We wanted to put up a reminder post about how you can contact your mods, and remind you to please use these methods of contact so we can take care of issues and concerns as they happen!

If you ever have a problem with/feel uncomfortable with something a member posted and you don’t want to confront them directly about it, there are a few options. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make use of these options. Remember that over 10,000 posts get made here every day. No matter how active the mod team is, there is no way we can see all of them. So we can’t always know something is an issue unless you bring it to our attention. We would rather deal with tons of emails that end up being about nothing than find out months after the fact that a concern was left to fester because we didn’t know about it. We are also happy to field questions about technical site issues, posts you might want to make, basically anything to do with the site and the community.

Flagging the post: as you may have seen in our “behind the scenes of leader beans” post, the reason you select for flagging doesn’t really matter: we don’t see that. But don’t use the “I disagree with this user” flag because those flags don’t show up AT ALL. Otherwise, flagging it will bring the post directly to our mod queue, and from there we’ll look into it further. Please note that if the post is something that might look completely innocuous out of context, you might also want to do the second option, which is:

Sending an email to the Mods (avocadomods@gmail.com) – This will generally be seen by all mods. When you email the mod email, we as a group will discuss it and get back to you. This is a really good resource for when you wish to discuss more complex issues, concerns about specific users, or when a post you flagged might require some background information.

Using the WordPress feedback feature – We check these often though it is checked throughout the day, and it will generally be seen by a WordPress admin. This method can be seen by non-mod administrators and editors, though, so it is less “secure”. Again, we’ll discuss the issue among ourselves and get back to you as best we can, but it is not the best choice for urgent issues you may have.  The feedback feature is better served for more general site issues (problems posting, getting your External Contributor Links added, etc.).

Follow up to these are typically going to be in the form of an email coming from the mod email account.  We’re not sure how aware people are of that since we don’t get any confirmation of if or when an email is read, but if there is follow up, that’s where it takes place.

Using the Disqus @ feature to call over a specific mod – The Avocado Board of Directors page has the Disqus @ names of all of the beans. Simply type @[username]:disqus (e.g. @lutair:disqus) on an older thread (this works even on another board) followed by a message.

You can also use any combination of these and if you ever forget any of these details, this information will always be located here under Site Info -> Contact Information.

I’ll also make a general note about how our banning procedure works.

We haven’t had to ban a lot of active, known members. 90% of our banning is of obvious spambots, invaders, and malicious trolls, and probably most Avocados don’t end up even seeing those posts before the user is banned.

With active members, we have a three warnings and you’re out policy: the third warning someone gets for any reason is a ban. Each warning is numbered so that user knows what warning they’re on. We keep track of all of this on a spreadsheet. Warnings are generally issued for breaking our rules or guidelines. And of course when someone threatens or harasses another member, warnings may not be given at all. Generally speaking, though, we try to follow that three strikes system so that people are given a chance to improve.