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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 7897895" data-attributes="member: 22779">I think instead of &quot;police&quot;, perhaps, &quot;Moderate&quot; might be a better phrase?&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />&nbsp; For example, if someone comes on En World and deliberately flaunts board rules, flagrantly posting things that are directly against the board rules, for example, and the mods smack that poster down, that's not gatekeeping.&nbsp; Not in the sense that it's being used here anyway.&nbsp; After all, the rules of the board are publicly posted, freely and easily available.&nbsp; And, really, by and large, (thankfully for my part) Mod intervention tends to simply be to remove a poster from a thread, rather than from the board itself.&nbsp; Now, granted, when a poster repeatedly flaunts board rules, they have been banned.&nbsp; Again, not gatekeeping since the rules are freely and openly available.On the other side of the issue though, would be if a mod decided that posting in the color blue was a very bad thing, and then booted a user for using blue text.&nbsp; Obviously this is a violation of the social agreements of the board and that mod would be way overstepping his or her authority.&nbsp; There are (to my knowledge) no rules preventing a poster from changing his or her text to blue.&nbsp; Thus, the mod has no authority to boot the user.&nbsp; This would be a clear example of gatekeeping.&nbsp; The mod (and I'm picking on mods here just for the example, I'm certainly not pointing any fingers or anything like that) has decided that his or her personal preferences should trump any other consideration and for very selfish reason is excluding someone from the group.Now, in between those are all sorts of grey areas.&nbsp; Examples where posters aren't violating any specific board rule, but, are acting in a way that is harmful to the group.&nbsp; Is excluding that person gatekeeping?&nbsp; Well, probably not since it the poster typically isn't censured in any way unless that poster's behavior becomes blatantly obvious, and by and large, that poster has been given every opportunity to self correct.&nbsp; Again, simply acting as a moderator is not gatekeeping.&nbsp; A moderator is SUPPOSED to moderate and part of that means guiding conversations into productive (or at least not destructive) avenues.&nbsp; That's a moderator just doing the job.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 7897895, member: 22779"] I think instead of "police", perhaps, "Moderate" might be a better phrase? :D For example, if someone comes on En World and deliberately flaunts board rules, flagrantly posting things that are directly against the board rules, for example, and the mods smack that poster down, that's not gatekeeping. Not in the sense that it's being used here anyway. After all, the rules of the board are publicly posted, freely and easily available. And, really, by and large, (thankfully for my part) Mod intervention tends to simply be to remove a poster from a thread, rather than from the board itself. Now, granted, when a poster repeatedly flaunts board rules, they have been banned. Again, not gatekeeping since the rules are freely and openly available. On the other side of the issue though, would be if a mod decided that posting in the color blue was a very bad thing, and then booted a user for using blue text. Obviously this is a violation of the social agreements of the board and that mod would be way overstepping his or her authority. There are (to my knowledge) no rules preventing a poster from changing his or her text to blue. Thus, the mod has no authority to boot the user. This would be a clear example of gatekeeping. The mod (and I'm picking on mods here just for the example, I'm certainly not pointing any fingers or anything like that) has decided that his or her personal preferences should trump any other consideration and for very selfish reason is excluding someone from the group. Now, in between those are all sorts of grey areas. Examples where posters aren't violating any specific board rule, but, are acting in a way that is harmful to the group. Is excluding that person gatekeeping? Well, probably not since it the poster typically isn't censured in any way unless that poster's behavior becomes blatantly obvious, and by and large, that poster has been given every opportunity to self correct. Again, simply acting as a moderator is not gatekeeping. A moderator is SUPPOSED to moderate and part of that means guiding conversations into productive (or at least not destructive) avenues. That's a moderator just doing the job. [/QUOTE]

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