First, let me state for the record that this poll will in no way alter the way we (the mods) do business on this site. It's not a poll that's been suggested by any other moderator or administrator. This is just something that I've been wondering for a while.
So, in short, as I'm sure most - if not all - of you know, moderators handle marked messages from a queue. That's something that we've said time and time again on many boards. Along with that is the general guideline of "if it's not marked, then we probably don't need to act on it." That was sort of spelled out in SBAllen's Terms of Use Update topic seen here:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/6-gamefaqs-announcements/61332382
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Under the current system, mods are encouraged to overlook most "minor" infractions when browsing the boards. With trolling and flaming, for example, we can just look the other way for the time being until we're normally going to be in the queue or until another mod is working the queue and handles it. This falls under the "does this post somehow interrupt the conversation at hand" concept in the topic above. If it doesn't interrupt, why should we step in? We can and are encouraged to handle things that we find of an offensive of "illegal" nature on the spot - or at least make sure that we mark those posts ourselves, so another mod will get to them.
However, it seems that users get upset when a post/topic is deleted, and similar posts/topics stay and understandably so. I often see users state that we - the mods - should be more aggressive with finding violations and deleting them. That because we have volunteered and been chosen as mods, it is our responsibility to seek these things out, and the user is under no obligation to report.
I've put together a list of what I think are some of the pros and cons of tracking down violations.
Pros:
Potentially "cleaner" boards with fewer posts slipping through the cracks..
Less obligation on the users' side to find marks.
Cons:
Larger moderation staff would be required, and this would potentially lead to more inconsistency with handling marks and interpreting the rules.
Innocuous posts on smaller boards that had been allowed in the past would now be deleted, leading to an increase in moderation/upset users.
There may be some others, but I think those are the general arguments for and against the idea of moderators basically acting on their own.
So... thoughts?