huh?
There was a time when just linking to these forums was a bannable offense. It’s nice to see how enlightened we are now.
Well, that was a silly rule, now wasn’t it? Just linking, with no way to actually read them?
I believe some of those are the “archive” forums that disappeared magically when the board was transitioned from UBB to vB, due to some kind of incompatibility or other.
Unless there is some probationary period I have failed to pass, yet, that would let me see some super-duper-secret forum, I can assure you that that is not happening on the SDMB.
Sheer size and age mitigates against it. Even if we carefully screened applicants to prevent anyone who had ever been the target of kvetching from becoming a Mod, we have no way of knowing every poster who is a friend of a Mod or Mod candidate. Once a new Mod had access to the inner halls, a few vanity searches would reveal all the bitching ever posted about them or their friends. (And wouldn’t there be hell to pay, then?) A small board with very low turnover is a better location for that sort of silliness.
Beyond that, we really do not have a Mundane Pointless Stuff I Mod Share forum. There are enough business fora that take enough maintenance that we are not really enticed to hang out there even longer just to gossip.
Not every board is that far-sighted, even the larger ones. You might be surprised.
Again, I’m not saying that such things are happening here. I’m not saying that I’m worried that such things might be happening here. I was simply sharing my own experiences with what has happened elsewhere. Whether those experiences apply here, I have no way of knowing. I’m not laying judgment at anyone’s feet, simply passing on a very hard-learned lesson.
Just to end pointless speculation: the hidden Moderator forums are primarily for administrative purposes.
- There’s a place to which where we move all the “bad” threads and posts. That way, we have them available to us if needed (rather than just deleting them), but they’re not visible to the membership. It’s mostly full of spam posts.
- There’s a place where we record serious warnings issued to various members and guests, so that we can document (“OK, PosterX, this is the fifth time we’ve warned you about insults in CS” or whatever.
That’s pretty much it.
There are also separate forums for Cecil’s Mail and questions for the SDSAB, of course.
It’s not really a big deal.
So, you’re still denying that there’s a Goat Forum?
Well, given the recombinant DNA experiments they’ve been conducting in that forum, involving insertion of hamster genes into goat ova, they seem to believe they’ve still got plausible deniability.
Now it has a thousand young.
And anyone who believes “there is no such thing as a stupid question” would have their bubble burst pretty quickly with just a brief rummage through the Mailbag.