Post History

> ARTICLE 18
> 
> The panel has the sole power to remove moderators for Codidact rule violations. In emergency situations the Codidact team can temporarily remove or suspend a moderator, but they need to initiate a proceeding and move a panel decision for removal and continuing the temporary removal within two working days. In cases of legal obligations or other exceptional circumstances dictating that a moderator be removed, the Codidact team can remove the status, but must explain their reasons to the moderator in question and offer the moderator the chance to step down voluntarily. If the moderator does not choose to step down, the reasons for the removal must also be shared with the panel.

This appears to be self-contradictory.

It starts out by saying "The panel has the sole power to remove moderators for Codidact rule violations", which I interpret to mean that no other entity has this power. (The alternative interpretation would be that it *only* has the power to remove moderators, which would be at odds with what's stated elsewhere in the text.) It then goes on to say that "In cases of legal obligations or other exceptional circumstances" (the latter being undefined), the Codidact team can remove a moderator's status.

I do kind of understand what that second half is getting at. At the same time, I'm sorry, but you simply can't have it both ways. Either the Arbitration & Review Panel is the only entity who has the power to remove a moderator against that moderator's wish, or they aren't.

I would suggest instead that this should say (and I don't have a ready suggestion for exactly how to phrase it) that other than at the specific, explicit request of the moderator in question, there are two groups of people who can remove a moderator's status, namely on the one hand the Arbitration & Review Panel in response to a review initiated otherwise as described elsewhere in the text, and on the other hand the Codidact Team, *but* if the Codidact Team removes a moderator's status, that removal *must* be brought to the Arbitration & Review Panel within some *specified*, reasonable, short amount of time, *and* the Panel actually has the authority to overrule the Team and reinstate the moderator if they find the reasons for the removal to be lacking, much the same as how they could decide to not remove the moderator in the first place had the same complaint come from the community.

That would make any moderator removal by the Codidact Team a strictly *temporary* measure, which automatically initiates a proper review with the aim of making a more permanent decision.

If the Codidact Team does its homework, it seems likely that any such decision made by the Panel would be the same as the one initially reached by Codidact Team, but this would protect against the Codidact Team somehow going rogue or, alternatively, simply having an agenda or vendetta against a particular moderator, and looking for some "exceptional circumstance" to use to justify removal without oversight.