Sorry, I didn't phrase myself properly. I ment to say that moderators are in a good positions to make referrals based on extensive experience and data. If a member is seen as a troublemaker, then they can verify it by searching for the name in the reports forum and get a good assessment.
Theoretically, this is true. However, NDA does not allow the sharing of information from within the DEN other than for officially exceptions, such as a Staff referral. Now the possibility you're referring to is a citizen referral, hence the Moderator would abuse his official access to confidential resources and share information he gathered in a Staff forum with non Moderators/HEX, that's a breach of the NDA. The moderator would have to gather all that evidence outside the DEN -or any other Staff forum for that matter- in order to be used for a citizen referral in order to adhere to the NDA he agreed to when hired.
So while in theory what you say is true, it's not applicable in practical terms, unless one is willing to violate the NDA, which is the shortest possible way to leave the DEN, for good.
NDA= Non Disclosure Act = Do not disclose information, don't!
DEN = Moderation forums
And no, you are not at liberty to disclose any information other than for official exceptions such as Public Appeals or Staff Referrals or the quick answer in citizenship or medal applications (where applicable) other than that, you are not allowed to disclose any information.
That means that, no, if a moderator came across information by means of his position, then that information must not be used. It's a matter of principle and circumventing it by linking to the post outside the DEN when you came across it only through your access to the DEN does not change the fact that you did came to know about it by means of Staff.
That's the chief reason why Moderators cannot be Censores since they have access to so much more information that they must not share with anybody in the CT. Conflict of interests.
No, that means that you cannot use material which originated from the DEN. Let me provide you with two examples:
a) Aik comes across a posting of citizen B in the forums. That post has not been reported. Aik is of the opinion that this post is conduct unbecoming of a citizen. Aik can refer the citizen for this post now, but he cannot add information from the DEN such as for example other postings already reported by that member.
b) Aik comes across a posting of citizen B in the forums. That post has been reported. Aik cannot refer said citizen for said post.
I'm not too sure what's so difficult to understand: you cannot use information that is liable to Staff (in this case Moderator) NDA. You can use information not liable to NDA.
Same with you, you are a censor. You do have access to a variety of private information through to your access rights, however, you are not at liberty to share any information obtained through your temporary access rights tied to your office outside the Citizen Triumvirate.
For the long term I think we should consider the option of allowing content posted by a member in an area accessible to the public should be allowed to be shared in matters such as referrals. We already do that in the Tribunal when posting infractions and the member who made the post obviously intended it to be available to the public.
For the short term I don't really see why it would be a problem for a moderator to collect the data by using the Den but only using material from the public board in the referral (this distinction is by the way the accepted way for military officers in Sweden when writing blogs or maintaining guest columns in media).
The main difference between an appeal and a referral is consent. The appealing member of TWC does appeal on his own behalf, while as a citizen, you have no say in whether you're referred or not, you simply are and get told so until after that happened.
Theoretically that would be possible, however you know that while sticking to the NDA is of chief importance while you're in Staff, it is of equally high importance that you're seen to stick to the NDA if you get my drift.
Well that may be true, but in referrals that are not referred by the system most of them contain, or are about a multitude of posts. If i understand Adar correctly it is more regualr behavior, which comes from a multitude of posts, some of them will most likely be reported.
If a single post is bad enough to warrant an appeal it is usually againist the TOS aswell. Regular behavior is less likely so.
I don't quite understand what you're trying to say. Could you please rephrase this or elaborate on this in order to make me understand what you're trying to say?
Appeal? I think you mean referral. And you're assuming a correlation that must not necessarily exist. Every citizen can refer any other citizen for whatever he thinks might qualify as conduct unbecoming of a citizen. We have seen referrals in the past for postings that did not violate the ToS in any fashion but received further action and we've seen referrals for postings that did violate the ToS and got dismissed.
I meant that most referrals will include many posts, or atkleast if they will have much effect. For example conistent borderline postings is not againist the tos, but may very well be conduct unbecoming of a citizen. Many of those posts are most likely reported or discussed in the DEN though, and cant be used, therefore no referral will come from a moderator.
Well say user A have posted borderline insulting material for 3 months. In month 2 some of those posts were reported and a discussion was held in the den, no action taken. In month 3 his behavior continues, and the moderator wants to make a referral, he will however still remember those earlier reports, and take them into account personally, but cant indlude them in the referral, even though they were the most severe examples. The censor sees the referral and says "these are not severe enough to warrant further action" even though if he knew of the old examples he might think differently.
Well, you're examining that hypothetical case from a citizen or censor point of view, which is fair enough, but not relevant to Moderation. From a Moderation point of view not violating NDA is paramount, a missed citizen referral is not.
By definition I don't think NDA can be a problem for disclosing information that is publicly posted on the site somewhere. But I only think you should use it in case that you feel that it could support your work as a moderator.
(Also, Makrell is right now describing my point of view better than I do so I will sit quitely in a corner as I am not needed ).
All information covered by NDA is publicly posted somewhere on the site, the question is which part of the public is meant to see it. I think the best middle ground would be to have a moderator as a non-voting member to provide any necessary info without breaking the NDA
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Those saying the reports should be used are overlooking, deliberately?, something that they've posted. The posts themselves were not ToS violations so, unless they were deleted for continuity, they are still visible to all members. So whether the moderator uses the search posts by user function or looks through the reports, the posts are still publicly available and can be used in a referral. The reports themselves cannot because they are irrelevant, since there's no ToS violation and covered by NDA anyways. The only exception is if a post is a ToS violation and an infraction is issued then the triumvirate gets notified, not as a citizens referral but as a staff referral.
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