Moderator/community interaction and conduct

[NPF Administration]

Moderator-Community Contract and Interaction

• Generally speaking, you should listen to all members of the staff all the time. In practice, some use a different color to emphasize rules-related posts, warnings, and announcements. You should not always expect colors to cue you in, but the staff will also work to avoid mixing in fun/non-seriousness with official conduct to avoid confusion. If anything is unclear, feel free to ask.

• The moderators will do their best to be respectful and polite towards posters, but by the same token, respect is earned. If you're rude to a mod, don't be surprised if you're treated the same.

• The moderators will do their best to be fair and patient, and to avoid pettiness; in return you will do your best to obey the rules and accept the judgment calls of the moderators without complaining or disrespecting their authority.

• Even though you may (and probably will) befriend one or more moderators during your stay here, they will enforce the rules objectively. Moderators will not play favorites. If a moderator is personally involved in a particular debate and feels that the other side of the debate has crossed the line, they will ask another member of management to take a look.

• At no time should a suspension or ban be given to a user when rules are not being broken. In other words, moderation is not to be carried out without due cause. Understandably, we are all human, so we will work together to approach objectivity as best as possible in such decisions. Note, however, that merely disagreeing with a moderator's application of the rules probably doesn't mean he or she is being unfair to you.

• Situations warranting permanent bans will at first earn temporary suspensions to allow for other members of the staff to consider the situation. In other words, permanent banishment from NPF will require at least two members of the staff, while initiating the process only requires one.

• Over time, the NPF staff may change -- members may be added, promoted, demoted, or removed. Whenever staff changes are considered, the existing staff will come to a majority consensus in implementing these changes with the community in mind.

• The NPF rules are not set in stone in the sense that they cannot be modified or evolve. However, in order to make any non-minor rules alterations, the staff will come to a majority consensus before rolling these changes out to the community.

Feedback and Appeals

• Feedback can be welcome and appreciated. The Forum Related Stuff section is available for users to bring up issues both with the forum software and use and with issues that arise within the community. Obviously, not everything needs to be or should be a community discussion, so please use common sense. For smaller issues that may arise and comments you may have, feel free to PM any of the staff or make use of the PR staff member. Ultimately, don't remain silent out of some kind of fear of talking to someone or desire to avoid conflict when the subject is important to you.

• Currently, the NPF Staff PR contact is Krylo. While holding no ability to give infractions, suspensions, or bans, Krylo serves as an intermediary between the staff and the general user population. Please feel free to approach Krylo with suggestions, complaints, and help with respect to the conduct of the moderation staff, the state of the rules, and so forth. This position also retains access to the moderator forum section as means to help the community keep an eye on moderator conduct and provide them a voice where they otherwise have none.
  
  Note that you are not limited to talking to the PR person -- any member of the staff should be approachable!

• As stated earlier, if you do feel you're being treated unfairly, you're welcome to take the issue up with us directly, with another member of the staff, or with Krylo, who serves as a sort of neutral party in such cases.

• The admins' say is final, but you will not bother him by contesting every little decision the mods make. You will bother Krylo instead. No but in seriousness the PR position is probably where you should send inquiries first, and don't expect everything to be fair game.