Moderators are impotent? (Apparently not, but they are bad communicators.)

[Lord Evermore]

Sometimes I really wish I could swear here.

How many times are you going to imply that *I* need to come up with complete, detailed guidelines for how the staff should run the forums? I've already given as detailed suggestions as I can based on what I know of how things are currently run, and given that *I* am not employed in any way by the company, and they've been completely ignored, as have all comments from all other people criticizing the behavior of the mods. I'm not going to spend hours of my time trying to design a perfect system when I know it will be ignored.

Oh yeah, the "volunteer" thing: I've just been told that the mods do get compensated for the work, even if it isn't "official" payment for services. I've seen no evidence myself, but I trust the source. And as I've repeatedly said, I don't really care that they're volunteers, even volunteers should have standards to adhere to. Even minor changes would help.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: AnandTech Moderator
As of right now we are going to keep things are they are. If we decide to change it around we will let you know.

Thanks for including us in the process.

 

[ProfessorFate]

Of course, if we want to be treated like adults, we have to stop acting like morons.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: ProfessorFate
Of course, if we want to be treated like adults, we have to stop acting like morons.

Gee, LordMauled registers specifically for that thread but were are going to keep things as they are. Cool. :disgust:

 

[Rio Rebel]

This is actually a pretty fair summary:

The forums that get the most traffic now are FS/FT, Hot Deals, and OT. GH comes in close. OT right now has over 13000 threads, compared to 6800 in FS/FT, the second highest. It didn't used to be that way. GH was heavily trafficked as well as the other forums; but that was before the division of the forums, and before it became super popular. The forums are now used mainly by people who aren't interested in anything about technology, and people trying to sell stuff or get free stuff. There were more useful threads and posts in all the forums when there were only 6000 people registered than there are now with over 100k. GH was once the place to go to get hardware information or help. Now people just don't bother to post because there are so few responses and so much issue over not putting threads in the right forum. I consider all this a decline, but that's a matter of opinion, and I certainly can't expect any action to fix it because I can't imagine what could be done (other than a consolidation of forums).

In the end, your last sentence says it all (even though just about every other post you've made implies the opposite.) You can't imagine what can be done. I can't either.

The bottom line is that this isn't our own little computer hardware fraternity. It's a community put in place by Anand, and it is not his intention to create an exclusive group. I wish he had - I posted many times over the years that I didn't like what the place had become. But in the end, it's not my call. And it's not yours, either.

I still think it's worth it to be a member here. But I am a very different sort of member than the old days with Netopia, Nowhereman, Hippy, etc. I don't contribute much to ATOT because there's not much there worth discussing. You can't make it better, because your posts get swamped by the immature threads and the nefs wanting to increase their post count. You just have to accept it or leave.

As for the moderators, I don't see them as heroes, but they're not the nazis that some of our whiners make out, either. They are trying to "moderate" a forum with thousands and thousands of members, many of whom enjoy posting absolute crap. If you expect the moderators to be "consistent" according to your standards, with the massive number of posts here, your expectations are ridiculous. It's not going to happen.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Not going to happen isn't the same as can't happen. It's not going to happen because they don't care to do so. A lot of the things I mentioned woudn't be hard at all to put in place, but they won't do it. And it's a frigging cop-out to say that they just can't keep up. That's when you get MORE moderators involved, not just give up and let it decay, but the moderating staff would rather consider themselves special and not have more people involved unless they're approved of.

 

[Red Dawn]

As for the moderators, I don't see them as heroes, but they're not the nazis that some of our whiners make out, either

Who only seem to be a small handful, especially in this thread.

That's when you get MORE moderators involved, not just give up and let it decay, but the moderating staff would rather consider themselves special and not have more people involved unless they're approved of.

I think the more Moderators there are the more over moderating there will be and more likelyhood of blatant abuse and security leaks.

 

[Lord Evermore]

So enforcing the rules so that everyone follows the same rules is "over moderating"? Having someone available on moderating duty at all times so that infractions of the rules don't last hours is "over moderating"? If certain types of things are so horrible and offensive that they should be locked and the user banned within minutes at mid-day, aren't they horrible and offensive enough to have the same thing done at mid-night?

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
So enforcing the rules so that everyone follows the same rules is "over moderating"? Having someone available on moderating duty at all times so that infractions of the rules don't last hours is "over moderating"? If certain types of things are so horrible and offensive that they should be locked and the user banned within minutes at mid-day, aren't they horrible and offensive enough to have the same thing done at mid-night?

Jeez it sounds like you need to relax. What can be so horrible here that can't wait until mid morning?

 

[Gaard]

The solution to the problem is easy. Make me a mod. There will be no more of this...immature threads and the nefs wanting to increase their post count.

How 'bout it? Think this place can stand a moderator who's anti-nef and anti-immature-kiddie-crap?

Or would getting rid of the nefs (or making the forums less attractive for them) be too much of a financial hit for Anand?

 

[Entity]

Originally posted by: Gaard
The solution to the problem is easy. Make me a mod. There will be no more of this...immature threads and the nefs wanting to increase their post count.

How 'bout it? Think this place can stand a moderator who's anti-nef and anti-immature-kiddie-crap?

Or would getting rid of the nefs (or making the forums less attractive for them) be too much of a financial hit for Anand?

Unless the nefs are all subscribers, Anand is losing money off of them.

Rob

 

[Gaard]

Originally posted by: Entity

Originally posted by: Gaard
The solution to the problem is easy. Make me a mod. There will be no more of this...immature threads and the nefs wanting to increase their post count.

How 'bout it? Think this place can stand a moderator who's anti-nef and anti-immature-kiddie-crap?

Or would getting rid of the nefs (or making the forums less attractive for them) be too much of a financial hit for Anand?

Unless the nefs are all subscribers, Anand is losing money off of them.

Rob

Cool. There shouldn't be a problem then. Give me the button.