Yeah, I know, it's weird being a normal user and making this kind of post, but I have been a mod on another place (If you're curious, you can go to http://chinofthegogg.chatango.com , I'm not active there anymore, but last I checked the chat was still alive and kicking, I was an adm there.) before, so I think I can relate to what NUF mods go through... This is basically my insight from my own experiences in the past though, I didn't really ask how they felt or anything of the sort.
Well, I think that with the current Qidian drama, anyone can imagine how annoying it must be to simply deal with all those threads, reports and complaints and what not... That's not what I'm going to talk about here. You can have a notion of how stressed they might be simply because of it, but that's not the whole of the problem.
There are a lot of implications with someone being a mod, I think it's important to list them:
1) You love the place you are in.
2) You want to help out in it. This can be either by making it better or by maintaining it, but you want to help, you are willingly spending a good amount of your own time to help out on this place.
3) You are trusted by the adm (s) of the place. It doesn't necessarily means you're loved, or that other users trust you (though it's best if you are), but it definitely means the adm (s) trusts you enough to give you special powers.
4) Responsibility. That's a keyword, you are suddenly someone that has a responsibility, you need to start minding your actions, you can't be the free and joyful user you were before. Not just your moderating actions mind you, your general actions as well, because you'll be judged by them, and you are the face of the site, you are what shows that the place you're in is a mess or a nice place... And if you mess up, you're not the one that pays for it, but the site's image and the site's owner... It's not an easy job.
So... What's up with all those implications? Well... If that doesn't show you that a mod's job is stressful by itself, than I think you need to read them again... Drama doesn't make a mod's job stressful, it makes it hellish. Stressful is more close to the norm than the calm days.
Let's not mention the moments when your opinion conflicts with the one from the adm (s) of the site, a case in which you want your authority to matter, only to realize you can't do anything because they are the ones with the last word... Normal users will probably never get to know of those things, though, they're usually handled in private... And they're not common either, but it happens... And oh you have no idea how crazy enraging it can be. Makes you start wondering why are you working this hard in the first place.
But... Well, stress can be dealt with, some people are pretty good at not getting stressed at all in fact... Even if I've never met a single mod that never considered quitting the job at least once... >.>
So, what's the big problem?
Well, the same thing that actually keeps mods working even with all the stress. Users.
Users are what makes a forum and what makes people attached to it, as much as you might love NU, it's not NU by itself that will make you give up on tons of your free time to deal with trolls, drama and weird tags, you start doing that because you found something that you love, and you want this thing to flourish, and you'll do your very best to make it grow as close to perfect as possible. Because you want those people that you got close to, to enjoy an even better place.
Well, guess what? There are also annoying people. Which can be dealt with... And there are the crazy people.
What do I call crazy people? The people that don't understand what it means to be a mod... The people that directly attack mods and spit all kinds of swears and insults towards the mods, either because they don't agree to the site's policy, or because they have a quary with the mod for whatever reason they see fit.
Do you know what's annoying about that? It's not having to deal with insults, everyone deals with insults, It's simple to do it... The problem isn't dealing with them, the problem... Is that you can't do anything about it.
A mod cannot simply look at someone insulting them, or the other mods, or the administrator (s) or the site itself and stop them... Because it will look like mod abuse.
If I was being directly insulted on NUF by someone, I am 95% certain that a report would solve the problem in a few seconds, but if I report someone insulting a mod, the mod themselves create a PM to me to tell me it's okay, and that I don't need to worry about it. It's not simply having to deal with people that don't know left from right... Is being forced to deal with them and not being able to do anything about it other than making polite replies... You can't even insult them back to lash out... Not really an easy position to be in.
I think everyone might've been at least in a problematic situation in which they could do nothing to solve it, and could only wait until it passed... You probably have an idea of how frustating that can be.
Frustating... Do you know what else is frustrating? Friends, friends can be very, very frustating... Mods also have friends, and they make more friends online! Who'd have guessed?
And of course, the majority of those friends aren't mods at the place they are... And some of those friends might actually love to shitpost! It's great, they're funny! They always give you some wonderful laughs!
... Until they start exaggerating. You start to look at something that is not okay, and that needs to be moderated... But that person is your friend, you're definitely biased towards them, rather you like it or not... If other mods know you're friends with them, then it can be even worse, because they might also feel bad for moderating your friend... Should you just let it be? Or should you moderate it and get in trouble with your friend? Or should you ask another mod to moderate it for you?
Or even worse, you might not even notice said friend is going overboard because you're still laughing at their actions, while others are feeling uncomfortable because of them, or being plain hurt... Friends can be very, very frustating, you don't want them to be punished for their mess up, but you know it's yours, and the other mod's job to fix it.
Personally speaking, I tended to PM friends when I saw that they were messing up... To tell them to hold back a bit, because their actions are going overboard... Well, guess what? People that are overdoing it don't think they are overdoing it... Otherwise, they wouldn't be doing it in the first place.
Congratulations! You just picked a fight with your friend because you tried to help them! How nice must you feel! \(^^)/
Well, I could go on on some other points, but I feel like I said enough already... So, mainly... Mods have a heavy responsibility, they can't handle the problems that are related to them, and even their own friends can cause them problems...
And yet, people keep on modding... Because they still love this thing, they still love the people in here... So do them a favor, and think for a few seconds before you start badmouthing them, they work really hard for your sake... And if you're close to them and love shitposting... It wouldn't hurt to be a bit careful about it, alright?
Gosh, this was longer than I expected when I started making this rant... Oh well.
*wishes to add the tag #brascarant but blog posts have no tags*
Problems of being a mod
Author
AliceShiki
『Ms. Tree』『Magical Girl of Love and Justice』, Female
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