• This is more of a theory than anything I’ve tried in practice, but I think “go ugly early” might be good advice in moderation as it is in marathons. If someone’s being a dickbag just get rid of them. Temp ban for dickbaggery, perm ban for consistent or unrepentant dickbaggery.

      It seems like a lot of the mods try to dress it up in this elaborate system of rules and procedures like they’re only implementing the will of the great magnet, and they have no personal stake in anything. Just ban the dicks and people will either agree with your judgement on it or they won’t. But it seems, just from my observations, like trying to dress it up in a fig leaf of impartiality doesn’t really fool anybody.

      • Okay, so you’re saying its best to just have moderators you trust as people so they can make swift decisions, otherwise it just becomes impractical. If people don’t like it, they should migrate to a community with different moderators.