Have you ever been a forum moderator? If so, why?

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Salvor.Hardin

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I was recently offered the position on a message board and I couldn't think of a single reason to take it. It just seems like a completely thankless job and moderators that I know on a personal level are always complaining about it.

I'm geniunely curious why people do it, especially if it isn't paid. I suppose there's the 'respect' you get from the posters, but that seems unearned and not very earnest. Follow the exchanges between members and any demodded poster on any forum and you'll know what I mean.

So illuminate this decision that I find utterly baffling. The dick posters that you have to keep an eye out for alone make the job completely untenable in my eyes.
 
Back around 2002 I was a moderator on the xbox forums at the IGN boards. Why, I do not know.
 
I was on a big anime forum back in the day (animechains.net). I was a mod on five different sub-forums (each anime section had a specific mod). I just wanted to make that section a better place for the members. It was pretty fun tbh, but it was no where near as big as GAF, now that could be a bit of a pain in the ass imo.

Site closed down, so I stopped being a mod there.
 
Yes, I was a moderator at Modojo several years back, at a time when it was really shitty. I moderated the "console wars" board and it sucked being a Nintendo fan at the time.

I took the position because it felt like an honor. I guess I was considered to be "balanced" enough in my posting to be a mod, even though I was heavily Nintendo-oriented.
 
Salvor.Hardin said:
I was recently offered the position on a message board and I couldn't think of a single reason to take it. It just seems like a completely thankless job and moderators that I know on a personal level are always complaining about it.

I'm geniunely curious why people do it, especially if it isn't paid. I suppose there's the 'respect' you get from the posters, but that seems unearned and not very earnest. Follow the exchanges between members and any demodded poster on any forum and you'll know what I mean.

So illuminate this decision that I find utterly baffling. The dick posters that you have to keep an eye out for alone make the job completely untenable in my eyes.
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To cleanse the board of undesirables and post in an e-Utopia of my own design.
 
Yeah, I have been/am. Generally it's just to lend a hand - I'm active on Forum X, they need help, why not pitch in? Generally it's a pretty quiet job, honestly, at least on the places I go; a lot of it is just bookkeeping and organization. Admins handle the heavy lifting - in the past two or three years I've probably handed out a total of five or six warnings.
 
Salvor.Hardin said:
I was recently offered the position on a message board and I couldn't think of a single reason to take it. It just seems like a completely thankless job and moderators that I know on a personal level are always complaining about it.

I'm geniunely curious why people do it, especially if it isn't paid. I suppose there's the 'respect' you get from the posters, but that seems unearned and not very earnest. Follow the exchanges between members and any demodded poster on any forum and you'll know what I mean.

So illuminate this decision that I find utterly baffling. The dick posters that you have to keep an eye out for alone make the job completely untenable in my eyes.
Click to expand...

Because playing a different role isn't so bad? If you're invested into the community then maybe it's your way of giving back.
 
yep, modded for one of the big browser games back in the day. it was pretty fun and i enjoyed the community. quit after i ended up getting a supervisor position and handling the problems of 8 other mods got kinda chore-y.

also i was called hitler like three times!
 
I have never been a forum moderator. If I were offered the position, I would likely accept and immediately start banning members that use too many vowels.
 
I was one for a few warez sites when I was younger and then I became a SM. Got tired of it and left with a few others to bounce around a few sites, then stopped completely. I did like going, "BAN HAMMER!"
 
Yea, I helped manage a Nintendo forum. I did it because I was friends with the owner and wanted to help him have a good board.

Plus secret forums where we posted funny shit and porn.
 
Back when I played Runescape years ago (:lol) I was a moderator/staff member on a site related to the game.

I'm not sure it's something I'd ever want to do again, but at the same time it's probably safe to say the way things were handled there isn't the norm.
 
I am a moderator on 1up but there's nothing to moderate since nobody posts there anymore because the gets more and more broken with each passing year. You think it can't get any worse then bam it does.

You do it because you care it about the community.
 
I used to be a moderator on several forums, it's usually just because I want to give back to the community. Normally when you get selected for that sort of thing, you've spent enough time with the community for it to mean something to you, so I just liked seeing the community prosper.

However I have been offered moderator positions for communities I didn't really care about, and accepted it just to troll people. That didn't work out so well.
 
Salvor.Hardin said:
So illuminate this decision that I find utterly baffling. The dick posters that you have to keep an eye out for alone make the job completely untenable in my eyes.
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The idea is you can then ban the dick posters and no longer worry. It's not like the GAF mods prowl every thread going like it's a life obligation. They act like ordinary members and if they see something that ruins the experience they fix it.

The best mods (and how GAF mods usually act) treat it as power of agency rather than power of authority - they don't pull rank and only swish their powers around if something needs dealing with.
 
I couldn't ban people for life unless they did something truly heinous. I think 99% of my bans would be for around 20 mins or so with the reason being, "Come on, son".
 
Why would anyone who isn't getting paid want to moderate? For one, you have to do a bunch of policing people in threads you don't necessarily want to read, and two, you have to dial back your participation level. Sure, you're generally immune from getting banned, but you're posting less anyways and the threshold of what you can get away with is actually lower than the ban threshold since other users are looking for reasons to rat you out to the other mods, e.g. what happened to Amir0x.
 
i'm a khanacademy mod. i do it because i believe in the site, not the users who frequent it. i monitor behavior trends, encourage appropriate trends, destroy others, answer user questions, and coach students.

on top of the other usual stuff, of course.
 
Angry Grimace said:
Why would anyone who isn't getting paid want to moderate?
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Community involvement. Many people enjoy posting at message boards and like to be recognized. It's not the same as a paying job or actual respect in the real world, but it's not supposed to be. Being more involved can be a refreshing experience for some, even if it requires more policing rather than more posting.

In my case, it wasn't that big of a job, anyway. Not all message boards are like NeoGAF; sometimes the forums are small and much more manageable. This was the case when I was a mod; it wasn't that bad of a job because not that many threads were active each day anyway. It was nice to be there when the administration had to act, but it wasn't the kind of commitment that required more than a checkup or two a day. I was taking college classes at the time and it was no big deal; honestly, I appreciated the slight responsibility.
 
Yes, I was made a mod for on the old gaming-age forums by mistake, reported it, and was banned. Good times good times...
 
jph139 said:
Yeah, I have been/am. Generally it's just to lend a hand - I'm active on Forum X, they need help, why not pitch in? Generally it's a pretty quiet job, honestly, at least on the places I go; a lot of it is just bookkeeping and organization. Admins handle the heavy lifting - in the past two or three years I've probably handed out a total of five or six warnings.
Click to expand...

You're a toon zone mod, I recognize you. Jave's also here too, somewhere.
 
I was a forum admin once. I ran it for about 5 years.

I should have had a stricter banning policy, like NeoGAF. That's all I can say.
 
I have been offered a moderator post on a Smash Bros. forum which I accepted out of good will. I liked the board and wanted to make it a more active and interesting place.

I haven't been very active these past months because of my studies, but I still kept an eye around daily.

Never banned anyone yet. It's very quiet so far due to an obvious lack of news :P
Most of my job involves moving and locking threads, and voicing my opinion about the new changes for the site.

I don't think I'll live in a while unless I'm asked to, but the evolution of the board as the release of SSB4 will get closer will be interesting !
 
I moderated the message board on a film-related site that I used to own, largely because no one else would. It's an awful job, completely thankless, and one I imagine most people are glad to be rid of. I did have hilarious experience of being long distance threatened by a guy I banned, who told me he knew kickboxing and would kick my ass if I ever came to LA. Still haven't been to LA since. :(
 
I've modded and admin'd for many sites, back in my roleplaying days.

The stories I could tell you from that fandom...
 
Twice.
Because i liked both communities, though in the end i left both, i don't think i'll do it ever again, it's no fun. :P
Also, most of the moderation work in my experience is janitor stuff, more than policing, so i don't really get the "internet rep" thing.
 
I was a moderator on two message boards (on both ended up being an admin :lol). But I rarely gave warnings or even ban people, because I don't really like doing that. Especially when it's a small message board and you're more or less familiar with people you're going to warn/ban. I rather used my moderator/admin powers to clean stuff around, i.e. delete threads/posts, move them, add new categories, fix things when someone messed around etc.

But I agree that this is really ungrateful job. People will start to hate you and treat you like an enemy whatever you do, because now you're with "them" :/. And I saw so many people who after a while of becoming a moderator started to abuse their powers ("I don't like him so I'll give him a warning for anything. And then ban him!"). *smh*
 
I'd imagine people only really take the job if they really, really enjoy the place and think they can help improve it.
 
I'd never be a Moderator of a large forum (My friend was one...THE POLITICS ...UN-FUCKING REAL) but I've been a mod on a few smaller forums over the years it was enjoyable while it lasted
 
Nope. But, I knew some Gfaqs moderators real well. Gfaqs mods aren't really good. it's a lot stricter then Neogaf in some ways. At least here you can talk like an adult, on Gfaqs everything is moddable for offending someone. You can't stupid/idiot/or anything negative about someone or else it's flaming. Too many hard ass mods who refuse to believe they could be wrong.
 
it would be nice if our mods came in here and posted their history with gaf. i want to know who these peoples are.
 
im a mod on a gaming forum ive been going to for about 10 years. its a smaller tight knit community with a loose rule set, so i don't really have to watch what the members post. i just really take care of the spambots. Ban them, delete their topics/posts etc.

i do it because i like the owners, their good people.
and they asked me to do it because i had experience running my own forums for about 7 years and they wouldn't have to teach me how to do anything.
x614R.gif
 
I was a mod/admin of a pokemon fan site a few years back. That wasn't so much fun.

I was also a mod in an irc channel.... now that was fun.
edit; also, does gaf have an irc channel? i wanna get in on that. I miss chatting it up on irc.
 
It's really not that bad being a moderator on GAF, sure you get a bit of hate every now and then, but on the whole I think most people appreciate the posting environment there is around here. As for why do it? Because I'm very sensitive to nagging ;). Seriously though, it's not exactly a major commitment, you mostly just mod what you see like someone in here already said. Only very rarely is there a big mess of a thread to clean up, which can kind of suck. The upside is that you're contributing to a positive posting environment, which makes your own experience better as well, and GAF's mod crew is a great bunch of people to talk with on IRC and the like. Lastly, I don't really feel as if being a moderator gets me any respect, if you want that, you need to be a very good poster, and I'm definitely not.
 
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