Senate's gone, how about... a Star Chamber?

[Solauren]

^--This. The Senate also enabled a discussion of the board, it's culture and it's rules without AR2 hanging over the heads of the participants. I'd like to see something that enabled that to return. Not the Senate as it was, merely a way to openly discuss policy without the instant AR2 shut down.

That is something I could back. However, a new level of 'management' is pointless.

[Aaron]

Yeah, even just a sticky thread would serve the purpose.

[The Wookiee]

You're all unapproachable assholes anyway.

Hey, you. Yeah, you. Go fuck yourself. I have never, not once, been called "unapprochable". I have a PM inbox full of messages from users with everything from title requests to questions about moderator actions.

This entire thread has seen you go on a Charlie Sheen-like spittle-flecked tirade like this was the goddamn US Congress. This is a web board. We have real jobs with real obligations. We can't catch every violation or punish every infraction of the rules. And we for damn sure can't update the Moderator Review thread for every little moderator action that someone disagrees with. We fucking try, but most of us work full-time jobs and have families that are our number fucking one priority. I know for goddamn sure that I would rather take care of my son or do my job rather than have to deal with some pithy, trivial, whiny horseshit from some schmuck on the internet. This is a volunteer gig, you asshole.

In all this bullshit you had one good point, one which I have sufficient authority to act upon, and that is the usage of the Report Button. The announcement about when to use said button is generally ignored anyway, but I'm authorizing that it be clarified. So yeah, Report away. You don't have to flood PM inboxes anymore. Hey, great idea. Maybe next time you have an idea you can suggest it to one of us or post a thread about it like Coyote instead of sulking in your hermit cave ranting about us evil, unapproachable mods.

But if I see someone become a Hall Monitor and begin patrolling threads like a goddamn neighborhood watch, I will fuck shit up.


I want to make a quick comment about the Star Chamber thing. Tried it once (Senate), didn't work. The transparency thread is also something that would get very long very quick. I am not going to mandate that every action we take be logged in a thread. That's why I and the supermods have a Moderator Log where we can see who did what. However, if it was a controversial action, report it. We will investigate, and post it in the review thread. If you don't see it there, please remind me. Yes, you can PM questions to me. I will not destroy you. And yes, I do discipline mods, but I generally don't do it in public. If you want to know why, feel free to look up such concepts as "undermining authority".

[Aaron]

Jesus Rob, I don't generally have an issue with you, your one of two mods I feel will give my PM's a fair shake but I think you might just have sent the opposite message that you intended. If I was a new member I'd probably make a mental note not to approach you, going "OK says he's approachable, wait...what the hell?"

[Sea Skimmer]

Any new member who reads that post alone, and not the stuff earlier in the thread or anything else and then draws his conclusion from that... is probably an idiot anyway.

Seriously people have been bitching about the moderators for years, and yet they never come up with anything specific or consistent about it except once in a blue moon, and I for one do not expect perfect from my fellow humans. Normally its always vague stuff like ‘decisions are not transparent’ or the ‘old boys’ are favored even though a very substantial fraction of the membership has been here 5-9 years anyway. And yeah, some of us have known each other even longer, and it is precisely for that reason that we fucking know the mods are not absurdly fucking biased.

The complainers just want to be drama whores, while most of the rest of us hate that shit and talk to people online specifically to avoid drama. As we have already seen in the senate, you give those assholes as soapbox and they’ll demand a theater and bigger megaphones. They make the same old complaints precisely because they can't be cleanly proven or disproven, and thus provide an excuse to keep bitching bitching bitching.

[Duckie]

Edit no nevermind.

[Dalton]

I have had a rough week, so I apologize for flying off the handle as I did. Keep in mind that as the only resident #2 present right now, and in the absence of Mike the top authority of this board, the responsibility of keeping the staff in line falls on me. Thus, an attack on any of the staff will for damn sure attract my attention. Any problems with their behavior and decisions reflects on myself and on Mike.

Like I say time and time again, if you have a problem with something a moderator did, PM me. Ask any moderator what I do if I find them out of line. If it's serious enough, the problem and resolution gets posted in the review thread. If it doesn't, call me out. If you feel like an issue hasn't been sufficiently addressed, let me know.

And to any mods reading this, calm down. It's okay to question the status quo...if done tactfully.

Oh, for the record, a (likely incomplete) list of other admins through the years, just to give you an idea of how many of us there were:
Son of the Suns
Ozymandias
Sceptre
Krechet
Capsaicin
Achilles

[Simon_Jester]

I want to make a quick comment about the Star Chamber thing. Tried it once (Senate), didn't work. The transparency thread is also something that would get very long very quick. I am not going to mandate that every action we take be logged in a thread.

Since that particular proposal started with me, I feel I should reply:

Wouldn't ask you to, wouldn't have considered it in terms of "every" action getting logged like that. Or, for that matter, making it mandatory.

A few representative "this is a link to Poster X making a total idiot of himself and getting punished, and here's the take-home lesson" posts, at most, is what I'm envisioning, and I can see even that taking up enough time to be a major pain in the ass. So never mind; my idea never gelled to the point where it made sense for me to present it as a credible policy, and I shouldn't have, even aside from the reasonable concern of "would take too much time."

[Coyote]

I get almost fuck all PMs.

I sometimes do, but (of course) only for the Mess. I used to get them for the HoC, of course, which I tried to answer within 24-48 hours. Even if I didn't have an answer, I'd try to say something along the lines of "I got you message but don't have an answer for you; I'll get in touch when I have something".

Disclosure: I voted "Coyote, you goddamn wanker."

I haven't even voted yet!

[Vympel]

I only get PMs (apart from private correspondence) asking me to clean up certain mistakes. I get about three or four genuine complaints per 6 months, usually.