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Moderator
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Warning! HEY EVERYBODY IM A MODERATOR YEAH IM THE MODERATORS MAN I GOT THE MODERATORS MASK SO IM A MODERATOR |
In the world of Internet forums and messageboards, "moderators" (often abbreviated to "mods") are the equivalent of policemen. In fact, the only difference is that they have no real authority except over their gay ass web sites. Ranking somewhere below administrators, they are assigned the task of ensuring the rules of the forum that they "moderate" are rigidly adhered to by the rank-and-file board membership while at the same time willfully ignoring these rules themselves. Given special powers by the board's administrators to assist them in this endeavor, it is common for these powers to be abused at a whim, and when the inevitable howls of protest follow, to use these same powers to silence dissent. In a nutshell, moderators partake in intense faggotry.
Types of moderators
Broadly speaking, moderators can be divided into the following categories;
- Rule bound moderators - these mods are usually bound to a sense of community and Internet fairness. They will go out of their way to ban anyone breaking their arbitrary rules because they are "helping" everyone out. In reality they are slowly choking to death the very forum they circle jerk over. Very common moderator type.
- Passive moderators - this type of mod rarely posts on the board in question and will often lurk unseen in the shadows, hiding their online status, until such time as they need to wield their power despite being largely unknown to the community.
- Vigilantes - actively cruise every thread, editing or deleting posts that are vaguely interesting or controversial, so as to maintain a general atmosphere of stagnation on the board. Most commonly found on specialist forums.
- Fucking hopeless - the most dangerous of all, showing precious little awareness of how to do their job. This incompetence often manifests itself in such forms as ensuring that new members are watchfully policed and ruthlessly suppressed by recourse to, amongst other things, the Law of the Post Count (see below).
- Teh popular ones - These are the mods that were appointed to their positions either by sucking off the administrator or they have n00dz floating somewhere. These are usually camwhores who you often wonder how they balance the life of being a MySpace whore and an incompetent mod. Often they don't do anything except be really bitchy to n00bs and post their pictures in the Member's photos thread wanting to be dickfed attention. (Ex. of camwhore moderator, verynicelady)
- The RL faggot - These are a rare breed of mod, but every once in a while, an admin takes a liking to these ladyboy traps and decides it's time for a promo. While "Teh popular ones" type of mod thinks she is in control, it's actually the "RL faggot" that proves the most dangerous (and also the most likely to be the resident "drama queen"). Expect them to get in nice and cozy with an admin, and secretly be their personal bitch. We don't want to imply who the real bitch is however, since generally it's the ladyboy that becomes the most "persuasive" when it comes to decision making. If you try to pwn them for their epic failures as a mod, they'll automatically show their faggotry by pulling the gay card. Beware of this, but it's still epic lulz.
- **ULTRA RARE** The laid back mod - These are the few and proud moderators who were former trolls and decided to balance being a troll and being a good forum user and ended up somehow getting picked to be moderators.They usually don't jump into forum raids right away because a part of them would like to see the epic lulz in action.They usually don't care much about spam and stupid new members and it's rare for them to get motivated to ban someone.The admins hate these type of mods and like to often find ways to replace them with more of the types described above. But in real life they're really just basement dwellers who want to get respect from people on the internets that they will never meet.
- Opinionies - One of the most uncommon Mods, there are only about one OPI Moderator in every forum, and they usually ban people or follow those who disagree with them. Their mission is to find people who they don't agree with, and simply ban them. They are waiting for you to do something that is "against the rules" and "send you home" for that thing. They not only hate people who have an opinion and should have the right to speak about it, but they also hate people who don't have any opinion at all. They are "the bad" Mods, but if your opinion and their opinion are the same, they won't ban you. Even God is afraid of them. They are the Jew of the internet. These Moderators are almost the worst kind.
- Emo Moderators - These Mods parade around the forum telling other users how much everyone hates them because they're moderators, and proceed to ban themselves OVAR 9000!!11!1 times. You rarely see these Mods because they're too busy being fags in real life. The only possible reason of them becoming moderators is if the administrators are fags themselves.
The Moderators' Creed
Almost without exception, moderators will operate under the following guidelines;
- What's good for the goose is definitely not good for the gander - in short, established board members are allowed to rip the piss out of n00bs but should the n00b under fire actually fight back and start winning, a mod will step in (often by locking the thread, see "Mod powers" below) before the established member starts losing too much face.
- Law of the Post Count - an unwritten internet law that states that the likelihood of a poster being moderated, regardless of the merits or otherwise of their post, is inversely proportional to their relative post count. The Law also states that the truthiness of any post is directly proportional to the post count of its creator. (However to those in reality, the higher the post count, the bigger a loser in real life the person is and the less worthy their opinions are. But mods and admins like high post count people as they're basically minions in their army.)
- This Is Not A Democracy - a phrase invoked when a moderator has been seriously pwned for making a crap decision, and will not (or, more likely, cannot) justify the decision in public.
- I'll see how I feel - a decision made by a moderator does not have to be consistent, but instead will often be arrived at through gut instinct and with absolutely no regard to whether or not a forum rule has been breached. Can often result in double standards, a basic requirement for any self-respecting forum.
- Lets just take this to PM - When a moderator has been called out for being a faggot and a Nazi. Rather then face the masses and actually admit to being an epic failure, they hide behind the cozy barrier of a PM and hide from the public like bitches.
- You Don't Need No Stinkin' Thick Skin - Since every mod (especially older ones with high post counts) is an asshole, there is often a rule in a forum that you should bring your "thick skin." Moderators however do not need to adhere to these rules. If anyone is being an asshole to them, they can simply throw a hissy-fit and ban you without recourse.
Actual moderator quotes
—At least 'Pap' was right. | ||
Previous Quote | Next Quote
Mod powers
There are a variety of tools that a moderator can employ in order to carry out his or her duties efficiently. These range from the basic (editing of posts, maybe even deleting of posts) to the advanced (locking of threads, avatar and signature alteration).
These powers are there to be routinely abused; for example, a thread can be locked yet some moderators will still post on it regardless, denying a basic right of reply to the OP or the poster who apparently caused the thread to be locked in the first place.
As a result, moderators are often some of the worst (or best, depending on your point of view) internet trolls, which doesn't stop them from accusing others of trolling at every opportunity. Should a moderator start losing an argument on a thread, they will often use the aforementioned powers, like deleting fucking everything, in order to attempt to beat a dignified retreat. Either that, or go running to the admin.
Why Moderators Make Rules
As Rational Egoist Theory suggests, nobody gives a shit about anything but themselves, for every possible thing imaginable in the universe. This is the philosophy that the typical moderator follows by when developing their set of holy rules of this universe. The idea is that people will only give a shit when the consequences for not giving a shit are so beneficial, that they make the benefits of not giving a shit not worth it in the end. This way, a moderator can successfully force people to give a shit about things they would not normally give a shit about, even if such giving is artificial. The ironic matter, however, is that setting such rules in the first place is a sign that the moderator does not give a shit about the things that the users who don't give a shit give a shit about. This means that moderators setting rules is ultimately just as selfish as those who break them, which makes their existence incredibly contradictory. This is made much worse when the moderator sets rules that only benefit the preferences of the moderator him/herself (Which is 99% of the time). Sometimes, a moderator will attempt to disguise their rules as requests of kindness, though this is contradictory as you will see below:
"Will you change your username? It is vulgar" -Moderator
As you see, the moderator has asked that the user changes his/her name. This means that if this were to truly be a question, the choice to refuse would be viable. However, let's see what the moderator would say if the user were to refuse, if in the case that the user doesn't get banned for refusing:
"You have one minute to change your name, or you will be banned" -Moderator
As you can see, the Moderator has attempted to coerce the user into changing their mind, which defeats the purpose of asking the user instead of demanding them. It is said that the moderator typically "asks" users to do certain things in order to pretend like the user believes that what he/she is doing is right, when in reality, the user thinks that the moderator's power has become way too ungodly.
Moderators also tend to make rules so that the given rules fit their personal and unfounded preferences and outlooks in life, even if such a thing comes at the expense of a healthy community. As such, when a moderator finds out that one of their rules accidentally conflicts with their own preferences, they generally do not remain humble and follow it, but instead resort to their ungodly power of being able to break the rule because "it is their forum/server, and they can do whatever they want in it". As you can see, rule making is a complex scenario that moderators tend to undermine, simply only using it to make people give a shit about their personal preferences, when ironically, setting rules in the first place is a contradiction to the very outlooks that a moderator has hatred for.
Forums are easy propaganda machines
It is very common and easy for a moderator to use their powers to turn their board into a propaganda machine. They merely have to take a bunch of insanely absurd lies and propaganda, the more absurd the better, and then remove any dissenting viewpoints. When people complain about the moderator doing this, remove these complaints and keep all the content saying the moderator is doing a wonderful job. Bonus points if you do this while proclaiming your forum to be a place of free speech. Even more bonus points if you criticize other forums that do this while doing it yourself.
This is very common on forums and if you have the attention span to bother reading the TL;DR drivel, you will find each forum has people living in completely different realities.
Moderator Induced Necrosis
The law: - "The older that a forum becomes, the more reasons that Moderators find to ban the members". Eventually so many people have been banned and so many posts inevitably produce hair trigger responses from the forum administrators that the dreaded condition "Moderator Induced Necrosis" begins to set in. Moderators become more concerned with their own status than the health of the forum and posters begin to drift away to other places where they can speak their minds without having to kowtow to a bunch of people who have been overcome by their own self-importance. In the final stage, all that is left in the forum are (a) the Moderators, (b) the occasional newbie who has wandered in by mistake, soon to leave, (c) the forum arselickers and (d) one or two trolls with the energy left to be entertaining. Soon after that, like a sun collapsing of old age, the forum dies, with only about ten members talking to each other about the same things over and over again, stubbornly soldiering on out of sheer inertia or perhaps even nostalgia. The irony is that if only the forum founders -- who have often left a previous forum in disgust at the lack of freedom of speech - remembered their origins and removed the collective sticks from their anuses then the forum would probably have survived.
UGH WHY CANT I BAN THIS GALLERY *SIGH*
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Post deletion -
Typical internet moderator -
Typical encounter between a mod and a new user. -
An admin in his typical dictatorial delusions -
Typical mod post. -
Admin inserting his comment into a user's post to make himself look better. -
"Mods" complaining about mods. -
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Typical moderator, hates their life, only happy when they shitlist someone.
See Also
- ED's admin list
- Kimmo Johan Alm: Laughably insane moderator
- Seto-Kaiba.com: The mother lode for demented moderating
- Jim Profit: nutcase with a hate bonker for moderators.
- SysOp
- Unwarranted self importance
- He does it for free
External Links
| Moderator is part of a series on Language & Communication | |
|---|---|
Languages and Dialects • Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling, Style, and Usage • Rhetorical Strategies • Poetry •
The Politics of Language and Communication • Media • Visual Rhetoric
Click topics to expand |
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| Featured article August 4, 2010 | ||
| Preceded by Goosh Goosh |
Moderator | Succeeded by Spaghettios |