Post History

## Moderators are flawed
These volunteers give their time freely and deal with more difficult situations behind the scenes than most users realise. However, as much as I respect and deeply appreciate the work the moderators do, naturally everyone makes mistakes.

Moderators should be held accountable. Moderators are human, and can make mistakes, and have biases and conflicts of interest. It should not be assumed that every moderator always makes the best decision.

## I don't like this approach
I am opposed to this particular *method* of holding moderators accountable. While information should be recorded that can be audited, it is not appropriate for all of this information to be public. There are several reasons for this, including:
- Some moderator actions involve personally identifiable information.
- A user who has caused problems in the past but is now contributing positively would have a permanent public record of the measures taken against them and reasons why.
- Similarly a moderator who has made a bad decision in the past which has since been dealt with appropriately would have a permanent public record of their mistake.
- Some moderators have to deal with offensive or threatening content, which I would not want to see displayed publicly (even with parts redacted).

## Hiding identity and exact times
The idea of replacing usernames with placeholders and adding random noise to times is appealing, but neither approach is a good protection of privacy, especially long term. I would rather true usernames and exact times be used than give a false impression of protection that can lead to complacency.

For example, a moderator referred to in the log as "moderator2" may remain unidentified until some point in the future when a known interaction is cross referenced or their particular style of writing gives them away, at which point all of their past actions become publicly linked to their true username. By accepting that identities cannot be reliably hidden this way, and using true usernames in the log, it remains clear which actions should not be shared publicly, rather than them becoming public later accidentally.

## An alternative place with full transparency
Even if someone could find a way of dealing with these objections, that solution would need to be applied on a new website with a new set of moderators who have been informed in advance that their actions will all be public. Codidact is not that place.

Here in the Codidact communities, I want the volunteer moderators to have privacy, and for their mistakes to be mostly dealt with in private. I believe that the majority of mistakes they make are well-meaning, and I'm not arguing for automatic protection in other cases.