It seems that when you are both admin and a moderator, you are listed only as an admin at /about page. I assuming this is a bug…
1 Like
If I understand your issue correctly, the issue is that admins that are also moderators are not listed under the heading “Our Moderators” on the /about page?
If so, I don’t think it’s a bug, rather a feature to avoid duplicate avatars on the page.
If you click on the avatar of any admin that is also a moderator, does it show the little moderator shield beside their name on their user card or summary page, or is that the issue you’re reporting?
Example from the meta:
(I couldn’t find a place to sign up on your site, so I can’t confirm it there, and instead ask you here)
3 Likes
Yes, that is exactly right.
So maybe this just turned into a feature request. 
I just think that a common user might not realize the distinction. We want to be explicit about who is going to handle flags etc. (and right now the page only displays one moderator instead of 4, so it is not a good look for that one person…)
I am not sure what you mean. Admins have that shield as well. (and I see only one shield when a person is both admin and moderator, which is slightly weird, since on other places, two shields are displayed)
EDIT: I realize that in terms of permissions, moderators are a subset of admins, so the current situation make some sense, but again, from a common user standpoint, that might not be obvious.
3 Likes
A very good point. (Our situation is similar to yours, so this could be useful for us as well).
Apparently they do, but only if you are logged in as a mod or admin. I only checked it against the meta when writing my initial reply, so I didn’t notice that.
2 Likes
By the way, what is the practical difference between being admin and being admin+moderator? The only thing I can think of is that in the latter you are a member of the @moderator group. That to me is another reason why you should be displayed as such in the /about page.
1 Like
Yes, this is by design. Duplicating entries is not desirable.
2 Likes
Yes – some (moderation-related) notifications will only reach you if you are a moderator, the idea being that admins don’t necessarily take part in day-to-day operation of a site.
2 Likes
Well, that’s exactly my point! Why is then not indicated in the about page? How does a user know whether a certain admin also handles flags for example?
What I am really after…in a sensitive situation where people are asking “Why is my post flagged and hidden, who is really in charge of this forum?”, I sure as hell don’t want people think that one poor moderator is responsible for handling flags, where in fact there are three more who are also admins.
4 Likes
Here’s one other topic I’ve participated in which delved into this admin vs. moderator territory: Delegating additional trust to moderators or other groups
And in the past I have also suggested having a separate section in docs here for moderators: Restructured #howto docs
I think there was some related conversation I had with @erlend_sh back when we were playing with a documentation site that pulled content from meta, but I can’t find it right now.
But to summarize, I agree. I think better distinguishing these roles in the app, the UI, and the docs / how we talk about them here could go a long way towards us all refining our mental model and building a better shared understanding about these different roles and their different needs.
Coming back to this specific request, I think one option that could meet your need and also prevent unwanted duplication on the about page that @codinghorror highlighted would be to do the following:
- Collapse the separate Our Admins and Our Moderators sections on the page into a single Our Staff section.
- Under each avatar, indicate the roles of the people, which could be:
- Admin
- Moderator
- Admin & Moderator
2 Likes
The Admin -> Users -> Staff list shows a shield icon for admins and a shield icon for moderators. Displaying two shield icons on the About page would still add some visual noise, but less so than displaying avatars more than once would. Do you think having two shield icons on the About page (perhaps with descriptive tooltips) would be a fair compromise?
I wouldn’t suggest copying that pattern directly without some modification. Perhaps the admin icon should be updated to something else (maybe a 
?) , at which point, I think it could work.
2 Likes
Very good point !
This page does not list users, it lists roles, so there would be no duplication because an admin is not necessary a moderator and even if he is, we are listing roles and then users, not users then roles.
I agree with Jeff. It just clutters the about page. Why duplicate users when everyone listed are staff members so users know who to contact if they have an issue. You could also try using titles on staff acounts to make users more aware of roles.
For example @ JammyDodger is part of Discourse team group but we all know he’s a community moderator because of the title.
Depending of culture I’m not totally sure if that is wise move. There is a risk than users don’t know when they are talking with Jammy the Moderator, Jammy the User or Jammy the Selfmade-Customer-Service.
Yes, different situation than what is the issue here. But seeing the difference between participant of discussion and moderation role should be crystal clear. And at same time any users should never think would they contact an admin or a moderator because staff is enough [1].
except in USA/UK where boiled up customers and user want to escalate to supervisor every time
↩︎
1 Like