Just curious. Mods, do you really get PMs about your haphazard moderation? I don’t give a second thought to pitting you for any fault real or imagined, but I feel no desire to make it a private matter. You fuck up publicly, you get grilled publicly, I say.
So really, how many PMs per pitting would you say?
I always thought the had voodoo dolls with what they think are our likenesses and in times of trouble, they resort to hat pins, instead of just plain sewing pins.
Or maybe they have revolving picture dart boards. I know I would.
Why is this in the Pit? Maybe because shit like the above is a guaranteed response?
Whether Dudley is shit-stirring or cocksucking is really neither here nor there…though I do think he is rather more of a cocksucker. The real issue under discussion is
why anybody would feel the need to post a thread empathizing with/praising the mods. Last I heard, being a mod is entirely voluntary. That means that no matter how much they may enjoy portraying themselves as bearing some great burden, they are mods, in the end, because they want to be. Are we, the great unwashed, getting them down with our rudeness and ungrateful ways? Fuck 'em. They can quit at any time. They stay because the enjoy moderating on some level.
An interesting perspective, but of course it doesn’t apply just to mods – you meet a sales clerk, you can be as rude and nasty as you like, because if he doesn’t like it, he can always quit his job. You meet a police officer, you can be rude and nasty because if she doesn’t like it, she can always quit her job. In short, fuck the whole damn world and if they don’t like it, they can lump it. An interesting philosophy of life. Not one to which I subscribe.
Hey I was gonna do a satire where I modified your post exchanging “mods” with “scumpump”. Quite amusing.
Except that would probably be against one of the rules on this forum and the mods would have to warn me… imagine the irony.
Both of you can bite me. The mods choose to act as unpaid employees of a for-profit entity. We get reminded quite frequently that this place is part of a BUSINESS. You like working for free Dex? That’s your choice. Don’t expect me to fawn over you like you volunteered to evacuate children from a fucking war zone. Even if we are the rudest motherfuckers evah, you’re free to walk away and it won’t cost you a cent. In fact, based on what y’all have said it will give you copious extra free time and much less agravation. I could really give a fuck about you choosing to make yourself miserable so someone else can turn a profit.
Not agreeing with the original premise (ETA Scumpup’s), but this is not the case. All those you mention are presumably doing their job because they have bills to pay and mouths to feed. They are not really free to pick up and go.
If a mod stops being a mod, there is no suffering to the mod or their dependents.
You mod because you want to, not because you have to.
That said, I think people is free to suck up all they want and those who don’t like it can just go and read some other thread (or start their own about how mods suck).
Yes I quite understand your virtriol here. You are a member of a social network were you consider yourself to have a high status. With this high status should come an administrative power wich has not been granted to you, but that some unappreciating moderators have accived.
Your outburst is in effect a reaction to the cognitive dissonance of this situation.
Now this feeling of “ownership” that you feel towards the straight dope is quite understandable, but you have to try to separate your ego from your adopted persona.
Ownership? Nah. However little it may have cost, I am a paid customer of a for-profit business. No matter how much the unpaid help might like to portray it otherwise, that’s what it is. When you go to a bar, do you fawn over the waitstaff and bouncers? They, at least, are bound by the need for income. Any time our waitstaff here choose to walk away they suffer no consequences except loss of being bigger chunks in a smallish septic tank.
Well funny story, used to work as a bouncer and a bartender during my college years. The amount of blowjobs Ive been offered to let underage girls get in/ have a drink would probably shock you.
And yes most people fawn over the wait staff to get better service… its called tips.
Tipping waitstaff for good service is different from kissing their collective ass for being waitstaff.
Interesting replies, for sure.
First, thanks to those mods who’ve answered. Not that I would do it (within the current social climate), but I do understand why you do, and for the most part you’re all in sync and moderate pretty consistently.
Omegaman, I’m working on it, brother. Ass-kissing seems to be the only way to get ahead and I’m trying to climb the SDMB ladder. I figure if I do this long enough, in 30 years, I’ll make administrator. Don’t underestimate Scumpup’s keen eye. He knows my game. What he doesn’t realize, though, is that when I am successful in infiltrating the extraordinarily secret group that is the SDMB staff, I’m going to make a lot of changes. Some of what I had in mind is below:
Avatars – fuck yeah!
I’ll leave fluiddruid as a moderator, but I’ll only give her two threads to close a month. Mean, I know, but hey what can I say? I won’t get to this position by being a skilled moderator/administrator, so you can’t claim I ever thought I was qualified.
This place needs a little structure. I’d implement an elaborate ranking system, with 37 individual levels, based on number of posts, time on the board, street cred, hair color, weight, real-life occupation, and bowling average. This will be taken very seriously. Calling a Doper who outranks you anything other than sir or ma’am gets you a suspension.
I’d demand that I have full discretion in giving away copies of Ed Zotti’s book.
It will be common knowledge here that I am never wrong.
New users are allowed to make ONE post before their account is activated. If it sucks, we close the doors. You get one shot to join the coveted SDMB.
I’d randomly fuck with people and they’d take it with a smile. Links to threads would send people straight to Goatse. Oh you got a private message? Fuck you – redirect to Goatse.
See? It’s all part of the plan. Do any of you mods have any dry cleaning I can pick up for you?
Why do I do it? Well, I hang out in GQ a lot anyway, and when the Admin asked me if I would be a moderator, it didn’t seem that onerous. I can tend to stuff directly that I would just have reported before as a poster.
As for the stuff mentioned in the OP, sure it can be a bit annoying, but hey, this is a messageboard, and only a small part of what I have to deal with every day. I get more aggravation driving to work on any given day than I ever have from anything that’s happened here. It’s just a matter of keeping some perspective. (Something I wish that more posters would remember.)
You know, whatever Dudley’s history is, it doesn’t mean that this thread isn’t kissing ass. Maybe he’s the most maverick, speak-his-mind, mods-be-damned poster on the face of the earth. In that case, this thread would still be ass kissing, just out-of-character ass kissing.
Really, really big hat pins. Or even switchblades, maybe.
Well in the pit why shouldn’t it be? I don’t disagree with what DudleyGarrett is saying but I don’t see how it fits with this:
no flaming, no complaining, certainly no vitriol, too tame for the pit IMO.
Ah, yeah, forgive me. I chose bad examples. My examples probably should have been, say, election judges (who get paid a little more than the mug that mods get, but not much) or people working for charitable organizations on a volunteer basis.
Plus, I never asked for anyone to do any “fawning.” Seems to me that there’s a considerable amount of possible behaviors between the one extreme (fawning) and the other extreme (telling someone to fuck off.) Doesn’t seem like those are the only two options, at least not in my universe.
Typical Fairfax County cynicism.
And it’s funny! In fact, this whole thread ranks pretty high on my amusement-meter.
Except, of course, that this is an arm of a private for-profit business; not a charitable org or a civic duty.