Mod to Member ratio... (Current Discussion: Forum Specific Images)

[Houndoom_Lover]

Yeah, I like to view mods as brooms :3 Helpful broom people! And Supermods would be Vacuumes.... :0 What comes next? Adminstrators? Bleech. Donators can be Frebrees

*points up* :3 That. I'm getting sleepy. Someone say something knowldgeable to spark the disccusion up again.

[Crazy Elf Boy]

Just a quick dash of logic here. Weren't people modded for their dedication to something (e.g. Spending lots of time on certain forums) which means that a mod would most likely to spend more time logged on then a normal member. Also some mods have a bit of work to do so are most likely to be on longer so they can get it done. People don't go to schools at 4pm and wonder why there are so many teachers while there is a lack of students.

[RedStarWarrior]

*points up* :3 That. I'm getting sleepy. Someone say something knowldgeable to spark the disccusion up again.

You are the dust bunny of TPM.

[PNT510]

Using the broom analogy I can never recall being at work and being upset at having too many brooms. I can say it really sucks when you need one and can't find one.

[DarkestLight]

<< << Whoa I just saw this thread :O. HEY MUGGLES, GET IN HERE! They are talking about Blue Things and shiny objects!

[Houndoom_Lover]

:3 I'm freakin' adorable if that's what you mean.

If you have too many brooms, you'll run out of room to keep them.

Oh no!!! DL has summoned the muggles!!! :0

[The_Missing_Link]

You're right, Blade. It's a selfish thought but it's also true. A mod doesn't want to be penalized for doing good work. Doesn't make sense

I'm all for going back to the time where mods were recognized by the amount of Pokeballs. I always thought that was cool

[kainashi]

I'm all for going back to the time where mods were recognized by the amount of Pokeballs. I always thought that was cool

i miss those. i used to give myself more when i was admin.

[Phoenixsong]

As someone who has never been intimidated by the moderation staff of any forum before even joining it or taking a closer look to see what they're like, I'm afraid I can't really sympathize with people who "see too many bold names and get scared off". Hell, I barely even notice things like that. They're only members who have to do work instead of just sitting around and talking, so I really don't know why people would care (unless they were, as Heald suggested, showing up for the express purpose of making trouble); sure, maybe you've had a bad experience with the staff at one forum, and that does happen, but if you let it color your opinion of every forum and automatically associate bold name with "jerk" then you're just being childish. :/

...I don't know. As I said, I just don't get why this is a problem and I don't see a reason to change things, but since everyone else seems to it's probably just me. Attracting more members is a good thing no matter what, but attracting them for the sole purpose of making the bold names less scary--especially when it's entirely possible that things like timezones and schedules are the reason you see more of one type of member than another--is silly. I think the people who are scared off by active mods from the word "go" need an attitude adjustment, not a mod staff adjustment.

And as far as I'm aware there are plenty of active non-mod members. They may not all be on at the same time, and as I said even more is definitely better since times are a little slow, but that doesn't mean they aren't there and aren't participating.

Do whatever you all think is best, I suppose, since my experience is apparently in the minority. I don't have a problem with going back to the pokéball thing, and at least a little condensing here and there might be a good idea.

[mr_pikachu]

Just broadly responding to earlier comments... the apparently problematic mod-to-member ratio seems to me like more of a function of low active membership than a high mod count. In that case, the goal should be to increase membership, not eliminate moderators. That's basically what we're trying to do with the website revival.

Also, a few others mentioned why some forums, such as Fanfic, need so many mods. Now, to be fair, forums like Classic Generation don't conduct such high-maintenance activities; hence why they don't need as many mods. We recognize that, and as such avoid over-modding. If Fanfic only had, say, three mods, we'd have to significantly reduce the number of events/projects we ran. Between the Silver Pencil/Golden Pen Awards, the Hall of Fame, the E-zine, the Writing Sprints/Contests, the Fanfic Trivia Game, and a host of other activities, it just takes a lot of time. With so much going on, we have to periodically rotate responsibilities just to keep up with everything. I'm sure other forums such as RPG and ASB have similar needs, based on what their mods have to do.

HL, I believe you were the one complaining awhile back that Fanfic mods weren't doing enough stuff for your liking. Reducing the mod count isn't going to help that.

Finally, whether or not you believe it, I and the other moderators frequently discuss issues like this. Whether it's about restoring the website, culling inactive moderators, changing the forum layout, or something else entirely, we're always trying to find ways to make positive changes. (I might remind everyone that the aforementioned website revival wouldn't have happened without the efforts of the moderators.) In the end, we naturally only make a change if the benefits of doing so outweigh the detriments. Slashing staff members at a time in which we're trying to rejuvenate TPM doesn't seem like a particularly reasonable change.

[Telume]

^ TLDR: Lets just keep it the way it is!

And actually on that note we should all thank Jeff, he busted his ass to get the back-end of the site working. It's not easy to code an entire thing from scratch I'll tell you that.

[Gavin Luper]

I largely agree with Phoenixsong and mr_pikachu. I don't see a logical argument for reducing the number of mods we have, and the issue of blue text/pokeballs is such a trivial thing I don't think it really bears arguing about.

What we should be focusing on is attracting new members, and to do that, yes, a website revival is of massive importance, but we also need to build activity and a more lively culture on the forums, which depends on both mods and members getting out there and doing more activities, posting more, and so on.

[PancaKe]

I'm just gonna quietly point out that PancaKe once modded Fanfic >_>;

People know why I originally stopped modding fanfic. And if you'd like to know too, I'm happy to share with you the IRL things that were happening ^__^

And I'm not going to deny that I would love to mod fanfic again, and was extremely close to modding it as well (until classy_cat18 got one extra vote). I love fanfic and I love to see it active. Just like I love this place and want to see it active again. Hence why, mod or not mod, I am still here, I am still posting, and I am still contributing.

Hmm that comes across as really snappy and defensive. =\ not meant to be at all.




In regards to other discussion:

- After reading both sides of the story, it seems silly to demod mods because there are too many.
- We need to be focusing on creating an environment new people would want to join, thus new topics and conversations and activity that everyone can join in on. There are several people who contribute immensley to this, and I think that's fantastic but its something we all need to be doing

That is all.

[Master Rudy]

You can't expect to mod people when activity is high and then demod when they are not. Whereas being modded is seen as a reward for being a good contributor, being demodded is seen as a punishment, and the member who is demodded would most likely leave the board (unless they were demodded by request or due to a long stint of inactivity). The quickest way to see a whole bunch of our most valued members walk out of the door is to demod them.

As far as the last sentence goes, truer words cannot be spoken on a forum. In the more extreme cases the demoding of a well liked member can lead to many people jumping ship if the person was well liked. In fact I myself left TPM for a good long time following my own demodding. It was equal parts bullshit for being 'inactive' (for not even two weeks), behind the scenes politics involving a former member who shall remain nameless, he said/she said and finally a few misunderstandings thrown in for good measure. I'm not going to go into detail past that since I've made up with most of those involved. I will however say that what Heald pointed out is true. It may not always seem like it on the surface but the mods of almost any active board do a ton of work cleaning up the bullshit and the old topics (not to mention other things). Needless to say I was rather unhappy about the whole thing and deeply resented some of the behind the scenes politics for quite awhile. In fact I'll even freely admit that in the rare cases that the subject came up that I still get occasionally sour when thinking about it. But in any case it's all in the past. This isn't designed to point fingers at anyone. I just mearly want to share my own views since I feel that Heald brought up a very valid point on the matter.

Even if a paticular forum seems inactive I can assure everyone here that behind the scenes most of them are anything but. Look at Fanfic and RPG. On the surface it may not seem like the mods do much. However in addition to cleaning up the rare cases of spam in those forums, those paticular mods organize the various awards topics, come up with/amend the forum rules that are for that paticular board alone, maintain/create the various important topics on those forums, ect.

Also setting aside the issue of demodding folks consider this: it's true that some forums may be less active. However leaving it up to a single mod on that fact is a bit foolish. Let's say that we've got a single mod in miscellaneous. Now I'm going to randomly pull a time zone out of my ass and say that the mod lives in the Caucasus Time Zone (where in the blue hell is Caucasus anyway? ). This leaves the potential of having that paticular board modless at very bad times. Naturally this whole make spam attacks, flame wars and the like much harder and much more time consuming to clean up.

As far as TPM goes this is the way I think it should be. At the very least have three mods per active forum. This in no way means demod the people on less active ones simply because they get no action. Likewise that also doesn't mean a dead forum is in sudden need of new mods simply because it's being manned by only one person. Also I personally think it's never a bad idea to have mods who complement each other with their online times. Case in point would be myself, Kalah and Gav in the RPG forum back near the end of 2003. As I'm sure you all know Gav lives in England. As for myself and Kalah we were in the Eastern and Central Time Zones respectively. I tend to be a night owl so I had the late night covered. Usually I'd be going to bed just as Gav would be coming online. Due to the time zone he's in that usually covered mid morning to early afternoon pretty well. By the time he was either tied up, busy, going to bed, ect. we'd usually have Kalah and in some cases me as well online. As a result RPG was a very well covered forum back then. While I know I can't talk for either of them I can say that whenever I was online and not tied up with something else that I at least poked my head in at least every 30-60 minutes. Assuming that they did the same or similar things as far as policing the board goes I'd say that at worse there was maybe a 4-6 hour stretch where RPG had none of it's mods online.

Of course those numbers I pulled out assume none of us were busy with school/work and that we didn't have much else to do at that paticular moment. However I think it makes the case of having mods that complement each other's online times pretty well. After all what would an entire board worth of mods do if they were all online at the same time when a problem came up? Flip a coin? Do rock, paper, sissors ala DBZ? All three of them yell at the same time (or in other words one brings the horse, another kills it and the last one beats the dead fuck)?

Well I guess that's my two cents on the matter of demodding folks. In short it doesn't have to happen. It almost always leads to people getting pissy, finger pointing ect. Plus if it seems like that we have too many mods online then perhaps you aren't taking the various time zones into account. Usually if I log onto TPM on the weekend at what would be considered normal evening hours for more of the US, I'll see a fairly good mix of members. Likewise if I'm up late and log in at say 4 AM my time then there stands a good chance that I'll see almost no one stateside on unless they happen to be west coasters. On that same token however I'll see all the Aussies such as Drago, Pan and Shazza. Finally I've actually had times where I've logged in and be the sole person on TPM for an hour or so. These cases are rare but they do happen. All I can say is if your seeing more mods than members then try logging in at a time that isn't normal for you. The results may suprise and shock you ^_~

[Angel Blossom]

Some of you guys are making it sound as if the administrators use moderator promotions as a tool to keep the better members from leaving (I'm looking at you, mr_pikachu). That may or may not be true, but I'm inclined to believe it is, at least in part. You'll find that on many smaller free forums people usually mass promote their friends to moderator positions. Why? As an incentive to remain active and participate. That's why I believe there are so many moderators here; it has nothing to do with "needing" 20-30 mods as TPM can easily survive with 3-4 active super moderators and 1-2 administrators.

I think the real question to ask is why people here have such a bizarre emotional attachment to their 'coveted' moderator positions on a forum devoid of much activity. If the moderators here truly care about this place, they won't care if they're demodded. Sure, they might be slightly annoyed at first, but if you explain the circumstances to them then I'm sure they'd understand. They'll simply continue to participate in the everyday discussions here if all goes well. However, if the moderators do care that they're demodded, then clearly they consider their moderator position more important than anything else on this forum. If they end up leaving over it, they probably didn't care much about this place or its community to begin with.

So, if it were up to me, I'd start by culling the moderator numbers down and then promote a select few to super moderator status, which won't compromise on efficiency. This'll prove who are committed to this place and who are simply remaining here because of power lust. But I can almost envisage that most people here will find some reason to oppose this, so I simply suggest not promoting anybody else from now on. You really need to find another way to keep the regular members participating in discussions instead of heavily relying on temptation; this is why introducing rules that limits discussion, especially at this point in time, is asinine. Even at this very moment, nobody can make a legitimate, lawful comment in the picture thread unless they post a picture because that rule is currently in effect. Those five comments fill up very fast.

Before you know it, you'll have even more moderators in your ranks when you don't necessarily "need" them.

[Bear]

AB, why are you still on about this Picture thread thing? Give it a rest already. You got infracted, it's not the end of the world. Stop trying to start a crusade against the moderators, suggesting they are power hungry and unfairly targeting you. The rest of us are adapting to the rule, so why do you refuse? My guess is because you have too much pride to admit that you were wrong, and would rather hold this grudge forever. In any case, I find your continued accusations against the moderators for being power hungry to be a bit illogical and 'conspiracy theory'-ish. If you're going to make these statements, I suggest you start providing real evidence instead of this 'I'm just the innocent peace loving victim' argument.

Also, this is a dumb question as I probably already know the answer, but is there any way you can make your text a tiny bit bigger? Old men like me have trouble reading it

[Angel Blossom]

I do think it's a stupid rule, and I already mentioned earlier in this thread that I didn't care that I was infracted. What I did care about, however, was that Lady Vulpix committed the same wrong I did by responding to me, dragging the debacle on even further and breaking that new rule herself in the process. Of course, she goes unpunished and won't admit that she's in the wrong as well.

By the way, if you read my previous post here carefully, you'll see that it was primarily concerning moderator numbers, not the picture thread. Put that grudge you have with me aside for a moment, if possible, and you'll see just that.

[shazza]

There are 7,164 members and 27 mods/supermods/admins. That's a good 99.63:0.37 ratio. I know it would be ideal that the ratio was below 0.35% of members, I can really sympathize with you guys, but I just don't think there really should be any cause for concern until it goes above 0.40%. I guess we just need to be alert, but not alarmed. Just keep a regular update on the ratio, and if we notice an alarming increase, then we know we should strip Zak of his SuperMod duties.

[Angel Blossom]

There are 7,164 members and 27 mods/supermods/admins. That's a good 99.63:0.37 ratio. I know it would be ideal that the ratio was below 0.35% of members, I can really sympathize with you guys, but I just don't think there really should be any cause for concern until it goes above 0.40%.

How many of those 7,164 members are actually active? 50?

[shazza]

The member list unfortunately does not have the ability to account for who and who is not regularly active without checking individual users, therefore, I can not answer your question.

[Bear]

Eh, I'd rather not get into this back-and-forth with you here, as it would make me guilty of the exact same thing I'm trying to stop. But regardless of whether "most" of your post was concerning moderator numbers or not, you still brought up the subject of the picture thread again, and used it to assert your distaste for the event that occurred. You could have left the last three or four sentences off of your post and it still would have presented your opinion (which is perfectly acceptable). Instead, right at the end, you used the current topic to sneak in your issue with LV and the picture thread. We all know you disagree with the way things were handled. What I'm suggesting is that you take it to PMs instead of bringing it up continuously in multiple topics in an effort to garner support from the other members. That is how you are coming across.

I honestly (believe it or not) don't have any sort of grudge against you. I don't know very much about you, so I am in no position to make judgements or hold grudges. What I am doing is responding to posts that I disagree with in an effort to promote debate and simultaneously discourage flaming and power struggles. I guess you just got lucky in that a few of your posts caught my attention. Maybe it's the pink font!

Either way, please don't take my posts the wrong way. I've seen that you are struggling with this issue at the moment, and I am trying to help you resolve it constructively and more quickly get back to your normal, happy posting life. It's painful to see so much division going on when this board needs unity and support more than ever. It's like watching US politics -_-.

EDIT: lol, in the time it took me to type that post there were three others in between. I slow

[Angel Blossom]

What happened in the picture thread was pertinent to my discussion on member activity. Lady Vulpix always complains that I'm never giving enough examples to reinforce my outlandish claims (in this case, moderators who are trying to worsen the problem we have with member activity, so I gave an example of just that). I hope there's nothing wrong with it. o.o

shazza: even if we make the outrageous claim that there are 100 active registered users here, 27% mods (at least) is quite high. Don't you think?

[Clark]

teh m0dZ r out 2 get us. omgawdzzz ran 4 ur lyf.

just go outside kids, mods/non-mods means nothing if no one posts.

[Houndoom_Lover]

Didn't we decide there wouldn't be demodding like ten posts ago and forum condencing and maybe changing the colour to pokeballs?

I still havn't changed my mind. At least for a little while, I want to see how the forum would work if we had less mods. Everyone's acting like it'll be forever if it even occured. I don't think the people who are mods now will be going anywhere. You'd get your job as forum janitors/handymen/put upper of awards back as soon as its over. Its just a mouse click, after all.

:0 TPM might have some crazy thing though. The first child sacrafices.

I'm not saying demod everyone because they're on a power trip. :0 I think I may that clear. My intentions should be clear. I just want to see the site run most efficantly.

I'm not saying demodding is the only solution, either. It was just the first that came to mind.

Because we need more members that are constantly active.

And we can get that by either making the active people here basic members. Or by getting new ones.

Now let's put our brain to that, shall we?

[Weasel Overlord]

You see, what I don't get is why people need to be regular members to be allowed to stay around. Yes okay, so we have a few mods, but they're also some of the most active members in their particular forums. What difference will it make, demodding people? There'll still be exactly the same amount of active people around - only perhaps, as Bear said earlier, there'll be a few less if people leave.
EDIT: with regards to the first sentence in my reply, even the thread title implies that you don't think of mods as members at all.

I'd also like to say that I find the whole mod-to-member ratio laughable. If you take it forum by forum, looking at, say, RPG since I know that the best. We have three mods in RPG - all at different timezones. Now are you honestly telling me that there's less than three active members other than us mods in RPG? No, there's loads. I can think of at least ten, off-hand. Personally, I don't see that as mods outnumbering active members. Same goes for Fanfic. They have four mods - there's a lot more than just four people active in that forum. Same goes for Misc. I could go on.

I think the idea that people would leave for being demodded is a bit silly. The reason I'm here, personally, is to RP. Not being a mod wouldn't change that. If anything, it'd give me LESS work to do in this place, lol. The thing is, people don't seem to be taking into account all the work mods do for their boards. It's not just a case of deleting/moving/closing threads and dealing with spam etc. There's always discussions going on about stuff we can do to increase activity, garner new members and so on.

Also, don't forget, that should we get hit by spammers or whatever, and there's only one mod per forum, it'll be whenever they can get online before it's dealt with. If there was only, say, Heald modding Misc, anything that happened there would have to wait til he got online, English timezone, before it was dealt with - unless there was an Admin or Smod on, which isn't necessarily every day. I just remember when RPG was hit when RazorLeaf's account got hacked, it took me absolutely HOURS to put all the threads back to where they were, cos Roy wasn't able to get online at the time. Just a tad too much work for one person.

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

Warning: Yes I am a mod, so everything I say can be understood as saving my own butt. Honestly, on my loyal pokemon soul, it's not.

If you don't join a forum because there are to many mods, then you have issues. It's not like we're watching your steps on every occasion here in the forum. Hell no.

Also, when I got modded I was surprised at the load of work the mods do around here. If you could look at the mod-forum you'd see that. Really!

Ofcourse you can't and that's the fun side for us.

As Heald says, it's an ungrateful job at times. I can't complain at ASB and such, but modding forums like Misc. can really be uh.

I don't really see any good reasons for getting less mods. The place is hectic enough as it is.

Also, besides our own forum (and the supermods), we're regular members in EVERY other forum. We just blink a little blue if you look at the bottom of the main page.

[Heald]

I honestly would not want to mod Misc by myself. Whenever I am online, I can be online for as little as 1 hour and as much as 6 hours, maybe 8 on one of my days off.

I would like to address the point of a mass demodding and just having 4-5 supermods, even though it is an incredibly stupid idea: I primarily only look at Misc. I have an RPG, and I have occasional interests in ASB, Fanfic and Video Games. The only forum I actually look at enough regularly to actually know enough to make informed decisions is Misc. I'm not prepared to go digging through every post in order to see if people are behaving. In fact, that's not even what Supermods are for. Supermods are simply there to back-up regular moderators and have powers to moderate in a forum if that forum's moderator is not online. Their job isn't to sift through every post, like you are implying it should be.

Furthermore, this isn't like other forums where the modding staff can be considered a staff, where full-time active participation is a requirement. Here, mods are just members who can be trusted with responsibility. Mods here aren't required to be online any more than once a week, and even then if one is inactive for longer, it isn't a big deal. At other forums, even a few days of inactivity could warrant a demodding. That's because we actually have lives, work, school, outside interests. The vast majority of mods here are over 20 and don't even care about Pokemon any more. It is a very angst-free, community-driven environment that mods have here, far better than other communities where mods are expected to act like some kind of secret police force, and it is thanks in-part to the fact we have a wide-ranging committee of members who have taken on this responsibility to moderate the forums. If you cut it down, you're increasing the workload and the angst and stress that mods have to deal with. I'm glad I have two friends I can trust, RSW and Drago, to help me moderate this forum, and I honestly wouldn't want it any other way. If you took those two away, not only would this place become a lot worse (due to the fact I wouldn't even be able to moderate it even 25% of the time) but it'd be a lot more stressful doing this job on my own. I like to think of this as an outside interest that I am voluntarily committed to, rather than a job I am chained to.

Finally, even though it seems there is a rather high proportion of mods to members, there is also a disproportionate amount of activity to active members. Even though we probably have less than a hundred regulars, we easily see enough activity to justify the mod team. We get around 10 posts an hour during our quiet times and far more in our peak periods.

[Houndoom_Lover]

Well, since the last posts basically rephrased everything that was said hours ago, I'm going to keep saying what I said. What are we doing to increase membership? Its just the site appearence, is all.

And people needa stop taking shit so personal. Any time someone brings a point up as nebulous as this, people go and piss themselfs. I swear.

*looks up from my Word document*

We were getting somewhere, with the trasfering to neon blue to pokeballs to look less intimidated (at least for a while) forum condensing, and a getting more members so it doesn't look off. Apperences are everything for sites the run on member contributation. For any site, really.

Let's work on the ideas, shall we? That would be productive.

[Lady Vulpix]

I think what the forum needs is more members and more activity.

[Clark]

I think what the forum needs is more members and more activity.

Give us a talk-shit forum. Misc topics contain half of what was actually posted. By the time I get to a topic, 90% of the posts are deleted, and none of the replies actually make sense.
No one wants to post if theres a bunch of mods just deleting because *they* are offended or afraid people can't handle what is being said.

[Houndoom_Lover]

I think so too We need tons more members. I want so many, I won't beable to recognize them. I'll be like "Who the heck are you"

And they'll be like "I've been here for six months."

And I'll be like, "No way."


:0 Sorry, I just ate my weight in sugar.

I wonder what would make this place more active. I mean, its not like we're dead. We're just stable. We need an influc...influ..influx of new people that stay. Or old people. Just more constant members.


I concur with Ace! We need a shit talking forum!! I think TPM is the only forum I know of that doesn't have a Spam/Bitch/Chitchat/Talk Shit section ...

[Gavin Luper]

Well, since the last posts basically rephrased everything that was said hours ago, I'm going to keep saying what I said. What are we doing to increase membership? Its just the site appearence, is all.

And people needa stop taking shit so personal. Any time someone brings a point up as nebulous as this, people go and piss themselfs. I swear.

*looks up from my Word document*

We were getting somewhere, with the trasfering to neon blue to pokeballs to look less intimidated (at least for a while) forum condensing, and a getting more members so it doesn't look off. Apperences are everything for sites the run on member contributation. For any site, really.

Let's work on the ideas, shall we? That would be productive.

1. Neon blue/pokeballs: I see this as pretty much a moot point. Mods will still be mods, end of story. We'd be better off spending our energy on the other ideas.

2. Forum condensing: While there are discussions about this amongst the mods at the moment, maybe someone should make a thread about this in Misc, so that people can start chipping in with ideas and suggestions?

3. Getting more members: This is a tough one, and it links in with the forum condensing and website revival. Perhaps we should sow our seeds on other well-known pokemon forums, using our sigs and word of mouth to promote TPM and its forums. For example, fanficcers could start bulk-posting their fanfics on a variety of other forums, with links in their sigs to the rest of the story at TPM. We could also probably talk TPM up a lot more - again with the Fanfic example, we could spread the word about the culture there, and that all fandoms and all writing is encouraged and fostered, along with fun competitions, chances to build on writing skills, discuss new ideas and hold debates, etc. At the same time, to make all of the above particularly true, we could have a groundswell of activity by mods and members of fanfic to demonstrate the liveliness of that forum and encourage new people to join.

And that's just Fanfic ... I'm sure there are ways for members of each subforum to spread their seed (excuse the dodgy metaphor, it's late) across the net.

[Houndoom_Lover]

Reply to one: Oh gosh, it does :0

Reply to two: Want me to make a "Condencing Forum thread" or is someone else one it?

Reply to three: I hard core think we need to start getting our name out there. Like you said, Gavin, we should...:0 I almost used a sex metaphor. We should plant our seeds in the other sites X3

Every time I post a fanfiction else where, I put where else they can read it usually. This place being. Not only is the Fanfiction part a great part of the site, my favorite hasta be Misc and ASB. No one else on the internet has such a pleasant Misc. and no one else uses this style...

:0 Its like a Pokenerds dream come true. I'm gunna advertise more on dA at Pokemon clubs. But I think we need bottons, posters, and banners else where. Happyness is just a click awaaaay!

Sorry. :0 I'm not sure how coherint anyof that is. ^w^

[Heald]

Give us a talk-shit forum. Misc topics contain half of what was actually posted. By the time I get to a topic, 90% of the posts are deleted, and none of the replies actually make sense.
No one wants to post if theres a bunch of mods just deleting because *they* are offended or afraid people can't handle what is being said.

This is kind of an exaggeration. The only posts I've had to delete are posts that blatantly break the rules, and the posts that reply to these rule-breaking posts, and they constitute less than 1% of what I have to read on this forum.

On that token, though, I wouldn't be opposed to a talk-shit forum, although I would have two provisos:

1) Posts don't contribute towards post count.
2) Forced Anonymity. It's hard to flame someone if you don't know who you're flaming.

[Houndoom_Lover]

Hell yes!! ^w^ Those rules are a great idea!

But would is be possible to do, rule number two?

I know one is possible. I've seen it done else where.

[Telume]

2. Forum condensing: While there are discussions about this amongst the mods at the moment, maybe someone should make a thread about this in Misc, so that people can start chipping in with ideas and suggestions?

You read my mind Gavin and I already stated what I think.

Either:

1. Condense the archives into 1 forum

OR

2. Remove them from public view altogether.

PTCO has the archives unviewable by normal members. (PTCO is an affiliate and I'm an admin on it.)

[Houndoom_Lover]

Oh....That's right. It would decrease lurking and force people to be active.

I think the archives could be make into one forum. They're hard to navigate so I never go down there, I just use the search.

[Mr.E]

I heard there was some terrible posting going on in this thread but I can't be bothered to yell at Angel Blossom and everything else cleaned itself up here. Carry on.

[Houndoom_Lover]

AAaw, Mr. E! You're late to the party! :3 What do you Mod, big fella? The Games? I can't ever rember what part of the forums you take care off.

[Angel Blossom]

I think the idea that people would leave for being demodded is a bit silly. The reason I'm here, personally, is to RP. Not being a mod wouldn't change that. If anything, it'd give me LESS work to do in this place, lol. The thing is, people don't seem to be taking into account all the work mods do for their boards. It's not just a case of deleting/moving/closing threads and dealing with spam etc. There's always discussions going on about stuff we can do to increase activity, garner new members and so on.

This goes right to the heart of my earlier post: you don't "NEED" to be a moderator to get involved in discussions on how to increase activity. If the real discussion about this is being kept to the moderator forum, then I don't understand why.

I would like to address the point of a mass demodding and just having 4-5 supermods, even though it is an incredibly stupid idea: I primarily only look at Misc. I have an RPG, and I have occasional interests in ASB, Fanfic and Video Games. The only forum I actually look at enough regularly to actually know enough to make informed decisions is Misc. I'm not prepared to go digging through every post in order to see if people are behaving. In fact, that's not even what Supermods are for. Supermods are simply there to back-up regular moderators and have powers to moderate in a forum if that forum's moderator is not online. Their job isn't to sift through every post, like you are implying it should be.

You make it sound as if the rules are so overly complex and vastly different in each forum that it's impossible to learn them all. If that's the case, maybe it's the rules that need changing. The only forum you mentioned that does have very complex rules (and for good reason) is ASB; in this case, I wouldn't expect a supermod to become acquainted with the intricacies of ASB policies, so a normal moderator would be best.

I still don't see how my idea is stupid though. You can easily train somebody up to handle affairs in Fanfic and Video Games in addition to Misc; I'm sure the rules in those forums are not overly complex. Some of the bigger and better forums out there put their supermods to excellent use, which eliminates most of the need to appoint normal mods to each and every forum. The current supermods on TPM, I believe, are not doing anywhere near enough.

Finally, I find it peculiar how nobody has addressed the main point in my earlier post: that promotions are used as temptation to keep the better members from leaving. It's all fine and dandy to nitpick other certain elements of my posts, but try to see it in its entirety, and you'll see what a solid argument I have against moderator numbers.

And yes, I agree with the idea of a talk-shit forum. ^_^;