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Background

This question could have been another 'Why was my answer deleted?', as recently one of my answers got deleted, which was answering the question properly with scriptures. Neither did the moderator give time nor will it help even if I press this issue further. So this post is not about 'Why was my answer deleted?' but the bigger issue I discuss below.

The Main Issue

Historically, the moderators here have hardly responded or shown any interest to address such issues. E.g. In past, I had brought my another deleted answer to Mod's chat room. Which neither did receive proper justification nor the attention it required. You can see the detailed account in this meta post.
Even if they undelete my answer, that's not going to solve the long term problem. Because unless they understand objectivity of when to delete an answer & when not to, people will keep complaining here.

Not that SE has never thought about new moderators in Hinduism. In mid-November I got an email asking if I'm interested in becoming a Mod. See here for more details.

Question

Regardless of any other user becoming moderator, do you feel that we need a change in leadership or direction, on how things are done on Hinduism.SE?

If you can't answer the above question or comment on it, then kindly upvote this post if you agree or downvote if you disagree.

Here you may find some of the earlier unresolved complaints. Similar question was asked before as well: Change the moderators of Hinduism SE Site.

Why do I feel there's "unfair practices" of moderation in Hinduism.SE?

==> Example: My above mentioned answer or this answer are not falling under the "delete criteria" of not an answer -- mentioned either in this local meta post or this main meta post.
Instead of deleting unsourced answer as mentioned in this query, they target regular users who put proper answers. Proper justifications are not given.

Why do I use word "they"?

==> The other mods might be good on their own. But when unfair deletion or decision happens from particular mod, they support it by remaining passive & not reversing the decision. This can be considered as indirect support.

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    To be honest, I would like to close the question. Tell me seriously, rent vs buying stuff? Can you share a link with me where our Hindu scriptures explain about buying and renting.. Also, can I ask this question? - Should I buy games from Steam or I should get the CD's s on rent? What does scriptures have to say about this?
    – Mr. Alien
    Dec 15, 2016 at 17:50
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    I made some edits for readability-sake. Upvoted for the title question.
    – Say No To Censorship
    Dec 15, 2016 at 19:13
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    @iammilind SE team cares about every single user, feel free to contact them please.
    – Mr. Alien
    Dec 15, 2016 at 19:29
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    No SE community asked so many questions to remove a mod. Either there is really something wrong going on which isn't being highlighted or it is just targetting a particular mod, which as I am aware is doing a great job.
    – Mr_Green
    Dec 16, 2016 at 2:30
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    The answer was bad,incorrect etc but IMO shd not have been deleted..It can't be said that the answerer was not trying to answer the question at all..It is just that his limited knowledge of Scriptures or wrong understanding of Scriptures led him astray..I was of the opinion that such Qs can be or will be answered in the Dharma Shastras,but i was unable to find anything..
    – Rickross
    Dec 16, 2016 at 7:12
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    Some particular Hindu sect or sects are known to be extremely fanatic..there is no doubt in this..These are verified over the years..Now in a Hinduism website the last thing i wud want is to have someone belonging to one of those sects, as the main decision making mod Its impossible for them to make unbiased decisions without being motivated by their beliefs and prejudices..So,unless we have someone else having a equal say in all matters i'm apprehensive in having such single sectarian Mod for a site like this.,
    – Rickross
    Dec 16, 2016 at 7:28
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    .Mistakes can be tolerated but biased decisions made intentionally on sectarian prejudices are not tolerable..My main apprehension is regarding that point..
    – Rickross
    Dec 16, 2016 at 7:28
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    Don't we deserve change in moderation?" Yes,I genuinely feel that one mod shd be removed..Because i don't think he can change himself and refrain from taking unjust decisions when the need arise..But how is that possible?What is the process of choosing Mods here?
    – Rickross
    Dec 16, 2016 at 9:46
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    @Rickross, We haven't graduated yet, hence we may not have elections. For now, they are chosen with selection directly by SE team. If moderator policies are not likable, then it can be complained to SE team as discussed in this post. But that doesn't work always as I written to Mr.Alien above. To gauge, what other members feel, I have started this meta post. If community doesn't feel change in moderatorship, then few of the "targetted users" can't do much. Idea behind this meta post is that, we don't want to keep coming on meta for deleted posts.
    – iammilind
    Dec 16, 2016 at 10:24
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    @Rickross, you may refer this post to learn about health of an SE site. Besides, you may also visit the chatroom created by Pandya above. Personally I am clear minded about deletion on any post. e.g. deletion has to be objective. For this site, objectives are set as: "address the Qn, cite the sources". But in chatroom I failed to explain: "Objective vs Subjective". Apparently most of the people agree with Mod's decision about my deleted post in particular & moderation in general. Until ppl support Mod's actions, we can't do much. Peace. :-)
    – iammilind
    Dec 17, 2016 at 10:38
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    So are we going to see any changes any time soon?
    – user1195
    Jan 2, 2017 at 17:48
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    This is a really unhealthy way to raise the issue. If y'all are ever gonna have clear policies for answer deletion, you gotta be able to discuss them here without it being a "trial" for one side or the other. You know the moderator's rationale because he stated it in a comment when deleting - he may well be wrong, but you're not giving him credit for that, nor are you willing to debate the rationale, thus even if you get your wish and the mod team changes this will just happen again with someone else. Waste of time for everyone.
    – Shog9
    Jan 6, 2017 at 18:21
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    If you want a chance to elect your own moderators, you have to build a functional site. If you want to build a functional site, you have to be able to discuss policy with each other. If you want to discuss policy with each other, you have to be open and honest about what's happening. You referenced MrAlien's answer, but ignored the closing paragraph; you accused another moderator but ignored the rationale he gave. How are we supposed to take any of this seriously if you appear determined to mislead those reading?
    – Shog9
    Jan 6, 2017 at 18:58
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    @Shog9, Nice if we decide a time & chat room to have free discussion (it's late in India right now). You say: "you have to be open and honest" -- We feel that the deleting Mod is not open enough to accept mistakes. "closing paragraph" -- which? "you accused another moderator but ignored the rationale" -- what rationale? Out of my 5 answers, I haven't objected for 2 (even though they met standard). Out of remaining 3, 1 got undeleted. But I don't want to come to meta every time, asking for justice. Better to have a Mod, who understands policy. 2 quitting Mods actually understand it well.
    – iammilind
    Jan 6, 2017 at 19:11
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    Look, @iammilind... Every other site discusses deletion regularly. Stack Overflow debates it daily. This isn't one of those things like picking a name or tagline, where you discuss it once and it's over; the notion of what should be kept and what should be deleted gets adjusted and refined over and over again as the site grows and matures. Most of my early posts are long ago deleted; heck, there's one site where almost ALL of my posts are deleted, even though I earned over 7000 rep off of them. And that's good - that means the site didn't stagnate. So... Keep talking.
    – Shog9
    Jan 7, 2017 at 1:40

3 Answers 3

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Upvoted the question.

Yes, we need to change the moderators. I have made my objections to the current state of moderation clear many times over. We need more maturity, more objectivity, standard set of moderation rules that are uniformly applied, less bias and less random actions based on personal agendas. We also need the moderators not to act in an "us vs them" fashion when it comes to responding to contentions from users.

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  • I have suggested your name for Moderation in this chat room, where many prominent users are active right now. Would you able to take the responsibility if given a chance or still not interested as you stated last time?
    – iammilind
    Dec 17, 2016 at 14:25
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    @iammilind Milind. Thank you for your confidence in me. However, I think yourself and sv are ideal for this task. Not me :-)
    – user1195
    Dec 17, 2016 at 15:06
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  1. Talking about deletion of answer:

    The nature of your answer is quite different to that of question. Questioner is looking for whether one should buy or rent a house according to Scripture which can be answered by Dharma Shahstra scriptures that guide the way of living.

    Whereas you're answer is about explaining how the question doesn't matter to one who focus on considering towards liberation with quoting what Jnana (Knowledge) and Ajnana (Ignorance) is. And concluded that anything of buying or renting is same for who thinks according to your expected spiritual level!

    So, you've handled question in different way with respect to what has may asked in question. Though you thinking may be right but this is not how answering does work.

    The following line sounds irrelevant or opinion only:

    Having own house & car might be part of American Dream. But predominantly in other developed nations such as Germany & Netherlands, people rent homes & rent cars, respectively.

    Which I think need to avoid or eliminate.

    If you think the question is opinion-based or off-topic, the correct procedure is to vote to close it. – Keshav Srinivasan♦ 3 hours ago

  2. Talking about changing moderators

    Well, this clearly sounds about Keshav Srinivasan. I've pointed out such issue to him in my answer. He sounds correct in your case and I don't think he is mostly wrong. I don't believe moderator targets some people etc. Moderators may (or expected) rarely be wrong which is not the issue.

    You may find Voting to have Keshav Srinivasan take a sabbatical as a moderator already present similar to your this question. Which is answered by him.

    Though, in any case, if you feel something is going wrong with you, following posts can be helpful for you:

    And/Btw, you can directly contact SE instead of complaining on meta.

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  • On renting vs buying, you missed very 1st line of answer: Anything of them. That alone holds the answer on itself. Rest of the sentences explain why I felt so. The scripture on "house" is also quoted. I never said "one should focus towards liberation". What I told is, "if one is towards liberation". In any case the answer will have lot of debate before deletion, not this way. Imagine if someone asks you, if you love your father or mother, & you say both of them because both are your parents. And someone despise you for "lying". And then another 1 informs that your answer is wrong.
    – iammilind
    Dec 15, 2016 at 17:25
  • You have also missed the entire part of making choice of renting vs buying based on SwaDharma. Regarding mods being mostly wrong or right is not the concern here. The issue is, targeting certain users. Deleting well crafted answer but not looking at low quality answers already listed in the link. Chat room etc hasn't worked in past. You might be lucky to solve your issues.
    – iammilind
    Dec 15, 2016 at 17:31
  • @iammilind Just corrected it.
    – Pandya Mod
    Dec 15, 2016 at 17:52
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    "discussing in chat-room may help" - I agree, but as I stated in this comment the chat option on Hinduism.SE is only to 'listen' while they 'explain' their decision, not to reverse a mistake :( I don't understand why moderators here think they can never make mistakes! And that their word is "final" and using dictator-sounding words such "EOD" (end of discussion) etc. -- that's a very bad attitude for any moderator to have.
    – Say No To Censorship
    Dec 15, 2016 at 19:28
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    "discussing in chat-room may help" - another take on this. Why can't the moderator initiate a chat with the high-rep user before deleting an answer? Don't you think it's better than "Shoot first, ask questions later?"
    – Say No To Censorship
    Dec 15, 2016 at 20:28
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    Pandya, "KeshavSrinivasan AnkitSharma is this ok? Just want to make sure my contribution may not harm mistakenly." By asking for approvals of moderators in chatroom, while answering a question which criticises their actions; You are making a joke of this question, by such answer. Can't you rely on yourself? @sv. do you really agree that this kind of "discussing in chat-room may help" "KeshavSrinivasan Feel free to fix/correct my answer if needed"?
    – iammilind
    Dec 16, 2016 at 5:40
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    @iammilind I just wanted to give scope as well. I can relay only on self. Anyway nothing is modified in my answer except my own. (Or you can just ignore it).
    – Pandya Mod
    Dec 16, 2016 at 6:28
  • Well from your comments, it's evident that there was an obligation about putting an answer which may or may not go against Mods. But it's purely your choice & freedom. Hence, I am not here to judge your intentions on that. Such things reduces the weight of this post. Also noticed that you have put some "American dream" related part from my answer as my personal opinion. That's not right. That's inspired by the post of verified quora user Alex Tabarrok: What do economists think about buying vs renting a house?. Besides I personally know many people from NL, who rent cars.
    – iammilind
    Dec 16, 2016 at 7:04
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Question: Regardless of any other user becoming moderator, do you feel that we need a change in leadership or direction, on how things are done on Hinduism.SE?

Yes, I think we need a change; bring in new moderators. Particularly because we currently only have one moderator who's very active. Or maybe it's just me who thinks so because I don't see the other two moderators as active as the main one. I'm not even sure if there's a way to objectively determine who's active and who's not, e.g., how to know which mod. has worked on most flags?

I don't have a problem with only one moderator being very active, as after all, moderation on SE sites is a totally voluntary commitment. However, when there's a dispute, if the other moderators are also active and have a chat with the complaining user to understand the problem from the user's perspective, without prejudice and without blindly supporting the concerned mod's actions, that would be very helpful.

But when unfair deletion or decision happens from another mod, they support it by remaining passive & not reversing the decision.

Even if you bring in a new moderator, I am not sure if the new moderator will so easily reverse the decision of another moderator if there is a disagreement between them e.g., undeleting an answer that was wrongly deleted. Imagine two 1K+ users getting into an edit-war over an answer rolling back the answer to a previous version. We definitely don't want moderators doing that. Also, just having a good rapport with another moderator shouldn't mean they start supporting each other's wrong decisions.

However, when there is a disagreement between 2 moderators, IMO, adopting a 'majority wins' policy by all the mods is a good way to resolve the dispute at hand. Also, for any mod, there is no shame in reversing a bad decision, instead of sticking to one's guns which is what I keep seeing here on Hinduism.SE. We often see a big invisible "DO NOT QUESTION OUR ACTIONS" banner being waved by the current moderators here and this is definitely not good for the site.

Also, I suggest current and future moderators to read this meta.SE post where a moderator gracefully accepts his mistake:

Account suspension for answering questions well?

You might also want to look at question no. 11 from 2016 SO election questionnaire and go over some of the answers:

11. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

Under the question someone commented:

Also, we should stop shaming moderators in public just as I commented on a thread previously where I told that we should stop shaming other people by mentioning their names.

IMO, moderators here and everywhere need to get over this narrow-minded and shoot-the-messenger thinking and instead try to solve the real problem at hand by not getting too emotional about the fact that their actions are being called into question. If you find yourself getting easily upset because someone questioned your actions openly on meta, then, IMHO, you're not fit to be a moderator! If you find yourself regularly downvoting meta posts that question mods' actions, then, moderation is not for you! Such moderators should simply relinquish their posts! Give up the moderation job to others who are more tolerant to criticism. Accept that moderation is not for everyone and just move on!

Another reason why we need a new moderator is the way this meta post is handled by the current moderators:

Upvoted and accepted answer deleted by moderator

I see that none of the current mods actually answered OP's question which received 5 upvotes so far. Instead we find two high-rep users trying to address OP's question when it really should have been the moderators doing it by way of a proper answer. And let's not try to 'answer' questions in 'comments' or 'chat'. Why shouldn't the mod write a proper answer first, then invite comments on it from OP and other users?

Another meta post which hasn't received a single answer from the mods:

Moderators should give time & scope of discussion before deleting a post for active users

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    Downvote w/out reason? Excellent! :)
    – Say No To Censorship
    Dec 16, 2016 at 5:14
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    I agree with moderator should consider to reverse a bad decision and should answer the questions you've mentioned.
    – Pandya Mod
    Dec 16, 2016 at 6:23
  • Liked this detailed answer very much. Most points are agreeable. Only small change of opinions I have here are: (1) A new Mod should reverse bad decisions of another Mod. Let this happen once to put a good check on unfair practices. Later being 2 responsible Mods, there won't be delete-undelete like edit-wars. I also know that, you too support reversing bad decisions. (2) Evaluation of comment about criticism is perfectly presented. But it might be taken wrongly by novice users as direct opposition. --- With your answer being my favourite, I have accepted moon's answer, which is clear cut.
    – iammilind
    Dec 19, 2016 at 5:05

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