Egocentric Demagogic forum owners

[Slytovhand]

Yep... getting to hate it!

Well, let's be honest here, and give the background.

I was recently invited into a forum/discussion group. It is actually by invitation only, and they have a policy that if you leave, you never come back.

It's a pagan group, and does stuff like book reviews, general info, and has a newsletter sort of thing for the general public.

Recently, stuff happened.

The owner of the site had his system crash or something, so was AWOL for a bit, but left 'someone in charge'. Huh??? How do you 'leave someone in charge' of a forum? Co-mods and admins I understand just to keep an eye on things and make sure no-one goes posting stuff out of line, but to 'leave someone in charge'????

One of those things 'left in charge of' was about trying to rally up people to vote on one of those votey site things (dunno - I ignore them!). And - we got railed over it. I mean, literally, there were daily posts getting up us to say that they'd gone down from 12 to 20 on the list. And they were (quote) FURIOUS about this!

What....
the..............
FUCK???????

I'm an individual. A human being. An adult. Not a friggin child who can get abused cos I didn't do a vote.

Then, the owner came back on, and reiterated just how PISSED OFF he was about this.

Hey - get over it! I'm on that forum to discuss ideas and help the occasional seeker. NOT to glorify someone's ego. I particularly love the line about "almost EVERYBODY" on the forum had somehow stuffed up. There are supposedly over 300 members on it, and less than a dozen even post. How does that get to be "almost EVERYBODY"???

So - for all you mods and owners out there... how do you look upon your forum or group? Is it your personal staging ground or cult? Or do you see it as a place where people can come and express their individuality (within limits, naturally)? I'm an owner, and I've only used my executive power once.. and that's cos it was a fake person only there to spam.

[Boozy]

Is it your personal staging ground or cult?

Two words: Herding cats.

It's so impossible I wouldn't dream of it, even if I wanted to.

[Slytovhand]

I dunno....

In one bit of this one, he referred to his 'acolyte'.

Coincidentally, I saw a doco on Jim Jones the other night....

[Rapscallion]

I treat CS.com as a place where people can relax and heal after a bad day at work. It saved my sanity a few times when I was in retail, so I'm returning the compliment.

Rapscallion

[Lace Neil Singer]

I see the Ace board that I admin for a couple of netfriends who own it as simply a place to come and discuss various subjects. True, the people who were banned for breaking the clearly set out rules, along with the idiots who were incapable of posting properly and just spammed the whole time, might disagree, but that's life. We've had people who were either banned or chastised go to other boards to bitch, but to me, that's like wearing a sign that says, "I was mightily pwned. Laugh at me". XD One guy even typed out a huge ranty post on another board about how we were all Nazis and how he didn't care about being banned from such a fascist board as ours. One, if he didn't care, why bother typing out such a long post? And second, Godwin's law! XD

[Slytovhand]

Hmmm - irony.....

I asked to put up a post asking for information and an unbiased history lesson on certain goings-on that some of the forum members may have known (cos I know that some of them live in one of the areas mentioned).

It got denied, and was given what I took to be a rant about some of those involved I was asking about....

Hmmmm... so, I pointed this out, and also therefore my desire to leave said group, due to the aforementioned lack of respect shown to forum members.

What do I get back?

"I was thinking about making you a moderator before this".

And then, of course, the obligatory ways in which I had fallen into the 'rumour-mongering bullshit' that I was asking about, and how he expected 'intellectual and spiritual enlightenment.. not criticism".

So - he can't be criticised now??

And also, that my desire to leave because my post wasn't approved was 'immature'...


Fortunately - he's sent back an email which seems to suggest he over-reacted, and may actually take what I said to heart.... (he's yet to get back to me, and do a longer more thoughtout response)

Raps and the Mods - you still do a great job on here!

[Slytovhand]

Ooh Ooh Ooh... I"ve now been kicked off that forum!!

Apparently, 'My house, my rules" also includes being allowed to abuse/disrespect those who have been invited onto said forum... I don't think so, sunshine!

[DGoddess]

Ooh Ooh Ooh... I"ve now been kicked off that forum!!

Apparently, 'My house, my rules" also includes being allowed to abuse/disrespect those who have been invited onto said forum... I don't think so, sunshine!

Sounds like one of those situations where you could simply turn around and say you've been kicked out of better places.

IMO, forums like that I wouldn't want to participate on anyways . . . I once tried a forum last year that discussed relationships/members could post questions and get advice from other members, etc.

Needless to say, I wasn't impressed with that particular site and a few weeks later cancelled my membership. Seemed it was only a select few members posting all the time and if you weren't one of the "special clique" you were ignored.

Which was pretty much the same reason I ended up leaving a mailing list that I'd been an active member of for seveal years (fan club related.)

And heaven forbid if you made any inquiries into why someone's post was ignored - no matter how polite. One longtime member did that and she was put on a 30-day temp ban from posting.

She sent me a private email (off-list of course) and wanted my opinion on the matter. I simply told her that if the select group wanted to be that petty and immature about the matter, I'd simply leave the group and not return.

That's what she did, apparently because I had noticed several weeks later, she still had not returned to posting. And the cliquish attitude was getting more and more noticeable, so I left stating family issues (my aunt was requiring around the clock care at the time, so I really wouldn't have much time to keep up with the goings-on) and politely excused myself.

I tried going back the following year (after my aunt's passing) and the same people were still ramrodding everything. I mostly lurked and what couple of times I did post - it went ignored, so I simply deleted my email from the list and never looked back. A lot of the original people who were there when I first joined had left as well, so the ones who were left were basically the "special clique" and yet another listmom. The threads had also deteriorated into nitpicky, analytical discussions that droned on and on about the least little thing and strayed so far off topic that they ended up in another galaxy.

And the list for the fanfic writers wasn't much better either - it had deteriorated into endless discussions about punctuation or critizing story/plot ideas if they weren't within the listmom's "universe of reality." . . . I left that one too, as I didn't need to be lectured on punctuation, nor do I need to be told that a plotline won't work - I think I can figure out for myself what does and doesn't work in my fanfic universe.

Yep, some are a pain. But to be honest, the only place I've ever felt comfortable being as far as boards go are here and CS. Members come and go, yet we all work hard to make sure we keep the friendly, diverse atmosphere going as best we can.

Moderating is not a hard job for me. I still have fun on the boards as much as the next person, but as far as the moderating goes, we all strive to be as fair as possible but also maintain order.

It can be a delicate balance at times, but if we didn't like what we do, we wouldn't be doing it.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Heh, I almost forgot to mention the saga of the Kiss message boards. XD

First a bit of background. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 30 years, you've probably heard of the rock band Kiss. Now, Kiss fans are one of the nuttiest and least sane groups there is on the internet; and this little tale I'm about to tell you proves that right.

One day, there were two major Kiss message boards. One, the offical Kissonline message boards, was run by a guy who ran the offical site, had met Kiss and basically felt himself the authority on all that was Kiss. The second was a fan run board, called Kiss Asylum, and was run by an easy going guy who was a fan, but not deranged. The more twisted and witty elements of the Kiss fans group posted on this board; including myself. I'd registered ages ago on Kissonline, but found the boards far too uptight and the rules too restrictive, so had migrated to Kiss Asylum.

Everything blew up one day; someone on Kissonline was bitching about Kiss Asylum, among other things and several members of Kiss Asylum decided on a board invasion. I was the only girl in the group, and we basically ran wild on Kissonline. At first, it was pretty cool; we made fun of Kiss and the more deranged fans; a lot of our posts were deleted, but no-one was banned, and we co-existed, if not peacefully then at least law abidingly. Then some of the mods got a god complex and started to hound the Kiss Asylumites. Most of us stopped posting there, but just kept an eye on the place.

Kiss Asylum eventually closed; the owner basically didn't want to run the board any more. Most of us migrated to various splinter groups; but we also went to Kissonline to mess around. Several people were posting under parody names; yep, you've guessed it; I was posting under a parody too. We posted as hugely exaggerated versions of the Kiss band members, past and present; never did we ever claim to actually be them, but some of the Kiss sheeple believed it anyway. When the names got banned, we just reregistered as the names/emails were banned and not the IPs. It was a free for all, with the demogogic mods being taken for idiots and treated as such, and the few mods who supported us joining in.

Then it turned nasty. People were banned for ridiculous reasons; such as protesting against the new, ridiculously strict rules. At least two people were contacted in real life by the Kissonline forum owner in an attempt to lose them their jobs; one guy's splinter board was shut down for nothing but internetz fights; and a general backwash of unpleasentness resulted. Eventually, the Kissonline board was closed down.

Now, there are two main splinter sites still up. One splinter site is a ghost town, with just five users at the most. The Ace site where I'm an admin is still around, and thriving despite all the crap that went down; it was around long before it and hopefully, for long after.