My one year aniversary as a Mod
Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:18 am
My first day as a moderator was draft day last year, shortly before the site crashed for the night. Just a few hours later we traded for ray allen and set the wheels in motion for KG to come, moves that were the definite cause of us winning the title. 20 years of futility, then I become a mod, hours later we acquire one all star, withen a year win a championship, I will leave it for you guys to judge whether that was a coincidence or not.
Doing this for a year, I feel I have a little bit of insight to share with you guys about my experience. First off, I didn't lobby for or ask to be a mod, I was nominated by a couple of people as someone to be considered and did not really plan on becoming one until I was asked if I would be interested. What most people don't realize is that being a mod is a pretty big time commitment for an unpaid job (well ok you do get a free real gm t-shirt, but no cash). I started modding shortly before I was to take the bar exam (which I thankfully passed), but instead of only logging onto the board when I had the urge to post, I had to long on more often to make sure things were running smoothly.
One of the worst parts about being a mod is having to warn and or suspend people, you may not realize this but when we warn someone we send them a message, then make a note in there profile, then make a note on the master list of warnings/suspensions/bans and its kind of a pain in the butt. So trust me when I say we really don't want to issue warnings, its 15 minutes of our lives we wont get back, not to mention the arguing with people who at the time do to anger or other reasons have a staunch and firmly held belief that even though they called someone's mother a cheap prostitute and threatened to eat there family they don't deserve a warning.
Which brings me to the real reason I wrote this thread. To thank you collectively (ok with a couple of exceptions) for being exceptionally easy to moderate the past few months. Several months ago I posted an announcement about being "classy" posters, and for the most part I feel our board really stepped up. From my first 6 months as a mod to my last six months as a mod there has been a substantial drop in the amount of negative moderating I have had to to do, people aren't personally attacking people as much, Most are not trying to avoid the language filter, and only a select few have been going on other people's boards and acting like jerks. Thank you for acting like mature adults capable of having intelligent discourse even when disagreements occur.
Different moderators have very different styles and it was something that as a poster I did not fully apreciate. We often disagree about whether a certain post warranted a certain moderator response, or whether or not someone should be suspended or banned at a certain point whether a thread needs to be locked or not, etc. I like to be a pretty lasesz faire mod becuase I have better things to do in my real life then writing out warnings every day. It wasn't until I was a mod that I truly appreciated how much easier it was to be one if you had guys who were willing to make unpopular calls to keep order on the board. I am mainly referring to Darth here, but somebody has to be the heavy or all the mods have to take the brunt of the public displeasure that gets voiced every month or so on this board (and indeed I am sure some of it will come in response to this post. However you can't really have a good cop without a bad cop, and my moderation style is made feasible by other people being willing to take that punishment.
We often have to write warnings for really stupid reasons, like avoiding the filter, I mean come on, how hard is it to actually just write out the cuss word and let it get filtered just say **** people, yet time and time again people who have previously been unofficially warned do it. Its really not at all fun to write them, I don't mean to sound like I am whining, and thankfully I have not had to hand out many warnings at all the past few months, but dear lord, like my work in criminal law, it really sometimes makes me question the true depths of some peoples inability to learn.
Its been an interesting year moderating this board, hopefully next season will bring continued success to the Boston Celtics and to our little online community here on Real GM.
Doing this for a year, I feel I have a little bit of insight to share with you guys about my experience. First off, I didn't lobby for or ask to be a mod, I was nominated by a couple of people as someone to be considered and did not really plan on becoming one until I was asked if I would be interested. What most people don't realize is that being a mod is a pretty big time commitment for an unpaid job (well ok you do get a free real gm t-shirt, but no cash). I started modding shortly before I was to take the bar exam (which I thankfully passed), but instead of only logging onto the board when I had the urge to post, I had to long on more often to make sure things were running smoothly.
One of the worst parts about being a mod is having to warn and or suspend people, you may not realize this but when we warn someone we send them a message, then make a note in there profile, then make a note on the master list of warnings/suspensions/bans and its kind of a pain in the butt. So trust me when I say we really don't want to issue warnings, its 15 minutes of our lives we wont get back, not to mention the arguing with people who at the time do to anger or other reasons have a staunch and firmly held belief that even though they called someone's mother a cheap prostitute and threatened to eat there family they don't deserve a warning.
Which brings me to the real reason I wrote this thread. To thank you collectively (ok with a couple of exceptions) for being exceptionally easy to moderate the past few months. Several months ago I posted an announcement about being "classy" posters, and for the most part I feel our board really stepped up. From my first 6 months as a mod to my last six months as a mod there has been a substantial drop in the amount of negative moderating I have had to to do, people aren't personally attacking people as much, Most are not trying to avoid the language filter, and only a select few have been going on other people's boards and acting like jerks. Thank you for acting like mature adults capable of having intelligent discourse even when disagreements occur.
Different moderators have very different styles and it was something that as a poster I did not fully apreciate. We often disagree about whether a certain post warranted a certain moderator response, or whether or not someone should be suspended or banned at a certain point whether a thread needs to be locked or not, etc. I like to be a pretty lasesz faire mod becuase I have better things to do in my real life then writing out warnings every day. It wasn't until I was a mod that I truly appreciated how much easier it was to be one if you had guys who were willing to make unpopular calls to keep order on the board. I am mainly referring to Darth here, but somebody has to be the heavy or all the mods have to take the brunt of the public displeasure that gets voiced every month or so on this board (and indeed I am sure some of it will come in response to this post. However you can't really have a good cop without a bad cop, and my moderation style is made feasible by other people being willing to take that punishment.
We often have to write warnings for really stupid reasons, like avoiding the filter, I mean come on, how hard is it to actually just write out the cuss word and let it get filtered just say **** people, yet time and time again people who have previously been unofficially warned do it. Its really not at all fun to write them, I don't mean to sound like I am whining, and thankfully I have not had to hand out many warnings at all the past few months, but dear lord, like my work in criminal law, it really sometimes makes me question the true depths of some peoples inability to learn.
Its been an interesting year moderating this board, hopefully next season will bring continued success to the Boston Celtics and to our little online community here on Real GM.
