Arc > Full-time Gamer, Part-time Moderator

Hey all,

I took a break from the hustle and bustle of stuff online to concentrate more on my RL, I'll be working on the final part of my blog series very soon, but have another announcement.

I administrate along with a friend and a few others a forum called The Otaku 2.0. It is somewhere to discuss such things as anime, manga, games and the japanese culture, as well as a large off-topic section for the random stuff like debates, music and forum games.

The forum admins, mods and members do small and large scale projects, from movies to webcomics, a huge creative section.

The latest project to be released was the Phoenix Wrong Movie, a feature length series of skits based on one of the many internet phenomena. Done with sprites from the popular attorney DS series, Phoenix Wright, creators of these short skits from youtube came together on The Otaku 2.0 for this collaborative effort and turned alot of the competitive drive between them into a friendship and a great team

This is probably the most viewed skit and gives you a proper idea of what they are all about.

Here is a link to the channel and a link to part 1 of the movie, set aside an hour and 10 minutes, if you liked the above, you'll like this.

I'll be in touch;)

Till next time,

-Arc

Part 3 -
As a moderator I started making changes, starting off with revising the Experience Discussion rules. They were loosely based on the Server Gate Rules, which another mod has used in a section of theirs to revise that sections rules.
Small changes were being made everywhere, Rafoi and the Synthesis Paradise, a change that many have been in support of, just waiting for it to be done, moderators talking with each other more through MSN and the chat room, what should be regular moderator meetings that have been a great place for mods to voice their updates, concerns and worries as well.

I guess this is where I should really start. A week before the first meeting we had lost Meyoname, one of the last two super mods on the forum. This is a long story that I wish not to know of or care for, an issue between moderators that shouldn’t of been what it was, which was ugly.
The mod team spent quite a bit of the meeting asking for two new mods to be put up for the position, those that are experienced, active and well versed in modding. XenoNigredo, Kage and myself were put forward by the mod team. Lessl took those names saying he’d choose one, that being the end of that discussion.

We talked about moderators and where they were moderating, if people were happy and settled on the fact that moderators are stretched too thinly across the forum, some mods being in like 3-4 even 5 sections, so there was some obvious need of shuffling to be done and came to realize we may need another application period for certain zones.
We discussed the revisions to the forum sections in a bit more detail, about private messaging harassment and how to handle it, high profile members that were a cause of some concern, spam and a couple of other things.
That was the highlight of the month, as things went south really fast. A little under a week later, we had a proper situation on our hands. Due to time zones and such, I was asleep whilst this happened, but was able to piece everything together. A moderator locked the chat thread of the Asgards, this lead to complaints and major trouble being made across the forum. This was manageable and would have been solved fast, but the icing on the cake…
2 hours after the thread was locked, a moderator made a mistake, a grievous one. I saw the edited one and not the original, but what was said lead to further outrage. Lionheart publicly insulted, threatened and publicly defaming a group of people. His post was not without its merit, he tried to support his friend, which has been hurt badly through this. I could try to guess what was going through his head at the time, what made him do it, but that wouldn’t be best, one shouldn’t try to justify the means of others.
The thread was hastily moved out of sight from the public, but the damage was already done. The thread caused further upset, members posting in numerous places concerning this issue.

I woke up, I brushed my teeth, washed my hair and took my little sister to school. I got back, my internet was down till the early afternoon. I fixed it finally, went online and found an urgent message from Lessl.
Messages on the forums, on windows live. I asked of Lessl and the moderation staff to leave the cooling off to me, let me catch up and see what I can do for damage control. Things got off bumpy, for two days I went about calming many, keeping threads relevant rule-abiding and keeping in contact with those involved, moderators and members alike.
I was in constant chat with Lessl, he even took out of office time to see that things were being done. My first job was to make the corrections on the moderators side. I spoke with Lionheart as soon as I could, when I spoke with him, he was sure that he’d be told off and removed from the moderators team by my word, that’s what I felt coming off how he spoke with me. But the moderator team would have been weakened by such a move, he has served as a great moderator for Libra and is one that many there care and respect. His good behaviour and great work he has done for the forums warranted a less harsh punishment. I told him of a time that I was once in the same position, one a little less worse, but I knew what he was subject to. He said to me that he would accept the punishment set out for him. I requested a ban for a week, followed by a week off from mod duties.
Next was Kage. She had a stressful couple of days, so Lessl and I requested that she took the weekend off, coming fresh on Monday. We needed to do clean up during the weekend, negating further trouble from arising we needed to work to the best of our abilities.
By Friday I had set out what must be done, the punishments that must be handed out, writing the conclusion to this for it to be posted by Lessl and asking Lionheart to post an apology, which I had hoped to have as many people involved to apologize in. It helped bring a close to the troubles that ensued by the public defamation thread, but it was hardly over.
The weekend was quieter in retrospect, things rounded down, I was placed in Aries to work with Kage, Hanajima was placed in the Experience Discussion to help me out and the Service Centre had Xeno back. A few others gave their apologies in the thread of Lion’s…not as many as I’d of hoped.
All bans were made on Monday, Kage returned shortly to say she will take a longer break from mod duties. During the issue I managed to anger another mod, one that I’ll leave anonymous, they felt I wasn’t respecting their input during the issue, I must say, I was quite insulting towards `em due to hearing the same thing over and over. I was harsh, but I came back because I didn’t feel the current mod team could handle their jobs right, I came back to sort it out, that is what I’ve been doing and was doing it my way.
We were under-staffed due to the upset, some mods on leave for exams and being busy with their RL…busy time. After that, it felt like September flew by. Things went back to how they were, we got the odd botter report, spamming and scamming stuff.
There was one thing though that I was wondering about. After I wrapped up discussion with Lessl on that Friday, he told me that I’d make super moderator on October. I said I’d do my best and then I spent the rest of the weeks thinking about it, why did he choose me? was it a good idea? Is it fair for the mods that have stuck around longer than I…

On the 30th of September, I became a super moderator again, putting doubts in the back of my mind and working towards the goals I set out at the start.
Part 4 will be released by Friday, this will include the hopeful finale to what was a long and strenuous confrontation and closing on my final thoughts through this.

Part 2 -

I came back near the end of June; I was informed of what was happening from a member’s point of view, a friend who had in some way or another gotten herself in one of the disputes, the biggest one to boot. She was able to get me to apply for a probationary moderator post. I wanted to find out what went wrong and if the damage done was fixable.

A lot of the current moderators were very for me becoming a moderator, but the current admin wasn’t too sure, he had heard of me, about what had happened and the part that I played in the past. He got in contact with me over Live Messenger and asked me why I was returning, by the end of it, I knew he was a smart man and felt that I would more than likely now be chosen and prepared to speak with those that could help me reform the forum and make it stronger and better than what it was.

I chose moderators and probationary moderators that I could trust or somewhat trust, those that I believed would do well in working with me and I made sure they weren’t too busy. I learnt quickly that there were moderators I couldn’t put my faith and trust in, I was sceptical because of how downhill things looked.

My probationary period, and there was one thing I had gotten to straighten out before doing anything major; it was between two friends of mine (Keeping confidentiality) who weren’t on the best or speaking terms. We came to an agreement about keeping the civility on the forums, but two good friends of mine refuse to talk like friends, it wasn’t a good start.

I went on, concentrating on bettering the Experience Discussion to the best of my abilities, making new rules, keeping the place clean and giving advice on the little things I could. I also collected information on prior issues, what happened to the moderator from way back when, the 3 administrators that lost their position, mods leaving and more so, the asgard incident, one of the main reasons I came back.

What I found was disturbing to say the least, moderators arguing with moderators, members openly insulting moderators, people being hurt, the discussion on whether the server gate rules, a set of rules that took two weeks to get done making sure all mods were happy with it, should be gotten rid of and separating the server gates to make individual rules different from the others.

The moderator team wasn’t working with each other; they suspected each other and couldn’t agree on things. The new administrator was put through rings, this tested him well and truly and he managed to create a temporary solution which supposedly made both sides happy, but it was still lingering in the air.

Time passed fast, my probation lasted longer than a month, as we are now in august, the 11^th and trouble arose when a mod moved the asgards thread into the general chat. It was a rather small thing that blew up and I got involved with this issue the second I received a report from a, somewhat helpful, member. The mod was gung-ho about dealing with this alone, but due to being wrapped in the folds of this issue all too well, she was having trouble keeping a neutral part. I made a post stating that the rules were admin made and I got rid of the engrish to make it more understandable.

I became involved from there, at the start they didn’t care much for me, I was just a prob mod and didn’t think I’d be listened to all that well, it was why I was waiting for probation to end before truly getting into it. It came to an unsavoury ending and me being there didn’t seem to make things go down smoother as I had of hoped, but since then I have gotten PMs from many asking for my help in handling things around the forum and I started sticking my nose in stuff like I did before being removed as moderator.

Probationary period ended August 19^th. That was when the fun really started.

Part 3 will be released in the coming days.

Over the next few days, I’ll delve into what happened in the past leading to the moment of me writing these blog entries.

Part 1 -

This takes place during the last few days of February, the main administrator made a member of much confrontation a moderator, when the announcement was made, I don’t know one person who wasn’t shocked. When was the moderator application taken place? Why wasn’t the moderation team asked their opinion on this? Why was such an action made?

We all were highly opposed on this decision; the member was known for misusing forum functions, being accused of being a scammer and insulting those that truly did not deserve it. I was also insulted by this member too, as she tried to harass me through PMs after I moderated something of hers, calling me power-hungry and bias, unfound accusations which I both answered back with a counter-argument, she never replied back.

Members were also saying that this wasn’t a smart move, but yet it was ignored. I said I’d resign if this was how the forum works. This triggered members of the main section I moderate to retaliate, they posted a thread against all of the administrators latest bad actions, ex-moderators and old members came back in support of this movement, it was a main point of topic in the moderators room, moderators tried to make sure that this thread was not against the rules, that it was watched as much as possible, but as soon as the administrator came on, it was locked and sunk. It had one or two posts that needed moderation perhaps, but it was a debatable, fair topic. The members didn’t stop though, they continued.

The admin plead with me on messenger telling me to stop them and I said they are doing this on their own initiative; I cannot and will not censor the majority of the community’s opinion.

 That day we learnt that the admins word was final, even if the proof that it is a giant mistake was right there.

I was held accountable for what happened, the moderators being against the decision, the members posting up a thread against the decision, I was made a puppeteer. Right after I said I re-thought my resignation, I was removed from mod status. They then made a rule right after kicking me, that a moderator’s resignation letter is final, end of that. Over the next few months the decision that I was kicked for being against proved we were right about being against it. Continual complaints, inability to moderate, just so much trouble that could have been avoided if we were listened to.

After that nuisance’s departure from the forums, things didn’t seem to get better. Moderators leaving, others being insulted to the point they felt like leaving, large arguments that came from nothing, things that were once controllable became something that haunted the moderation team and harmed not only the moderator title, the respect that we worked so hard to develop, diminished, but it also hurt many that held the title.

Part 2 will be uploaded sometime during the weekend.

Hi all,

I made a blog, didn't plan on ever making one, but it seemed impossible not to when you spent as much time online as I do.

Blogs have never really intrigued me, it might be because most people that use it only do use it to voice their opinions on subjects that mean nothing to anyone, or because a large majority of users are pre-teens venting about how horrible their lives are. It might just be the word. 'Blog' just sounds like a huge lump of slime from a old crappy TV show.

But here I am, on a blog, venting, voicing my opinions on blogging, calling kettle black, anyone?

Anyway, I've found myself with much time lately and finally gotten round to it. I'm quite forgetful you see, I've always had it, I forget small things and big, I forget names, but never faces, I forget doing work but remember handing it in, always been dodgy, this might be a place to keep that stuff written so I can come back one day and say "oh yeah!"...if i don't forget I made one.

I'll use this place to talk about the Wonderland Online Forums, I get involved in a lot of the big happenings there and I am known for getting involved in disputes with players, so I'll take about my recent moderations, arguements, what I've learnt, what others were taught, the good stuff as well as the bad and suming up the happenings in some cheesy life lesson way like some sort of american TV drama.

I also plan on dishing out guides and advice on moderating, I've done it for a while now and I am asked on numerous occasions about it, this would be the best place for to talk about it. So those budding moderators-to-be, get excited.

Actually, I bet you all can't wait, I know I can't...*sigh* I'll post one up sometime soon.

Yours Respectfully,

-Arc