Have you seen the new blog post? If not, please read it now.

Thank you, Augustlan, for everything you have done.

Turn, Turn, Turn.

I have been expecting this, but lovely for you and your family.

How can we expedite supporting the mods and keeping them less frazzled and more content?

Please come back often and thanks for everything ! !

Hey, congrats! Our loss is the real world’s gain.

Thanks for all your hard work!

Auggie, It’s a sad day for me, but you have to take care of you. Go forth and do what you do so well. Best of luck always.

Congratulations, @augustlan! We wouldn’t have been able to sail this far without you. Even if you’re no longer captain of this ship—not that it will be easy to remember that—I sure hope you’ll still be around.

Thanks Augie… Thanks for all you’ve done for us and all that you’ve been to us.

Thank you… I call dibs on Community manager position. $500 a month is a lot to me…

Thank you so much for everything! Especially the fish…

Thank you and congrats! <3

Ho’omaikai!

Really happy for you and yet really sad for us! Good luck, but I know it’s not goodbye because you’ll still be around and there’s always Facebook, too. One day I know I’ll be lucky like Picante and Pachy and get to meet you in person! Best of Luck, Augie.

Wow, congrats!

I love you guys so much.

So sad for us, happy for you Auggie. Will you be moving to Texas?
You’ve been a great site Manager and I want you to know I appreciate everything you have done here. I’m very honored to have gotten to know you and meet you in person.

@chyna No moving for me…I still get to work from home. How awesome is that???

We’ll still be close enough to meet again, and we WILL meet again. Damn it!

Well…this has given me reason to shed the tears I have been holding back all day. You’ve been a great moderator and even better member. I am so very happy that you have found a good niche for yourself and wish you all the best, forever and always.

sigh

love you lisa

Man, I’m crying my dang head off. So bittersweet!

I’ll leave this here.

hey, don’t do that. This is a great opportunity for you, grab it. We will survive, for you. You deserve this. You deserve to get paid for your talents. Grab it, or you letting you, and yes us down. We pick each other up, not bring us down.

@augustlan Have one of these.

Hell, everybody, have one.

Thanks guys. I am having a beer and listening to IZ and getting hugs from my husband. It’s going to be okay. :)

It’s going to be ok?!?! Sure, that’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who is going to miss you!
Thank you for all your efforts. You have no idea how many people you have helped.

You sent my very first Fluther message, August 3 2009, welcoming me to the website. It’s now my turn to farewell you and wish you every success and happiness. Thank you for all your behind-the-scenes hard work. Go well augustlan : ^)

Aw…the end of another era. Good luck Auggie!
This doesn’t mean you can go around telling people my deepest darkest Fluther secret, though.

@dxs Your secret is safe with me. ;)

I don’t doubt it. :)

You deserve all the happiness you find. I feel privileged to call you friend.
What a difference a year makes! Congratulations!

Dear Auggie, you have been the heart of Fluther for a long while now—and the face and hands. It’s still the wonderful creation of Ben and Andrew, of course, but your care and shepherding and wise, kind dealing with every sort of challenge and disturbance have kept it real and human. You’re irreplaceable. Thank you for giving so much to the community.

I applaud your successful entry into a new field and wish you a happy, fulfilling career. You won’t be forgotten here.

@augustlan – The Collective owes you a debt of gratitude that we could never repay. I am sad that you are stepping down, but thrilled that your talents are being recognized and rewarded justly. I wish you much success in your new position!

It’s hard to type with tears in one’s eyes, but they are tears of joy for you moving on in a good way!

Will you be moving to Austin? I have a conference there in late April, might need to connect with some jellies!

@gailcalled – Thank you for asking how members can help the moderators.

The current moderators are always listed here: http://www.fluther.com/help/moderators/. When someone needs to contact one of us but isn’t sure who’s around, they can use the Contact button next to the Search bar. However, flagging Questions and Comments is better than that generic note when one wants to bring a specific item to our attention. We are volunteers with real-world responsibilities, and we can’t always be here or see everything that everyone posts, so we really rely on Jellies to use the flags to let us know when something seems awry. Commenting that a Question should have been posted in a different section, or that one suspects spam or a troll is counter-productive and creates more work for us. Just flag it and add a note in the flagging message box when needed, and move on to another post.

The biggest help that people can give the moderators is to be respectful of one-another. As Auggie noted in the blog, it is really up to the community to establish and maintain the tone of the site. We need to make it a place where people want to spend time. If we all could pause a moment before hitting the ‘Ask’ or ‘Answer’ button to check not only if our comment is clear and concise, but also whether it contributes to an interesting, productive discussion, there would be less mess for the mods to clean up.

Many Jellies have been here for several years and we can joke with some, but there are many who might not be ‘in’ on the joke—so it helps to use the tilde ~ to indicate sarcasm so everyone (including us mods) knows that it is not a serious dig. Similarly, after being here a while, some of us also have another Jelly or several who rub us the wrong way or with whom we disagree on many points. In those cases, bickering, snide, or rude remarks disrupt conversations and are a turn-off for newer folks. Disruptions are not allowed, even in the Social section, although some Jellies seem to think posts there are a free-for-all. Again, we ask all Jellies to consider the usefulness of your statement to the discussion and the community before submitting it.

As diverse a group as we are, we all clearly have a soft spot for this little corner of the world-wide-web… and it makes sense that we should all put a little effort into our contributions here and actively participate in the community’s evolution and well-being if we want it to continue.

@hearkat ~ Can I borrow $1000 for grammar classes in Athabasca university? ~

Now I understand why I don’t see @augustlan lately…
I hope Mrs. Auggie will come back sometime, as a new user.

@Mimishu1995 I’m still going to be here as myself, whenever I can. :)

@augustlan I hope Mr. Ben won’t shut Fluther down because of your leaving…

He won’t. :)

@zenvelo No need for me to move, as I can still work from home! I will probably be in Austin once a year or so, though. :)

Congo rats, and thank you for all you have done for this site!
Good luck with your new adventure!

I will miss you terribly

Oh wow I wasn’t expecting that. I’m real happy for you though, because I know that while you love the job here, financially you were kinda struggling. So this new job will be good for you. But make sure to visit, cuz otherwise, don’t think for a second that I’m not going to travel all the way over there and force you to post. :)
Congratulations. ’‘hugs’’ :)

Ever since you shared the information that you were officially stepping down from your position, I have been wracking my brain trying to conceive of a proper way to express my gratitude, respect, and admiration for you. I have finally reached a conclusion: Muppets.

This little site has always, and will always believe in you—in whatever you do. And so, so many of us have felt your belief in us. So many of us received a PM from you within days of joining the site. So many of us received your lurve and felt encouraged to keep those questions and responses coming.

You may be parting from the title of Community Manager, but you will always be such a big part of Fluther.

I wish you all the luck in the world!

Auggie you are amazing. I am so happy for you, but also sad that you have to step down. congratulations and every success in your new job.

Thanks, everyone!

@hearkat: i am saving what you just wrote and hope for the chance to repeat it. In addition to all of her other skills, Auggie has chosen and trained the mods, our very own Auggielettes.The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.

”The biggest help that people can give the moderators is to be respectful of one-another. As Auggie noted in the blog, it is really up to the community to establish and maintain the tone of the site. We need to make it a place where people want to spend time. If we all could pause a moment before hitting the ‘Ask’ or ‘Answer’ button to check not only if our comment is clear and concise, but also whether it contributes to an interesting, productive discussion, there would be less mess for the mods to clean up.”

@augustlan And by the way, Mrs. Auggie, when you leave will there be any more mod recruitment? I wish I could be a mod someday.

@augustlan: Tell us about your new job! We are all sad and happy and I’m betting that some of us are curious!

Cool. Good for you, and good luck.

Maybe now you can take breaks from work from time to time like some of us do, and make it to 50k this year.

Guess you’ll have to create a new account so you can fluther at work without your boss knowing

I’m willing to bet that all of the fine personal qualities you’ve displayed here played a role in landing this job for you. It also signaled that you’ll work hard for peanuts. I’m thrilled that all of that awesomeness has paid off for you.

I move that we retire the letter “A” from Fluther.

^^^ Gret ide.

You will never know how much this site, but especially you, have meant to all of us. You have treated us fairly and kindly and allowed us to speak freely in a safe place.

You are the type of person that all bosses, friends, family members, lovers and total strangers should strive to be like. You are a class act, my dear.

Embrace and enjoy your new life to the fullest, but don’t ever leave us!

Asked eleswhere but it bears repeating:

“Will the fluther site on Facebook, now that Auggie has moved on, still be available for server problem notifications, when we can’t do it on fluther.com?

As you did suggest, we can probably still notify the mods about it, then they can tell Ben or Andrew.

But not if the server is down.

…oh yeah.

’‘forehead slap’’ ...sorry. Lol.

@gailcalled – We are working on making that so.

I will give the mods the admin duties & sign-in information for the Fluther Facebook account. Good thinking!

How can we contact the mods when Fluther is inaccessible?

Fluther on Facebook.

You can also keep this email address handy: feedback@fluther.com. Since last night, any email sent to that address will go to every mod.

@augustlan

Thanks!

Is there a link to or another way of accessing the Fluther Facebook page?

I tried accessing the Fluther Facebook page by entering “Fluther” in the search box in my wife’s Facebook page, but that took me somewhere else.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fluther/6276464639

Thank you @Hawaii_Jake

Oh, wow! I’m happy for you, and a little shocked. Promise we’ll still see you lots?
You’ve influenced Fluther incredibly, and even managed to brainwash me a little:
“It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable.” has saved me from quite a few silly fights. As well as being a catchy mantra. Thank you for all the work you’ve done.

@hearkat “Commenting that [...] one suspects spam [...] is counter-productive and creates more work for us.

I usually flag spam disguised as questions, but also add “Flagged” as a comment for other jellies. I’m confused now. Won’t you get multiple flags, if jellies don’t notify one another in this way?

@thorninmud I’m still l(a)ughing.

@longgone I believe @hearkat was referring the following type of scenario:

1. Spammer posts a Question that can be interpreted as Spam/trolling.
2. Fluther user notices that the Question is spammy/trollish.
3. Fluther user proceeds to craft a response to the question. The response is along the lines of: “Spammer.” “Go away you fucking spammer.” “Ew. Smells like spam.” etc. [For troll, swap “spammer” for troll. You get the picture.]

Usually the user who crafts the response will still flag the Question. The flag helps us, tremendously, but the responses left on the question do not. In fact, they contribute to a more volatile environment.

Sorry to steal your thunder, auggie! Back to your regularly scheduled lurvefest.

@muppetish Thank you. That I understand :]

Congrats! You’ve been so neutral and loving to me even as a noob. I finally “got” Fluther after many rebirths but the one constant that was there was you. I’ll never forget your advice as community manager. Wish you all the best!

Jesus Christ in a hand basket!! I step away to get some school work done, and look what the hell happens.

Congratulations @augustlan!! You certainly deserve every good fortune that comes your way.

I never got to know you well. Reading all these sentiments leaves me feeling I really missed out. I’m sorry I don’t get to be one of the people who knows you well, but at least I get to wish you great stuff without the same pain.
I see mentions of the possibility of a fold. I am an Askville refugee. I started there just before it went down. I’m starting to feel like a site killing jinx. I hope not. I will be extremely empty without Fluther.
I do hope you visit often enough for me to get to know the joy of knowing you too.

@longgone – The only thing I’ll add to @muppetish‘s terrific explanation is that multiple flags are not a problem at all, because the email notification system groups them. So please don’t ever hesitate to flag or assume that someone else has already done so. It’s better to get multiple flags than none at all. Thanks!

@Jonesn4burgers – Fluther is almost 7 years old and we’ve survived a lot of drama in that time. We are fortunate that the Founders have permitted the site to stay up, even though they’ve stopped development – that is the truest testament to the strength of the community. We will remain active as long as it is viable to do so.

Besides, most of us here don’t believe in ‘jinxes’.
;-)

@hearkat Please keep this site leave on like this, you and the mod team! Fluther has survived for 7 years now. Don’t give up!

@hearkat Okay – good to know. Thanks!

Auggie, you’ve done a marvelous job as our Fearless Leader, and this website’s better place for your involvement. Thank you for everything. I’m glad that you’ll continue to participate as one of us Mere Mortals. :-)

Is the whip going to be replaced by tasers?

I know I’m vanilla here, but tasers just aren’t sexy like the whip was.

How about a Kat o’ nine tails?

Speaking of whips, hopefully Ivan Vanko will NOT become a mod! ;-o

Miss you guys, and love you!

@augustlan Just kick ass in your new job. That’ll be enough reward for us.

Damn straight. :)

Damn tootin’. :)