When we first started up – long, long ago, when dinosaurs roamed and before iPod – we thought there only needed to be two forums: Comments on Cecil’s Columns and Other.
That proved impractical, and in the discussions about what forums to select, we figured out early on that “traditional academic” categories (economics, sociology, physics, etc) weren’t going to work for us. Even within General Questions, we get stuff that just doesn’t fit those patterns.
So, we separated things out (mostly) based on the type of discussion: searching for factual answers, rambling about personal events, wanting opinions, debating issues that have no resolution, and ranting/raving/flaming. That worked fine for a while, until (as Derleth pointed out) the arts & entertainment questions were clogging up lots of the forums. Hence, we made an exception and set up that one forum that varied from the model.
While there’s something to be said for a “humor” column (I didn’t dismiss it out of hand), there’s lots more to be said for sprinkling humor throughout the other forums. Imagine the moderators having to say: “Sorry, you made a joke in this Debate, that’s not allowed here, I’m moving your post to the humor forum” ??
Anything that looks like an impersonation of mod is frownd on. There have been several who were given official warnings for similar things.
With such a large membership and so many titles thrown under names (which I think is silly, just gives us admin, mod, and righteous dudes), I can almost understand why they are so touchy. It avoids confusion. Maybe…
We don’t want anyone who is not a moderator giving the perception or the appearance to others that they are staffers.
This is a policy we’ve had since our earliest days and yes, we have officially Warned people for impersonation.
For those who think I was too harsh, you’d for sure think I was mean if I had gone ahead and dinged Roger and not just yelled at him. Or even bigger . . .
From the rules:
I do hope that’s sufficient, though; the idea is that people straighten up and go forth and sin no more.
Fair enough. That just seemed to be the equilivant of kicking a puppy for piddling on the carpet when a swat on the nose with a rolled up newspaper would do. Guess we have different levels of kicking and swatting.
