Skeptic Project

As there has been a concern lately that perhaps the moderators do not police themselves well enough, I felt the need to disclose an example of a moderator who grossly abused their authority as a moderator. And that in fact the complaints about them were heeded.

The moderator in question had the anonymous moderator handle of moderator27.

This moderator was controversial for a long time. Some of that controversy was earned. Some of it was not. However it became clear that the person in question was just not a good candidate for the position.

On several occasions they abused their authority, and their position for their own personal motives.

The moderator in question was moving threads in areas they did not have authority to do so. And it became clear that there was a personal motive. The section in question was the "NEWS" section. They did this without identifying themselves several times. Which was also against the rules. They eventually posted when I asked them to do so. But their reasoning was rather faulty.

Moderator27
This thread is no longer "news" nor an "announcement"
It is now a multi-topic discussion about a past event
Moved to Misc.

The oldest thread in the "NEWS" section is more then two years old. We do not have a policy for moving threads out of that section when they are no longer "NEWS". The moderator in question has personal issues with the person who had started the thread in question. And was abusing their ability as a moderator to do so.

We noticed a trend that threads that had been moved around were continuously being moved by someone who had not identified themselves. And it seemed to suit a specific agenda.

This was not by far the worst abuse on the part of this moderator. And it illustrates another major problem.

This moderator abused one of their anonymous moderator accounts for the purposes of pursuing a personal grudge. Using an anonymous moderator account to harass and attack a member of the movement they did not like personally.

The problem here is this information did not come to us soon enough. And though we did act on it, it proves a point that in many cases users do not think to report moderators. And that is a broken part of the system that only you as the users can fix. Moderator27 was removed. But if there are more incidents like this one please report the issue by either reporting the posts or sending an email to globalmods@thezeitgeistmovement.com as laid out here: www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/inde...=100121&lang=en.

Abuse period, is always wrong. Whether it is coming from a user or a moderator. It is important however to remember the lessons we have learned about this. Whether it is a moderator misusing authority entrusted to them, or a user trying to take authority over someone by attacking them in an attempt to intimidate them into silence, both behaviors are wrong, and prevent good communication.

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=60&id=337520&Itemid=100114&lang=en

"I dont know how he has the tenacity to say such things."

Because he's VTV and VTV never does anything wrong in VTV's eyes.

He actually stickied this post in the public moderation forum. I wonder if the fight between VTV and Thunder will be as interesting as the fights between Merola and Fresco.