How has being a Moderator changed your forum experience?

Of course I can't remember wondering about this until I had become one myself.

Sorry......I'll try not to be too "annoyingly rambling" with questions. You all seem like such a pleasant lot. Figured membership and admin/mod staff wouldn't mind some of these questions. I really do try to "read the room" so to speak. I try to be careful when and where I ask any number of things. Sometimes I still fail, as I'm reminded by my peers. And, if that's the case here, please forgive me and delete this thread. My mistake.

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How much did your interactions with your forum friends change when you became a moderator?

Do you have an aversion to giving people time outs (temp or perm)? I know I don't like to do it. I take no joy in it. Even when I know it's the right thing to do.

Do you feel as though you can't interact/participate the same way with membership as you did before becoming a mod?

What were your reasons for taking on the responsibilities of a site moderator and/or admin? For me basically, I just wanted to see how much it would change my perspectives of forum membership and how I interact online in various forums. Without expanding on all the specifics at the moment, I can say it has indeed changed my perceptions and interactions to a point it has me questioning my own reasons.

However, it has given me a great appreciation for what mods do, and also (not trying to be a debbie downer) how it can be a very thankless but necessary function. One reason I do it is because I love the particular community. They needed the help, I volunteered and they gave me a shot at it.

Again, sorry if this is too contentious of a subject. Please delete if necessary. I take no offense. Otherwise, please share your experiences and insights and other thoughts on all of this.

tlp123 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 6:34 am Do you have an aversion to giving people time outs (temp or perm)? I know I don't like to do it. I take no joy in it. Even when I know it's the right thing to do.

I absolutely don't like it. At myFICO, they were way too quick to do that, and even worse, they didn't provide a clear reason. The vast majority of people know how to behave in public. They don't need to see a prominent list of rules with the word 'No' in them. That list generally has to be there for the same reason society has laws on the books: that small group that just doesn't 'get it'. lol @Saeren has so much more experience with moderating than any of us here. Let's see what he has to say. This entire site fell into my complete control after Birdman died. Even so, I never want to be the sole person responsible for banning anyone. We do it by group consensus, and they can certainly override anything I might feel like doing. I just like to give people a second chance and keep the line of communication open.

Cassie wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 1:13 pm

tlp123 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 6:34 am Do you have an aversion to giving people time outs (temp or perm)? I know I don't like to do it. I take no joy in it. Even when I know it's the right thing to do.

I absolutely don't like it. At myFICO, they were way too quick to do that, and even worse, they didn't provide a clear reason. The vast majority of people know how to behave in public. They don't need to see a prominent list of rules with the word 'No' in them. That list generally has to be there for the same reason society has laws on the books: that small group that just doesn't 'get it'. lol @Saeren has so much more experience with moderating than any of us here. Let's see what he has to say. This entire site fell into my complete control after Birdman died. Even so, I never want to be the sole person responsible for banning anyone. We do it by group consensus, and they can certainly override anything I might feel like doing. I just like to give people a second chance and keep the line of communication open.

It's not my thread, but do want to say the effort you put into the site doesn't go unappreciated.

EvenBetterThanTheRealThing wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2023 12:01 am It's not my thread, but do want to say the effort you put into the site doesn't go unappreciated.

Thank you, @EvenBetterThanTheRealThing. I mean, I don't really expect or have a need to hear feedback like that, but it was nice to read at this particular time because lately I've been missing Birdman's input/encouragement during our sometimes very long phone conversations. He'd think of an idea for something and I'd immediately think about how to code it, no matter how difficult it might be due to browser limitations. (I would have never read about the Web Speech API. He preferred dictation to typing.)

Cassie wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 1:13 pm

tlp123 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 6:34 am Do you have an aversion to giving people time outs (temp or perm)? I know I don't like to do it. I take no joy in it. Even when I know it's the right thing to do.

I absolutely don't like it. At myFICO, they were way too quick to do that, and even worse, they didn't provide a clear reason. The vast majority of people know how to behave in public. They don't need to see a prominent list of rules with the word 'No' in them. That list generally has to be there for the same reason society has laws on the books: that small group that just doesn't 'get it'. lol @Saeren has so much more experience with moderating than any of us here. Let's see what he has to say. This entire site fell into my complete control after Birdman died. Even so, I never want to be the sole person responsible for banning anyone. We do it by group consensus, and they can certainly override anything I might feel like doing. I just like to give people a second chance and keep the line of communication open.

It has been a long time since I moderated a forum but I do moderate a gaming discord I find maybe 2% of people make up 95% or more of moderating actions, but I think these people don’t “not get it” they do, they just like trolling the moderators. You tell them not to post hardcore sex gifs then next day you can expect to find lesbian anime gifs, you give them their own channel just for it and it never gets used. Then they sit there waiting for someone with mod privileges to go offline and spam thousands of messages between themselves and the other 2% mixed in with minor rule violations, thinking you won’t scroll back up. I actually had one of these guys complain when my status was set to appear offline and moderated them because I was trying to “catch them red handed” A) I have a life B) You know you weren’t supposed to be doing it. I really hate the typical Reddit mod, and I really dislike the MyFICO we can’t explain what you did, but you did it crowd. But I can also see why mods get to the ban now, never ask questions later mentality. I think it is fairly clear in my online life I don’t care about much but when even I get to the point I don’t want to deal with it isn’t accidental or “just doesn’t get it”

Beefy wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:54 am But I can also see why mods get to the ban now, never ask questions later mentality.

Every girl that's ever been online knows that feeling. Finally snap at the next guy and all of a sudden you're the worst person in the world. lol

Cassie wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 1:41 pm

Beefy wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:54 am But I can also see why mods get to the ban now, never ask questions later mentality.

Every girl that's ever been online knows that feeling. Finally snap at the next guy and all of a sudden you're the worst person in the world. lol

Yea… no I just assume every girl online is a dude. I might throw you a joke but frankly hitting up women online is just tacky. The internet is the one place we are all equal, we are all just words about the only thing I find even close to as sad as harassing girls online is those thirsting for attention.

I have been moderating online since the early 2000s when I launched my own forum for the local raver community. It's a difficult job but someone has to do it. I have never really had to deal with the whole "oh you're a mod now, I'm going to change my behavior" thing so I can't really answer that question. I always hate banning people. There are some people who straight up deserve it but I always try to give people chances (unless they're spammers - I have zero tolerance for people being forced to see advertisements they don't wish to see) and I try to be an arbiter rather than a dictator. This is something that comes naturally to me and if you want to look at it from an astrological perspective, I'm a Libra, and that particular trait fits me perfectly. I am able to see things from the perspective of the other person and whenever I make a call, it's after taking into account what's best for the community and not just what's best for me. I have yet to find a moderator job that was offered to me that required me to change who I am or how I interact with people. I've always been free to be supportive in whatever fashion I chose and to tell people where to stick it in whatever fashion I chose. Moderating is hard and a lot of places beg experienced members to mod, which is probably why the some mods elsewhere got sticks up their asses -- they knew they could get away with it. I will never compromise who I am as a person for a volunteer job as a moderator. I walked out of a decent paying job (especially for someone in his early 20s -- honestly if I was a much more immoral person I could have grown so much in that company) because they asked me to compromise my morals and lie to customers to make sales which I wasn't willing to do. Every moderator job I've ever taken (other than when I started my own forum obviously) was because I cared about the community and wanted to help. There's no other motivation for me but making the communities I participate in better and helping keep the order that the community wants. The forum I ran -- it was a free for all where people discussed any topic that Dreamhost would let us get away with (which was everything except hosting illegal files) -- my job was just to play arbiter when two people had a conflict and asked for it and to ban spammers. I don't mind that job and so far I view my moderator job as similar here because we have a rebel mentality built into the site. Every other credit board I've seen, including the subreddits, is a totalitarian regime. It's so nice to have a place where we can just be ourselves. It is definitely a largely thankless endeavor. You do get those who will take the time to thank you though and even if you don't, just seeing people engage peacefully, learn things, and share their experiences? It makes it all worthwhile. Welcome to the site, btw. It's been a busy week.

Man that long post makes me feel like I'm not doing my half ... third (?) ... of the job