Have you ever been a moderator of a community?

[Professor Beef]

Before I was a mod here, I was a mod on the old "AllIsBrawl" forum/ladder. It sucked for several reasons, but the largest was that the head admin was never around for anything, and due to the software that the site used he was required to do *ANYTHING* that involved a punishment larger than a month ban. People eventually got wise to it and I ended up leaving out of frustration.

 

[Deleted member 49319]

I was a GUNDAM forum dictator because zick zeon.

 

[Deleted member 18021]

Yeah, for an Nsider 2 off-shoot for a group of friends.

My crowning achievement was banishing one dude to the shadow realm this one board I made that was forced to this horrible pixellated mess of a yugioh theme that the site had installed for some reason. Good times.

 

[rpm]

Nope.

 

[Aeana]

Moderating GAF made me into a very jaded and negative person, and it came with a fair amount of harassment/death threats and many attempts at doxxing. I can only imagine what would have happened if I didn't make it a point to never attach any real life information with this name. I took the position because I cared deeply about the community, and I don't think I regret it, but there's no doubt that I'm not the same person I was going in.

 

[sph3re]

I'm the moderator of an unofficial Discord for my university program

Maybe 5 people out of 30+ use it, so it is remarkably easy to be a mod

 

[SecretCharacter]

I used to be a moderator for the official message board of a major CCG that is no longer around.

It was awesome getting the inside scoop on previews and speaking with devs about the game.

It was not awesome because the average poster was aged 14 (or at least acted like it.) Trying to keep up community standards was difficult for a long time and they had a very strict policy on trading/selling that took up about 75% of my time. Eventually, they closed the forum and the game died (the first time) a year or so later.

 

[Lord Azrael]

Was a mod on a friend's forum

I was a tyrant

 

[Stooge]

I was a mod at the old place.

It was fun until the thing we don't talk about happened. Then it was less fun.

 

[GustyGardens]

I did some work for GameTrailers when that was a thing. I started modding their Nintendo forums and then went from there. It wasn't a terrible experience. I think I had more fun when I was only in charge of the Nintendo section, though. It was a time when the Wii putting in work, so our forum was pretty active. Most of the people there, from what I can remember, behaved themselves. I was pretty passionate about Nintendo, so it was nice.

I was eventually given more responsibility and that was just OK. I left around the time when the Wii U patents started showing up.

 

[Stranger Things]

Yup... A guitar forum (you can guess which one). It was pretty chill TBH. I didn't do much besides responding to user reports, which would usually lead to closing bat-shit-crazy threads that were flagged for racism, pornography, etc. I'd let other moderators do most of the dirty work, like banning people LOL. I was a regular user long before I had the opportunity to become a moderator, and I left because the forums were pretty much dead, but I still lurk and occasionally post there.

 

[Zombine]

No I'm not a nerd

 

[Falchion]

Yeah I was a moderator on a forum back in the day but the site went under pretty quickly.

 

[Nairume]

Yeah, for an Nsider 2 off-shoot for a group of friends.

Click to shrink...

I similarly ran an off-shoot forum for Nsider that started out as a treehouse for a small group of people that ended up briefly serving as an unofficial replacement for Epic Center when Nsider closed that section. It was less stressful than, say, TOing Smash tournaments, but was still a highly stressful thing behind the scenes.

 

[PinkSpider]

Randomly asked to be a mod in I think the UK's biggest Vegan group; since then a mod in 3/4 others and group owner of the most active local group in which we do regular meals, competitions, support local business and generally have a good time.

 

[TwntyOneTwlv]

Yes. I was a mod for a small forum, Omega Twilight, that was a spin-off from the old Game Informer boards back in the mid 2000s. It was a pretty small community, and there weren't a lot of responsibilities or drama. Except for the one time someone spammed the entire place with porn.

 

[Deleted member 3010]

I was a mod for a while on a French Sonic Fansite forum called Eversonic. It was like 15 years ago though, the admins there were gems and we played Phantasy Star Online for whole nights.

Good times...

 

[Deleted member 7883]

like ten years ago I was a mod, and later an administrator of the Team Fortress 2 division of eGO/Edge Gamers Organization. It was a relatively huge gaming clan for source games at the time. I ran the events we held for members with one other admin, and some event coordinators we trained.

I had a blast doing it. I loved hosting events and they were almost always full 32/32 servers... it helped me get out of my shell too.

I left a couple of years later. There were so many inner-circle political bullshit. Division Leaders giving preferential treatment to IRL friends, ageism (the community prided itself as being A MATURE GAMING COMMUNITY but when the most capable person to succeed me was a 14 year old genius, people cried he was too young to do anything. Which is bullshit.), and just... ugh. It's insane what shitty things people will do for power, and it's even more wild what people will do for fake internet power. FFS.

I'll always treasure my time there. I made a lot of great friends in that clan... I wish we still stayed in touch

 

[Septimus Prime]

Sure, but I'm kind of a jerk.

 

[Lord Hypnos]

Back in the days when browser based RPGs were popular I was an admin/moderator so both policed cheating and moderated the forums.

Never again.

 

[sir_crocodile]

Yes. I was (and still am, though I don't really do much there anymore) a moderator in a medium sized forum. Not as active as resetera, but it has millions of posts.

I didn't really like it because I felt I had to curb my sarcasm towards morons to show an example. I accepted it because I really liked a lot of the mods at the time. Most of them, like me don't post as much now though.

 

[thezboson]

I was a mod for one of Swedens largest gaming communities for a while. That was nearly 20 years ago. It sucked and I eventually asked to be demoded.

 

[TheGhost]

Moderating GAF made me into a very jaded and negative person, and it came with a fair amount of harassment/death threats and many attempts at doxxing. I can only imagine what would have happened if I didn't make it a point to never attach any real life information with this name. I took the position because I cared deeply about the community, and I don't think I regret it, but there's no doubt that I'm not the same person I was going in.

Click to shrink...

Even years later removed from it? You don't think you been able to come back from the impact it had? That....kind of sucks sorry.

 

[Poltergust]

I was a moderator for two message boards, but I was never active enough to make it work past more than a couple of weeks.

(Don't make me a mod here, ResetEra lol. I love this site but I'm terrible at the job.)

 

[DJ_Lae]

I was a moderator on the old Gamespot forums for...four or five years, maybe?

I didn't mind it much, although I probably didn't take it as seriously as I should have. I remember plowing through the moderation queue and ignoring most of the things people had reported because they were pathetic, wimpy complaints.

Did have a number of eye-gouging account suicides to clean up, but it wasn't too bad overall.

Greg (Kasavin) and Alex (Navarro) were probably the staff members who were most active with us, which was nice.

 

[Davey Cakes]

I was a moderator in The War Room over at the Cloudchaser/Xengamers/Modojo forums during the Modojo years. This was right around my freshman year of college, not long before I applied for membership at NeoGAF.

I remember being extremely lenient. The forum was dying and the really heated console wars bullshit from the PS2/GC/Xbox days had gotten boring.

 

[Video Games Are Dumb]

Yes, the IGN boards for a good number of years.

It was great under their old community manager, EvilHomer.

Then it went to shit after they fired him.

Click to shrink...

Holy shit, that's like, 18 years ago, right?

 

[GoldenEye 007]

I was an admin/mod on a Counter Strike Source server years ago. Was mostly fun. Mostly consisted of banning aimbotters and playing with mods when the games got late and everyone was in a great mood. Was a pretty chill community for the most part - by online gaming standards anyway.

 

[Mike Works]

Maybe.

 

[JigglesBunny]

Never.

ANARCHY, ANARCHY, ATTICA, ATTICA!

 

[Deleted member 5028]

Polygon and The Verge for a couple of years. 2012-2015
Loved: The Community, being responsible for keeping a healthy conversation, having freedom do do the right thing, made good friends like Firima
Hated: Gore Porn, Racism, the idea that taking the high ground and being fair with bans made me the bad person. People being intentionally shitty towards coworkers or personally attacking my character.

Working in a totally different field now but I'll always be appreciative for every opportunity that job gave me. Certainly wouldn't have the job I have today without that experience.

 

[Rag]

I remember plowing through the moderation queue and ignoring most of the things people had reported because they were pathetic, wimpy complaints.

Click to shrink...

Same. I was way more likely to hit reporters with abusing the reporting system than I was to actually moderate the posts they reported.

 

[Putosaure]

I was moderating the member created gaming videos section of one of the biggest French website for years. It was before YouTube became a gaming videos haven, so there's that. I may have some regrets on how I handled some stuff, but hey it was still good times.

 

[Deleted member 227]

I don't trust mods.

 

[mindatlarge]

Yes, on the Gamespot forums many years ago. Really enjoyed my time there, all the admins were super cool and the mod team worked well together to combat the evils of our OT forum.

We also had the GB crew on the admin team as well, though AlexN was the main one we dealt with but you saw Jeff, Ryan, Vinny and Brad a lot too. Was really fun, until it wasnt and all those guys left ship.

 

[Raide]

Yes, I worked as a Forum Manager/Community Manager for a major publisher for a few years.

 

[Volimar]

I was a GM for an MMO for a while and part of the duties included modding the forum. That job was really depressing because as I got close to the administrators I saw how little they cared for their player base. They'd look the other way for cheaters who shared accounts and broke leveling records because they made good press for the game. They were also fine with a few cheating player guilds basically running their servers and deciding who got the best hunting grounds etc.

That was one of the reasons I was reluctant to become a mod here. I was afraid I'd see how the sausage was made and that it would sour my opinion. Thankfully I found that the opposite was true. Sometimes I wish people knew the lengths that the administration has gone to protect even individual members. I wish it hadn't taken such a toll on my mental health because I found serving this community very fulfilling most of the time.

 

[Crispy75]

I moderated a reasonably large message board for ooh 5 years or so? It's been around for 15 years and has over 16m posts now, so it's full of old timers and ancient history. I quit when I could feel an argument with the site owner brewing. I owe my marraige and most of my best friends to it, so didn't want shit where i eat, as they say. It's got a pretty light touch moderation wise, so it wasn't super stressful. The worst bits were when people were in serious emotional/mental distress.

I haven't got anything like enough time these days and it'd just feel like another job.

 

[RCSI]

I was a volunteer moderator for a certain video game developer's forum when it was up and I had the time.

 

[-PXG-]

Yes. On a few small gaming forums years ago.

I was pretty lenient, only warning and banning trolls, flame baiters, spammers or people who were overtly hostile.

People had respect for me because I didn't let shit get to my head or have any agenda. My general attitude when it comes to forums and the internet is just talk about games, have fun and not take things so seriously. Life is hard enough. Why make your escape and leisure time stressful too?

 

[sgtnosboss]

yes for Challenge 22 I was group lead

 

[jelly]

Got asked on a tech forum a long time ago, said no. I like to be helpful more than anything so not sure how I would go keeping the peace and what not, be quite draining I imagine and I totally have blind spots in understanding and reading looking at some posts here that delve deep. Smart bunch.

 

[Odrion]

I was a moderator at Sonic Fangames HQ. :V

 

[SirMossyBloke]

Nope, but if I was I'd at least be consistent *cough*

 

[BlackGoku03]

Yes, for Toriyama's World. Waaay back in the day. Administered the site for a while too.

I never had an issue banning someone. It was easy as pie, honestly. Lost no sleep.

 

[Luap]

I mod a mid-sized Discord server.

The mod team is great, and it's a rewarding feeling helping to maintain an online community that you care about.

The main downsides are the mental fatigue (from keeping track of all the chatter and having to act like a babysitter for immature people) and dealing with the people who have serious mental health issues. It's an online community and naturally these tend to attract lonely people that feel like they have no other place to go for venting their mental health struggles, but man it does get tiresome/worrisome seeing it day after day. None of us mods are trained therapists. I still haven't figured out exactly what to do when people come in and start talking about suicidal thoughts and self-harm, or have meltdowns that freeze the conversation in a channel because it scares everyone else away.

 

[Giruvegan]

I was a mod on a Discord server for a few months. It started out fun but eventually the disorganization, inconsistent leadership, and the subtle and not-so-subtle bullying that me and certain members of staff experienced was enough for me to step down. In the end, it was draining and a little demoralizing. Serious doubts that I'll ever do it again.

 

[Giruvegan]

I mod a mid-sized Discord server.

The mod team is great, and it's a rewarding feeling helping to maintain an online community that you care about.

The main downsides are the mental fatigue (from keeping track of all the chatter and having to act like a babysitter for immature people) and dealing with the people who have serious mental health issues. It's an online community and naturally these tend to attract lonely people that feel like they have no other place to go for venting their mental health struggles, but man it does get tiresome/worrisome seeing it day after day. None of us mods are trained therapists. I still haven't figured out exactly what to do when people come in and start talking about suicidal thoughts and self-harm, or have meltdowns that freeze the conversation in a channel because it scares everyone else away.

Click to shrink...

You could report them to the Discord Health and Safety Team and make a rule that that sort of talk isn't allowed. As someone who personally had to deal with that kind of talk daily. . .it's really difficult to keep your own mental health in check. You're not a professional so don't feel bad for deferring and straight up just not allowing it.

 

[TheMadTitan]

Yup. I deleted things that needed to be deleted; didn't ban anyone unless they were being racist or homophobic shitheads, though.

I'd be too laid back to be a mod here.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

I was a Guide on EverQuest for a hot minute back before Plane of Air was a thing. Got fired for abuse of power.