User blog comment:DaNASCAT/Technical Update: July 10, 2017/@comment-24258073-20170711101403

Just the same concerns I had in the last two blogs. The concerns that administrators can no longer kick or ban chat moderators or user-groups with chat moderator abilities, unless JavaScript is used. For as long as I've known about the different groups with chat moderator abilities, chat moderators, vstf, helpers, and as of 2016 discussion moderators could kick and ban any user from chat as long as they didn't have any rights with chat moderator permissions.

Administrators were able to kick and ban all groups with no chat moderator permissions, plus all the groups with regular chat moderator permissions. Administrators have chat admin abilities so the only groups that they couldn't kick or ban under normal circumstances were staff, and they couldn't kick other administrators. Aside from Staff, Administrators used to be the only group with the ability to unban themselves.

But as of a few technical updates ago, it seems that all chat moderator groups are equal to one another. None of them can kick or ban one another as long as JavaScript isn't used. The real problem is that now regular chat moderator groups can now kick and ban administrators using JavaScript. I know administrators can unban themselves but that's not the point. The point is that chat moderators should never be able to do those things, even with JavaScript. I know for a fact that up until recently, regular chat moderator groups couldn't kick or ban administrators even with JavaScript.

On top of that, if there's any situations where an administrator needs to ban a chat moderator for misbehaviour, it now creates a problem since regular chat moderator groups can now unban themselves. And that they can now kick and ban higher tiered groups like administrators. This will seriously muck up the guidelines and traditions of various communities. I for one cannot agree with allowing regular chat moderator groups to be able to kick and ban other chat moderators or to kick and ban administrators from chat, since that defies the fact that administrators are supposed to have more rights in chat than chat moderators. That's what chat admin is for.

I think this whole issue happened when administrators lost the ability to grant and revoke chat moderator status in chat. By accident, it looks like they lost the other extra abilities they had in chat as well. If chat moderators are able to get away with being able to unban themselves in situations where an administrator for some reason needs to kick or ban a misbehaving chat moderator temporarily, without going as far as to demote them - I know that I have had to remove a misbehaving chat moderator from chat on a wiki myself - then that creates the impression that chat moderators and administrators are equal to each other in chat.

While equality is encouraged, it's just not meant to be for some things. Moderating chat and carrying out administrative functions in chat is absolutely not one of them. Chat Moderators are entrusted to carry out administrative functions in chat, but in addition to administrating the content area of the wiki, administrators are also entitled to a higher status in chat than chat moderators, meaning that they should be entrusted to a higher status, because they have the have the faith to carry out that status effectively. I know some communities where equality between administrators and chat moderators in chat would be largely detrimental and may cause unwanted problems.

Like for example, some communities may decide to enforce a policy that disallows chat moderators from unbanning themselves or using JavaScript on any user-groups that they otherwise wouldn't be able to kick or ban, without a guaranteed sacking as a result. I'm not sure whether I have anything more to add about this, but I'm certainly not the only one that has noticed the conflicts that can and very likely will arise from the recent updates that caused the lines between administrators and chat moderators to become transparent.