[fortunato]

Originally Posted by The Flayed One

Some advice for the new mods:

If you're going to have a successful run here, the first thing you'll want to do is decide on what rules you're going to follow. Decide them, sticky them and make sure you're all on board to follow them to the letter, regardless of the feelings around the forum. If a rule provokes outrage, review it and change it if necessary, but don't let a couple of old timers sway you if it's not. A big part of the failure of your current group (myself included) was the failure to decide on a set of realistic guidelines to enforce. It caused a lot of separation in our group and a lot of drama. If the members call you out, have a spine but not a big head. It's a thankless, unpaid job that you use your recreational time to do. The same members who applaud you for banning a troll one day will want your head the next for banning a friend/locking a thread.

To our members:

This isn't a fun job. It's unpaid, mostly thankless and done on our own time. We have a duty to you to make the forum a pleasant place to populate for both old and new members alike. For the most part, the mods do their best to make decisions based on the rules of the forum. As you have probably have noticed, there really aren't any. Be kind to your mods, but don't be afraid to call them out if they need it.

All in all, this is a really nice forum with a lot of fun people. I've made some friends here. I've been absent for a variety of reasons, but a lot has to do with what is outlined above. I've really enjoyed my time moderating/contributing to this community. However, if it's going to continue to thrive, there has to be some semblance of consistency with what is/isn't tolerated. Trust me; I deal with enough red tape in real life working for a large corporation that I'm all about reducing idiotic bureaucracy. That being said, there needs to be at least some semblance of order to the way we conduct our protocol. If the members here wanted 4chan, they would be there instead.

Regards,
-Flayed

Excellent advice, Flayed. Thank you. And it's great to see you again, even if it's just popping in. Hope all is well.