Alrighty. Before I start, I remind everyone to be mindful this is a moderated forum so be careful with how you respond to my inquiry. So...I certainly see and hear remarks often about the staff here and how awful we are. Often by people who make it clear they or someone they know can do it better. Now I am more than open to the idea that this could very well be true. However, I am always looking to improve and I really desire to make Wordforge a better place. I love it, it's a family of sorts for me. So I would like advice on Administrating here. What can I do to improve myself and the board for everyone's enjoyment? And yes, I am serious. I would like to hear any advice you would care to offer...and remember this isn't the Red Room so keep it clean, please.
um, part of it is you need to ignore the trolling bit. Face, obviously, and when all the mods post in the help desk (You have been a lot better) they always repost with this snyde kind of "Im a mod/admin, I know a LOT more than you, you shouldn't have even asked" listkeeper a lot. Yanno? I like your open mind about these things. It's nice, but some things you just need to quietly dismiss and get on your way.
Don't be so afraid of adding/modifying/removing policy or other "stuff" out of fear of being compared to TrekBBS. That just feeds into the obsession with that place instead of letting the board grow into its own identity.
Can the Silver Room be far behind for all us old crumungenous fogies here? To the question, I don't know Tamar, you've done pretty well afaic. Being a mod/admin doesn't mean being a snob or totalitarian. You're here to enjoy the place as well.
It's one you have to join now, like the white/gray rooms. Just go to group memberships in your user cp.
My opinion is that in day to day posting on the board, I shouldn't be able to tell who the moderators are. Obviously you don't want to keep it secret, but there are a couple who seem to think that having that power suddenly makes their opinion on other board matters a lot more authoritive or official, when they should really just be posters who have keys to a forum in case something goes horribly wrong and needs fixing.
^ Warned for trolling in a non-trolling forum. Comments to Moderator Actions. OK. On topic, Tamar, you do a fine job. You play pretty fair, tend to keep a level head, and admit it when you do make a mistake--and take the steps to fix them. Moderating is a pretty challenging job and the pay is lousy. If I had to come up with your Achilles' Heel, I'd say sometimes you put too much weight on somethings people say here. Granted, that's a damned hard one to call. We all take this place with varying degrees of seriousness. I'm guessing you, Diacanu, and a few other people who do a lot of interacting here tend to take things very, very seriously. For folks like Stallion or Batboy or some others, it's just a place to goof off in free time. And there's a whole spectrum in between. So that makes it a challenge, "pleasing all the people all the time". Also, even with smilies, typed communication across geographical, social, and cultural boundaries is incredibly tricky. It can be hard to tell if "I'm going to burn down your house" is a joke, a threat, or some other thing. I dunno. You do OK. I'm glad you're on the job 96% of the time.
