Forums / Discussion / General

Hey, everyone. I'll try to keep the talky to a minimum.

Moderators here on the site have gotten together, and we want feedback on our performances. Due to our powers, reputations, and whatnot, we probably don't get legitimate criticism (or legitimate praise) as much as we should.

With that in mind, we want users to take this thread and let us know what you think about how we're doing, for better or for worse.

• For example, if you think I moderate by the rules more than I should instead of by subjective assessment, then that's something I'd want to know.
  • If you agree with another user that's said something already, then please add on to that user's post by saying so.

However, if you have something positive to say, then let us know so we can keep doing that.

• For example, if you like how I'm usually objective on matters, then please say so.
  • And if you agree with a compliment another user gives, then add on to what they say.

Your comments are all appreciated (even if we have a comment to give in reply to them). And repeating what someone else says isn't redundant. It helps us know if it's an isolated opinion or if it's something a lot of users believe.

Give instances (links and/or screenshots if you can find them). Give us feedback.
 
With that said, moderators do want to be able to respond to your comments as well. If we disagree, then we'll say so (I probably won't myself, but I will be paying attention.) But we're not here to argue and debate and overpower you. We're just here to get feedback.

--

So to sum:

• Moderators want to hear what you think we're doing right or wrong on KYM.
• Moderators may or may not ask for evidence or may or may not explain their reasoning in response to your posts.
• As long as you're civil and constructive, you're not going to get suspended or a warning or anything.
   
   
   
  And go.

Verbose you're a pretty cool guy.
You pretty much know what to say in most situations, and take the time to explain your opinion. The advice you give is some good advice, and thats why I come to you first if I ever needed help, or an outside opinion about things. I really have nothing negative to say about you.

Bob, you too.
You're everlasting optimism, and "no give fuckery" keeps you neutral in the right situations. Always with a good laugh. On the negative side you've got to control those on the whim moments, even if they're so very rare.

RandomMan I know we've had our arguments in the past but overall you're a nice guy, and a very good judge of character. You know when to do something, and what to do. My overall negative view of you is more personal, and my ego speaking, No offense for all those times we had any arguments.

Y'all fagets. <3

Undeniable facts =/= Legit feedback.

Wow! Good idea for a thread. Hmmm… Where do I start? I guess I'll start from forum mods I can remember off the top of my head and go from there. I hope I don't get flamed for some of this!

Verbs

Very understanding and kind. Impartial to most debates and doesn't let emotion get in the way of your duties. I don't really have anything negative to say about you. I don't even know you too well, so that's probably why. I guess I can go off of what you said and I do agree that sometimes you're a little too objective. I actually think that's mostly a good thing, so don't feel pressured to change that on my behalf.

Pantalla Azul (del Morte)

About the same review I gave for Verbose. Cool head, objective, etc. Sorry I couldn't go more in depth for your review BSoD, but I would just be repeating what I already said. Just remember to stay sexy!

Sacred Turds! It Is Robert!

Pretty much the exact opposite of the two above. Lets emotion and subjectivity and personal opinions get in the way. Hold on before you shank me! This is also a good thing contrary to how it might seem. There needs to be a Yang for every Yin. You still do your indicated job correctly despite your need to debate everything (something you take great pride in). Sometimes a little rudeness can go a long way, especially in teaching people things. You have taught me a few useful things here and there, which may come as a shock to you. You are like the strict parent of the site, enforcing things which are to be enforced with total harshness. Sometimes I think you can be a little too rude though. Your brutishness scares off Brand New Members interested in the site. Just something to remember.

Shitty Vampire Book Series (Past Tense) Lord

To the point. Not one to fool around and partake in simple nonsense. Interested in bettering the forums. Serious business kind of guy. This is very cool of you, but I think you should lighten up just a bit. Even Bob likes to play around every once in a while. I know it's not necessarily your style, but at least think about my suggestion.

Unpredictable Male

The site wouldn't be the same without you. You're practically one of the staff because of the immense contributions you put out there (minus the pay :P). Knows when to be serious and knows when to screw around. You've kicked me into shape on more than one occasion, which I thank you for. A balanced mix between objective and subjective in a little notch smack in between Verbose and Bob. A little bit too much on the harsh side though. Quick to judge.

O-P-S-P-E

I don't know too much about you, but it's just enough to give a small judgement. I loved your KYM map thread! Pretty lax and more on the subjective side, but you've purposefully antagonized me previously, which I don't think is proper etiquette for even an average user, let alone a mod of your status.

Unpredictable Legal Drinking Age

Very good editor. Has made/assisted in developing some of the best and most popular entries on this site. Pretty cool and down to earth on the forums and in comments. One criticism I have of you though is that your position on articles is a little overly strict. You're one of the people who want a meme to have lots and lots of spread before it is KYM worthy. More of a refined taste in what should be an article and what shouldn't, which I guess is necessary for an Entry Mod, but I suggest chilling out maybe just a little.

That's about all I have! I know there are a lot more mods out there like VanManner, Madcat, and others, but I don't know enough about them to really make a good judgement.

EDIT

• I pretty much agree with Ann on all of his judgments on Verbose, Bob, and RandomMan.

• An extra note for you mods out there, especially ones who post lots of images, be sure to tag all of your image posts! I really despise non-taggers in a way. I'm not putting out names, but I know some mods who are guilty of this… You know who you are! Tag ur shit plz.

I like the mods here, especially Random and BSoD. (And no I'm not being an ass kisser, I'm being serious.) They do their jobs but also have fun and contribute. Not to say other mods here are bad, but I feel like I see those two most often. Seems like there are some sites where the only time you ever see or hear from the mods is when someone is doing something wrong and needs to be warned/banned.

All the mods here are pretty cool, especially the ones that use the forums a lot, like RandomMan, BSoD, Bob and Platus. (Also being serious here)
It's also really nice to see old mods that are still pretty active, like Verbose and Twilitlord, as it shows how dedicated they are to the site.

From my short time here, the mods have been pretty great. It's great seeing mods active in creating and editing entries as well as being invested in the community. I wish more mods did that, but hey, life catches up.

This goes out to the forum mods since I usually just stick to the forums and don't know much about the other mods.

You guys are awesome. I can see why you are mods here. You're all cool, nice, smart, and I can't think of a time when any one of you did something wrong.

As general compliment to RandomMan, Bob, Verbose, and Blue Screen, none of you guys let your moderatorships change who you where, and you are all still pretty damn fun to hang around.

No complaints over here. Though one of you needs to step up from Easy Modo.

There. are. some. that. are. / seem. dead.
And. there. are. some. who. could. easily. fill. the. void.

I'm not saying the (slightly) suggested people are appropriate choices, but there are a fair number of inactive mods at the moment. The active ones (if you are reading this, chances are you're one of them) have been doing a great job. I have no complaints, other than a suggestion (at best) for entry mods:

• Read your e-mails/ filter the ones from KYM.

I've sent suggestions to I don't even know how many articles (not as much recently though) and it's rare that any changes are made. Occasionally I'll just send the suggestion as a editorship request, but out of the last 12 request I've made, only one has been granted. I chalk that up to emails getting lost in the void, but Idk, maybe I don't deserve to edit any of them. Still, that's a less than 10% approval rate.

@The Biggest Boss
It's not really that I'm harsh on spread, it's more that i'm really stuck in my morals as to what is and isn't a meme. I guess I can work on being a bit more relaxed. Oh, and I almost didn't notice you were talking about me for a minute (especially considering drinking age in the UK is 18), but I couldn't stop smiling when I finally got it.

Am I really old wtf i mean i guess I've honestly got an oldish account but it's still weird to be called an old user

@Cute Master, we have talked about the old mod thing before but there's usually not a reason to remove powers (the ChrisMen incident is the only one I can remember where it needed to happen). As for new mods, that's the point of the mod waves. New mods naturally take the place of mods who are beginning to become less active.

As for that list, I can name at least 2 names who have said they don't want to be mods, and we are always on the lookout for new potential mod candidates. Good work doesn't go unnoticed.

@Biggest Boss, I know we've had issues in the past, and I apologize if I seem too serious. I can take this a bit to seriously sometimes, I know; it's just I've often dealt with the same issues before and dealing with them again just irritates me. I do agree, though, I need to take it a bit easier sometimes and I'll try to in the future.

@Random21 I honestly agree with you. BACK IN MY DAY… (ok so maybe I am an oldfag)

>Liche
>derpy vaz
>cale
>lez huarez
>lez
>huarez
>lez huarez
>became mod
>lez huarez
>mod

Yeah mod team is kinda dead. But i don't think we need another mod at all (especially lez huarez, no offense but i am even against Unraveler's mod powers. Just dumping images to the database doesn't prove that you are able to moderate images). We just need more notifications and especially report button . Like janitors on 4chan..
Editorship requests should be also send to a seperate mailbox on KYM. But don't forget that both mod and users don't have to edit entires/upload images/ban users exc.. Non of us are doing it for money.. So don't think that we or mods have to do. This is not our job. We do because we love this site. We want to see or discover new things on the internet and most important all: community.
We are doing it all together. We all laugh, discuss and circlejerk together.

And i have no problem with the mod team.. The site function just kinda sucks.

The Biggest Boss wrote:

A little bit too much on the harsh side though. Quick to judge.

Also towards everyone else reading this:

Can you all give me an idea, possibly with examples, of where you believe that I'm actually steering a user in the right direction or trying to beat some sense into them, and where I just come accross as a huge dick who only tries to justify his dickish behavior under the excuse of "helping"?

I'm not going to deny that my ways tend to be a bit… ruthless at occasion, but I do believe most of them are for the sake of improving either the site or a user. However, that doesn't mean I should be allowed to be a heartless asshole. Please help me improve my way of delivering the message I'm trying to get accross. Beat the sense into me.

Nats wrote:

Though one of you needs to step up from Easy Modo.

@Cute Master, Alex Mercer & BSoD (below)

Shall we keep new mod suggestions to a seperate thread? Feel free to make one.

Because just dumping images to the database doesn’t prove that you are able to moderate images

This. The people we want for moderators aren't just the people who contribute loads of content and are regularly active but those who have an eye for organisation, a sense of responsibility and a determination to see things used correctly.

Lez is by far the least of those kinds of people.

I'd sooner recommend guys like Deltamelon and loli (in fact I have before when it came to cleaning the cringeworthy gallery) because I know they don't just use the site but also have a good sense of how the site should be used and have a positive influence in the community

But that said, there's no demand for more mods right now. The current people active are on top of things. I still think some more image mods might be wise considering how many images we have to moderate and our current team is overwhelmed by the amount of untagged imagery. But we have all the entry, forum and database mods we need

@RM

Shall we keep new mod suggestions to a seperate thread? Feel free to make one

Yea, any mod suggestions should go over to Site Related. This thread should be about the current mod team, not potentially new ones

My only suggestion, take a look to the Image Cleaning Thread more often. There is shit I've reported three months ago that is still there.

As for the rest of the areas (Forums/Entries) I don't have any complains. You guys do a good job.

@BSoD

Man, I feel flattered. Although, there is many other people who are valid candidates too.

I'm not dead. I wanted to say I think most of my fellow mods are doing a great job; a good enough job, at least, that we probably don't need that many more, and that says a lot.

The first two sites I called home had mods who deleted harmless posts that didn't conform to their pretentious ideas of what's funny, immediately permabanned new users that evidently didn't lurk first, and let their communities rot with their apathy.

Trust me when I say the moderation infrastructure here is more than ideal and I'd be happy to give some individual comments.

Verbose – Brings fantastic insight to complex issues and way nicer than he gives himself credit for. The only thing that frustrates me about him sometimes is that he can be too hard on himself, but I think this is because he's always out to improve. And even though I don't think he needs to be so concerned with that, I still think it's a great quality.

Random Man – Has a great sense of humor that has improved the atmosphere of many threads and is very level headed.

Bob – I like his style of moderating. Some say he doesn't do much but I think he just chooses his battles wisely.

BSOD – Super helpful and always willing to apologize when he thinks he's made a mistake. I knew he'd be a mod pretty much since he got here.

Twilitlord – A pretty nice balance of tough on crap and helpful.

So yeah. I can't really bring myself to say anything truly negative because of what I've seen elsewhere, but at the same time I don't feel like there's many negative things to say about you guys. Keep up the good work.

@mods

I thought we were having very little input in this thread

@Cute Master

I don't even know who 4 of your suggestions are. Can't possibly be that important then. Also, we have enough mods. I'd be on board getting rid of some of the dead ones.

@Iamslow

Only an idiot draws unneeded attention to himself.

>The first two sites I called home had mods who deleted harmless posts that didn’t conform to their pretentious ideas of what’s funny, immediately permabanned new users that evidently didn’t lurk first, and let their communities rot with their apathy.

Ugh. i hate those mods. i am part of a pokemon forum that the mods can get pretty similar to
Me and one other member got called out because posted that we shipped Clemont with a Robot and a Brick respectivly. we were in the WHO DO YOU SHIP CLEMONT WITH thread too. We were told to "respect the seriousness of the thread". Seriously??? I cant ship that character with who i want but its Ok for you to? Ive just really post on the threads with some of the more logic minded mods… Back on topic, the mods here are not like that at all. the two mods ive mostly dealt with have been RandomMan and BSOD. They have helped me with issues ive had while on the site and have helped me with some problems and questions ive had when i started to post more on the forum side of the site. nearly all of the mods ive seen post will have a good sense of humor and a serious side whenever the site may have its trolls and other problems. i do feel the mods are doing a good job

Alex Mercer wrote:

Just dumping images to the database doesn’t prove that you are able to moderate images

I wasn't really suggesting them, but more or less using them as examples of what I thought mod material. Most of the "dead" mods I posted haven't had any activity on this site in almost/over a year. The users I suggested have had plenty of activity within the past 1-2 years. For example LezHuarez has 4.3k picture uploads over the past year vs fuckyeahalbuquerque who is an media mod yet only has just under 400 uploads and almost no activity to speak of in the past year. I thought the whole purpose of granting moderator ship to some one was acknowledging that they were active in the community and would remain active in the field they were granted moderator status in. I mean that's not all the required traits for being a mod obviously, but it's rather pointless to grant someone moderator powers if they just drop off the map without any warning. I know everyone needs a break once an a while from things, but a whole year??? Things/policies can change a lot in a year.

@The Cute Master:

Your suggestions for what I assume to be forum mods is very VERY misjudged. I would rather not have a couple of guys who regularly act on emotionally driven impulse or try to enforce their own set of rules on the community come anywhere near having moderator powers.

But anyways, lets try not to get this thread derailed any more than it actually is.

The thing is that Lez has uploaded a lot, but large amounts his images fall into the categories of unsourced, untagged, unwanted and reposts.

As for legit mod reviews, most everything I would want to say has already been said. Check the stuff that we send you to fix more often, but other than that you seem to be doing pretty good. Sometimes it seems Bob skips (or interprets it very differently than I do) the last rule of the KYM rules, but then again, I'm pretty sure there are good reasons for it if I knew the full context of everything. This isn't something I've had an issue with personally though.

@Cute

We know you aren't suggesting them, we just think you should reconsider your idea of 'mod material'. Just saying.

You are looking at activity and contribution as ideal factors, which under that example would make Lez a fine mod. But take a look at what he actually does and you might change you mind

Lez is active, but will he ever put that activity to use? Yea, no. He contributes, but what does he upload? Shitposts most of the time. Mark my word taught by years of forum experience: I know his type. Make him a mod and he'll ignore the responsibility at best or abuse it at worst. Similar story for others in your list too.

Activity is not that important. People come and go. When mods go silent, just elect new ones. A group of guys that are semi-active is just as good as one guy that's always active

High contributions is irrelevant. Anyone can contribute in high volume but that doesn't mean you do it right or want to do it right

When deciding mod material, we look at HOW you are active. We look at HOW you contribute. We look at your personality, your responsibility and your motivations.

We probably could use more active media moderating. It's the one area I see the mod team struggling with. But we need a certain type of person for the job. Lez will never be that person

There is a thread for that.

I thought this was already pointed out earlier.

I'm not suggesting anyone for mod, I'm just stating that there are some mods who have dropped off the map and have only done 10% of the work some regular users have. Given once you get mod powers, there are things that you do that don't show up on your profile, but still you should expect a similar amount of activity from the mods as you would a regular user.

It wasn't so much aimed at you, more towards those still replying to your new suggestions (specifically Lez).

If you want my opinion on your suggestions, just repost them in that other thread (including the dead ones) and I can go into detail. As Bob and Verbose said, it was our intention to keep mod posts in this thread to a minimum to keep the focus on feedback and avoid arguing. So far we're doing a pretty bad job.

>tfw so useless people don't even notice you're being useless

Oh! I'm sorry! I've seen you around and stuff, but I don't know you too well, so I didn't bother to give you a review. What does a Research Mod do anyways? Are you the only one?

I'll start off by saying that I talk pretty regularly with some of these mods, so I know some of their reasoning and their personalities outside of KYM. I'll leave out personality-to-personality reasons because what we're really reviewing are their capabilities and how they utilize them. Others I don't talk to that much. So if it seems like I'm skipping or ignoring them (I'm sure you're all just dying to read my opinion of how well you do), it's because I don't have enough information to form an educated opinion on their performance.

Forum Mods

Blue Screen (of Death)
From what I understand, you were originally given the Forum Moderator (and subsequently Sr. Forum Moderator) status to take care of spam threads that would pop up while most of the European and American users were snuggled into their bed sheets or at work/school.

You do a fantastic job of that. I occasionally see a few spam threads pop up and sit for a while, but someone eventually takes care of them. We haven't had any big postings for quite some time, but it's no longer at the point where you'd wake up in the morning and see General filled with ads about Brazilian prostitutes, "black magic" services, and Pony General.

You're active outside of just moderation duties too. You post often, and don't put yourself on a pedestal above other users – you know the difference between on-topic and shitposting, and usually know when both are appropriate.

Unfortunately, "usually" is about as far as it goes. I occasionally see you remind people to stay on topic, or sometimes lock a thread, but I think you give some people more credit on threads than they deserve. You'll play and poke with everyone else, do the occasional shitpost, and act like a USER more than a mod. This is actually a pretty good thing, as it keeps you in-touch with the userbase, but I think it sometimes prevents you from following through with your moderating duties.

Pony General is a good example. You and I actually talked some time ago about having people keep the oversized image spam to a minimum, and have posted about it – it usually lasts for all of one thread page and then goes back to the 8000×8000 image posts again. Then we go through the issue of it getting out of hand and have to do it all over.

Considering I'm usually the one bitching about that, it might just be more of an issue to me. However, the "plot" posting that happens once every five pages goes without warnings. We've had multiple users say that they avoid PG during these pages because it becomes inappropriate to the point where they're uncomfortable and it's limiting legitimate conversation. It's pushing good conversationalists away instead of bringing them in, and the lack of moderation surrounding it has become a problem.

7.5/10 – User-friendly (despite the name), no superiority issues, but could take more responsibility when things call for it.

HolyCrapItsBob
Ahh, Bob. If there were ever a mod that, from the outside, looked like they never ever deserved to touch a dollop of responsibility, it would be you. And that's part of the reason why you do as good of a job as you do.

This one is going to be short, because we've already talked about some of it personally before and it seems silly to reiterate it for the amusement of others.

You do a really good job with the duties you were asked to do when you became a forum mod. Spam threads are deleted quickly, threads where you post are kept on topic for the most part, and you have little-to-no tolerance for trolls. When a situation arises where you're unsure of how to proceed, or would like an outside opinion, you will ask someone what they think (it's usually the group on Skype, but you do ask and take others' opinions into consideration). This balances out some of your heavy handedness and makes your decisions, on the whole, better in the end.

You can be a little too heavy handed AND a little too "light touch" at times. While you and I both had a bit of fun reverting the KYMWiki "purging" a while back, the arguments that came after went on far too long. The dodging around modship using sock puppets was clever, but when users are acting on that level of stupid, sometimes it's best to hang up the mask and cape, and step in with your Voice of Higher Responsibility™. I know you like debates, but save them for people you know are smart enough to not just rally a bunch of others around them as an argument (seriously, that crap got to the point of being absurd). You were kind of inactive for a while, but you're posting more often now. No real complaints there.

Overall, you do a good job. You act as a user, have a good sense of humor (last year's riddle thread), and are well liked by most everyone here for all of the right reasons. You're responsible enough to not just hand out bans to everyone you hate, so I do wonder why you don't have the user deleting abilities that BSOD has, but perhaps that's for another time.

7.5/10 – Active and willing to do your unpaid job. Could be given more responsibilities (banning ability), but you may not want them. Overall a good mod.

Verbose
I think you need to go after BSOD and Bob for this to be effective. You are the most (quite possibly even only) reluctant mod on the website. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing… I believe, for you, it gets in the way of you actually doing your job.

We'll start by opening up an old wound, and one that I think know still bugs the shit out of you. After you were unfairly mobbed last year following that troll ban, you went into the worst drama diva nosedive – gave up your mod status (we all knew you'd take it back), disappeared for a short time (you love Pokemon and horsies too much to leave forever), and just generally pouted instead of facing the problem and explaining the situation to those who were antagonizing you. You need to actually stick up for yourself instead of seeing everyone as against you.

Saying "Fine! I quit!" is not a solution to a problem, it's running away from it.

Along with that, you can be indecisive. You're a great guy, and usually willing to hear out people's arguments (this is kind of why you're one of the more likable people around), but sometimes trolls are trolls. You and I argued a while back about Feminist KYM User and whether or not he/she deserved something I had said. You gave someone who was obviously a troll a second (and third, I believe) chance instead of acting, and it turns out that that there really was nothing more under that user's guise. They were still awful. Advance and LezHuarez are other examples – you and I both know Advance is a good kid, but he got far too many warnings and too few actions placed against him in the beginning before anything actually happened. LezHuarez needs no explanations. Seriously, how is he still here?

This goes along with the "running away from your problems" issue. I've seen you bitch about xTSGx's ">Implying":https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/implying-implying-implications arrows and BSOD's moderation style. I've seen you be passive aggressive about both without really coming out and saying anything until after the fact. Then I've seen you rage quit a thread just because you were unhappy with the situation and unwilling to say anything. You're a forum mod. It's your job to keep threads on track. Say something.

You're active and give the site a good look over often enough to not be considered lazy by anyone. Considering you have a real job unlike some of us students/unemployed/researchers, you do a pretty good job for what little free time you have. As I mentioned before, your kindness (real or false) is endearing and makes you more approachable – you're fun to be around for any users on the site.

5/10 – You have the potential to be an awesome mod on the site, but I think your frustration issues hinder a huge portion of that. Could be more active (real life takes precedence though), could be more decisive, and you could definitely improve your site-relations if you let some of those grudges go. I like that you communicate with anyone who is willing to take the time to post on your wall (though it may take a while for a response).

Twilitlord
You're one of the mods that's I've had little to no communication with, so this is going to be based around what I've seen.

I have no idea why you were made a forum mod, as the period just before your status change had long stretches of time between your posts. I think some of it may have had to do with your activity in the IRC, but I really couldn't say what.

However, this really isn't about before. You do a fantastic job as just a regular forum moderator, and you're typically quick with your responses. If you were inactive before, you certainly aren't now – and that's a good thing. Threads looked over, locked if unimportant, put on track if they derail – you do your work fine.

I think you can be a little lock-happy on rare occasion. When people ask questions and get a reply, it's not always right the first time. Give them a chance to reply before locking the thread – leaving it open for a day or two won't kill anyone.

8/10 – The general region I think you would be in if I knew you a bit better. You could socialize a bit more. I think you'll find your groove as time goes on – you're still sort of new to the whole thing.

DB mods in next post.

Wow Harshwinny! Those reviews are pretty… Well, harsh! I don't care if they're harsh, since the mods asked for legitimate criticism and you delivered! I don't know the mods as personally as you do and I haven't been on the forums for very long so I can't speak in as much detail about them as you, but aside from the harsh grading scale in my opinion, this is pretty spot-on. Good job for putting so much effort into this! Can't wait for Part 2!

[suspense builds]

Entry Mods

All of the ones I know are either inactive (what's the point of reviewing them), or became Database Mods. See below for the latter.

Database Mods

RandomMan
You need to be nicer to Fluttershy You're the person people think of when the word "mod" comes to mind. Good communication ability on the site, you're active, and you take care of your duties with a sense of responsibility. When people take the initiative to talk to you, you usually will reply and carry on conversation – this can be both beneficial and problematic in ways I'll cover in a moment.

You have a bit of an ego. It's not as bad as it used to be (if it were, I'd say you have one to the point of narcissism), but it's still there. Some of this comes from the near worship BNMs give you once on the site – they see you're active (no criticism there), see you're popular, and start stalking you in hopes of feeling special. Then you make them feel special by giving them attention and others start swarming in. You mentioned in the past that you're confused for full staff pretty often, but I don't often see you make it openly known that it's not true. I know you have quite a few site-based capabilities, but it can be confusing for people who are new and don't really know how the website is run. You'll comment to someone about their entry, and suddenly they feel on top of the world (as opposed to how they feel if it were just any Entry Mod). Older members just roll their eyes and know it's RandomMan being RandomMan doing his RandomMan duties.

You post on the forums pretty often, and try your best to answer any questions and keep threads on track. I've noticed you don't create new entries quite as often as you used to, though. Whether this is because you're busy, losing interest, or memes don't just pop up quite so quickly anymore I'm not sure, but it is kind of noticeable as compared to your previous performances. The popular entry galleries could use a going-through more often as well. Some of this isn't your fault, as the image mods should do more work than what they have been doing. I think as a Database Mod, however, you should take some more initiative in keeping the site cleaned up. Certain entries need deadpooled or improved – while this is also Entry Mods' responsibility, it falls into yours as well.

You are friendly with just about everyone on the website. You've improved some of your ego/over-confidence issues to the point where you aren't walking around swinging your Database junk in everyone's face, but it has lingered a little bit. You can be too nice at times, same as Verbose. Some users are obviously trolls or get away with too much shit, and it seems like you're afraid to act. It's a balance between that and the ego – I think you'll find a good median of both at some point.

8/10 – You do a good job when you're around. Some more time can be spent moderating certain areas like galleries and entries, but nothing is falling apart at the seams just yet. I'd like to see more well done entries like in the past (university comes first, though). Still a bit of an ego, but no where as bad as it used to be.

opspe
Ah, my fellow post-grad (well, one who is actually a scientist). You have a few of the same issues as RandomMan, though some not as bad as others. I don't think you're high-up as far as "well recognized" goes on the site, though some of that may be due to the general lack of activity as of late. For people who have been around for a while, you're usually respected well enough that there aren't many issues (with standard users, that is).

I wouldn't say you have an ego so much as… you tend to just assume you're right with little outside input. It's not necessarily a bad thing, as you can finish a task and move on to the next issue without asking permission over-and-over again. However, you will occasionally finish something and then never revisit it – something kind of necessary for a meme website where even forced memes can turn into something bigger over time. I don't exactly expect you to keep a list of everything you do, but some revisiting would be nice. On the forum, it can lead you to seem aggressive with what you say – some of that comes from your natural debating, but it can be off-putting. I don't think I've ever seen it get out of hand, however.

Entries need going through and deadpooled/cleaned up. Database Responsibilities and whatnot.

I think as a Database Mod, however, you should take some more initiative in keeping the site cleaned up. Certain entries need deadpooled or improved – while this is also Entry Mods' responsibility, it falls into yours as well.

You could be more active. I know now isn't a great time due to the real world, but it's something that could be improved on once things have settled down. Socialize a bit more out of Skype, we're not that interesting of people there.

7.75/10 – When you're active, you do a good job. You can seem a little aggressive and intimidating. Socializing a bit more with users could help with that. Entries need going through more often.

Platus
I genuinely have no idea what you do here. I don't know if this makes you a great mod or a poor one, but either way.. there it is.

You socialize well enough. I mostly see you posting in the Pony gallery and a few others on occasion, but it seems about the level of general site users. You're nice, firm when you need to be.. but I don't really know if you do anything. It's nice to see an educated argument once in a while though (I know you make many).

?/10 – Entries need cleaning up (maybe you do that already), you could post more on the forum outside of Pony General, though your general socialization is great. I just really don't know if you do anything.

Overall Moderation

The website overall is run well. What issues individual mods have are usually made up for by others, and things run pretty much seamlessly. There does need to be some more work done on some of the entries (ponies in particular – some of those are absolutely awful), but things are smooth for the most part.

8/10 – The moderation isn't perfect, but the website wouldn't be as interesting if it were. Keep up the good work, guys.

There you go. The mods I know, or keep up with, well enough to make constructive reviews. Feel free to reply with any questions – I'll be happy to answer (it may take some time, as I'm currently working on my dissertation).

@Moon

This is why I like you. You've always been a non-bullshitter. Straight to the point, objective, practical, constructive and critical. No wonder you relate to Ms.Harshwhinny

I have by no means forgotten my roots and my original responsibilities:

My main priority here always been spam cleanup. But I suppose that after so long, perhaps it is time that I dropped the spam a few priority levels and moved image and user moderation higher up, of which I have also been entrusted. So I'll take your advice and be more considerate of that

You’ll play and poke with everyone else, do the occasional shitpost, and act like a USER more than a mod.

Thing to remember is that I'm here to have fun too. I was asked never to let my mod status change my fun, positive attitude and so I don't (Or else we get an incident like in the latest Thread Simulator Thread).

People like me for who I've always been. Even if that does mean being an occasional shitposter. But that's okay. In my perspective, being fun and enjoyable, as well as enabling others to have fun and enjoyment is the greater picture over strict rule enforcement (But don't worry. Rule enforcement is part of allowing people to have fun. Some people won't have fun without others adhering to them)

I probably should take some hints from Platus though. He's here to have fun too. But he doesn't let that stand in the way of consistent moderating. You might not realize it, Moon. But he is really onto his job despite his occasional shitpost. He's very active in banning trolls and cleaning entries

You and I actually talked some time ago about having people keep the oversized image spam to a minimum, and have posted about it – it usually lasts for all of one thread page and then goes back to the 8000×8000 image posts again

Thing about the oversized images and image spam is that I often don't know they are a problem until somebody says something,

My internet isn't that terrible. My browser might not struggle with an 8000×8000 even though someone else does, so I don't realize it is there until somebody says something. If I find one though, I will replace it.

If I do detect a page loading slowly, I do respond. When the music thread starting loading slow, I took action, went through everyone's posts and enforced a strict 1-embed-per-post rule

Pony General is no exception. I support Verbose's original "3 images per post max" rule and adjere to it myself. If people are having problems with that thread still because of that. I'll begin trimming the fat

The more reports I get of a problem. The more consistent I'll be in enforcing rules to prevent it

However, the “plot” posting that happens once every five pages goes without warnings. We’ve had multiple users say that they avoid PG during these pages because it becomes inappropriate to the point where they’re uncomfortable and it’s limiting legitimate conversation. It’s pushing good conversationalists away instead of bringing them in, and the lack of moderation surrounding it has become a problem.

Whoa whoa whoa. Who's saying that? And why aren't they coming to me about it?

I have so far been completely unaware that the horse butts were that much of a problem. We only ever posted SFW content (SFW horse butt example) that is perfectly within the rules for that thread. The horse butts are just an ongoing joke among ourselves. Not like we fap to that or anything.

But despite how harmless I see it, if I had known people were offended by that content I would have acted in their favor. Yes it's not secret that I like smexy pones and I don't see the problem with a visible pony behind appearing on the forum. It's a frivolous subject to me. But that doesn't mean I would have disregarded any complaints from the community about it. If it's a problem, it's a problem and I'll help those with it. It's my job.

People need to speak up if it really a problem. Maybe people have but I missed it. It's a big thread!

I’ve seen you bitch about xTSGx’s >Implying arrows and BSOD’s moderation style. I’ve seen you be passive aggressive about both without really coming out and saying anything until after the fact. Then I’ve seen you rage quit a thread just because you were unhappy with the situation and unwilling to say anything. You’re a forum mod. It’s your job to keep threads on track. Say something.

Just a note: I've already asked Verbs to explain his grievances with me through PM. He has and we'll deal with that between each other. I think he'd rather keep it that way.

But I definitely agree. Mods needs to open up about any serious problem they have with other people, Especially other mods. We are supposed to be a team and withholding bitterness and spite towards peers that trust them is not conducive at all to this teams consistency and stability

That feel when you're active and people still don't know who you are. I feel that at the time being this thread is still a bit skewed towards forums, which makes sense, this is the forums after all. Is there anyway we can increase the advice for entry mods too? I'd like advice too, but I'm not a forum goer, so no one remembers me. And I'd also like advice from other mods as well,it's nice for my fellow mods to be honest about me and my style of moderation. I guess if there's anything I can work on, it's being more talkative.

Hmm.
I know that I'm not as active as 4 years ago, but it is awkward for me to not appear in any of your feedbacks.
If you have any comment, please, by all means, feel free to do so.

@Random21 and Tomberry

Best thing I'd say is to post more….. or cause some controversy. The last one's always fun.

This thread, I like it.

@Harshwhinny + "wtf does Platus do"

Most of the stuff I'm involved with tends to be in the background. I used to be a lot more active in making and editing entries (which I still do – most recently on the "Twitch Plays Pokemon page"), but that requires a lot of time and research energy to do well, both of which have been in short supply since I started grad school. I do still frequently make small updates and corrections to posts, and I also go through the submissions list for stuff to deadpool.

I do, however, look at nearly every image posted on this site – which is why I have over 21,000 comments. I have caught and deleted many, many offending images (gore/porn/spam/trolling/etc) within minutes or hours of their being posted, and I have also suspended/banned a fair number of people for frequently abusing the rules. Since deletions and bans involve removing stuff rather than adding stuff, it does indeed create the impression that I don't do much, but that's the name of the game.

So, yeah, I'm basically the stealth mod. I guess everyone needs a niche.

Blue wrote:

But I definitely agree. Mods needs to open up about any serious problem they have with other people, Especially other mods. We are supposed to be a team and withholding bitterness and spite towards peers that trust them is not conducive at all to this teams consistency and stability

Random 21 wrote:

And I’d also like advice from other mods as well,it’s nice for my fellow mods to be honest about me and my style of moderation.

Let me start off with that then. Mod reviews by mods are still reviews, so it doesn't clash with the replies thing mentioned in the OP post.

Verbose:

Overall I agree very much with Harshwinny/Moon.

You are, even now, a good mod. Don't question that. You post well, stay on topic, and make well constructed posts. Arguments are there, you respect the opinions of others, and are open in discussions. You also have a good sense of humor, but more your own style which doesn't match with JFF's general type of humor.

Your moderation style is overall very passive, which is a good and bad thing. You don't act on the spot and won't let your emotions decide your decisions, but you can give users too many chances. Trolls will be trolls, and require swift taking care off. But you know what's good for the site, and for example during the NSFW Guidelines discussions your input always made certain we would cover as many cases as possible (although you wanted too much detail imo).

That said, you can't deal with criticism, you are just really poor with it. You show you have an issue with it, will complain a bit, but at the end mostly run away and never deal with it. Learn to stand your ground. That whole giving up your mod powers was just one big pile of unnecessary drama.

Opspe:

Going to keep this short, as your site acitivity has dropped quite a bit.

Cool-headed, swift, no bullshit, you know how to act and stand your ground.

That said, I believe you are too strict. You have no lenience and will jump to extreme measures right away. You rather directly suspend than wait or warn, you rather ban at a second offense than another suspension, and will prefer to just hide all entries instead of deadpooling.

Look more into the case and don't assume the worst right away.

HolyCrapItsBob:

The final boss of the KYM forums, you aren't one to mess with and that what I like about you being a mod. If someone fucked up, you will let them know, regardless of their status on the site. Before you were a mod you were the rare person who really called the mods out on their shit, and you were damn good at it.

That is the thing you shine in: Keeping everyone in check. You know how to read people, how to hit them hard, and get them to improve.

Your general forum activity is the usual as we know from you. Good in discussions, fun in games, and your general uncaring personality makes it that you never get emotional. You like to have fun, sometimes slightly at the expense of others, but you know your limits.

Sometimes however, your ways tend in keeping people in check tend to be too hard and can seriously hurt people. But whenever this happens, you have no pride standing in your way, and will admit your wrongs and apologise. I respect that.

Blue Screen of Death:

The people's mod, that's the best way to describe you. Easy-going in nature, likes to hang around everyone on the site, you're really enjoying your stay here and make others enjoy theirs as well. Your posts are fun, albeit the original shitpost, but we all have those so I'm not going to judge you for that. And on top of that you are even a quality addition in discussions, with well thought out arguments while leaving aside the shitposts. This then also makes it so that you will be a mod when it's requested from you.

But sometimes you like to have fun in a place where you should act as a mod. When a thread is diverting into shitposts and getting off topic, sometimes you actually promote his, whereas other times you do act as a mod and go with the lock. I believe you have some personal bias in your decision on what threads you want to lock, and will semi-avoid locking threads you enjoy as well.

Spam banner extreme, thanks for those as always.

Twilitlord:

You haven't been a mod for too long, so it's not easy to get a lengthy review rolling.

For how far you have been a mod, you're doing a good job. Your long experience with the site makes it so that you know how the site works and act responsibly on it. Sometimes you do have a sort of self-acclaimed oldfag mentality though, in where you will let the age of your account function as an argument.

But you also understand that the past isn't something that we shouldn't overglorify. You know what went wrong then, and how it can be improved on now.

Mister J:

Not going to lie here, but sometimes I question how did you ever make mod? Because in all this time I don't recall ever seeing you act as a mod, and you even say that you're an useless mod like it's something to be proud on

…Moving on.

Tomberry:

You have gotten very inactive in the moderator duties, and the biggest acitivity in it that I still see from you is the ocassional ban in the banlist. I can't really give an opinion as most of your modding was from a time I don't remember much off or can't remember at all (you were already a high tier mod when I started on the site).

So yeah, post more I guess.

Madcat:

Very much like Twilit, but with much more mod experience yet less recent activity.

Your entry writing was ok when you still did that, you know your way around the site and understand how it works. The rest is mostly the same as Twilit.

Random 21:

It can be said, you've shown the most improvement as a mod since you started out as one.

When you first started as a mod your entry writing skills were still passable at most, and you showed bias in your confirm suggestions. On the forum you tended to hide a bit, not always certain about your posts, and a bit held back so that we never really got to know you.

But as I said, that was the past. Nowadays you've improved quite a bit. You're a lot more active on the forum, discuss more stuff and make well constructed posts, and in general just have become a lot more open.

Your entry writing skills are good. You still tend to specialize in subcultures, but we need those folks as well. You understand the flaws in entries, and know where and how they should be improved. You no longer are biased in what should be confirmed, and have become more understanding in what is quality and what not before it can be confirmed.

You don't lack the balls to speak against the staff, and that is something I respect. Your activity in the mod mail is also always nice to have. In general I'm just very positive towards your increase in activity as both a mod and a user.

Platus:

You're a general nice person to people and interact with them often. Your humor is fun and can make for some good comments on images. You know how the site works and how to act as a mod. The time you spend in the galleries has certainly helped us deal with quite some issues on both images and image uploaders.

Biggest issue I might have with you is that your activity is too restricted: Pony image gallery, pony thread, comment sections. Outside of those areas you just seem very non-existing, which is a shame and also makes it difficult for me to give any further feedback, so you'll have to do with this.

Mona_jpn:

Quality, that's what all your entries are. You are knowledgeable in your area of expertise, will show the right arguments and possible evidence when replying to someone in a thread, and you understand how the site works.

It's difficult to think of much more here because your general activity is exactly that.

So in general:

I'm very positive towards our current active moderators. There's a good understanding in how the site works, we commonly share a consensus when making joint decisions, and during arguments we respect each other. There is also not really an ego present amongst the mods, which I'm really glad for. We don't let the power get to our heads, but will respect the users, and don't expect to be given status priveleges because we are mods (hell, a lot of us even dislike being overglorified for being mods).

My main concerns are mostly the lack of speaking up. Everyone in the mod team has an opinion or can complain about the site in some way on what it can lack, but nobody ever really has the balls to bring it forward and suggest a solution. When it comes to actual mod or mod/staff discussions, they are very non-existant, because only a rare few of us actually use the mod mail and discuss stuff through it.

Either make mod discussions more public through for example Site-Related, or actually use the mod mail. On the areas where we're really asked to act as mods, nobody is super active, and most of these "discussions" are instead only taken care off half-baked on other platforms. When you then suggest to bring it forward in the mail or make a Site-Related thread, it's often a "Yeah I'll go do that" only you never will.

@Blue Screen (of Death)

@Every other mod

The moderators here do their jobs well and are quite responsive. However as some I feel are less active there is the occasional problem that lingers for a bit. But hey at least when someone is on It's sorted out on time.

As for their personalities there are some as people are twats I don't really enjoy talking to.

RandomMan, Drpepperfan, Opspe, HolyCrapItsBob, Mister J, y'all are cool mother fuckers, but I feel like y'all can do your jobs better.

Other than that, y'all are cool fuckers and some of ya been my friend since I joined this site. Stay awesome.

To the rest of the mods, get on their level.

Alright, there's something I've been meaning to post for a while but never got around to it. I'd like to bring your attention to This thread. In it, it was brought up that a lot of suggestion and Editorship requests tend to go ignored, which I originally argued against. Turns out I was wrong, as both Opspe and RandomMan admitted to just ignoring said emails without even reading. Now as RandomMan said I should do in that thread, I'm going to bring up the topic here. I guess you could say that my feedback to the other mods is that we need to pay more attention to the suggestions and editorship requests. Yes we get a lot of spam, there's no denying that, but that doesn't give us a right to ignore all of them, that puts the legitimate ones at a disadvantage.

i'm trying not to get banned.
seems to work alright so i think i'm ok with the mods,
although i only know of, like, two of them o0

Blue Screen is a pretty cool guy, and so is Random.

10/10 you're ok.

I was going to bring this thread up again. Now that we've got some new moderators, I'm sure they'd like some reviews too. And I'm sure the older mods would like some more advice too. It's only been a few months, but things have changed. I mean, I can now safely say that I followed Bob's advice and caused controversy, and it was super fun.

I feel like the mods tend to be cliquish and often play favorites. Madcat once made a comment on the IRC about how the "brony mods" (such as RandomMan, Verbose, and Platus) tend to stick together with each other and with other bronies, and I think he was spot on.

I don't think the cliques are based entirely around mod status. If several mods like Homestuck, they're going to talk and be more active with other people who like Homestuck. If other mods like My Little Pony, they're going to talk and be more active with other mods who like My Little Pony.

I'll agree there is some favoritism, but I doubt that removing the interest-based cliques would resolve that. You tend to be more lenient with your friends because you see something that others don't, and it can blind you to some of the issues.

However, from an outside perspective, it can look like some people are more chummy than what they are. Several mods are in a Skype group with other site users, and we all got into it out of mutual interest in MLP. We do not all get along. Verbose has been vocal with his disapproval of RandomMan and Blue Screen on the forum – it's even worse in the Skype chat. Heck, I like Blue and even I butt heads with him. Whenever we want to add new people, we have lengthy discussions over our individual perceptions of them (example: some people weren't happy with the idea of inviting one mod, so that never happened). Also, Platus has never been involved. I don't believe he's even come up in discussion.

It's true that I don't do the Skype thing (I don't even know how to access the channel) and I'm almost never in the IRC. Though I do take part in the regular mod discussions – but that's not really a clique.