Moderatorgate (a YouTube vid for Mods, Quatermass, and Alex)

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Here is my opinion on the current situation regarding Moderators and the troll attacks

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqprmiv_04U[/youtube]

If you visit my channel, please note that My name is just a name I made up when I made the account to subscribe to a guy that talks about guns.

P.S. I know I have a southern accent, but i'm far from redneck, so don't judge.

Last edited by PM on 05 Mar 2011, 8:34 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I retired for a number of reasons, not all of which I can discuss publicly, unfortunately. And some of those reasons would most likely preclude a return to the moderator position. To be perfectly honest, I am glad to be rid of it.

And by the way, it's pronounced 'Kway-ter-mass'. The proof, plus a little on the origin of the name, below.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfrZeQGyarM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lln3FaVPuR4[/youtube]

Just as a former moderator told me, it's a thankless job. Even more so if you take it seriously and don't make a fuss for everybody to see. Take care of spammers and sockpuppets fast enough and nobody will notice them thus assuming you're not doing anything. You end up spending a huge amount of time here neglecting your private life because you just can't ignore your over-flowing inbox and maybe you care enough to try to talk to people through meltdowns, outbursts and all the grievances they bring to you. It's a good occasion to learn humility and if someone wants to do it so they can gain public recognition and influence over others they aren't the best fit for the job anyway.

+1

@QM You deserved your retirement, it was just a bad choice to do so. It may not be your place to retake the job, but WP needs a strict mod to strike fear into the trolls and sockpuppets.

@ Sallamandrina It is a thankless job, I just wanted to lend a hand to help Alex avoid any unnecessary flak.

I will speak on this for a moment, because I fundamentally disagree with you on this subject. There are several types of trolls, and none of them "fear" anything. By definition, the trolls you speak of (such as the fiasco this morning) are not members in good standing with the site. They create sockpuppets as disposable vehicles to enter the site and generate havoc with the full expectation of being banned so they can start again. It is a game. What do you feel a "strict mod" should do to prevent that? We ban them the second they show themselves. We banned the one this morning 7 times before he took a break, and I fully expect him to be back tonight or tomorrow. I understand that the last time he did this he kept it up for almost 6 months.

Considering these trolls receive an instant ban with no warning (the most severe punishment possible), who do you think we should be stricter with? The membership? And how? If we did that, wouldn't they win?

This is a site filled with Aspies, and as such there are going to be problems with following the rules and breaking social conventions. It absolutely comes with the territory, and must absolutely be tolerated within reason. This is a support site, and the only reason the moderators are here is to help facilitate that support and interaction. s**t will happen, trolls will jump in and mess things up now and then, our job is to minimize the damage not enforce a police state. I also think you misrepresent what QM was doing during his tenure here by implying that things were fundamentally different under his watch.

Last edited by MidlifeAspie on 04 Mar 2011, 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Although you sound like you have good intentions, it just will always sound suspicious for people to ask to be able to use moderator tools. It's giving an ability to a person and how they use that, once they have it, can potentially be a nightmare. On facebook, for example, sometimes people argue their way into a moderator position (or worse yet, an administrator) delete the other mods and then take over the group turning it into a caricature of what it was originally intended to be. Such is an occurrence there, and similar things could happen if the controls of a moderator were provided to the wrong persons. An administrator's wariness of users asking for a position of control is quite reasonable in that respect.

I remember the time all the mods lost their moderator powers. Now that was a time to complain about trolls.

That certain troll needs a life though.

No one would do this unless they have something personal against WP. He is probably a previous member. And why does Alex not block VPNs? This would prevent members from re-joining after an IP-ban by just simply using a proxy.

No I can't think of anything off the top of my head that's just cause for a 6 month sockpuppet crusade. Other people probably believe they were treated worse here but you don't see them bothering with "revenge"

Actually, blue_bean, I was made a moderator partly because of the antics of a number of banned members, one of whom, if I recall, came back in some form or another multiple times over a period of a year or even several.

Actually I recall some other members coming back to troll unless it was that same person and I remember hearing about sinsboldly being trolled when she was a mod. I always assume it's a banned member when a troll comes here. And I do also recall hearing people coming here and trolling the mods which also pisses me off because it then makes it harder for people like me to be on the forums. People coming and pretending they don't understand things so they keep the mods away from their life because they are too busy working with them and then they finally figure it out and ban them so how are they going to know someone is genuinely confused and doesn't understand? They could assume I am playing stupid and then ban me too so that is why I don't even bother to keep asking questions. I'm on my own to figure it out myself and making guesses. I don't care if someone thinks that mods deserves it, they are being selfish.

Yes he was a previous member here.

You make that sound as if you can just 'block' any and all forms of proxy. Almost as though there weren't many thousands of them and anyone could make one having access to anything on other IP space.

It isn't feasible, banning the IPs that get used maliciously, and if there are commonly used open proxies IPs that we know of, ban those too.

Maybe it's that aspie hyperfocus in action.