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If you're not even going to try, then eff off. I'm sick of waiting for you to all-of-a-sudden remember reading what I sent, or waiting for you to remember me. So you know what? Forget it. Why should I put in the effort if you can't even be bothered to read a simple PM?
It's like... coming off of finals and all, moving stuff out of the apartment to come home for the summer... I have absolutely ZERO motivation or drive to mod at all right now.
I find it funny sometimes, how people always say they wish to be mods. Why? So then you get to keep the forums clean, yah? It's a worthy cause, but believe me, there is so much you don't see that goes on every day, and it makes me tired just to think about it.
Here are a few examples of what I go through.
Example 1: Troll invasions
So the other day, I just happened to pop into a random QnA thread. And -what- do I see in there? Some troll, brand-new account, posting Tubgirl in QnA. Mind you, thanks to the chatterbox I'm mostly desensitized to the stuff, but hell, I didn't expect to see it in the early afternoon.
It kind of ******** up the rest of my day, to say the least. Especially the part in which I had to track all of the posts and delete every single one, but no, this troll didn't stop at Tubgirl. They also posted porn all over the GD and CB.
Even worse is a troll commonly referred to as "toobis". Now this guy or gal, don't know which, loves to pop into CB and the "post your pic" thread that has over a gazillion posts with archive errors up the wazoo, and post the Pain Collage. Over 30 times in one post. Now in this collage, there is everything from your not-so-neighborhood-friendly Tubgirl and Goatse to bad porn, pictures of genital diseases in advanced stages and hentai. Not a fun thing to clean up, and less so when in a GINORMOUS thread like that particular one is.
GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS. Troll posting bad s**t --> PM a moderator about the user IMMEDIATELY.
Example 2: Bitchy users part 1 ~ Signatures
Now as we all know, Gaia has its signature limits. That's cool. Makes surfing much easier overall for many. Yet when I disable someone's sig for being a 500kb+ animated GIF that they put in "because it looked cool", I don't really appreciate being asked the everlasting question:
"But there are other people with sigs bigger than mine! Why'd you disable it?!11!!!"
Now this display is normally accompanied by many emotes, causing me to seek shelter in the Emoticon Rape Clinic over in GCD because frankly, you can't just use one emote to voice your dissatisfaction; you have to use enough to stretch my inbox out.
Here's the answer to your query. Just because other users are breaking the rules doesn't mean you can as well. Mods are only human; we're not omnipotent, but it's your own damn responsibility to make sure you're following the rules. You agreed to the TOS after all.
Moral of this story? You see a big sig, report it. Move on.
Example 3: Bitchy users part II ~ Additional Notes
So there comes a time in every Gaian's life when they come across the *dun dun dun* 14g post. These are ones that stretch out the page vertically so badly that I've worn out my "Page Down" button to the point that I can barely see the text anymore. So I delete and warn for the things, and I get some responses like this:
"Why did you delete my post??"
Hello? I wrote it right there! It says "14g scam post; these are false and are prohibited on Gaia" right after the words "Additional Notes"
Moral here: Read the whole PM, please. It tells you more than you think it does.
Example 4: Robot mods? I don't think so:
Now, users in this day and age are all for speed, delivery, and instant gratification. Fast cars, powerful and advanced televisions, free, fast gold here on Gaia. Why else do you see accounts barely an hour old asking for donations?
Now the final installment of this post will deal with how users seem to expect a mod to simply drop everything and address their issue, even though they have an entire 30 other PMs and 30 other users to aid. These kinds of floods tend to occur in waves, and all when I'm not supposed to be online due to REAL LIFE issues that need dealing with.
Hell, I shouldn't even be online now. If Ina found out, she'd have my hide because she says I'm too stressed and overworked.
"I sent you a PM 5 minutes ago, why haven't you responded yet?!?!?!?!!"
"Hello? Are you there???"
"plz help me soon!"
No, I'm not lying either. I've actually gotten processions of these before.
To wrap this burrito up...
It's sad. What so many people don't understand overall is that moderators are people too. We have families, we have friends, we have lives outside of Gaia. Mods are also users, and I don't like how I'm treated in threads sometimes. Because of the events after my modship in the GEN, the one place I thought was my home in which I wouldn't be scrutinized, I've found it difficult to be a "normal" user, just chatting with friends.
Why try chatting if all people see is a cop waiting to bust them for doing something wrong? Oooh, I'm just so scary that I can't be talked to like a normal human being!
We go through so much. "Mods suck!" "I was unfairly banned! mods should die!" "Mods aren't doing enough for the site!" "Mods are unfair!"
Those make me want to mod even less, but still I press on just to support my companions. Without our teamwork, this site would've collapsed long ago, not from Sushi, but from the community.
Conversely however, just being a mod is already an honor I never imagined I would have, because it enables me to meet so many new people and come to a nice love-hate relationship with this site that I've drained so many hours of my life into, not just with the GEN but also with modding.
Final moral of this story:
Give mods a little bit of a break. As hard as it may be to believe, we're people too.
 Aquafire · Sat Jun 11, 2005 @ 09:56am · 42 Comments |
