Thorny Mod / PM issue

This post has to be made anonymously for what will be become obvious reasons.

Firstly, let's get a few unpleasantries out of the way.
My site is a bit unusual in its nature in that in some respects it encourages some (though not all) of the types of behaviour that other sites would ban people for. Thus we do become a haven for troublemaking types who laregly respect the freedom we give them but occasionally it does spill over a bit and needs managing. The slightest mis-step can cause a riot and whilst most people are ok, some are not.

Because of this we easily make enemies and are often attacked by trolls etc, though in recent years this has calmed down a bit. Often such attacks go on via PM, in various forms. For this reason, we make it abundantly clear both at sign up and every time someone sends a PM, that we reserve the right to monitor the PM database at any time.

(This thread is NOT to discuss the merits or otherwise of that system - it is how it is, we don't always do it and we don't read every one, but at times that we suspect something untoward is going on, we do. So please don't post about how it might be illegal in some countries or I'm immoral or not respecting privacy - PMs to us are no more than personal threads and members know that when they join and whenever they send one.)

With the background out of the way.....

As a result of this process we have become aware of one of our moderators "working against us" in PM. She moderator in question (we'll call him Matthew, that isn't hisreal name) has been sending information out of our private moderators forum to people both in and out of the site. He is also engaged in conversations with new-ish members whereby he tells lies both about other members, and worse still, about other moderators.

We don't *particularly* want to make it clear we've read the relevantvconversations because we happened upon them "by accident" so to speak, but nonetheless the dilemma we now have is this:

1) We don't want this person to be a moderator any more - they cannot be trusted
2) We *don't* necessarily want them to leave the site - they do make good posting contributions.

Any ideas how we can achieve this without causing a riot?

 

Normally, this would warrant an instant demotion and banning. But your want #2 kinda puts a damper on that.

Other options:

1. Confront him about his actions (say that another member reported that he was leaking info) and inform him that he no longer has a moderator position because of this, and tell him that you hope he sticks around.
2. [More devious method] - Create a second moderator forum/section. Give all of your moderators - except Matthew - access to it, and hold your important discussions there. Keep discussion in the original Mod forum (that Matthew has access to) limited and to things that aren't necessarily classified.

 

1. Remove them from being a moderator.

2. Why not? There isn't any amount of useful contributions that the person can be making compared to the harm she/he is doing to your community.

If thats the case, and you're running vBulletin forum software, I suggest checking out the Miserable Users modification, place them in it, and just let them fade away.

 

I like Nick's #1 and both of David's #1 and #2.

The best way I can state this is that Moderators are to set the example. End of story. Kill the drama as swiftly as possible. Make it clear.