Question Re: E-mailing the Moderator?

I didn't understand the "email the mod" either. I've been told point blank that the only way to report is "thru the system". (I was getting nasty pm's and my report button didn't work. All they told me at the time was to clear my cache and it didn't work. That was evidently the only way they could remove them. Incidentally, now it works fine, and recent pm's from a guy who sent me pm multiple rants were removed.)

Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to be friends with a moderator who talks like she did to people. She's not professional.

I used to joke that the button at the cross walk was just to appease impatient pedestrians. I'm pretty sure that's what the report button is here….

I'm happy to answer any and all questions you have about Mamapedia. I believe in transparency. So, let's start:

1. There is only one moderator, me. It is part of my job. I do get paid to moderate, however, it is a small part of a larger job. Believe me, I'm not complaining about a thing, I love what I do. It's just frustrating sometimes because all the limitations you feel about the Mamapedia system, I feel, too.

2. When you report a post, it goes into an internal system. I do NOT get alerted to reported posts via email or otherwise. I have to set aside time to go into the system and go through the reports, and emails (lots of SPAM emails), and EVERY question, one by one. BUT if multiple people report the same questions/ answer... it DOES alert me that something is surely amiss. If it's reported by only ONE user, I have to factor in things like personal grievances, troll behavior etc. to determine if the content really needs to be removed.

3. I am a reasonable person. I have no grievances on this site. I really do appreciate all you regulars, and believe it or not, have gotten to know a few of you by reading your posts. I never comment, nor do I ever post personal questions of my own.

4. You can friend me on this site. If you send me a private message through this account, I DO get it in email form and I can address it more promptly. If you send an email to ____@____.com... it goes into the same system, and I will not get it until I check the system.

5. I stopped sending those stock reply emails for a specific reason. It was because email servers started marking repetitive emails as SPAM and automatically filtering out the emails from reaching your inbox. I made the decision to stop, so that when I needed to REALLY send an email, that it wasn't flagged as SPAM by email providers like google, Yahoo! and Hotmail.

I hope this helps. Please, feel free to "friend" me and send me private messages. I will get them faster. Some of you have already done this, and I truly appreciate it.

Sincerely,
MMP Moderator

****** Let me add here that you don't *have* to be my friend to contact me. I'm just saying that if you want your reported issues to get a higher priority (since I get email alerts to PMs here, and NOT when they are reported through the system) that you are welcome to "friend" me here. I do not have any sort of favoritism over the people I'm "friends" with vs. people who report through the system.

Gamma, do you know HOW DIFFICULT it is to find someone's profile page on this site? Unless they are listed as "friends" on your own profile, good luck. You have to go back to your own flowers or to back posts (and I'm not going to be surprised if I see a few of them 'disappeared' in a day or so) and THEN, if you are lucky, you can find the moderator.

This isn't a facile process nor is it an honest process. If a person reports something it should go directly to the moderator at the press of that 'report' button. And this is very esoteric knowledge as well-- no one new to the site is going to know what the hell is going on because this site is poorly constructed. Search a past question and you really don't get much. Search a regular's user name and you get nothing. Acting like "it ain't no big thing, lets enable poor behavior" is absurd.

A moderator should be receiving ALL of the info reported. A moderator should be able to moderate impartially, as others have suggested. They should not be getting into "you don't appreciate me" rants online. What WE the users do should have no bearing on her job.

Plus, there's the fact that she doesn't treat this as a job, it's sort of a 'favor' she is doing for Mamapedia. She's not getting paid and if this is her feeling about this, she should hand it back to MMP instead of getting upset with us. That's passive aggressive behavior-- to complain to the customers about the boss, and then about how awful the customers are too.

4littleones, I don't know about multiple moderators, but I don't think making common sense decisions about many of these posts requires a group discussion. Just one person with good judgment who is willing to put their personal feelings aside and zap the (very obvious) troll posts, who is willing to type a short "cool it if you would like to play in this sandbox" messages when need be. No quorum needed.

it used to be when you report a post, you would get an e-mail telling you thank you for reporting a post...helping keep our site safe, blah blah blah...that doesn't happen much anymore.

I would use this e-mail: ____@____.com

That's what I got after reporting the cwonk freaky troll this weekend.

i'm away for a few days and all he## breaks loose.

I've NEVER received an e-mail from a moderator. I would think the only way to contact one is to use the report button or the "contact us" link at the bottom of the page.

Yeah, it's been a while for me too but usually I get a response that says the post I reported does not break any of the guidelines set up by Mamapedia, blah blah blah. I agree with Veruca, pretty sure they don't care.

it's good to see the issues clarified by the mod.
i think it's a little ridiculous that there's only one for a site with this much traffic, and this much spam, and all the trolls.
i think it's even more ridiculous and pretty unprofessional that you have 'friend' the mod in order to contact her. i would think that it would a no-no for the moderator to have 'friends' in the wider community. while i do appreciate that the mod knows and recognizes the regs, i don't see how one can mod impartially if she's in cliques.
i'm a volunteer moderator for a few high-traffic yahoo sites (which are becoming passe now, but were very very active for years) and moderating needs to be consistent, thoughtful and light-handed.
i don't think that's often the case here.
khairete
S.

Based upon the discussions (some of which have been removed) over the past couple of days, it seems that MMP is on autopilot most of the time. As a long-time regular, I find this to be disappointing. If seems that those of us who really keep this site going are unappreciated and unsupported. The moderator can complain about not being paid, but the fact is, without the regulars who visit and post, even the crazy ones who give really questionable advice, there is no MMP. (An aside: If I'm doing a job gratis and it gets to the point that my work is overwhelming or should be compensated, I take that up with my employer.)

Moderators used to be the man behind the curtain. We were not asked to email them, but rather use the report post function, through which we can make a comment to state our case. We used to get an email saying thank you or it was being looked at or whatever. It was not personal inbox to personal inbox. It has been a long time since any of my reports have been thus acknowledged.

I don't know, but I'd like to add that it would be helpful to know what happens when you report a post. For example, if someone says she has reported a post, is there any merit to others reporting it too (so it gets more attention and the moderator knows that a lot of people thing the post is offensive or inappropriate)? Or do multiple reports just create 10 times the work for the moderator and make it harder for her to get to all the other issues?

Well...seems the cwonky set up sort of means you DO need to "friend" the mod. OR save that last post from her to your bookmarks (that option is under the question) so you can access the contact when you'd like/need to.

You go to her profile page and send her a message. There isn't any personal information shared here.

Report a post goes into a general message center of some sort that's accessible for any moderator but I imagine it gets full on troll weekends....lol.

Messaging her through her mamapedia profile would be quicker.