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Ask the Mods questions about the Forums!


Dman979

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  On 4/12/2019 at 3:27 AM, Vanamonde said:

Can't tell if you're joking or not, but we don't keep records on that sort of thing. 

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Do you guys keep ANY records (like warnings)? So you can say "hey, we've warned you already 20 years ago about the same thing, no presents from santa this year for you" ?

Edited by 4x4cheesecake
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  On 4/12/2019 at 9:22 AM, 4x4cheesecake said:

Do you guys keep ANY records (like warnings)? So you can say "hey, we've warned you already 20 years ago about the same thing, no presents from santa this year for you" ?

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Yes, yes moderators do. To be completely honest, the forum software tracks that. And in my case, every time I go to visit my own profile, such as posting a status update, I see all the warnings I've received since the Great Forum Disaster of 2012.  

It keeps me humbled! :blush:

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  On 4/12/2019 at 9:22 AM, 4x4cheesecake said:

Do you guys keep ANY records (like warnings)? So you can say "hey, we've warned you already 20 years ago about the same thing, no presents from santa this year for you" ?

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"Forgive and remember."  ;)

There are just a few of us, and literally thousands of you guys, so records need to be preserved or we'd never keep anything straight.  So yes, there are records of everything relevant, because past context matters-- a repeat offender is going to get dinged harder than someone who just made an innocent mistake.

We also do take time into account.  If you post an inappropriate picture (politics or whatever), and we tell you not to do that, and then you do it again the next day, then that's pretty egregious and we'll need to, ah, take it up a notch.  ;)  On the other hand, if you do something like that, and then we say "don't", and you stop it, and then a couple of years later you forget yourself and do the same sort of thing again, then we do make a point of taking that into account.  Sort of like an informal "statute of limitations", as it were.

As with everything, every case is different and it depends totally on the context, but that's the general gist.

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  On 4/12/2019 at 10:12 AM, adsii1970 said:

Yes, yes moderators do. To be completely honest, the forum software tracks that. And in my case, every time I go to visit my own profile, such as posting a status update, I see all the warnings I've received since the Great Forum Disaster of 2012.  

It keeps me humbled! :blush:

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So like... if the forum was a superhero movie, adsii1970 would be the minor villain that gets let out of supermax due to his unique skill set?

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  On 4/12/2019 at 6:06 PM, CatastrophicFailure said:

So like... if the forum was a superhero movie, adsii1970 would be the minor villain that gets let out of supermax due to his unique skill set?

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Not quite like that, although a good idea.
I think they felt it would be easier to bring me on board the moderator team so they could keep an even better eye on me. Oh, and to force me to behave now since I'm a moderator and because of that, I wear a more prominent target!

In all seriousness, however, it is a tremendous honor to have been recruited to be a moderator for this community. I'm glad to be able to give back to an Internet-based society which has come to mean so much to me.  We are Kerbals! :sticktongue:

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To any mod:

1) Do you apply to be a moderator, or do you suddenly get a message from @Vanamonde saying something along the lines of "Congrats, you're a mod" Now get in the truck.

2) What's that feeling like in the first few seconds, thinking, "Wow, I'm a moderator..."? Fear? Relief? Both?

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  On 4/12/2019 at 6:27 PM, DarkOwl57 said:

To any mod:

1) Do you apply to be a moderator, or do you suddenly get a message from @Vanamonde saying something along the lines of "Congrats, you're a mod" Now get in the truck.

2) What's that feeling like in the first few seconds, thinking, "Wow, I'm a moderator..."? Fear? Relief? Both?

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It's not like that.

When they needed a new mod, I got a PM asking me if I was interested.  It's a volunteer job and requires a different sort of interaction with the forum.
Since I have always valued this place and wanted to keep it a great place to spend time, being a moderator seemed like an obvious fit to me.

I was very pleased and honoured to take on the role with a team like the group we have.  There are a number of users who have become moderators who had my deep respect long before they were press-ganged invited to join the team.  There was some fear about how ugly some of the bad part might be.  I must say I was pleasantly surprised in the end.


Happy landings!

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  On 4/12/2019 at 6:27 PM, DarkOwl57 said:

1) Do you apply to be a moderator, or do you suddenly get a message from @Vanamonde saying something along the lines of "Congrats, you're a mod" Now get in the truck.

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It's been both ways.  There are moderators on the team who have been invited and joined, and there others who have applied and joined.

Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.  When you take an application from someone, you know they want to be a moderator, which is both good and bad:

  • Good, because it means they're enthusiastic and motivated and are likely to "show up for work" (this is a volunteer job, after all; it's not like we punch a clock).
  • Bad, because it can raise questions about real motivations-- in particular, some people are motivated by a "power trip" and are actually seeking authority over people, and we sure as heck don't want anyone like that as a moderator.  Can you imagine the damage that a power-motivated moderator could do?

And sending out an invitation is the converse of that.  On the one hand, we're reasonably sure the person isn't a power-tripping type if we ask them... on the other hand, there's the risk that they might not be as motivated to moderate (after all, it's a time-consuming, thankless job) and could end up not pulling their weight.

So, both ways can work, and both ways have their pluses and minuses.  The common factor in both cases is that we're not going to make someone a moderator (either by invitation or application) unless they have a long, well-established track record on the forum and have demonstrated that they're unflappable and temperamentally suitable, as well as being motivated to help folks.

In my own case, it happened to be an invitation.  Could have knocked me over with a feather, I never expected it.  :)

  On 4/12/2019 at 6:27 PM, DarkOwl57 said:

2) What's that feeling like in the first few seconds, thinking, "Wow, I'm a moderator..."? Fear? Relief? Both?

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Shock, dismay, and panic.  :D

They asked "wanna join?" with a little "essay question test", then there was a pause of quite a while (I forget how long exactly, but it was weeks I think) during which I was waiting to hear back from them and was on tenterhooks wondering "did I make the cut or not".  And the first inkling I got that anything happened was, one day I happened to log on to the forum and instead of seeing this as usual,

b0v0Ujx.png

...I instead saw something like this jumping out at me:

HV1jok9.png

And I immediately had this panicked OH NOES WHAT THE HECK IS THAT, I MUST HAVE SCREWED UP AND GOTTEN A FORUM WARNING OR SOMETHING, NOW THEY'RE GONNA DITCH ME FOR SURE kind of reaction.

Then I clicked on it and saw that it was actually the UI for letting us look at open reports, and realized... "oh."  I can be kinda slow on the uptake, sometimes.

And after that I saw the PM with details and so forth.  But dang, my heart stopped for a minute there.  Sort of like Peter Parker waking up in the morning after the spider bite and getting spooked by his own powers.  :)

And then (again, I suppose kind of like Peter Parker), as I got the hang of all the stuff I can do now, there was the dawning realization of heeeyyyyyy, now I can really help people in trouble.  And can also fight bad guys.  (And will also not infrequently get vilified by a misunderstanding public as part of the deal, sometimes by the very people I'm helping, so the analogy holds up pretty well...)

So, yeah, that was pretty neat.

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  On 4/12/2019 at 6:27 PM, DarkOwl57 said:

To any mod:

1) Do you apply to be a moderator, or do you suddenly get a message from @Vanamonde saying something along the lines of "Congrats, you're a mod" Now get in the truck.

2) What's that feeling like in the first few seconds, thinking, "Wow, I'm a moderator..."? Fear? Relief? Both? 

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I was approached to be a moderator on the Kerbal Space Program on the Steam discussions. I was extremely excited and terrified at the same time. About two weeks later, I had heard from someone (I cannot identify) that the moderation team was looking for fresh meat new people to recruit for vacancies open on the moderation team. So, I sent a PM of interest to Vanamonde and wasn't really surprised when it didn't work for numerous reasons at that exact time. I didn't think anything else of it; out of sight, out of mind.

A few weeks later, Vanamonde sent me a private message asking me was I still interested in being a moderator. I gladly accepted the offer and here we are!

In the past, I made jokes about being a moderator and even got very upset at a forum member who accused me of trying to become a moderator. I joked around about it because I thought with my record of 2.2b violations (see my signature image), I'd never be approached to be a moderator. So, I found other ways to contribute to the community.

Sure, I may have joked about becoming a moderator in the past, but they were just that - jokes. Even now, when I have to put on my moderator hat, I get a little nervous. I don't want to make a mistake or do something which will become harmful or toxic to the forum community or the moderation team.

Will I ever be 100% comfortable being a moderator? I hope not. With comfort in any position there comes an equal and opposite risk of not being attentive and not doing the right thing for the community.

  On 4/12/2019 at 6:39 PM, Starhawk said:

I was very pleased and honoured to take on the role with a team like the group we have.  There are a number of users who have become moderators who had my deep respect long before they were press-ganged invited to join the team.  There was some fear about how ugly some of the bad part might be.  I must say I was pleasantly surprised in the end.

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Ditto... Very much ditto...

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  On 4/12/2019 at 6:52 PM, adsii1970 said:

Will I ever be 100% comfortable being a moderator? I hope not. With comfort in any position there comes an equal and opposite risk of not being attentive and not doing the right thing for the community.

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With great power comes great smugness responsibility.

Also, the leotards kinda ride up in the crotch sometimes.

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  On 4/12/2019 at 7:09 PM, Snark said:

With great power comes great smugness responsibility.

Also, the leotards kinda ride up in the crotch sometimes.

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You were given a leotard to wear as your moderation team uniform? Wow, I must be the newbie. Vanamonde sent me a pair of chain mail boxer shorts...

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  On 4/12/2019 at 6:06 PM, CatastrophicFailure said:

So like... if the forum was a superhero movie, adsii1970 would be the minor villain that gets let out of supermax due to his unique skill set?

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There are at least a couple moderators with prior warns.

  On 4/12/2019 at 6:27 PM, DarkOwl57 said:

1) Do you apply to be a moderator, or do you suddenly get a message from @Vanamonde saying something along the lines of "Congrats, you're a mod" Now get in the truck.

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In my case, they asked for applications a while back, and I said to myself, why not, I like the place, and I wouldn't mind helping out, and I've modded on other forums before, so why not?  Waited a while, and I had honestly wrote it off as not going to happen, but I was ok with that, as I was just going to keep enjoying the forums while I was here, and then I got the invite.   Was actually surprised. 

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I came back from a fishing trip to find a PM inviting me to join the team. My first thought was there's no way I could accept this, I'm just a blue collar worker that fell in love with the game, then the forum and then the community.

After a few hours of actual shock and some anxiety, I settled down and thought that I would be extremely proud to uphold the values that make the forum such a fantastic, friendly oasis in the sea of negativity that seems to make up the majority of these type of sites.

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  On 4/13/2019 at 2:08 AM, James Kerman said:

PM's remain private unless one of the parties involved report it.

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That's what I figured. I was wondering if you guys were able to see those for security reasons. (you know, illegal activity) 

Are you worried about me now? Oops...:sticktongue:

Another question I have: 

Is there a "report" button for a user or do I need to go click on a post to report a user? I've found some users that could use reporting, but there was no easy way to report them and they hadn't posted anything.

I know I should have DMed a moderator, but that just seems annoying if you only message one. :huh:

Edited by Lo Var Lachland
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