Mike1984
Mod abuse of power
by , October 18th, 2012 at 09:10 PM (10363 Views)
OK, since none of the mods can actually be bothered to respond to my complaints, either in the thread or via VM, I guess I'll post it here instead.
Recently, I've noticed that mods and even admins are starting to abuse their powers. Making decisions on a whim just because they feel like it and handing out privileges for silly games.
First, we had DP handing out nice shiny names to people for his games on IRC. OK, so he was just messing about, but it still wasn't very fair on the rest of us. But, he has at least recognised that and dealt with it, not to mention that he actually bothered to talk to me rather than ignoring my complaint. So, I'm not overly bothered about that.
But, now, the mods are starting to mess around with threads. Last night, for example, we had a mod war over the title of the Questions thread. It was changed for a while to "Nasuverse Questions Thread" and, then, after a mod argument, changed back again. Now, I can accept that the changed title was probably a more logical one, but it's also confusing to people who wonder where the old thread has gone. Changing it was not necessary at all, so why was it done? Further, if you're going to make a change like that, then you should actually ask the rest of the forum what they think, not just change it on a whim. At very least, you should ask the thread creator.
Sure, the mods have the ability to change thread titles, but they possess that ability so they can deal with people making mistakes in their thread titles or with obvious misnaming, not so they can impose their idea of good title-writing etiquette on everyone else, particularly in a thread as important as that. They should not be imposing their ideas on the forum in that way, especially without even discussing it with their fellow mods, let alone everyone else.
Still, that is at least reversible, so no harm was done there, even if the mods should think about it more.
But, then, today, IRuN went a step further than that. He took two threads (the "what if ________ was raised by...?" and "what if Shirou was raised by...?" threads) and merged them together on a whim, without having even consulted the other mods, let alone the rest of the forum. OK, I can accept that there was some logic in the merger, because one of the threads was a sub-set of the other but, at the same time, he seems not to have considered the possible consequences at all.
Firstly, the threads in question were several hundred pages long. When a thread is that big, the last thing you want to do is make it longer. Keeping the Shirou stuff seperate from the oher stuff just kept things more manageable. Secondly, it will have messed up the flow of the thread. Two entirely seperate conversations will have been merged into one, making it almost impossible to follow who is responding to what. Finally, if anyone has bookmarked any parts of the old thread, those bookmarks will be lost, and it will be very difficult for people to find them again. Which means that some very good ideas will be lost forever because the person who was going to lose them has lost track of them.
Overall, it's a very poorly-thought-out change that was entirely unnecessary. Making a decision like that is not something that should be done on a whim. It should be discussed with others, and it should only be done if there is an actual reason for it. Fucking with other people's threads on a whim is not fair. Particularly when the decision is an irreversible one.
Further, when I pointed this out, both in the thread and on IRUN's VM wall, I have been entirely ignored. He can't even be bothered to give me the courtesy of a reply. Not only does he make totally arbitrary irreverisible decisions like this, he doesn't even have the guts to defend them when they are questions. And, for that matter, nor can the other mods be bothered to. All they are doing is ignoring my complaints, presumably hoping I would just go away.
Well, I'm not going to, because this is not on. Threads should not be renamed and altered on a whim, it should only be done when it is actually necessary to do so, or when the thread creator asks for it to be done. How can we trust the moderators to moderate in a fair manner when they fuck around with other people's threads without even bothering to consult them? How can I even trust that they won't just delete and edit my posts behind my back, without me even knowing about it?
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