Mermaid Kelda
01-16-2015, 11:56 AM
I thought I remembered a thread about this a while back and I planned on necroing that instead of starting a new thread, but the search bar gave me nothing! Forgive me if there's one there and I missed it.
So, I know it has been discussed before briefly on a few different threads but, is there a reason we don't have moderators?
Iona and Mal do such a wonderful job of keeping the forum running, but with nearly 400 active members and new registrations every day, it can be a ton of work. I guess I'm thinking mostly of cleaning - we get tons of new members all the time, which is great, but many of them don't seem to bother to read the PM Iona sends them about how to use the forum and what useful threads there are which probably answer all their questions. And hey, they're new, they might not be used to forums, English might not be their first language, etc etc etc but all the new topics or topics posted in the wrong forum really clog up the place. I know Iona does a spring clean every once in a while and deletes/merges/closes threads, but there's just so much. It's gotten to the point where I don't even bother looking through a sub-forum to find something - I have to just use the search bar. There're so many duplicate threads, sometimes 15 or 20, that could all be merged into one and save a heck of a lot of space.
Obviously the more people you add to a position of power, the harder it is to make unanimous decisions. Should we delete threads that are just questions answered many times over, or add them to an older, established thread? Is it confusing for members to have their threads moved? How do we decide what thread should go in which forum? Is every mod allowed access to every forum or is it spread out between them? Is it okay to delete a post if it adds nothing to the conversation? There are lines there that everyone could agree on, but I don't think all of it is black and white.
I did consider just PMing Iona about this but I didn't want it to add to her pile of PMs to respond to, haha, and I wanted to know what the community thought! Of course it's Iona and Mal's decision. I have found it to work well on other forums I've been a part of in the past. There are members who have been here since meryuku and are still regular posters, so we could be sure they're committed enough to take the responsibility and well-versed in the forum to be able to direct new members etc.
What are everyone's thoughts? I really don't want to be presumptuous here, I'm just curious whether it would be a help to our admin.
So, I know it has been discussed before briefly on a few different threads but, is there a reason we don't have moderators?
Iona and Mal do such a wonderful job of keeping the forum running, but with nearly 400 active members and new registrations every day, it can be a ton of work. I guess I'm thinking mostly of cleaning - we get tons of new members all the time, which is great, but many of them don't seem to bother to read the PM Iona sends them about how to use the forum and what useful threads there are which probably answer all their questions. And hey, they're new, they might not be used to forums, English might not be their first language, etc etc etc but all the new topics or topics posted in the wrong forum really clog up the place. I know Iona does a spring clean every once in a while and deletes/merges/closes threads, but there's just so much. It's gotten to the point where I don't even bother looking through a sub-forum to find something - I have to just use the search bar. There're so many duplicate threads, sometimes 15 or 20, that could all be merged into one and save a heck of a lot of space.
Obviously the more people you add to a position of power, the harder it is to make unanimous decisions. Should we delete threads that are just questions answered many times over, or add them to an older, established thread? Is it confusing for members to have their threads moved? How do we decide what thread should go in which forum? Is every mod allowed access to every forum or is it spread out between them? Is it okay to delete a post if it adds nothing to the conversation? There are lines there that everyone could agree on, but I don't think all of it is black and white.
I did consider just PMing Iona about this but I didn't want it to add to her pile of PMs to respond to, haha, and I wanted to know what the community thought! Of course it's Iona and Mal's decision. I have found it to work well on other forums I've been a part of in the past. There are members who have been here since meryuku and are still regular posters, so we could be sure they're committed enough to take the responsibility and well-versed in the forum to be able to direct new members etc.
What are everyone's thoughts? I really don't want to be presumptuous here, I'm just curious whether it would be a help to our admin.