Are you a little bit worried about Fluther?
Sort of was hesitating in asking this for several reasons, but I think it’s important enough to mention.
Now first, please know that I’m not doing this to whine or bitch. I’m beyond happy for Auggie, and personally, I think she made the right choice. I’m not bashing Ben or Andrew either, or anyone, nor am I downgrading the current moderators’ ability to keep this place going.
I also did not wish to bring this up in detail in either threads, the one by Auggie, and the other by Jake.
Auggie also already cleared it up; Fluther will remain as is, while the mods will keep running things. But I can’t help being a little worried anyway, especially since there are no plans to bring in a new manager. In the years that I’ve been in here, I’ve seen the site slide down ever so slowly when it comes to maintenance. First, it was put into stagnation, as in, you all know, no more development being done on the site. (besides the servers being fixed whenever they screw up, which is awesome by the way, and now the Fluther store has pillows!) We were also removed from Google’s good kids list, so finding Fluther online, randomly, is barely possible. Which means less people finding it. But thanks to AskVille, we got a lot of new members recently.
And now we are managerless. Auggie is one person, but her role was important.
I am personally confident that things will keep going as they have for a long time, and probably shouldn’t worry. After all, the site has been in Limbo for a long time, yet the community here is still active, and the site shows no sign of disappearing. But Fluther is my online home, so I still am a little worried, as every now and then, it gets chipped away little by little. As I say, I’m not asking this to be a party pooper, but it is a concern, and I believe that it is important to discuss. What do you guys think?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
44 Answers
We the collective are Fluther. We should be more responsible about minding the store; fewer antagonistic questions, more attention to careful and clear writing, less belligerence, no feeding of trolls and this from @hearkat as our motto.
”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.”
The mods can deal with notifying Ben about servers. There is also a fluther site on Facebook where one can notify the mods about server issues. I hope that will still be in place.
Perhaps the troublemakes can choose to make trouble elsewhere. We could certainly encourage that.
How can the regular jellies mind the store? Who’s job is that, anyway, besides Auggie?
By being on our best behavior and causing fewer problems for the mods.
Will the fluther facebook site, now that Auggie has moved on, still be available for server problem notifications, when we can’t do it on fluther.com?
@gailcalled I hope so. I see no reason for that place to close down, unless Auggie was the one managing that, too. But surely, someone can take over for the FB page.
I’m going to use a football analogy, managers/coaches come & go, but the team is always there.
We the users, now hold the responsibility of keeping that team together, no time for massively inflated egos or petty squabbling, c’mon, c’mon let’s stick together :)
I’m up for that yo, and good analogy. Don’t know much about football, but it makes sense.
Fluther is already a self-governing entity. The moderators rely on individual users to flag problems to bring those to their attention. It is not the moderators’ job to patrol all questions and all answers looking for items that might be in error or in violation of the guidelines. Fluther has always relied on its users to flag inappropriate items. This is not new.
Lacking a community manager will alter the dynamics of the site, however. There will not be one single, clear voice directing the moderation team and coaching them. We are moving into an era of governance by committee, and frankly, it concerns me.
Committees are cumbersome and slow. A community manager held the reins of the organization and kept things moving in one direction. We will lose that focus, and I am worried.
I am certainly sticking around to find out how things will work. I have questions from time to time that require answers from some of our expert members. I dread the thought of quitting here and relying on my friends on Facebook or elsewhere to provide me with specific remedies to specific questions.
Not in the least….as long as Ben is still at the helm things will be just fine. Anyone who can create a site like Fluther and with a straight face say…..“Our community is really smart. Really interesting and really engaging….and have a “really” special something” I feel “really” good that we will continue to have a “really” good time here. Now all we need to do is get a sign up sheet for the chores that need to be done at the 20K and 30 K mansions…especially the 30K mansion. @Coloma, @filmafann and I are getting tired of being the only ones showing up to do the dusting and vacuuming.
@Cruiser Haha, I might get there some day. But yeah, I hope you’re right. :)
@Symbeline You are on the home stretch and bring your swifter when you finally make it!
Transition is scary, I know. What comforts me is the fact that Fluther survived when the founders and the entire development team moved on. That was a very scary time! But this community is a great one, and the site survives because of you. While I might have been the ‘face’ of Fluther, you guys are the entire dang body! :)
Fluther is now faceless!
*runs around with his hair on fire unable to put it out because he can’t see himself in a mirror
;-)
A little worried, but we have a fantastic team of mods and it’s going to be fine.
Wait a minute @Cruiser! Who do you think is throwing away the empties after all the parties? That’s right, it’s me! It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
FWIW, Auggie has not been around much since I became a mod a couple months ago, and we’ve been doing pretty well. Since Auggie has announced that she’s stepping down, we’ve been implementing ways to improve the efficiency of our communication, so it will actually improve.
Prior to becoming a moderator, I never paid much attention to the moderation or management of the site. Seeing it behind the scenes has been eye-opening for me. I have been very impressed by how the mods do work as a team and we confer with each other when there is a borderline call to make, or when we suspect we might have a personal bias on an issue. I think that is a benefit to having a team approach because when one person is in charge, there are fewer checks and balances.
Auggie is an exceptionally fair person, and we have been fortunate to have her at the helm. You know that she cares deeply about the site and community, and she has taken great effort to build a Mod team that also cares very much and can be fair in seeing all sides of various issues that arise. I honestly didn’t know much about a few of the other mods before joining the team, but I have to say that I have been very impressed with their patience, fairness, and concern for the members and the site. I have much respect for all of them.
I’m going to each of my 14 alter Fluther identities and have all of them give you a ga, @hearkat!
I would nominate @hearkat for Community Manager if she didn’t have a life and a job.
Awwww, that’s sweet, @janbb, but I’m not as patient or diplomatic as Auggie, although I try! But that’s kind of the point: we all have lives and so there’s often just one or maybe two of us active at any given time. Having us all able to “manage” helps spread the coverage without any one of us bearing all the stress.
@hearkat The collective is a real collective!! Long may it survive!
@chyna I did not want to draw attention to the fact that you prowl the 30K campus topless….I like that we have the mansion to just the few of us!
Of course I’m worried. I am on tenderhooks whenever the site is down, let alone this kind of change.
Fluther is both Facebook and Yahoo! Answer to me. I signed up here at first just for information, but it turned out that I received more than just that. I can both ask for information and socialize, whenever I like. Jellies here are so friendly and fair. When I’m down, I can share my problem here, without receiving any flame. When I have something interesting, I can share here too, and everyone will listen. Not like Yahoo! Answer, where I got so much flame and trolling for an “inappropriate” question while other more ridiculous questions often got praises. Not like Facebook either, where I got bullied sometimes for saying “inappropriate” things and be nobody for not having many friends on the friendlist or not having anything “shocking” to share.
So Fluther is very important to me. It was so lucky of me to find out this site. That’s why my stomach always churns there’s something wrong with this site. I really don’t know where to go if I lose my Fluther.
To me, Augie was the voice of reason and had the ability to (appear to be) emotionally detached when people would start fighting with each other. I hope that the new team of mods can continue in that tradition.
@jca – The ”new team of mods” aren’t all that new. Based on the blog entries, PhiNotPi and downtide have been mods for over a year, and seaofclouds has been a mod for over 2 years. I’m not sure about thorninmud and muppetish, but I think they’ve been mods for over a year, also. I am the newest addition to the team but I’ve been a Jelly for almost 7 years, so I don’t take the job lightly. Auggie has trained us all, and hopefully everyone can take comfort in knowing that she wouldn’t have the heart to leave the site in the hands of people she didn’t fully trust.
^^ True. I have the utmost confidence in this mod team. They rock!
Worse comes to worse, we go down swinging. ‘Till then, keep swimming.
I get @Cruiser to wipe my arse & put a nice shine on my shoes, for which he’s paid a nominal fee.
It is a great team and I fully trust them.
Yay for the Mod Squad!!
@ucme I support Portsmouth FC. Does your analogy still count? I think, hanging on by skin of their teeth is an appropriate saying to answer that question!!!
I am a little worried about Fluther as I have experienced two of my previous online homes shut down but this one seems to have more of a community spirit than even those did so I hope that stands for something.
Bring back Harry indeed @ucme
I still plan to keep things running for as long as possible. This is the first technical problem I’ve heard of in a while… I’m hoping things keep running smoothly on their own, but I can usually untangle an issue every now and then. So fear not.
@ben: Thank you for checking in and assuaging some fears. We love this joint ya know.
Thank you, @ben, for your continued efforts and your update!
Three cheers for @ben! I, for one, love this place.
@ben I hope the next generation of Our Founders is being trained to troubleshoot Fluther problems!
Just peeking in, and see Fluther is still up and running. Love and miss you all!
^^ Whoa mama!!! It’s @augustlan!
Come back. Don’t leeeaaavve…
@cookieman Life gets in the way, but it’s a good life! :)
I wonder why Auggie’s timing is so perfect :)
Dutchess and I conspired on Facebook. :)
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
