Are Moderators appointed for life?

BANNED

ARRRGGHHH!!! Let’s pull out the plank matey!

I’ll get the chum for the water to make sure they’re swimmin’ with the fun fishies.

I have seen names appear and disappear on the mods list, so I suspect there is some ‘behind the scenes’ stuff from time to time.

@Psychedelic_Zebra…it’s PnL, isn’t it?

Is it me? If it is, don’t respond to this quip.

How do mods become mods anyway?

It’s me, isn’t it?

Oh right. I’m not a mod.

@kheredia they are chosen by the founders, or recommended by other moderators.

@Psychedelic_Zebra ooohhhh!!! So its like a prize for being a cool jelly.. i gotcha ;-)

Colonics for all. ;D

[mod says] As far as I know, no mod has been asked to leave. The moderation team does change from time to time, but I believe all that have left have done so voluntarily. That’s not to say that a mod wouldn’t be asked to leave in the future. We definitely aren’t appointed for life.

@augustlan- But you do get to design your own judicial robes, right?

@augustlan arrrgh! Then there’s a chance we’ll be feedin’ some o’ ya to the sharks soon enough, me laddies!~

Wow…. ok then.
Maybe one day you’ll send me a message to explain what happened.

@AstroChuck I’d kill to have that robe designing job.

@Psychedelic_Zebra Arrrrre we blindfolding them so they don’t see when they go to their end? Do I need to gather up anything else?

Fuckin’ absolute power.

@avvooooooo nope, I want em to see the fins slicin’ the sea when they go over the side!

@Psychedelic_Zebra- It’s Auggie, isn’t it? It’s alright. You can tell me. I don’t like her either.

@Psychedelic_Zebra Arrrggghhh, more chum! Where be me chum buckets?

I know where the scum buckets be.

@AstroChuck Ye be with us or again’ us?

this question went down for editing a few days ago and never reappeared. It was very awkwardly constructed though. Maybe the asker decided it wasn’t worth fixing.

I kinda wish it would come back though.

The mods seem pretty cool to me, though occasionally I burn to see just how salacious the comments they’ve removed were. What exactly is it that gets comments removed?

My suggestion if anyone should ever feel that they were treated unfairly, or observed someone who was treated unfairly or if they have a reason to believe there is some sort of vendetta, contact both a mod with whom you have the problem and one whom you trust and work it out through PM. Often it’s what you don’t know that explains everything far better than you can assume.

@fundevogel Read the guidelines to get an idea of why a comment might be removed.

@fundevogel there are times I’d love to see which comments are so dastardly as to have to be removed. Although, sometimes you can guess what they were by the resulting comments beneath.

@AstroChuck if all the mods were like @augustlan this place would be Heaven on Earth.

No one has ever been asked to give up their mod job, as far as I know. I have been modded while I was a mod though. (I said the “F” word in the title of a question.)
We’re asked to be mods because of the type of our involvement in the community. In my case, Andrew was talking to me on IM and asked me if I’d be interesting in being a Fluther mod. I said I was and after that @PnL started training me (yes, we go through training).
There are a few reasons why you might see a name disappear from the who’s a mod list. Some start the process then decide against it. Some give up being a mod to focus on other things in life (yeah, some mods have lives too).

@Psychedelic_Zebra- It’s Allie, isn’t it? It’s alright. You can tell me. I don’t like her either.

@AstroChuck I know where you live.. generally.

@AstroChuck nope, not Allie. I haven’t made up my mind about her yet. She seems okay, so far.

@Allie shit, I have his address, and a link to a Google map, street view. <insert evil laughter here>

@Psychedelic_Zebra- It’s AstroChuck, isn’t it? It’s alright. You can tell me. I don’t like him either.

Damn. I keep forgetting I’m not a mod.

It must be Allie. She is putting on a wig to hide her horns for Halloween. Normal people dress up like the devil, she dresses up like a normal person.

@Psychedelic_Zebra Glad I meet your standards… for now.~
@AstroChuck “Ready or not, here I come, you can’t hide..” (Sung to Fugees beat.)
@johnpowell My costume would scare the fuck eff out of you.

@AstroChuck it’s kind of a secret, but as soon as you get to 50K, you’ll be asked to be a mod. Just don’t tell anyone, okay?

@Psychedelic_Zebra how much more lurvable does AstroChuck have to be?

Sure wish I was a mod...
That way AC could hate on me. Life’s so unfair.

@Sarcasm It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Some people really hate us.

@fundevogel, we’ll know in about 18,465 lurve points.

@augustlan awww, want a cookie? =)

@augustlan What? how could anyone hate the mods? I mean, aside from Allie, you’re all a really good crowd. Allie’s just a bit misguided, so it’s understandable. I think a decent amount of people hate me already.

@augustlan Some mods hate each other. That darn @PnL. I never liked her. ;) (@PnL, if you see this… <4)
@Sarcasm It’s all the honey. It goes straight to my head and makes me loopy.

@Sarcasm it always feels that way, trust me. Just cancel your account and come back in a couple days, but use your same avatar and make sure people know it’s you. And those two days you are gone, lurk around in secret to see who is hating on you. That’s what I did, and I figured out who hates me the most.

I think I have only been modded once when I was in a real battle with someone about something, heheheh, I truly don’t remember

But my Halloween question still has not reappeared, I’m telling you the whole damned question is gonna be outdated before it gets up again at this rate!

@rooeytoo Your question was reposted a while ago… here it is. :)

heheehh, I am filled with chagrin! It is up again, it simply isn’t being answered, omg my question is a failure.

Thank you @augustlan for pointing that out to me! :-)

And PLEASE everyone answer my damned question just to make me feel better.

Orphan alert!
Cough cough.

I think you get to be a mod after sleeping with Ben. Sexing
your way to the top are you mods? Sluts! Every single one of ya’s.

@judochop And @augustlan is a community manager. Imagine the things she had to do.

Brown chicken, brown cow.

So, none of the mods can become “made men”?

Or made women, settle down.

Old moderators never die, they just get buried alive under e-mails…...

It is me, isn’t it?
It is because of that unfortunate accident I had on your carpet right?

where’s this mod list?

@Allie Do you, as a mod, get notified that you’ve been modded? I know other than questions, if I make a response that gets modded..I don’t know until I look at the thread. But, usually in that scenario I would know ahead of time that it might possibly get modded.

Mods are notified when ever a quip is removed. I was modded last week and got the mod team email but no personal notification. ( But when she found out @Augustlan made me sit in the corner wearing a cone hat that said “Bad Mod.”)

They are not only appointed for life.
They have to train their first born to follow in their footsteps.

Sort of like Grasshopper in kung Fu.

If a suitable replacement has not been found. They will not be permitted to die.

“When you can snatch the pebble from my hand…”

@casheroo If you go here and scroll down a bit, there’s the mod list.

I like most moderators. I disagree with some of them. Sometimes there are some collateral damage where I feel some posts or questions get moderated unfairly. But they are doing a great job all. I like @Dog. That mutt tore me too pieces the first day of moderating.

I hope shilolo will be back.

@casheroo Haha, yeah, I got an email that kind of blended in with all the other emails. The only reason I found out my question had been removed is because I also had a notification on my profile page that I had a “question that need[ed] editing.” I went through the same process as everyone else to edit my question, except that once I made the changes I was asked to make I approved my own question and published it again. In my case it was a question that got removed, not a quip, so I was notified as soon as it was removed and prompted to edit it. If it had been a quip removal I still would have known because I would have received an email. Of course, finding out my quip was removed would mean I would have to go through all the emails and see the one about my quip. I always read alllllll my mod email. Always.~

@oratio But then, like a good dog, I defended that interesting question removing an uncalled-for comment so that a quality discussion could take place. ;)

I’m just thrilled there are mods here, and they actually look at something when you alert them by flag or PM.

@SpatzieLover What? They don’t look at any flagged remarks.
They have a 6-sided die that they roll after any flag/alert. If they roll 1–3, the quip in question gets deleted (and replaced by Removed by moderators). If they roll 4–5, the quip is left alone. If they roll 6, the person who posted that quip gets banned.

@Sarcasm As far as I know the game you just described was created by the makers of Askville

I’m going to just throw this out there: It’s my belief that some people are far too concerned with the topic of moderation.
“who’s a Mod? How does one become a Mod? I like the Mods. I can’t stand the Mods…”

Can we have less questions about the inner-workings of Fluther and more actual questions, please? I’m sure I’m going to be told that “If I don’t like a question then I can just ignore it.” but it seems to me that all the questions about Fluther-centric happenings (new features, awards etc) just clog up the main page. If I were a new member or just a visitor I think it would totally turn me off of the site.
Somebody make Evelyn a mod already so he’ll shut up about it.
(end rant)

I see mod-related questions less than once a week. Are we visiting the same Fluther?

@Sarcasm me too, what clog?

@breedmitch Oooh… Evelyn is a goddess you know. The zebra is but a devoted servant in her most celebrated service.

Be careful when speaking ill of the mods… they will fucking cut you!
i promise never to do it again @Allie!

And never joke about a moderator when they’ve pulled out the gun.

@Dr_C I’m watching you. Don’t make me get scrappy.

@breedmitch I wish they’d make you a mod, then I could bitch about that, too.~

note to self: Ask even more moderator related questions in the future.

@breedmitch What site are you on?

Sounds more like Askville than fluther to me.

I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to agree with @breedmitch on this one. The mod Qs are getting kind of old. I understand that people are interested in the process but it’s really just a bunch of Flutherites helping to maintain the site quality. There’s nothing more to it. I don’t have time to Fluther much these days (and have not been actively modding for a while), so maybe it is because these Qs always get highlighted in the mod emails that I think there are more of them than there really are but I don’t see their point anymore. There isn’t anything about modding that hasn’t already been revealed/discussed by now. Also, I don’t know if I was one on @Psychedelic_Zebra‘s shit list but I might be now. Luckily, I am okay with that.

/exhausted, sleep deprived grad student fluthering late at night.

@PnL don’t apologize for agreeing with @breedmitch, you are entitled to your opinion, just like everyone else on Fluther. As for the excessive mod questions, I see them in the same light as to why people care so damn much about celebrities. I don’t care about celebrities on TV, so my fascination lies with mods on Fluther. Humor me, I am old and don’t have much to keep me entertained anymore. Besides, you said it yourself, you aren’t modding on here much anymore, what does it matter to you?~

what, no GQs? c’mon, people, give me lurve.

@Psychedelic_Zebra- It’s PnL, isn’t it? It’s alright. You can tell me. I don’t like her either.

Who DO you like @AstroChuck?

@Sarcasm He might like me. Because I didn’t borrow @SuperMouse’s kid’s new BB gun to defend my cookie stash when I saw a little kid, looking rather like @AstroChuck, raiding it. ;D

Personally, I don’t see that many moderator/moderation questions. The fact that there were two this week is rare, I can’t remember the last one I saw before that. Edit: There was one a week ago, but I didn’t see it until now. I think that there are a lot of them that the average member, non-Mod, doesn’t see. Its only natural for people to question how a site they’re a part of is being run, especially when it is being run and even more so when there seems to be some vindictive, immature, or otherwise unfair moderation of certain people going on. It happens, no matter the site, because moderators are human and can let prejudices and judgments get in the way of the job they’re doing. People have every right to question what’s going on, especially if they’re seeing something like this.

If people are getting tired of being questioned about the job they’re doing, maybe they should look at the job they’re doing and what other people doing the same job are up to. Its an idea.

@Sarcasm you have to realize that @AstroChuck only has lurve left in his callous little 6 year old heart for that damned monkey.

@avvooooooo Personally, I don’t see that many moderator/moderation questions. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. All in the past 2 weeks, and these are only the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

Its only natural for people to question how a site they’re a part of is being run – Agreed, but there are only so many questions there are to ask, and they’ve all been asked ad nauseum.

especially when it is being run and even more so when there seems to be some vindictive, immature, or otherwise unfair moderation of certain people going on. – I am sorry you feel that way, have you tried contacting Bendrew to further discuss this (don’t forget to provide them with links) so that they can either contact these mods or get rid of them if that is the case? I mean, we could discuss on public threads all we want, but I assume you’d like things to get better, and the only way to do that is to go straight to the people who can make it happen.

It happens, no matter the site, because moderators are human and can let prejudices and judgments get in the way of the job they’re doing. – Which is why we have many mods to keep each other in check and make sure no one is acting out of personal biases. Again, if you feel this isn’t working, I suggest contacting Bendrew since they should be made aware of this.

People have every right to question what’s going on – Exercise that right and contact the appropriate authorities.

If people are getting tired of being questioned about the job they’re doing, maybe they should look at the job they’re doing and what other people doing the same job are up to. – Not a job, voluntary work. Kind of like community service, minus the added spot on your CV.

@PnL As I said, “PERSONALLY, I don’t see that many moderator/moderation questions.” If someone was on all the time, looking for questions on this subject, getting notifications on questions on this subject, or anything like that, I can see where they’d see all of them. The fact that the average user here probably doesn’t see all of these questions is not something to be disputed. Nor is the fact that I did not see them personally. I’ve been on the site quite a lot in the last week, but didn’t see these questions. Its pretty simple. Trying to “prove” that I did see these questions is rather childish, don’t you think?

If someone is not a regular user, hasn’t been here for a long time, or any one of a number of things, these discussions would not be an “as nauseum” rehash, but new to them. I think you’re forgetting to consider that not everyone has been here as long or as much as you have, nor do they necessarily have the same interest in questions having to do with certain topics. This can change, but until it does it is unlikely that they will be looking at all the same questions that you are.

Easy solution to your issues with seeing these questions over and over again. If you don’t like these questions, don’t look at them.

As you know nothing about my particular issue, nor the steps that I have already taken, again… kind of childish to try and “prove” that I didn’t take all the steps, ya think?

@avvooooooo You misunderstand my purpose for linking to those Qs. It was to show that they are asked often NOT that you have seen them. How the hell would I prove that anyway? The links for the justify my stance that they are asked often. Please don’t be so quick to take offense.

If someone is not a regular user, hasn’t been here for a long time, or any one of a number of things – Really not the issue here in this case, and we know this, which is why we let majority of the duplicate moderation questions stay.

I don’t know what you are on about with me trying to prove things about you. Please re-read my answer when you are in a calmer mood. And no, I am not trying to prove that you are not in a calm mood or that you haven’t re-read my answer. Whatever that even means.

As for As you know nothing about my particular issue, nor the steps that I have already taken – that is not necessarily true, but I’d rather not go into it right now.

Again, my answer was just to provide a way for people to get results for their frustration (if any) with the mod system. I think you took it too personally and interpreted in all sorts of ways that I hadn’t even thought about. I rechecked our mutual interaction to get an idea about where you are getting such hostility against me from, and as far as I can see, the only times we have communicated is when you’ve had a problem, come to me with it, and I’ve done my best to help resolve it… so I am not sure what’ s going on here.

Thanks for the support, D (and the 9 others who ga’d me). But to clarify, it’s not just mod questions I was talking about.

“Can we have less questions about the inner-workings of Fluther and more actual questions, please?”

At the time I wrote that there were exactly 5 questions out of 35 on the home page that dealt with the inner workings of this site. I’m here to help answer people’s questions; to be their help in the void. Yes, I’m aware of the community that exists here but as I’ve said before, that’s secondary for me. (I’m on the record as being against things like lurve. I think it’s unnecessary.)

Removed by me.

[mod says] Flame off folks.