[jeffgrant]

The only reason I bring up moderation is to discuss moderation, not to criticize or complain about it on these forums.

Being a mod on a board is one of those things that you kind of take for granted, until you have to do it yourself. At that point you really have to start thinking about it, and forming some guidelines, and it becomes somewhat more complicated than you originally thought it would, or should be.

For instance, on the other board I've been talking about, we have our own mods-only subforum, and there are a ton of discussions about how to deal with various situations and individuals, as well as some rather heated discussions/arguments that are well out of the public eye. One of our prime rules is that all mods put on a consolidated public face; no public infighting or subversion, but behind the scenes everyone has their own take on things and thoughts on how it should be handled.

I find it somewhat interesting to discuss moderation with other mods in different forums/contexts, because we all seem to have to deal with the same issues, more or less, but have different ways of handling them with different restrictions. For instance, being associated with a business, PPOT I'm sure is more of a distraction than anything, whereas a strictly entertainment-based forum can operate with much more impunity.