Do you expect your moderators to be polite always remain calm and thus professional in every situation. When for example warning someone not calling that person a idiot.
I think any moderator should never call a member he warns or talks to on posting page or PM a idiot.
I would tell them to save that kind of opinion on a member for the private staff room or to write it in a PM to themselves. Or to get a cat to vent too.
It isn't acceptable to do it to a member via PM or public forums though. A moderator should always keep a certain level of professionalism.
There are some members you just can't help. Even though I wouldn't tolerate calling someone an idiot, you really can't blame them. Though, if it's a power hungry mod trying to take advantage of their authority; by believeing he can call members idiots ... time to give him da boot!
It depends on the context it was used and what the user has done (there are some users i would call an idiot in public such as EvanP and a few others).
You can call a user an idiot or you could suggest they are an idiot.
"You are an idiot" - That is harsher and saying you are an idiot.
"You are going around acting like an idiot" - Not really saying you are an idiot, it just suggests that you are acting like one. That is not so bad in my opinion. It is like saying a boy is like a girl because he likes playing with his hair. You are not saying he is a girl (as he isn't as he has all the male body parts) but you are saying he is behaving like he is one.
I think calling a user an idiot in public warrants much more of a reason then calling a user an idiot via PM although both i think needs valid reasons for you to call them an idiot. Things like breaking rules constantly, mass spamming, making threats to you or your site etc.
I don't tolerate name calling from anybody on my forum, but I do agree with Fowler that sometimes it really can't be helped. Especially if, like he said, it's someone who's always causing trouble on loads of forums. So while I don't tolerate name calling period on my forum, I can see some instances where it can't be helped.
Allowing mods to publicly call members idiots could have a negative impact on your forum. When other well behaving members, especially new members, see this it will make them at least a little uncomfortable and concerned that someone might call them an idiot and make them look foolish.
Best avoided on most forums, IMO. I say most forums because some forums such as OffTopic seem to thrive on this kind of stuff.
There's very few situations where a moderator should be calling a member an idiot. I mean, if it's a co-worker it's fine. But if it's to a regular member. They should never. If any of the moderators here would call any user an idiot to his/her face here at FP, they wouldn't be on my staff very long.
Agreed, you should remain professional at all times, even when someone is giving you a right earful (which happens a lot) It reflects on the forum if you don't, it's that simple 😉
If it happened on my forum the mod would quickly be an Unmod.
We take that stuff very seriously, we had someone name calling last week {a member} and cracked down swiftly on it. It rarely happens if you establish firmly that it's not tolerated. People pick up on the norms of a community very quickly and if they see any name calling, especially by staff {who set the example way faster than a non staff} they will see it as acceptable. If they see none, they'll be a lot less likely to do so themselves.
If it happened on a forum I was just a member of, I'd report it and if nobody took the report seriously or did anything, I'd leave. I don't need that s*** 😛
Without reading the topic and only replying to the topic title "Is it acceptable Moderators call you an idiot ?"
My answer is:
If you are truly and genuinely being an idiot, then someone should be honest with you. However staff should bite their tongue and do their job without letting emotional outbursts (such as calling someone names) get in the way.
I think it depends on the situatuion, obv calling someone an outright idiot is wrong but if you are talking in the context of telling some to stop acting like an idiot then I dont really see anything wrong with that.
Moderators are held to a higher standard (and should hold themselves to it as well). I consider my Mods to be role models for how members are expected to act.
Basically, behave like an adult.
I wouldn't allow a member to insult another member, so it goes without saying a Mod who did so publicly would lose their site privileges. Like someone else said, they can always vent privately to another staff member or in the staff only areas of the site.
