Until today, I have never given a shit about these ridiculous battles between mods and members beyond a passing amusement, but holy hell after that post by Dex I am really starting to regret forking over my money.
What a shameful way to treat your paying customers.
What she said.
I agree with your first thought, that the battles between mods (or admins) and posters is ridiculous, and that’s on a good day. But I wonder about the second part of the equation. Did your expectations of treatment from mods change when it went to pay to post? Did the fact you were now a “paying customer” change your expectations of how you would be treated? For me, I certainly didn’t. The mods and admins don’t really factor into my feelings about the dope, and, to be honest, $7.95 or $15.00 a year doesn’t really matter all that much to me. So I never really felt that all of a sudden now that I’m paying, the admins and mods couldn’t be annoying as hell.
Now I agree that Dex’s post was stupid, inflammatory, and a waste. I can also see where it comes from, because him and his are constantly under attack and he, as Tuba did earlier, snapped. As has happened to pretty much every poster here. It happens. But I guess I never really understood the whole entitlement idea that comes with being a “paying customer”. If you get a second, and have the patience to, could you expand on the idea a bit?
I agree that Tubadiva does not deserve to be in a position of power over this board.
As far as I can tell she has done nothing so terrible as to deserve having to put up with all the whiny bullshit, which can’t be half so bad as the histrionic self-important fabricated drama over mere pittances that she must embroil herself in on a day to day basis.
I just assume that she must have been a very bad person in a previous life and this go around she is being forced to make amends.
I like Tuba. She’s been nice to me. She hasn’t always been on my side. I don’t think she’s always right, but she seems very decent, and the times I’ve been in contact with her she’s always been generous with her time and considerate concerning issues that were really only important to me.
If I was in her shoes I don’t think I would have been so nice with an asshole like me, and in my observations on the board in general she seems to be disproportionately accomodating to dipshits, drama queens, the inept, the generally confused, those damaged by collisions with reality, as well as your run of the mill assholes, and less accomodating to people she thinks oughtta know better.
Perhaps she overestimated in this case.
Umm yeah. I also agree with:
I’m mainly a lurker here, and not a big catsix fan (major understatement here<–) but I think she was totaly dissed. Just saying.
The mods put up with a lot of bullshit from some posters and some posters are treated (IMHO) unfairly by some mods. That’s just life at the SDMB. It’s always been that way and always will be.
I agree, my $7.95 is pennies. I spend more than that renting a couple of movies at Blockbusters and that is for only a few hours of entertainment compared to an entire year on the Dope.
However, once you take someone’s money, regardless of the amount, your obligations to your customers and your business changes. Dex’s post was completely out of line and while I was not involved in the Tuba/Catsix/Garfield thing (and really couldn’t care less), I still read his post as a slam on us, their customers. Not a good way to build, and keep, a lucrative business.
$7.95 or $795.00, I have paid for the opportunity to use their services. Part of that service should include some type of customer relations. Dex’s post very clearly showed that the members of this board are thought of as nothing more than pain in their asses. I think it is shameful to take people’s money and then treat them with complete disregard. So yeah, my expectations may have changed a little bit.
Dex, I have kept out of the Tuba/catsix squabble because it had no bearing on me, but I have read the threads (hey, slow day at work). This post, however, I feel I have to answer.
For you to answer the questions raised in this thread, you would have to actually read the thread. To declare you haven’t read it and don’t intend to says to me that you came in here with your mind made up about the situation and nothing anyone says will change it. This is a bad position for someone in your position and authority to assume.
Some people are asking for that, but most, like myself, are just looking for some clarification on the points raised in the threads.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think I saw Tuba ever make her perspective clear about what she ment in the post to catsix about the “promise” to her that started all this mess. I must say that this lack of response has really disappointed me. I’m not looking for an apology or any grovelling, just an explanation.
I don’t have much to say to this except most of the people I’ve seen posting in these threads aren’t complaining that they hate the boards, just that they are frustrated in how the mods and admins seem to “circle the wagons” instead of giving a straight answer when they are questioned. One post from Tuba could have ended this shit days ago.
Ah well, best of luck to you all. In my experience there are only three ways to deal with mods/Admins you are unhappy with in user communities:
[ol]
[li]Get over it[/li][li]Leave[/li][li]Become a mod/admin yourself and get to armwrestle your enemies on an equal basis[/li][li]Donate a server or something equally valuable and thereby bribe your way into the decision-making circles[/li][/ol]
That was four.
::Yawn::
Is this still going on? This is such a non-issue…
Wait, he’ll come in again.
Ohhh… bad Dex. Bad BAD Dex! You apologize right now, young man!
I doubt it. Some of the people who have a bug up their ass about this would find something in her response that they didn’t like and would request further clarification. Then this whole thing would drag on even longer (of course, I’m not helping by posting to this thread, but whatever).
I never realized we had so many mindreaders around here. It really is amazing.
It was 'til Dex barged in. That guy has such a tin ear when it comes to things like this. Like I’ve said before 95% of the time Dex does a decent job. Nothing special, but good. The other 5% look like what he did in this thread and totally overshadow any good he’s done before. Some people just don’t do conflict and/or pressure well. Dex is clearly one of them.
Perhaps someone should open a new Pit thread for Dex’s post - i’m sure a lot of people haven’t seen it, given that a lot of people would read the thread name and think there’s nothing new here.
Which is what got Dex into trouble in the first place.
I don’t understand why everyone has to make the whole moderation thing so fucking out of proportion. Seriously. I’ve read these boards for more than 3 years. If you don’t discuss doing something illegal yourself, don’t directly flame someone and act like a proper sentient being, then you won’t have a run-in with the mods at all.
If you want the power to flame incessantly and talk about your illegal activities, go to Fark or LiveJournal or something.
You need to do something monumental like shoot a 1920’s Style Death Ray at the admin to get banned here, so it isn’t that big of a deal. This board is modded and administered by some of the most diligent people on the net. If you think it is bad here, I can name several places that would blind the average Doper in horror.
Thanks for your [del]massive strawman[/del] opinion, but it really has nothing to do with the thread or what precipitated it.
What we’re talking about here is an administrator who, in some posters’ opinions, threatened a member with either physical harm or banning when the member hadn’t done something illegal or flamed someone and had been acting like a proper sentient being. The administrator then refused to clarify her statement when she was directly asked, even to say, no, you’re wrong, I meant this.
Will you fucking listen to yourself? Physical harm, my ass.
Idiot.