i think around here though that wouldn’t be much of a problem, as tom would know who the mods are and keep an eye on them accordingly.
I think 10 years is some sort of limit. I noticed a lot of the old forums just dying out or changing owners recently that were around in the late 80s. I ran my BBS for 10 years and had my fill towards the end. you can only deal with people so long.
Don’t give the ring of power to Gollum!
Didn’t Koontz set up the original original banning registry thread? Am I just misremembering that bit of history? Maybe I’m mixing that up with the whole “I am a King Priest of this Forum” thread.
In any event, I think anonymous mods are a terrible idea. Transparency in governance is an essential element of any community.
actually, i just realized that Tom has his account set up so you can’t tell if he is online or not. that would limit the “behave when dad is around” attitude if mods did something similar, and eliminate the need for anon mods.
I’ve been both a mod and a forum admin in my time, and they’re horrible, thankless jobs. However, they’re absolutely necessary to prevent a large user base from degenerating into utter chaos. Tom throwing up his hands and walking away from his fairly active but behind-the-scenes modding could be the first step on the road to the demise of these boards, something I would hate to see. I second the calls for him to get some help. Anonymous or public, paid or voluntary, I don’t really care. I’ve seen both work well and both work poorly. The guy in charge makes the difference, not the mechanism.
I’m starting to have flash backs to when I was arguing with Mark Asher on c.s.i.p.g.s that forum moderation was a good thing.
Well, a new freeze on admission for now would be nice. Surely developers and the like who want to join can get at Tom through other avenues during this time of sabbatical.
A delegation of any sort would be cool. If that does become the case, things will still most likely change and people will whine about the old days, as they already do, but anything is preferable to this going all Wild, Wild West (the Will SMith version that is, the original would be sorta neat).
Now that we got this debate out of the way, let’s say we light a campfire, hug it out, and not post anything else until Tom chimes in again…
…starting…now.
ok…
Dammit!!! Cubit!!! And I mean in every thread in the forum…
Ok again…now.
…now?
Shhh!
<<Cellphone rings>>
Hello? Oh hey!
And now a picture of the animal representing the offending word to bring this full circle.
No, I am not going to do that.
The original thread, yes. The thread was also the origin of “the Entity” IIRC. And the point of Koontz thread was to “shine light” on to the inner practices of the forum, and to make sure bannings were appropriate.
The late 80s is like 20 years ago, man.
Thanks for ruining my day.
My ideas ran together. I started my BBS in the late 80s and ran it for 10 years. The web forums such as QT3 started in the late 90s and are dying out.
What did I tell you kids?!?!?! Don’t make me get the wooden spoon from the kitchen.
Sites like Qt3 are dying out? Can you elaborate and give some examples?