Firstly, I'm going to reference Hugo in this post. Prepare yourselves mentally for this with the knowledge that it is not an attack on him, he's just a convinient example. ... Right:
<serious>
As a resident troublemaker, I would say
with honesty that a more transparent and more
humble moderating process would do much better at reigning me in than what we have now.
Nowadays if someone gets into an argument with someone abrasive but
immune (Hugo is a prime example) you can expect the Mods to come down hard on you if you so much as show frustration at his bizzare behaviour. Yet, to my knowledge,
he has never so much have been warned. The process the Mods go by to reach this course of action is a mystery to me, and if I were to complain about it Eighthours (and it is always Eighthours) would close the thread with a witty put-down. Amusing, I'm sure, but not terribly helpful.
If, overnight, the bias in the Mod squad disappeared, the Mods opened up their decision-making process a bit, and certain Greenhats started seeing themselves as servants of the community rather than
our overlords, I would treat this place with a lot more respect.
(As an aside, do you think I'd call Hugo on being a bad poster [and he is] if the Mods told him, and made it known that they'd told him, that his style is unacceptable? No, because I wouldn't have to. Do you think I'd adopt the beat-them-into-submission style of debate in GGC if there was a rule against it which applied to everyone, even people the moderators like? No, because I wouldn't have to. Honestly, why can Hugo do it and not me?)
This will surprise everyone, I'm sure, but I've been a moderator on a site that got more users in a day than this place gets in a year, and I'm telling you with complete honestly, without any spite or mal-intention, that the Mod squad are really going about things the wrong way. I'm sure they're trying their best with the structure and way of thinking they have in place, but some kind of reform is needed if I am going to take this community seriously, and if this community is going to take
itself seriously.
That's my interpretation of what's wrong with this place. Here's what I'd do to fix it:
Firstly, an attitude change is needed. A big one. In a scenario in which you have banned someone (yes, I am at least partially talking about myself here, but see the following caveat) and there is an upcry, unban that person. You're servants of the community, and until you manage to create a community which
rejects, say, threads titled "HERO", or calling Hugo a banana split, you have to serve the community you've got. Sorry, guys, but anything else breeds resentment.
But here's the thing (aforementioned caveat time): If this community was one which respected itself, I would be emotionally invested enough in this forum to care if I was banned. As it is, I'm vaguely aware that HoC is trying to get me banned right now. Yet I
don't care, and I think this post sums up why.
Secondly, you need to tailor the Mods to the forums you're moderating. How many people on the Mod squad can look at themselves and say, "yeah, I'm a regular and valued contributor to Ask The Forum"? None. So please, just make GreenGecko an ATF Mod already. I may not agree with him at all times, but at least he understands how it works. I'm not just saying that for ATF, either. We need a couple of dedicated Mods per forum, and they shouldn't necessarily be picked out of the current bunch either. "Global Mods" is a silly concept, frankly, and going through the trouble of setting up forum-specific Mods would go a long way towards addressing a lot of the problems I and others have with these boards. Trust me. There'd be logistics involved, sure, but it'd be worth it.
And thirdly, here's something you can take from my own experience with internet projects I actually contributed to seriously: Don't force, catalyse. Users are human beings. If they're acting up, there's a reason why. If you're opening a PM with "I'm warning you for ..." and ending it with "You'll be banned if you do it again.",
you're doing it wrong. Find out
why they're doing it and address the problem as best you can, while still setting a boundary which falls within the confines of what you want from this community. You can still warn, you can still ban, but when it's the only thing you're doing, it's a problem.
Note: to have something fall within the confines of what you want from the community, you have to know what you want from the community. I am assuming you want this place to be a Neogaf-lite -- which is fine! -- but once again I don't
know because there's no way for me to tell. Again, more transparency needed.
Atreyu is right, by the way: we'll have people posting threads about wanking for however long it takes for Steve to stop posting threads about wanking. I actually like Steve, I think he's a level-headed fella, and he's a perfect poster-boy for the community we
currently have, but if we want change then it has to start at the top and he has to start being a better role-model.
So, yeah, it really does all come down to the Mods.
I'm sorry if that post wandered a bit, as it was pretty much written from the stream of conciousness. I am aware that this won't be taken seriously, but this
is a serious post. I would hope that at some point somewhere one of the Mods -- I am tempted to refer to you as "leaders" which only goes to show, really -- will actually
consider this rather than laughing at it, mocking it, or trying to refute this.
Yeah, don't argue with this. It's pointless. As soon as I hit submit, I'm gone, I'm out, I'm back in GGC being a PC Supremacist. Just read, and
think.
I'll leave a closing thought. I and many others are here to have a laugh and extract some fun, forcibly or nay. That is what we see this site as: a pissabout. Changing the image of the site starts with changing the image of the administration. No amount of cracking down, y'all Greens and Blues, will make a damn bit of difference if you can't convince us to
care about those actions.
</serious>
Ahh, good, glad that's over. Back to trolling GGC, because we all know there's zero chance of any of that ever actually strawberry floating happening.
Oh look here comes Eighthours to post "
" woop woop
this is livinghurrrrrrrrrrr