Karasz Posted October 6, 2013 Share Posted October 6, 2013 Here's my two cents from a couple months ago. It's not all it's cracked up to be. When you first become a mod, you think to yourself "I'll be in a position of power. This will be great!" Later you find out it's really stressful. Members will constantly be giving you shit about "not doing your job correctly," admins and mods of a higher position will force you to do their "grunt work" while they kick back and do nothing, and you can't even get a word in edgewise without fear of having these privileges taken away from you. No one thanks you for the job you do, no one appreciates the work you actually do, and everyone loves to complain about changes you make or actions you commit, even if they are for the betterment of the website. That was my experience, anyway. It still holds true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tangerine Posted October 6, 2013 Share Posted October 6, 2013 Moving threads around, merging threads, merging posts, moving posts, etc, that stuff is pretty tedious too. Its pretty easy to mess up a thread/post merge too. (or if you and a fellow mod ninjas each other so bad, a glitch happens. LOL) Then there is fun with polls. Joy. vBulletin is kind of a bitch sometimes. The perks of being a mod: Being able to see the super secret staff forums! So you can totally lurk that shit when other mods are laying the smack down! Having access to just about the entire forum, depending on your position. (not sure how that works here tbh.) Having that super cool banner/username color/whatever displaying your now-massive e-peen. Members can come to you and you can feel like a badass and lead them to prosperity! Being able to help the mod team overall, make a decision. Eye of Sauron style, id imagine. Smaller forum, but sizable activity means you are lurking the fuck out of everything. Yeah...tedium. @bold Psh, I've got you beat. One time I misunderstood Vincent when he asked me to merge the DS and Wii/GC forums, thinking that he wanted them merged into one section rather than one section split in to sub-sections. Then spent the next hour separating them all again (and dragging a mod along to help me!) because of it. I am totally the master of merging. lol. Also I tell that story as if it is an old tale to make me feel better, but it happened recently. @italics We have a staff forum + problem users section that only global mods/admins can see, Vincent's board that only admins can see and the section mod lounge I created when I made the section mod usergroup so they'd have a place to feel special in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makaze Posted October 6, 2013 Share Posted October 6, 2013 (edited) Moderating changed my mindset towards foruming. When you look at things as responsibility and maintaining image instead of fun, you end up doings things you would object to if you were a user. I didn't like how I and the people around changed when given power and an incentive to be authoritative. Administrating is different. It is easy but hapless. People like me get pulled in as the perfectionist busybody of staff while the other staff do little to nothing and let me take care of it. It isn't good if you are the most dedicated person. I have not seen a staff group without some kind of critical flaw. Edited October 6, 2013 by Makaze Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HK Motendra Posted October 6, 2013 Author Share Posted October 6, 2013 To the mods/admins of SF, and all of you here with mod/admin experience, you all deserve a long overdue pat on the shoulder, followed by a thanks for all that you do that goes unnoticed and/or unappreciated. *salutes* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Laufeyson Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 @bold Psh, I've got you beat. One time I misunderstood Vincent when he asked me to merge the DS and Wii/GC forums, thinking that he wanted them merged into one section rather than one section split in to sub-sections. Then spent the next hour separating them all again (and dragging a mod along to help me!) because of it. I am totally the master of merging. lol. Also I tell that story as if it is an old tale to make me feel better, but it happened recently. @italics We have a staff forum + problem users section that only global mods/admins can see, Vincent's board that only admins can see and the section mod lounge I created when I made the section mod usergroup so they'd have a place to feel special in. LOL! Yeah i never borked anything that hard. One of the current ZU admins did ban himself by accident his first day with an admin panel though. That shit was funny! Bolded, lolololol! Yeah, i cant see the admin board at ZU. Its like the only thing there i dont have access too. (obvious reasons) admins and mods of a higher position will force you to do their "grunt work" while they kick back and do nothing, and you can't even get a word in edgewise without fear of having these privileges taken away from you. Yeah not quite. At least in my experience. The admins where i mod at, do twice as much as everyone. Since ZU does seasonal forum related events, theres always something going on that admin have to do. I dont know where you modded, brah, but sounds like you had shit admins. Good admin do not take away mod powers for simply disagreeing on a decision or whatever. Moderating changed my mindset towards foruming. When you look at things as responsibility and maintaining image instead of fun, you end up doings things you would object to if you were a user. I didn't like how I and the people around changed when given power and an incentive to be authoritative. What? Man, where did you guys mod? I mean, yeah, when im at other forums, my Mod Hat still stays on my head so i end up pointing out a lot of shenanigans that happen at other forums. Westeros.org gets particularly egregious with me and the Report button due to the mods there not being truly a part of the community. But i can tell you one thing i am not on ZU, and thats the Fun Police. I refuse to be the Fun Police. You can still have a lot of fun and do your job as a mod. 90% of my posts are just me being a regular user and posting junk. Mod should = Lead By Example. If a mod is enjoying themselves on a forum and posting well, it gives members the incentive to post in a similar fashion. That, and it makes you as the mod, more approachable so members feel like they can come to you if they have a situation needing dealt with. As a mod, yes, you have to keep a lot of things under your hat and that includes being really snarky even when you want to be. But that really shouldnt suck out the fun of being a part of a forum community. I must be blessed to work with a good team and community. I see the SF mod/admin team are also key members of the community here and that makes them fixtures of the member base. People know who they are and arent afraid of the banhammer if something needs addressing. SF's admin/mods contribute heavily to threads all over the place. They even let off steam in FftF. This lets members know that the team is approachable and flexible. Not bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor Odinson Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 I've only ever gotten admin privileges to sites because they wanted me to do their style sheets So I guess you have access to style sheets! I dunno I'm not suited for actual admin duties I just happen to have the combination of skillset that includes both graphic work and web markup languages Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Original Alear Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 (edited) Moderating changed my mindset towards foruming. When you look at things as responsibility and maintaining image instead of fun, you end up doings things you would object to if you were a user. I didn't like how I and the people around changed when given power and an incentive to be authoritative. Are you talking about things like prying into the PMs of users? I remember you mentioning something like that on IRC once. Edited October 8, 2013 by Lanfear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makaze Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 (edited) Are you talking about things like prying into the PMs of users? I remember you mentioning something like that on IRC once. Naw. Never encountered that directly before. Edited October 8, 2013 by Makaze Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jyosua Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 Depends on the environment. SF is a pretty easy place to moderate as long as you have good peers and admins. SF is generally a well behaved and relaxed community with few troublemakers these days. As for being admin, it depends on how much that particular admin wants to apply themselves (SF has had some bad luck with this in the past, lol) and how that particular forum's staff distributes work to begin with. For example, at Serenes Forest currently, Jyo puts the most amount of work into the forum, Vincent puts the most amount of work into the site and I do the easier half of Jyo's job so he can focus on the rest. It can be a very time consuming and annoying job if you actually utilize the tools you're given or care a lick about the forum you're working on. I'd probably have retired by now if I hadn't become such good friends with Jyo and Vincent, but I stick around because I want to do whatever I can to help them. They're way underappreciated even in our own community. SF wouldn't be what it is without them, and the FE fandom would be much worse off for it. Kinda going off what Tang said, it can be a lot of work. At least as an admin, there's a lot of things I do in the background people don't recognize/know about. Granted they don't really need to but the fact that the work is still done is still there. For me it can really be tiring and detract from the general forum experience. I sometimes avoid my own site because it feels more like I'm going out of obligation than fun. It's also time-consuming and sometimes straight-up difficult dealing with potential issues (the site going down, bad members, or whatever else). ... Regardless often times admins/mods are forced to be bad guys as they have to keep people in check and sometimes they do have to sacrifice their personal feelings or reputation for the sake of their job. Again, much like policemen, policemen aren't really well-liked by most people for doing their job, it's kind of the same here, and it's hard to find a balance. Reminds me of when Mako told the president about Korra's plan in the latest episode of the Legend of Korra... being a mod is kind of like that, it can really suck sometimes If the forum's activate enough and there's enough shit going on that you're actually doing your job, it can be extremely boring and irksome. It's often thankless volunteer (if you're doing it because want power in an internet forum, that's pretty sad) work that you can get very frustrated with as much of it will involve... * Settling disputes over things you find trivial * Upholding rules you find downright stupid but have to exist because stupidity in the community has called for it * Putting up with smart-asses who jump at every instance they can to antagonize you and your fellow staff members * Reprimand actions of your own friends when they've done something wrong to uphold integrity * Live with poor feedback and negative opinion because history of bad moderators passes on with the title These three posts sum up pretty much everything. Sirius actually brings up a bunch of points that happen /all the time/ and make the job suck. It's funny, I used to post around here all the time for the first year or so the forums were around. However, as we got more and more members, it became difficult to interact with everyone on a constant basis AND keep up with the work in the background, as well as real-life issues. That's why I personally tend to stick to the back seat and just do the work, without posting around here like I would were I just a member. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HK Motendra Posted October 8, 2013 Author Share Posted October 8, 2013 These three posts sum up pretty much everything. Sirius actually brings up a bunch of points that happen /all the time/ and make the job suck. It's funny, I used to post around here all the time for the first year or so the forums were around. However, as we got more and more members, it became difficult to interact with everyone on a constant basis AND keep up with the work in the background, as well as real-life issues. That's why I personally tend to stick to the back seat and just do the work, without posting around here like I would were I just a member. Huh, that would explain why I've never seen you around. This may sound ignorant of me for not knowing, but are you by chance the owner/creator of SF? Nice to meet you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Laufeyson Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 Jyo is the Root Admin, lord and master of the forums themselves. Vincent is lord and master of the main site. So yeah, he is your overlord. Judging from his sig, he made Cookie Clicker his bitch. Nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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