I want the players to understand a little of what it is like being a mod.
We are players of the webdiplomacy site that show specific attributes and personality to help control the site. We enjoy the job, but there are two edges to the sword. We don't moderate anywhere, we moderate a site of a game where treachery, lying, stabbing, mixing words, negotiation, and diplomacy are the forte. When there is an authority making a decision you don't like, you can imagine the reaction we get. You guys know when to band together, when to pull someone out to lynch, when to switch sides, when to mince words, and when to back off…. well most of you know when to back off… ;)
We soon learn the rule of many hats:
The positives
Moderator hat: You investigate cheating allegations, you find people trying to ruin games. People put you in a higher standard than the rest. You are respected. Your words carry more weight. What you do is remembered more than most average users. People come to you to rescue them when they feel there is cheating. You can be a hero for sniffing out a cheater before major damage is done.
Player Hat: You enjoy the game, you play with several people, you joke around, you strategize.
Human Hat: You make friends, you joke around, you can handle each case differently because it involves different people and you can determine when there is a heavy violation and a minor one. You give people second chances, you empathize, you try to make the site better.
The negatives
Moderator Hat: You are always a moderator: you can't just be a player. Every game you play, everything that you are saying is watched by all players. Anything bad and it gets publicly announced for a lynching. If you make a mistake on a ruling or get overruled, it becomes fodder for the 'peanut gallery' to abuse you with. Every mistake is remembered so it can be brought up at your next big ruling. You competency is being questioned at every turn.
Player Hat: Lying in a game, a normal aspect, is questioned when it happens. You make enemies. You have enemies from games from before your moderator privileges were given. You have people asking for rulings inside a game for another game.
Human Hat: You make mistakes, you get frustrated, you lose your cool, you have extreme emotions, you can't get to everything in time. You have a real life, and that real life can affect your mood, you have bad days, you have good days in your real lie, then problems and issues and drama while modding sours your real life. You burn out, quickly, needing breaks, often.
These are just a few of the things we go through. I understand that you, as players, also go through all of the human and player hats, but by being a moderator, we are held to a higher standard. We toyed with the idea of having a "moderator" account so all official announcements would go through that, and we'd be regular players otherwise, but felt it was against our own multi-account rules. So when I tell a joke, it is a joke….that a mod told. If I ask someone to stop, some people think that I'm making an official demand as a mod and they are in trouble. I can make this pretty simple: Stuff on the forums is a suggestion (except when specifically and obviously dealing with moderator issues, like this email), stuff in a PM is usually a strong suggestion, and stuff you get in an email from the webmod account is an official message from the moderator group that you should take seriously. Hopefully you can tell when we are making a suggestion as a human and player vs a mod, but that line blurries. That is why we are held to a higher standard.
Abge likes to bring up what other sites are like. I'd suggest everyone join another forum that is strongly moderated and see what you can get away with. Most heavily moderated sites will ban you if you bitch about the management. We don't even close those threads. We want you to talk, we want you to moderate yourselves, we want this to be open. Our rules on the forum are very lax, though we do have specific ones, especially for games in progress to avoid unfair advantages in the game brought up. Keep that in mind.
I'm personally taking on an effort to have the whole mod team understand how to respect each request and player, regardless of how you guys handle yourselves. I know how easy it is to get frustrated and approach us angry. That same reason is why we sometimes burst out back at you, it is that same frustration. Some may not remember, but I've lost my cool multiple times (thankfully abge talked me down a lot of the times). I'm a trained college referee, so me losing my cool is very, very rare. I'm sure going through the divorce had something to do with it, but the point is that we are all just as human as you are.
We will try to get better. We always try to self-improve.
We hope you guys can start forgetting about some past mistakes and transgressions and help us make the site better instead of having this stand-off each time someone feels they have been wronged.
Anytime you feel there is something that wasn't moderated or ruled correctly, please email the moderator account with a request for an admin to look into the moderation and it will be re-reviewed by an admin then compared to the original ruling and determine if a change needs to be made. If your complaint is against an admin, you will have to contact kestas and have him look at it.
If your complaint is against kestas, deal with it or leave. The guy gave you all of this for free and owns it. He gets to make the rules. :P
Anyways, I hope this helps you see some stuff from our perspective and helps bridge the moderator/player gap. I'll be happy to answer questions as I see them, but again, in keeping with this email, I'm at work right now and have my kids this evening, so I will be busy from time to time and can't answer the questions right away at times.
I'd also appreciate it if there isn't 10293 replies before I can answer a question. You guys go on tangents and I'd really life to not have a lot of 'noise' in this thread so we can just discuss the matters at hand.
Thanks.
Life as a moderator
= a key of coke
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