So, I've seen this accusation a few times now from members of this board (and others) that the rules don't apply to the staff members. I'm not even going to begin to argue that they do. What I'm asking is should they?

I can find instances where me making 2-5 posts in a row in certain threads would make sense.

I can also see how swearing as a mod could be perceived as breaking a rule that I should be able to follow and expected to follow.

Thoughts? I'm sort of on both sides of this one....

I think that swearing is treading on very soft ground, but otherwise staff pretty much staff because they are the enforcers of the rules. If they are seen by other staff members as breaking a rule, then they should talk and find out.

Is there any specific example you can cite?

it's nothing specific that I can think of right now (or that I can reference directly). But it's something that has been said before directed at me and other staff members.

I agree that as enforcers of the rules we should be bound by them, but should it be 100% the same? If I break a rule should I be demoted? How many rules would I have to break before being demoted?

Is me breaking a rule and enforcing that same rule on someone else wrong?

Not following the rules would show that the staff have little integrity. Integrity is basically doing what you say you believe. If you believe that other users should obey the rules, then you go and break them, then you don't have as much integrity. I'm using "you" as a general term, not targeting any one person.

I'm going to sleep, but I can expand more on this tomorrow. I still follow the rules as closely as I can.

I'm trying to ascertain exactly what it is that you are trying to figure out.

I'm trying to think of examples where staff have broken rules. The only rule I can see that we break is double and sandwich posting in threads.

Double posting (not neccesarily the errors like crazycatpup has, where she accidentally makes a dupe copy of her post), but more to what we do when you are making results, or we are trying to summon someone we failed to summon is ok, and within the rules, when we make additional posts, it is usually with good intention (unlike the time where a user made 10 copies of the same post in a thread in this forum, you know who you are) so I don't know what else it could be.

Could you be talking about how we handle ourselves in chat? I'm confused on this.

I agree, we enforce the rules, therefor, we should be following them. The rules we follow though are slightly different, because we may need to break one of the smaller rules to serve a greater good, and keep the peace.

I don't think breaking one rule should get us demoted, but we should talk about it to clear up what the rule is.

The last question you ask, "Is me breaking a rule and enforcing that same rule on someone else wrong?" is open ended

What's the rule you break/enforce? Is it a severe rule? Did you do it for selfish needs? Did you do it for the greater good?

In my eyes, breaking rules to serve a better power is all circumstancial and it is up to us as staff to determine when it's ok to break a rule to do what's right.

legacyme3 : "In my eyes, breaking rules to serve a better power is all circumstancial and it is up to us as staff to determine when it's ok to break a rule to do what's right."

That right there is almost the answer I was looking for. I wanted to see if anyone else came to the same conclusion.

Soo.... I win? =3

I thought it seemed obvious to me, although the question provoked a lot of thought. Good thread.

it's supposed to... and it's partially because many of us are or were or could be staff in here and I wanted to see what other people thought.... and I still do.

My honest opinion on the subject is that staff members should act on the letter of the law as much as possible and only deviate when the circumstance becomes tough to act on.

I didn't post in this thread because I felt the thread was more for moderators, but here's my honest opinion.

Sure, people'd probably feel angry that the higher ups broke rules, and call them hypocrites, and as such. But firstly, think about how they got the position first. Surely, they were like us before, and followed the rules and patiently (or not) went through rough patches with their higher ups at that time. Like above posts, follow rules to the word like everyone else, and only break a rule if it is for good reason only, although, even so, that should be a last straw or the last resort. 

well, it's not just the moderators opinions that I want.... I am interested in hearing the opinions of people who haven't been moderators or who are new so don't feel bad posting in here.

True, no problem. My opinion's up there. =P

Although, did you create this thread because you were faced by this decision recently?

Well, coming from the opinion of a regular member, I do feel that the mods should follow the rules as every other member should, maybe even more than we do. I believe it's the mods duty to set an example for the rest of us members, and not be higher ups that are exceptions to the rest of us. They should lead by behaving like the ideal member, while still keeping things in order in the back by locking threads, banning members, etc.

that's fair.... I feel the same way for the most part...

that's the tough part about evaluating the locals though.... I want to hold them to that standard but I feel like I'm not always living up to the same standard I want them to be at....

so it feels like I'm being a hypocrite when I expect them to follow all the rules and enforce them when I'm not always doing the same.

I don't think that staff members are exempt from the rules at all... except maybe the double post rule... but I don't even think we have that anymore since now it just costs Viz to double post.

And if you accidentally break a rule, no no demotion. Now if it is a major thing like you go off on a HUGE flame rant on someone or you abuse your staff powers, then yeah, demotion time.

I think staff face a huge fault in age differences
how can one say a 14 staff member will behave the same way a 20 year staff member will
i've seen how the young moderators love to have that sense of power and things get out of hand
i think that all staff need to uphold the rules but at the same time not be a complete dick all the time

great thread geeo a lot insight in here

And on a side note i enjoy being able to cus in here i feel less restricted lolz

I think the difficulty with this --as it is all too often-- is where do we draw the line? I know what some of us here have cursed outside of this forum despite what the rules obviously state. Now I do not fully care what any of you guys say. So far, I have not seen anyone who has abused their powers; however, other (newer) members may look at some of these same posts and cry foul. I have to agree with Someone70 and Elara. All I can add to what they said is that hypocrisy is only as inevitable as you make it. No one (not even me) is an exception to it.

Ok I have been a mod on other sites and a Game Master on several private games.  With those jobs I always followed the rules and enforced them.  True on the sites I was a mod we were slack on cursing so I never experienced the no cursing rule.  Though I myself hardly ever curse because it is not allowed in my household.  Mods are the model member and the members look up to them to be the model member.  If a member sees a Mod breaking rules that member will think they too can get away with breaking rules. 

The ONLY rule I can think of that is acceptable for a Mod to break is the double posting rule.  All others should be tightly upheld.

I'm not sure what I think about this. Do I think mods should set an example and follow the rules? Yes. Should they be demoted for one mistake? No. I think a warning should be first. And it depends on how many times they do it before it should be considered if they're demoted.