to be a community where we can sit down and have actual discussions, with the occasional poop thread that is probably unnecessary. Console wars and hostility BY FAR make up the largest portion of our reports. Simply letting people enjoy things would do wonders for the tone of the site and the stress of the staff.
Anyone who reads your forum can immediately give you a list of names whose immediate removal from the forum would automatically decrease hostility, because they're the posters who regularly come in hot and start shit, but because they're on a protected users list, you get the atmosphere of snarky back biting, insinuations and this "say what you REALLY MEAN" bullshit
