Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

The job of moderator is absolutely pointless. Moving and locking threads just gets people riled up, there's no moderation until the admins step in with their ban-powers, especially if the mods in question are not well respected. The HRWF is simply not big enough for a disconnected administration like the one in place now.

It's pretty easy to see just from this thread, when users discuss with the admins, good points are brought up and things actually change. When the moderators simply lie in the back, and do things without explaining themselves, or things that many users disagree on, drama starts.

It's always been said that this place isn't a democracy, and it's probably too small for a democracy too, but the rule in place now is too impersonal, especially since most everyone here knows eachother and has a certain amount of respect for eachother. My suggestion: delete the mod board and let everyone discuss what will go down in another forum (maybe suggestions, maybe a meta board or something). The admins should simply carry out what the majority of users want. I've seen this work on many other forums, even ones larger than this, to the point where administration isn't even an issue with anybody.

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I think we came in at the very tail end of his reign of terror, Ramrod. But you are right. By the time we came in, the damage was already done, and our powers were limited anyway. I know I did everything I could to try to keep him under control.

But, yeah. Don't blame us for Clan.

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I don't see why moving RT to A&C is really necessary. Especially after the purge, no one seems to care about their post counts Making post unincremented in RT isn't going to change it at all, it's just going to be in a board where it doesn't belong.

If post count is really viewed as a problem, I wouldn't be opposed to abolishing it all together.

Moving and locking threads get people riled up? The vast majority of the threads that are locked/moved are noobs making a new thread to say hello.

Disconnected administration? Hello? Do I seem disconneced to you? I came to SI to look for answers. To see what you guys wanted.

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OK, I agree with most of the things here, except I have a couple of things to comment on.

I don't see why it's such a big deal that mods sign their edits. It's like the wordfilters, "why do we need to know it's a censored word, just make it so it changes it to something not bad?" So, why do we need to know the mods have something to say. I think it's fine if their discreet.

I think Rule 1 is sort of necessary. We may need to outlaw the mods flaunting powers, but the Admins need to be able to control stuff. We don't want this place turning into Serious Inc. Sometimes, I wanna just be silly and laugh. Sometimes, I wanna come here where I know there will be structured discussion.

Mods do deserve some respect, as there is a reason they were chosen to be mods.

But I do think something needs to be done.

I read his use of "Administration" in the broad sense of "everyone in charge" including mods. I think what he's saying is there are too many and it's weird that they have power over this board here, that board there, etc, and no way of effectively backing up their power.

Here's an idea to throw out there: Might extending the Mod Group to the entire forum help a little?

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ATTN: LOWER BOARD USERS HAVE MOVED TO ANOTHER FORUM. COME JOIN THE FUN!

Cas: The mod board is still necessary. We want to bring more open discussion about our decisions, but in the end, things are still the modmins' decision, and we still need a place to privately talk about them. We need a place to post about specific users' offenses in private as well- we need to be able to bluntly say "So-and-so keeps making spammy posts in this thread" without the user in question or other users getting riled up about it. I hope that the proposed open discussion will lessen the activity in the mod board, but there are still aspects of it that need to be kept.

^This is true. The country clubbish atmosphere in there when I first got in there was a real bummer tho. We've come a long way since then.

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ATTN: LOWER BOARD USERS HAVE MOVED TO ANOTHER FORUM. COME JOIN THE FUN!

Yes, but they're pretty much useless at getting rid of drama and controlling a lot of users. This seems to be what is expected of them a lot of the time, at least from the user's side, but I may be wrong.


You're really not disconnected at all, and that was good. A lot of drama, though, has come up because admins didn't discuss their decisions with the users, which isn't all of the time, like this discussion, and the Moderator thread way back when, and some good can come out of that. The thing is, it doesn't happen 100% of the time.

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I like the idea of the mod group having power over all areas of the forum. That way, if there is a spammer, we don't have to wait for an Admin or a mod of that board to get on.

I always thought AC should have been a post-count forum. There's plenty of good discussion there and almost none of it is as spammy as half of Forum Games.

I approve of the mod choices somebody mentioned early on too.

I don't think Random Thoughts needs to go, but I think that other threads need to be opened up for the majority of discussion that goes on in there.

Mods shouldn't threaten people in areas that aren't there own, but they should still remind people about the rules.

Rule 1 should stay but it should be edited and it should only be used as a very last resort in few situations.

I agree with Dooce's second point very much.

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Making the mod group moderators of every forum probably would help. We could still keep our designated forums - Ed and I would still be the "main" mods of Characters and Games, so we would still want to pay more attention to them than other boards, but other mods would be able to mod there as well if they noticed something. That would keep certain boards from getting neglected.

I have been tossing around the idea of a global mod group. It would help with some of this stuff.

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Agree'd 100%.

I second this.

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Yeah, that's kind of what I was hoping for. Especially when there's a thread in another forum that obviously needs to be moved/locked/split... it would just save time if any of the mods could do it.Awww, do I have to change my title now?

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Its like everything from BTG's first post is just reiterating everything that has been said.

Okay...

Now that I suppose everything that needs to be said HAS been said, all that needs to be done now is Action.

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The Fall of Reich

This has been brought forth to the admins. Let's see what they say.

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Okay.

So, I know I'm usually not that reasonable, but I'm willing to be if everyone involved is willing to do the same. And if it's for a good reason. Get it?

If we're going to make this a more democratic forum, with decisions that involve the users, mods, and admins altogether, then you're going to need some way to vote on them. Serious polls in Fun polls doesn't really work, so a Serious polls section would be good. Or even if people would take their problem to suggestions more often. That's the best thing I've heard in this thread. One of the problems of this forum is that the Modmins are so vague and high-and-mighty, I-don't-need-to-tell-you-why-I'm-banning-you about all their decisions. If we were to talk about things like banning someone. Depending, though; if this person were to spam up the entire forum, delete everything (jello, goblin), that's one thing. But if it's a ban like mine, Cola's, or Teff's, then we need to talk about it. Same goes with executive decisions, like rule changes, or out-of-place rule enforcements. Rule one should definitely go, it gives the modmins way too much unnecessary power.

Another thing - a warning system needs to be established. Teff's ban, Cola's ban, my multiple bans - confusing. Strange. Ridiculous. And the warning system needs to be tweaked to certain rules - again, if someone's doing something majorly wrong, then they're banned, no problem. But if it's something like cursing, and if they're known to not cause trouble most of the time/all of the time, then there needs to be a few warnings preceding the action.

For the mods, there needs to be an established line between "spamming" and suggestions to better the forum. I was banned for speaking my mind about the forum a while back, and it's frustrating that this is still going on - people should be able to speak their minds here, it shouldn't matter if it goes against your beliefs, the pre-established rules, which leads to this -

Pre established rules. I'm sure everyone who has complained has gotten the response, "Those are the rules, like it or leave it". Well, that's just stupid. Just because those rules are there, doesn't mean that they are the final solution to everything. Things can change, but the people who run this forum are apparently afraid of change. Change isn't neccessarily a bad thing - we're running on a rule set that was made a few years ago. And if you're getting a lot of "trouble" with people complaining about the rules, maybe it's time for a change in those rules.

Onto the subject of mods, specifically. Ian, I'm sorry, but you need to learn your place sometimes, and learn how to use your power. He flaunts his power, he apparently gets a kick out of using it whenever he can, and he's just a jerk about it all. He's got the attitude of "I'm a mod, I've got power, and you don't, so shut up or I'll tell Daddy Admin on you". Example: the MySpace topic W&N started in Helpdesk. We had come to realize that she had given away her email address. According to Ian, and only Ian, that was the solution to the problem. Not to anyone else, of course, but because Ian thought it was solved. Listen, it's not solved unless the person who had started the topic says that it is. And he even signed it off with this little bit:

"Solution: Don't give out your email address."

Ugh. If that's not the rudest way to do something like that, I don't know what is. You mods are always complaining about us suggesting things in a rude manner. Well, I'll stop if you are less rude to the members.

Also, Ian's constant "toastpaint" is just ridiculous. I would request that his power be taken away, but nobody would ever agree with me.

Didy. He also flaunts his power, acting as if his word is law. It's not, really, it's the Admins that get to do that. They actually have power above deleting posts, moving topics, etc. Didy, I don't have as much of a problem with as Ian. But he still needs to know that he's not the freakin' final word on everything.

We need another current admin. Sree and Rammy are doing just fine, but IDC, Stu (I'll get to him in a minute), and all the other admins that might be on once a month. Not saying they need to go, but there needs to be someone else on the Min team. Two isn't enough, and four is too many.

RT should stay. There are about a million definitions of drama here, most of them misuses. Random Thoughts is not the cause of drama, the people who start it are. If people would not discuss drama anywhere, be it RT, Feelings, etc, then it wouldn't happen. You can't really blame something like a thread for problems that are rooted within people who start them. Besides, deleting RT would make the entire forum more spammy, because there would be nowhere to put "everything else", so to speak.

Locking and deleting things are not solutions, and are useless censoring actions. The Locking of RT was pretty bad, but it got ever worse when Didy deleted everything that had transpired. Censoring things that you do not agree with is a bad decision to make. This is why we need general consensus, because the mods base most of their decisions on their personal affairs, their personal thoughts, their personal feelings. Moderating a forum is not something to be taken personally. Take it to the PM's, by the way, is stupid. Why not get everyone's take on the problem? More use of the Suggestions board would greatly help this.

Stu. He's a jerk, he's a bad admin, and he's lazy. He's not even around often, but when he is, he just fills me (and I'm sure this applies to other people) with a negative vibe. He's not a nice person and he's not a good administrator. His first solution is to ban, ban, ban, get off my forum because you're a problem, and I don't want to deal with you. He doesn't want to deal with anything, so he gets rid of it. That's why I like Ram and Sree - they're willing to talk about the problem instead of just straightforward banning someone.

One small thing - people shouldn't get into trouble for things they say on Gabbly, IM, etc. Those things aren't associated with the forum, and the rules don't apply.


So, I think that's all I wrote down. I wasn't able to post last night, so I wrote everything I wanted to say on a piece of paper. Funny, huh? HA HA HA.

There ya go. Don't know why everyone here is so afraid of change, because sometimes, it's a good thing.

EDIT: Rammy, you are an admin.

Inb4/Didds and re-ban.

Also, we need to have this problem resolved before Rad comes back. Do you really think he wants to deal with an internet forum while on his Honeymoon?

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The Fall of Reich

A couple of things Rusty. I've sent you warnings. I sent you one three weeks ago to behave. You apperently didn't listen when you made that comment to HHFOV. You have no-one to blame but yourself.


And while yes, I am an Admin, I'm also on the bottom of the Todem pole. I have to ask permission from Stu before I can act on certain things. What I don't get is that I have to ask permission from people that frequent the forum at what, three or four times a month? Myself and StrongRad are on here everyday. We deal with this a lot more than they do.

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I wouldn't blame him if he avoided all this crap.


EDIT: I didn't complain about this ban, but the one that happened a while back. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Which is exactly why you need to put your basil to the floor and take initiative and screw his word!

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The Fall of Reich

If we want to talk things out with Admins and Mods, make the Mod/Admin boards open and turn them into Forum Discussion areas or something. Some stuff would be better if it wasn't behind some curtain.

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Exactly. Stu isn't a super admin, he's an admin. He's on the exact same level as you. Rammy, you should be able to make decisions without his word. Stu's word is not law, you're on the same level.



If Admins and Mods were willing to be more open, the Suggestions board could be used in the way you're talking about.

Again, reiterating whats been said.

But still, the mods and admins need a place to have un-open discussions.

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The Fall of Reich

Yeah, executive decisions should still be made, but they should be conveyed more openly.

Suggestions, people, use it.

All I'm saying is that a board like this would be good. It doesn't matter which one we convert it to or not.



Yeah but I don't think we had a discussion over it yet like we did for RT and other stuff.

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And I'm agreeing with you 100 percent. But the Modmins..

Yeah, that was kinda addressing both of those statements.

The Modmins need a place to discuss private stuff like promotions and I agree. But we do need a board for discussing things with them.

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