While I understand and am completely happy with the idea that employees are entitled to hold their own opinions, I think I'd like some sort of reassurance that - expressing this sort of attitude towards users of the site is completely unacceptable within MNHQ
Absolutely - we'd never condone language like this and we'd take it extremely seriously if we came across it. Hand on heart, though, I've never heard anything remotely like this in the ten years I've been at MNHQ.
- the 'friends of Emma' who still work at MNHQ understand that they should be applying modding in an evenhanded and fair way
As you say, MN staff are entitled to hold their own opinions, but it's a point of principle that we moderate according to the TGs, regardless of personal views. Inevitably, different people will make different decisions - though we think that what often looks like a variation between moderators is actually because the context of the decision is different. We're always happy to take another look at something if you think we may have missed the mark somewhere.
If they're not actively dealing with troll activity, then for what purpose do the senior team members need to view IP addresses? What, in practice, is this information being used for?
The senior team will occasionally moderate tricky situations directly themselves, so they need to have top-level access.
Secondly, are the IP addresses constantly viewable, or does it need to be accessed separately, i.e. by clicking on a link to the user's profile, which might be key-logged.
IPs are available on the admin view of a thread, so that mods can make decisions as quickly as possible.
Finally, what level of access do staff have to private messages, including deleted messages, and are attempts to access these logged in any way?
Staff with mod clearance are able to look at PMs, and they very occasionally do so if they believe that it's necessary in order to protect other users. Once PMs are deleted they can't be viewed or retrieved.