Do we need moderators?

[Renegade_Turner]

How dare you misquote me?! Misquoting people is my thing! Ragamuffin!

Pfft, I've been doing it for ages.

[TheBigCheese]

Anyway, from my experience it's important for moderators to have different colored names. It's something everyone recognizes as meaning 'I am a moderator", and that's important if people are going to actually listen to said moderator.

I see moderators as less of "needing to be listened to" and more of a background machine that clears up trouble posts and users. If a user is being unruly, they can send a warning, and if the user does not stop, give him a week ban. There's nothing that they need to do that must be thrust forward into the public view.

If moderators aren't distinguished from regular users, there also isn't much of a risk of overinflated egos, and having a moderator receive more respect simply because he has power. When it's indistinguishable, moderators are never "above the law" and still must work to gain respect of the forum members.

[Fournine]

Well said, TheBigCheese.

[Renegade_Turner]

I posted something which relates to this in a thread in the Randomness section, so I will quote myself. How sickeningly self-approving.

Think of it this way. A parent spends all their life grounding their child and not letting them out of the house. The child is socially retarded, and has a lot of pent-up willingness to find out about what being young is all about. However, their over-eager and over-zealous parents have crippled the child's early chance to grasp the gritty aspects of what being a young person are all about, smoking, alcohol, sex, bullying, fighting, drugs etc.

The child leaves home. What happens?

The child probably goes to college, a good college, because his parents made sure with their totatalitarian parenting regime that the child got good grades in school. However, the child sees this escape to college as a source of freedom. They're given all this freedom and potential to do what they like, but have never been tutored on how to do it. Most people in this situation go overboard, go out drinking all the time and do a lot of drugs. It's a way of rebelling against what your parents expect from you. I knew a guy who was like that, so I've seen the results first-hand. His parents imposed a curfew of 11 o clock (even at weekends) up until he was like 18/19. Then he went to college, he now drinks all the time and goes out far too much.

Now, apply this to the forums. A totalitarian regime is set up, only it's administrating this time instead of parenting, and it's banning instead of grounding and curfews. The banning and locking of threads and so on only instigates further disobedience, the offenders become more persistent, deriving satisfaction from disrupting the forums. All of that could be avoided by simply letting the problem sort itself out.

Someone makes a fucked-up mistake that the community doesn't take to? People will let them know. If they keep on doing things which upset a lot of people, they'll feel like an outcast and probably leave the forums themselves, in search of a forum which is more suitable to their mindset. On the flipside, they learn from the mistake based on the community's reactions, and amend their behaviour to a more acceptable level. This is the more likely scenario.

Now do you see why heavy administration and bannings are unnecessary?

Now, I will accept that light administration of the forums is logical. For example, someone posts some picture of rotten.com or something of that sort. Such a thread should be immediately locked or the image removed, as such content is most likely unsuitable for many members of the forum.

Does anyone refute this?

[Untadaike]

This is all very confusing...

[Armored Wolf]

This is all very confusing...

It's the internet.

[zamzx zik]

They aren't above the law, but since they are suppose to end disputes and settle any kind of trouble, they should be listened to and respected.

[Armored Wolf]

They aren't above the law, but since they are suppose to end disputes and settle any kind of trouble, they should be listened to and respected.

Show me someone on the internet that gets respect and I'll show you some respect.

[zamzx zik]

All of the devs, john's beard.


whaleman.

[Armored Wolf]

There is always someone who doesn't show respect to someone else.

Not Showing Respect To John's Beard Is: King C. Gilette
Not Showing Respect To David Rosen: Raneman and his friends
Not Showing Respect To The Other Devs: Anyone Who Has Pirated Overgrowth (there is someone)
Not Showing Respect To The Whaleman: ...okay, you got me.

[Untadaike]

It's the internet.

It's still confusing.

[BlackHole]

It's the internet.

It's still confusing.

Welcome... to the real world.

- Black
Chaos. Panic. Disorder. My work here is done.

[Untadaike]

[Renegade_Turner]

Hahaha. "I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell."

[Wilbefast]

I agree with Renegade's post actually - in a small tribal society you don't need a police force: the community is able to judge as a whole. But the bigger the community the less this sort of system will work. The question is, is our community now too big to self-censure?