Talk Elections

I thought it would be interesting to get a properly direct comparison. Apologies for having way too many options, but I didn't want to leave anyone out.

Somebody disapproves of muon2?  That poster should be banned.

For the sake of retaining what little faith in humanity I still have, I'm assuming someone misclicked.

God I hope so.

Approve of all but Bushie, Inks, Nym, and Dave (for not removing Inks).

You guys must be joking - I disapprove of all moderators.

And by the way, I had no idea there was such an enormous gang of them.  Seems incredibly excessive.  We should institute a one-child policy.

muon2 is the blacksheep of the family you disapprove of, believe us.

Every active mod is doing a fine job, even Inks.

I wouldn't know - I've never really noticed him.


Haha, now I know you who you are!  I'd forgotten all about you.  Did you used to have a different name?  Holden Caulfield or Frodo or something like that?

You're thinking of Frodo, who still posts.

Approve of all the active ones.

I have a good deal of difficulty in differentiating both toadies and bores, so, please don't take offense at my forgetting you.

I do hope this will lay to rest the claim that we just disapprove of Inks because we hate all moderators.

In an ideal world you'd forget who I am entirely.

Is that some kind of threat? 

If not, and you wish to be entirely forgotten, I would suggest that you stop insulting me in posts mentioning me by name in threads about me.

Approve of Al, obviously. Don't really care otherwise.

disapprove of all
approve of Dave

Why would you approve of Dave?  He turned them loose on us.

Approve of all the active ones except Al.

I approved of 5.

I voted disapprove of Dave for the lulz.

Bushie and Spade aren't moderators anymore, so probably shouldn't be on the list.

That is a truly insane amount of moderators for a forum of this size.

()

Approve f just about all, except for that BigDaddy fella.. he seems like big trouble.

In reality, I didn't vote. There are some people on there who I don't really approve, but they are just inactive. 

At least half of them are inactive or barely active.

I voted carefully and thoughtfully for each moderator.  I disapprove of Inks because he takes his job too seriously and meddles in things that should just play out.  The forum survived the time prior to his crowning as moderator and will survive again without his moderatorship.

There were 35,000 posts last month, and well over 50,000 in the month right before the election. About how many moderators would you say would be sufficient to handle that many, given that not every moderator is online at any given time, and that some moderators are not around for two or three days at a clip?

Approve or neutral (thus abstaining) for most.

Alcon was my only disapproval.

Actually, the main thing we could use more moderators for these days is for dealing with the influx of spam-trolls who flood the forum with nonsense.  Though as I said on the mod board, the most logical way to handle that would be to give the existing mods the power to put posters on mod review with the click of a button, rather than the backdoor method of infracting them up to 50, and to give Nym the ability to simultaneously delete all posts by posters who were banned with fewer than 100 posts or so, so we don't have to go through the tedious process of deleting them one by one.

But that assumes we lived in a universe where Dave actually responded to our appeals for changes in the moderation system, so it's kind of a moot point....

Has Mikado transitioned into "this forum is too boring/I don't care to post but I still visit it out of habit" phase?

...?

Just curious: are you resentful that I criticized you over gay marriage?  I thought we had a friendly, productive PM conversation about that.  I didn't know we ended things negatively.

Approve of all but Al and Joe (and that has more to do with them being assholes than any modding they may have or have not done).

Nah, he's less active than before, but still handles some mod reports.  Not as many as Inks though.  Here's a list of every mod who's handled at least one moderator report in the last two weeks:

Al (but only to remove the points that Inks gave him)
AndrewCT
badger
Ernest
Gustaf
Inks
The Mikado
Mr. Moderate
Mr. Morden
nym
Torie

Of course, there are other mods, like Beet or Tender Branson, who are active posters but just don't have to do that much moderating (at least not at this time of the election cycle) because their boards are either not that active or pretty well behaved and hardly anyone ever reports anything.  Bacon King is another one who has been very active in the past, during the 2012 campaign when the 2012 board's traffic was enormous, but just doesn't have nearly as much to do in odd numbered years.

I've actioned one post today, but the International General Discussion board is relatively calm.

That's ridiculous in my opinion.  Alcon has always been very even-keeled about moderating...in fact, when he was the only one on FC/OT, there was never a broo-ha-ha over anything he did.

I see that of the active Mods, I have managed to secure more negative votes per Mod action taken than any of them going away, and am now in second place to boot. What happened? :P

Don't take it too hard, I voted 'disapprove' of each and every mod because of my disapproval of the system, not you specifically. 

Users who disapprove of Al should be banned on sight.

I have some moderating time off now in the polling boards, and have to moderate again in about a few months, when there are more (crazy polls) that either have newly-logged-on members screaming "Christie is a fu**ing fatass joke" or "McAuliffe is a stupid drunk moron" etc ... :P

my numbers; 98% approve 2% disaprove these are acurate and not wishful thinking

Well in that case, it's been nice knowing you

Mr Moderate at 54/10 is a total joke, he is a horror.

And it would have been nice if that conversation was confined to PMs as opposed to the unnecessary spectacle that you made it into.

He started the forum (I selected both options for him btw).

Yeah, it's ridiculous to disapprove of Dave since this place wouldn't even exist without him.

Disapprove of all.

unless you believe your membership here has had a negative influence on your life.  similarly, one can have a negative opinion of God if he prefers he had never been born at all.

A poster can leave, and a living human can commit suicide. Dave and God both left us an opt-out option.

*bows*

Sorry man :\ You expressed an opinion in public.  I challenged it (respectfully) in public and then moved it to PM when you asked.  If that's grounds to resent me, I guess that's your right, but yikes dude...

I strongly approve of Bacon King and Mr. Morden. Disapprove of David Leip. Don't have an opinion on the others, just haven't interacted with them enough.

I've had the pleasure of meeting Badger, muon2, and The Mikado in person.........all wonderful people in the real world.

If you ever find yourself in sunny Southern California, let me know ~

Excellent point that will be ignored by the people who need to understand it the most.

Uh, thats a big of a tangent. You can easily argue (whether you agree or not) that Dave has neglected his duties as a owner/administrator and moderator.

and because of that, you can't leave?  Odd.

Indeed!  My next west coast adventure will be in Portland this fall, however.

Don't forget Houston. I might share one of my drinks with you.

I only fly through that hole, not stop.  :P

Official Results

+70 (09) Bacon King
+67 (13) muon2
+60 (13) Beet
+59 (16) Ernest
+58 (22) Mr Morden
+57 (16) Tender Branson
+57 (18) Mr Moderate
+55 (14) Alcon
+51 (22) ag
+51 (22) Badger
+49 (17) Torie
+47 (13) afleitch
+47 (19) The Mikado
+40 (13) Gustaf
+40 (19) BigDaddyTX
+39 (18) Nym90
+32 (14) Joe Republic
+25 (11) Dave Leip
+24 (26) big bad fab
+18 (09) Al
+09 (30) Lunar
+09 (30) Peter
+02 (18) MasterJedi
-02 (32) Emsworth
-03 (31) supersoulty
-08 (26) Sam Spade
-11 (09) Inks.LWC
-32 (25) Bushie

Ouch

BushOK is a moderator?

What?

Good to see that all active moderators except Inks have positive approval ratings. I hope that will bust the myth that people who disagree with Inks only do so because they're anti-Mod.

That doesn't discount the fact that some of those votes against me were done because people are anti-mod.  And like I've said before, I've been unfairly made the scape goat for people who dislike the mods.  Many people who dislike my moderation activities have made those decisions based on faulty accusations and assumptions.

Plus, it's fair to assume that the less active posters who don't have a problem with the mods probably wouldn't have voted here.

Inks, you can slice it however you want, but the fact remains that there is an overwhelming number of serious posters (starting with Al) who have serious issues with your moderating style. Good arguments have been put forward, but you have systematically ignored them and instead you chose to only respond to the most frivolous accusations. In short, you deliberately focus on the trolls and ignore those who have legitimate issues against you. Now, you can keep this game on as long as you want. It's pretty clear you can hold on to your job forever, thanks to Dave's inactivity. Of course it's easier to convince yourself that it's always everyone else's fault. But if you had an ounce of common sense, you'd realize that it is not normal for a mod to constantly anger a majority of the forum's most valuable contributors and a good share of the moderators themselves.

If you saw Al on the Mod Corner, I doubt you'd consider him a credible person to criticize me.

And how have I not taken you guys seriously?  I'm not modding the boards anymore... you got what you guys wanted.

So what? If it's just a "cooling off" period, so that after one month you come back and start again moderating in the same style, what's the point?

It's not like we even really want you out. What we would really like is you to reconsider your moderating style, and actually take into account our objections to it. If you were actually able to have a critical judgment on your own actions and understand that having 3/5 of the forum community and half of the mods criticizing you is not normal, we'd have no problem with you keeping your job. A mod should not be so controversial, they should enjoy a certain degree of confidence from the forum community.

Why don't their opinions count?

Wouldn't a "cooling off" period mean that I'd come back different?  Your post doesn't even make sense.

Half the mods have criticized me?  I'd like to see the evidence for that.

And like I said... I get slammed because I'm transparent about what I do.  If Al posted publicly his list of people he thinks should be banned, you'd be more concerned about him than me.

It's up to you, obviously. But since you haven't even acknowledged that you did anything wrong so far, why should we be hopeful that you change anything?



I don't give a crap what a moderator thinks. What matter is the way he acts. Al's board is probably the most quiet, friendly and qualitative of all.

I have no clue... you're the one who said it.  I can't explain why you said what you said.  But yes, if I come back to modding FC/OT I probably won't infract too much of anything.  That being said, at this point, I have no plans on coming back any time soon.

What I said (based on what you yourself announced) is that you planned to come back after one month. Without any indication that you planned to change anything. What I said is that this was in no way satisfactory to the problem. If you have changed your mind and now have given up on the job altogether, that's great news.

I never said I planned on coming back in one month...

And didn't you just say that you weren't desiring my resignation, but just a change?  So why is it great news that I'm not going to be modding the boards?

Are you unable to read?



Highlighted for your convenience.

1. I never said I planned on coming back in one month.
2. "But yes, if I come back to modding FC/OT I probably won't infract too much of anything."

Yes I did acknowledge your posting this, and commented positively on it. That's a good development. But correct me if I'm wrong, this is the first time you clearly announce your resignation-or-activity-limitation, right? I don't remember reading that anywhere else.

Yes you did......whether you deleted the post or not, you said it.

No, Gramps, I said I would be gone AT LEAST one month. At that point, I was going to reevaluate what I would do. I never said I'd be returning on March 1st.

And I'm not resigning either. I'm on an indefinite leave. At this point, I have no intention to return, but I don't know what will end up happening down the road.

()

And for those who don't believe me, here's a screenshot of my post on the mod board.  I can't disprove that I never posted something, but it wouldn't really make sense for me to tell the mod board one thing and the community something different:

()

What has Bacon King done to be so loved?

It makes more sense to have "neutral" in the middle between "approve" and "disapprove"... Good job though. :)

It's not really neutral... it's didn't vote.

Not voting indicates neutrality of opinion.

Yeah, that's pretty much the definition of neutral. The lack of a stance. 88 people voted and didn't take a stance on those Moderators.

And you're right about the disapproval Antonio, but I already deleted the spreadsheet so that ship has sailed.

I would have thought my proposal to ban Hillary2012 would have led to higher disapprovals, but apparently not ... :P

Nobody liked Hillary2012.

Not give out death points.

His idea for a moderation based on editing posts rather than deleting them was great. Anyone remember that awesome blue text?

Yes, that by itself should make everyone approve of his moderation.

Inks, I think you just need to chill out and exercise better judgment in your infracting. The reason why this system was created in the first place was because we had a problem with trolls and people like Hammie raising hell. You need to focus on those people and leave long time posters alone, within reasonable constraints (hard to judge, admittedly, but the other moderators seem to have figured it out). I don't know if that is a "fair" application of the TOS or not, but that is the way the forum community wants it and I think you should respect our wishes.

I'm sorry, Sbane, but I will never buy into the "old-timers" should get preferential treatment argument.

Yeah, I also strongly dislike this logic.

Good posters should get preferential treatment.

Well, I agree with this. But you must also realize that long time posters might do a light trolling from time to time, and when they get infracted for it, everyone gets pissed about it. I am not saying that new posters should be infracted just for being new, but they should get less leeaway. At least that is what people seem to want.....

There are relatively recent posters who have quickly proved their worth (see Nathan, or Homely), while some old timers sometimes just literally get themselves banned (Jmfcst). I think it is perfectly legitimate for the mods to allow some mild form of trolling, as long as it's not disruptive of the forum's atmosphere, but I don't think seniority should be a criterion per se.

I disagree with that as well.  If someone is a good poster, a few infraction points here and there won't matter in the long run.  If someone is racking up massive amounts of infraction points, they probably aren't a "good poster".

Well, Inks, the posters want good posters or well established and well liked posters to get more leeway.

Which posters?  The ones who would get more leeway!  ;)

Al's example proves that a very mild and harmless form of trolling can get one of our best posters in serious trouble. Enough said.

We've rehashed the Al thing several times.  It was one incident; overall, good posters don't rack up posts.  But I would contend that repeatedly reposting an image simply to prove a point and piss off a moderator makes one less, rather than more, of a good poster.


Who are "the posters"?  I'm sure if you ask newer posters, they'd disagree with this.  And as for giving "well liked" posters more leeway - that's just dangerous.  Who determines who is "well liked"?  The mods?  Yikes.  FF/HP polls?  Yikes.

I think it's pretty clear from what Dave has said that we should be fair to everybody, not playing favorites.

There's an ongoing thread discussing the fact that most mods are people who have been here very long.  So should mods give other mods preferential treatment under your system?  That could have some dangerous consequences.

Guys, you need to look the other way on occasional trolling is the point (which most of the mods do anyways). Now, with someone with only 50 posts, you might not be sure whether they are a good poster as a whole or not, thus they would naturally get less leeway. I am not saying that everyone who registered after 2010 or some other arbitrary date should be treated differently, just that the posting history of a poster should be taken into account when dealing with reported posts.

Everyone knows Al can be a bit of a dick. I personally know that very well, but overall he is a valued poster. Thus, he should not be put on mod review barring some extraordinary circumstance. Re-posting some nonsense in some horse related thread does not meet that criteria.

I have my Board pretty pussy whipped (:P), but my approach is to take the temperature of my Board. Unless I see something outrageous, if the temperature is "normal" I just don't do much. If it developed a fever, then the issue is how to turn the dial down. I expect "good posters" to help me do that if need be, and if they don't, I suspect I would be pretty even handed in whatever sanctions I settle upon, which might not be death points, but some sort of chastisement, or whatever. The issue is how to maximize the utility of the Board for the community as a whole, while not allowing something that would annoy DAVE if he saw it.

Hopefully, most are comfortable with that.

One incident in which you put your colleague on mod-review, bro.......

This is exactly what a moderator should do.

Why the hell am I not more popular?

Honestly, I'm surprised you scored as well as you did. No offense, but I've always thought you've come across as an unfunny douche. But even MasterJedi has a positive approval rating, so I don't know what to think about these results.

You tend to be a bit parsimonious in your complements don't you? :)

Maybe that was a little harsh :P

How about this description: He tries way too hard to be kewl on the interwebs, and it shows.

That what I was aiming for. 

I want to change my vote on Torie(I approve of his work now).