Moderators

[Bravus]

This was posted by 'chrome' at a motorcycling forum I read, and I thought it was so well said and relevant that I'd share it here:

Quote:

I didn't want to write this, but here's some context. I've been involved in online communities of some kind or another for over 15 years. MSN (anyone remember that?), IRC, Usenet, Forums, WoW guilds, you name it. I've often been involved in helping run these kinds of communities at all levels.

These days, I avoid that kind of responsibility. In every single community I've ever been involved in or seen, there have been people in those communities who felt hard done by, from actions made by those in "power". They would complain and whinge and whine and stamp their feet until "something is done about it", posting threads trying to provoke some ... action ... out of the mods or admins or whoever.

Sometimes the people involved in service to the community would just quit out of disgust, and the community would fall apart because they were the glue that held it together.

Sometimes these people trying to disrupt it were actually vying to be placed in such a position themselves, and immediately upon being promoted would be the exact opposite of what they espoused in every comment they ever made.

In every single case however, these kinds of attacks just hurt the community and made people just not want to be there.

If you have a problem with a moderator, take it up with them. Try to talk with them about it. Don't try to publicly shame them into compliance with your world view. This isn't about transparency - this is about courtesy. At the end of the day they are volunteers and don't actually get anything at all out of what they do - there is no moderator score card with the moderator who is the most awesome getting a new ZX-10 at the end of the month. They do it because they want to help the community in some way, and are willing to devote the most precious commodity in the world to that effort - time.

Don't be a {silly billy} and publicly belittle someone's contribution of time to a community, just because you don't like the way they handle themselves. If you have a problem, take it up with them. Maybe they will see your point of view, in which case everyone wins. Maybe they will disagree. If they disagree, get over it - because if you really have the community's best interests in mind, getting over it will be the best for the community.

These kinds of threads are just pointless, and will never, ever get what you want, or produce anything positive or useful. The only product of threads like this is hurt feelings, and an increasing chance the the very people who are willing to devote large chunks of time helping the community will just simply quit out of disgust.

And if you can't just let it go, then might I suggest you ... find another forum where you feel more welcome. There is probably hundreds of motorcycle related forums around, with at least 15 or so just in Australia. Or you could start your own one, where your ideals can be best expressed. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to stay.

I personally am quite happy with how NR is managed by the moderators. It'd be great if there was an actual admin who was around to put the kibosh on disputes like this, but in his absence they have been doing a fine job of keeping a good signal to noise ratio.

The fact that they are at times gruff, grumpy, unfriendly or even downright rude is just flavour that I have come to expect from netrider, and its not something you get just from the moderators - it's a pretty common attitude coming from it's members. And I rather like it that way. If you post something stupid, you're going to get called on it. This is not a Mothers support group forum after all.

[Gail]

That could have been written by any of us staff here.

Thanks, Bravus!

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

That's why I stopped being a moderator and admin at a forum.