How long should I expect to wait for a response ?

masculinist

Somebody asked me to leave a thread last night [in After Hours]. I complied and sent her a private message to discuss why.

I received no infraction but have complied because I want to deal with this in a calm manner.
To date there is no response or acknowledgement to a chatmail sent immediately when this happened . And she has been online apparently for hours.
I cannot find anywhere information of what to expect in terms of response times.
I am trying to figure out from the information available what my next step should be and how long I should wait before I take this step.

Apologies if this is posted in the wrong location. It is non specific feedback concerning a query about what in general must one do in this situation ?

KERSPLAT!

I don't think there is a specific time. It's the weekend and even though a mod is online and posting they may not have a chance to do mod stuff or reply to mails.

Speaking for myself, sometimes I just want to go to boards and post as a normal user for a bit, in that case I don't look at reported posts or PMs till I've gone through all the threads I post in or whatever. If I was to come on and just do mod stuff all the time it'd drive me mental

Anyway, I'd probably give it 36-48 hours, if I didn't get a response by then I would contact a CMOD and go from there.

Turtwig

Posters are posters first moderators second. Even though a poster is online it doesn't necessarily mean that moderator is. Moderators often have hefty backlogs too. Replying to folks takes time. This 'time' could be anything from a few minutes to a few days, or even more than week. Anything longer than week is usually not urgent.

If you don't receive word within 3-4 days best to contact a CMod. Then wait a few more days.

masculinist

well still no response from someone online and actively moderating 2 days later so I contacted a category moderator. Thanks for the advice. I am still unsure about a lot of the mechanisms around here.

In a non general way , perhaps some good feedback would be to suggest writing into charters at least an acknowledgement time for mods to aim for ? This way people could be certain of how long to wait before taking progressive steps without having to ask in feedback for subjective opinions about how long ?

Boards.ie: Niamh

masculinist wrote: »

well still no response from someone online and actively moderating 2 days later so I contacted a category moderator. Thanks for the advice. I am still unsure about a lot of the mechanisms around here.

In a non general way , perhaps some good feedback would be to suggest writing into charters at least an acknowledgement time for mods to aim for ? This way people could be certain of how long to wait before taking progressive steps without having to ask in feedback for subjective opinions about how long ?

Our Mods are all volunteers and we won't be putting time limits or expectations on how soon they are expected to reply to any user. They do so in their own time.

If they do not get back to you in what you deem to be a reasonable amount of time for a volunteer doing this in their spare time, you bump it up the line and speak to a CMod as you have done now.

masculinist

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Our Mods are all volunteers and we won't be putting time limits or expectations on how soon they are expected to reply to any user. They do so in their own time.

If they do not get back to you in what you deem to be a reasonable amount of time for a volunteer doing this in their spare time, you bump it up the line and speak to a CMod as you have done now.

Thanks. I really do appreciate and understand moderator volunteerism. I really do. In the particular case though it feels like I have been judged guilty until proven innocent for the last few days. Sniped at from a position of authority and then ignored. Concerning the guidelines - yes you can't expect strict response times from a volunteer to be enshrined in the charter although 60 seconds from someone online a lot (who if you have an open mind possibly treated me unfairly) in order to resolve what should be a very simple enquiry instead of being ignored would be I suggest a standard to aspire to. I am sorry I had to bump this up as this just creates work for the volunteer mods who had no part in the incident. As part of feedback I suggest it may be possible to have guidelines in the charter about how long to wait at each stage so that everyone knows what they are doing, what stage they should be at and why. The reverse of this is that someone less patient than I could very well drive the system crazy with a bombardment of messages if the decision is subjective with no guidelines for how long to wait.
(I am typing this post on the small screen of my phone so apologies if it lacks a structure evident in my other posts)