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II'll fire any moderator who gives a member flack and can't cite a rule that was violated!
I got a +rep that referred to this sentence, and I'll elaborate.
CD uses a forum software that appears to be related or similar to vBulletin. Why they are so punctilious in calling PMs (private messages) as DMs (direct messages) I'll never know. Every other forum I've ever seen calls them PMs, and we all use that acronym here... except the forum software... but I digress.
I've been a moderator and global moderator on vBulletin based forums, and there when a moderator issues an infraction there is a drop-list of which rule was violated. In such a forum as staff you can't issue an infraction without selecting a rule or cause.
Unfortunately the list and the official rules are not coupled, and the tech admins select the drop list while the social mods write the rules.
I'm a software author experienced in writing forum software, and if rules and moderators ever became a problem I could easily link the infraction drop list to the forum's rules, and require mods to state a rule when issuing an infraction.
But unfortunately there is no mod for any forum I know, nothing to prevent the tech admins from adding a reason, "violation: you suck!"
In discussing this topic people should consider Internet forums' staff:member ratio in discussing member bad behavior vs. staff bad behavior. In looking at it this way it's an eye opener that it's not unusual to discover forums where the staff is more ill-behaved than the members they police. It is thus that I support my premise that over-moderation causes bad behavior among members.
Also in my forum experience I tend to become friends with staff and owners of forums that are well managed. This is somewhat fostered by my long experience in forum management (got my first mod spot in about '98, launched my own first forum several years later). I speak from experience as a forum member, moderator, supermoderator, global moderator, admin, tech admin, manager and forum owner. And forum software developer. (And let's not forget my experience as server op, the tech guy who controls the forum's server. I currently rent my own dedicated server. In EU for good reason.)
I've been watching forum members and staffers interact for about 20 years, and I am a student of psychology (and minored in Psych in college, because I revel in this subject). Needless to say, this whole forum thing has been endlessly amusing and entertaining to me as a student of psychology, and as a forum purveyor.
CD is okay, not great, not bad. CD's main problem is too big, with from the POV of CD's corporate owner is a good thing since popular = profit. As I have often said, if you use something (e.g. CD) and can't see what the product is, YOU are the product. The corporation that owns CD is fed upon "impressions" (you see an advert) and upon "click throughs" (you click an advert). In the end nothing matters except impressions and click throughs.
Any amusement or satisfaction you receive is a byproduct of CD Inc. getting income. Understanding the terms we can continue to post, but we should understand the venue and their corporate goals.
WTH I'll give CD 5 on a 10 scale any day. Not that Marka and I are friends. Heck, he issued some of the best infractions I've received!!!
Running a forum is not fun, and I'll never understand why people voluntarily work the job of unpaid moderator, except perhaps prestige or ego.
I voluntarily moderated a briefly (maybe five or six year window) very popular, now defunct forum in my twenties, just because it was fun and interesting and I had the time. The woman who owned and administrated it did little hands-on day-to-day, and eventually moved on to other ventures, so it petered out. But it was great fun while it was going.
I voluntarily moderated a briefly (maybe five or six year window) very popular, now defunct forum in my twenties, just because it was fun and interesting and I had the time. The woman who owned and administrated it did little hands-on day-to-day, and eventually moved on to other ventures, so it petered out. But it was great fun while it was going.
Evidently I don't practice what I preach. I'm tech admin on a new forum mainly because I helped write the forum software so I know all the configuration settings. If it takes off I think it might be a fun forum. I'm just putting in my dues to make sure the forum looks good and runs smoothly. I doubt we will ever have any member management problems, and that's where staff jobs are not fun, not unless the staffer has an ego problem. If a staffer has an ego problem then that's a problem for the manager to handle.
I cleaned my FB account of all personal info, deleted all friends, and changed to a fake last name. I don't post anything and don't comment on anything, and only use my FB account so that I can read other FB pages, including businesses who are so stupid to base their advertising on FB, not knowing they are shutting out the vast population who have no FB accounts.
I post here and just try to ignore the negative. A few times I forgot and I got slapped down by the mods.
Actually, I think I'm about to delete mine, too. In fact, I thought of your post a while ago as I was searching on how to do it.
One of my original reasons to join FB was in hopes of finding better maintained sites for things like nightclubs, musicians (tour/gig schedules), and misc events, because so many of their websites weren't kept up like they should be. Well, FB proved even worse in most cases. And, yes, businesses relying solely on FB ARE stupid to assume everyone is on it.
I think the overall negativity is a little above average on CD but nowhere near extreme, compared to the many other forums I frequent.
I made a mistake here about a year ago, trying to get some love advice on my current relationship. Not doing that again. I wanted to get mature points of view. People seriously do not have good reading comprehension skills. And I learned that a lot of people, sadly have immature responses to intimate relationships. So yeah, I learned more about humans. Forums are fun but if you are looking for advice, ask the people who care about you and really know you such as your family or friends. I like to visit forums to get points of view on politics, current events though.
I made a mistake here about a year ago, trying to get some love advice on my current relationship. Not doing that again. I wanted to get mature points of view. People seriously do not have good reading comprehension skills. And I learned that a lot of people, sadly have immature responses to intimate relationships. So yeah, I learned more about humans. Forums are fun but if you are looking for advice, ask the people who care about you and really know you such as your family or friends. I like to visit forums to get points of view on politics, current events though.
There is also the problem of people not having good relationship skills, or having a comprehension of relationships at all. They just bumble through life and relationships happen and they never understand why.
In fact one of the contributory reasons I minored in psychology is that I was introverted and painfully shy in that era, and it took me decades to work myself to my present not-introverted, not-extroverted, just outgoing and friendly with people wherever I go.
And no, dummies, NOT on Internet forums! LOL! This is as related to real life as much as cinema superhero films are related to the real lives we lead.
Well I am trying to be friendly in forums. It helps if everybody is on the same side, and they are just NOT!
I started out on many more different cd threads than I now frequent. Politics got to be a headache but I occasionally add a comment or two. Now I stick to neutral threads and play nice as much as possible.
Then there are those who can argue or insult on a basic food or books thread...
I don't bother with CD's political discussions. It's like walking into no man's land between two entrenched opposing armies. Your only option is getting hit in the head from a conservative bullet or a liberal bullet, metaphorically speaking. You know of course that only rich liberals have guns, carried by their armed guards.
I mostly stick to psychology and writing. I'm retiring from real estate at the end of the year and that's the last I'll be seen there.
However to be fair my opinion that the forum is over-moderated may be tempered by the fact of more bad behaved members.
I don't think this forum is OVER-moderated; I think it's selectively moderated. It often seems arbitrary to me.
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