3. As a moderator is it your moral responsibility to preform your duties in service to the members of the forum?
I certainly feel this way myself.
One of the things we try to do as part of that service to the community is to keep the Exchange forums free of counterfeit goods. Being human, we're not perfect at that; I'm sure that counterfeits are sold here from-time-to-time. It's still caveat-emptor. But we do try.
The knife that you showed up with a stack of is a make/model that has been a victim of counterfeiting in the past. Not surprisingly, your pile of them raised a red flag. This is reasonable and understandable.
Instead of quietly withdrawing the knives and working off-line with the moderator to vet the knives, a process that might have delayed your sale by a few days but would have added to the value of the knives, you chose to take personal offense and to blow the matter up in public. Nobody likes that. And nobody benefits from it. It's not good for the community.
4. What is the dictionary definition of "moderator" or to "moderate"? And do you believe you mod within that definition?
I believe strongly -- and view myself in the roll of -- moderator as used in a nuclear reactor. The moderator control rods are used to keep the reactor from getting out-of-control, from getting dangerously-hot. The goal of the operators is to insert the rods just exactly enough to keep the reactor operating at full power output while also being safe.
When the rods are inserted enough to stop the reaction, the slang for that is "poisoning the reactor." The moderator rods are described as "poison" to the reactor. I like the analogy. Overuse of moderators on an online discussion forum can be poison to the forum for sure. I've seen more than one forum brought to a cold stop by over-insertion of the moderator control rods.
Reactors generally have two sets of moderator rods. The first are called "control rods. These are inserted and removed by motors or other controls (pneumatic or hydraulic) and can be positioned precisely. These are used minute-to-minute to control the reactor.
The second set are called "emergency rods." They can be fully in or fully out. They drop in by gravity, so there is no position control. And they are sufficient to fully poison the reactor.
What you first experienced was a slight application of a control rod. When you responded poorly, that rod was moved down further. And when you headed toward meld-down, we had no choice but to drop the emergency rods.
I am one who always argues for minimalist moderation. And I think your case was handled pretty well.
All bannings here at bf.c are listed in a thread in the Service and Support section. You can read that and see that most bannings are spammers who come here promoting non-knife related schemes, returning trolls, and obvious troublemakers. It takes a lot to get banned here. Our moderators are very tolerant.
