My solemn promise to you as a moderator......

[Acoustic]

I am not going to name names to avoid a internet forum holy war but I for one am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired of being over-moderated on other forums. What the frick? The only reason I post on forums is to act like I can't in real life. Why? Um.....maybe because I am not at work and need to have fun on my offtime so I don't go on a hack and jack rampage through the city. Anyhow, my solemn promise to you.........

1)I will not moderate or edit any post unless I feel it is approaching threats of harm or bodily injury in a non-joking manner.

2)I will not moderate or edit any post that displays anger in the face of someone who deserves it because they are stupid and ignorant and are killing defenseless reef inhabitants becuase they are to lazy to read and understand proper care guidelines.

3)I will not moderate any off-topic discussion in any thread. Why? Becuase you should feel free to talk about what you want when you want. Just because "your" thread doesn't go the way you want it is not a proper reason to moderate.

4) If your tank or picture sucks or you say something stupid. It is okay for people to say that it sucks or that you said something stupid.

*deep breathe*

relaxation.

- Acoustic (George Goss)

[T. VO]

Uh yeah, what he said.

[nalbar]

all that is fine and dandy when a site is small and 'niche'.

but success and advertising brings different priorities. but if a 'club' forms (and it certainly will, in fact its already started to form) and starts going after people or starts making 'off topic' unreadable for certain people, what then? sponsors demand certain standards or they leave. a decerning person can already see the beginnings of sponsorships on this site. this is a good thing, and a price has to be made for it.

you posted what you WON'T moderate. but you did not post what you WILL moderate.


of course, all this is meaningless. moore decides what stays and what is permissible. he owns it.


its kind of amusing because on all the enthusiest sites i frequent (some i share with you coutie) i can't ever recall being 'over-moderated'.


nalbar

[Acoustic]

Well then if it gets to that mentality then I am out.

[suver569]

Ya, you know, I post on tons of other boards, and most of them are little punk sh*ts running the boards, and they lock posts because you ask a dumb question in the help forum, and then they threaten to ban you if you post another post.
*** is the point of having a "help forum" if they lock your post for asking for help. I quickly got myself banned from the forums so I wont bother going back.
Thanks Acoustic for letting us be ourselves once in a while. That's why we post here!

[SanDiegoReefs]

I agree with you George... many other sites these days are over-moderated. I try to keep this board as "free" as possibly, but sometimes I get PM's about certain posts and stuff, so I try to keep a balance. I generally leave those "heated" posts alone, because most of the time one or both parties have a good point... and sometimes it's fun to see what develops. (Case in point: The 'free' Nassarius snail thread, or if anyone saw the Memorial Day thread, it got a little out of hand... ha.)

The only things I do try to keep an eye on are: use of the f-bomb, or other swearing that's offensive to some people. Obviously I don't catch all of it, but I try to keep it somewhat in line.

Nalbar has a point about sponsorship, and claims one can see the beginnings of sponsorship.... buut, I have no intentions of getting sponsors at this point. There are some local people (Blue Lagoon, M. Parkis, etc) that do some sales here, but as far as compromising the 'freedom' of the board, I won't have it. We are getting to the point where we are going to have to upgrade our hosting services, again.... and the monthly costs double. However, I'd rather do Paypal donations to cover the amounts, than have to answer to someone saying our board isn't politically correct... or complaining to me about certain threads that criticize their business.

Ok, I have to run, but I'll finish this up later. You get the idea though. And if you guys ever feel like I'm over-moderating, or unfairly editing a post, let me know... my goal is NOT to be a babysitter here. Ideally, I would have to "moderate" as little as possibly...

-moore

[suver569]

I used to work for Sony Online Entertainment, and I spent alot of times in the chat room as a mod.
Nothing pisses people off more than when I used to silence the room, but it has to be done at times. I used to get 1000 people in there cuz there server went down, and 1000 people screaming in chat sucks. To my point, it pissed people off when they were silenced, and the same goes for posting on boards. Granted, most boards are free, but it's our little community.
It should be a 2 way street for sure. The boards have to be watched for obvious things. F-bomb, porn, basically anthing that wouldnt be deemed appropriate for a workplace IMO, yet if you have a certain forum to B.S. in, then by all means, B.S. there. Don't do it in the Sales/Trade forums.
If a mod threatens to ban, or locks a post on me for posting off topic, wrong forum, or what have you, then they can have there silly little forum. I'll find another. Another forum I posted on locked a thread within 30 seconds because there was already a thread on the topic. Wow, I though, I must have not searched hard enough. After wasting 30 minutes, still no topic on the subject. What the hell good is having a forum dedicated to something, when someone locks the threads on you.

Ok, i'm done. Just let everyone be themselves, and take care of business when you have to. In several months here, I only found one thread that got out of hand (big booty chick at AW) and that was understandable.

[SDMike]

I've been on other boards that have been IMO "overmoderated." It stinks.

I'll agree that less is more when it comes to moderation, but I can see it coming: the bigger this board gets, the more we'll have to see changes. What was OK when we were new and small won't be any more 'cause somone's sensibilities are going to get tweaked.

So, keep up the good work. There's an interesting mix of personalities here. Hopefully we'll manage to keep it civil for a long time.

M

[JeromeBaker]

I couldnt agree more.

[SanDiegoReefs]

Hah, and who knows... maybe we'll have to cap it off at 300 members. It'll be this big exclusive club.... ha.

-moore

[JeromeBaker]

I always wondered how this stuff works. Who's the boss? Who is the main person in charge of decisions for sdreefs? Is there an owner? Is it bluelagoon?

[Mike N]

Moore is the oppressive fist of leadership and reason around these parts...

Moore is the man behind the curtain. His site, his show

[T. VO]

BlueLagoon pays/sponsors to have this message board up for all us San Diego Reefers. Moore is the man who thought up and is in charge of running the show.

[BlueLagoonSD]

Jason is the man behind all this. This man is large and in charge. Without him, there wouldnt be a sdreefs.com. Thanks to his creativity we sd reefers have a place to call home.

[SanDiegoReefs]

haha... what is this flattery all about? Are you guys looking for increased PM boxes or something?

JeromeBaker: I started this site up back in the Fall of '03... I was using my personal hosting space for it. Since it grew a lot quicker than I ever thought, I had to change servers. Blue Lagoon purchased sdreefs.com for me, and used it to host their own site as well (bluelagoon.sdreefs.com). They bought the webspace, so we put up a banner/link to their site on the main sdreefs.com page.

As far as what I see for the future of sdreefs: I'm talking with Rice Studios about collaborating on a main page. However, a lot of stuff has been put on hold, as I'm leaving in 3 days... and won't be back until mid-August.

Oh, and Mike N... if you ever call me an oppressive leader again, I'll ban you! It's simply not true, I am not a tyrant, and if you call me one I'll ban you!. Hahah. =] When's the next fragswap? I still need to meet everyone.

-moore