Moderator Corner: User Management & Tools

Look, I’ve dealt with all sorts of moderator calls over the years—some fair, some totally off-base.

But honestly, I need to clear the air regarding how northernsailor8 runs things. It feels like some mods are questioning my actual credibility as a user just because I picked up a few "infractions."

The latest nonsense went down right here:
where I got this "response":

northernsailor8
July 11, 2016, 4:54 PM
He got a red card too.
I don't even want to bother replying to you since I've already said everything there is to say.

Technically, replying to the thread should be fine, but they won't let me.
Check out the proof:

Jack Cook7, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

As I recall from back in the day, the rule was that you couldn't jump into an appeal thread unless you were the one actually being sanctioned.

But if you ban the person who was actually hit with the penalty from responding in their own appeal thread, then what's the point of having an appeal process at all? It's bizarre. If the penalized person can't speak, and a "representative" can't speak either, then who exactly is allowed to file an appeal? Who?!

Bottom line: given how much certain people love to play power games on this site, I think we need a dedicated subforum for a "complaint book." We need a place where users can actually comment on how moderators are doing their jobs to keep things up to standard.

Basically, if the mods get to have their private little club to talk about users, then users deserve a subforum to talk about the mods. The mods can see it, sure, but they shouldn't have the power to hand out sanctions just for posting there.

That isn't possible. Forum rules strictly prohibit commenting on moderation actions. If there's an issue with specific posts or bans within this subforum, there is a process for that, but nothing else.

And you can certainly post in a thread; the forum doesn't have any technical settings or features that would block unbanned users from accessing open topics. I guess you might have just misread how things work.

There isn't a general thread for grievances here. I’ve tried opening one a hundred times, and it always ends up being a total mess before you even get halfway through the second page. If you want to lodge a complaint regarding a very specific procedure or a particular individual, go right ahead. But this? This isn't going to work.