Your honest opinion on the management/moderation of MLP Forums?

[Clarity 3,094]

I got permission from ~CD~ to make a thread like this, so here goes~!

 

Title says all. Be honest, though not too hostile. I trust the mods won't ban anyone who has an honest critique of the management here.

 

Anyway. Lately there've been some complaints about mods (and I admit that I have complained as well) and I want to hear everyone's thoughts on how the site is being managed currently!

 

Many may agree that the site currently has a great and responsible load of moderators and adminstrators (and I agree) but some others may think that mods and admins are horrible at managing the site and/or are very biased, favoring their friends. 

 

What do you think? (Poll is anonymous so give your hell to it! )

 

--

 

Heyo folks. As I told Clarity when they first approved this thread, I just want to make sure everyone knows that this thread is not a place for specific complaints about something. This is a general feedback thread about the staff as a whole, touching upon the things Clarity has mentioned in the poll, not a general 'this rule sucks, this needs to be changed, I didn't deserve so and so warning' etc etc. Anything specific that you may have a problem with is best served in a Support Ticket, one on one, with you and the staff.

 

Tickets are accessible through the 'Site Questions & Tech Support' forum.

 

Thanks!

 

~C.Discord

Edited January 17, 2013 by ~Chaotic Clarity~
Clarification added for thread's purpose.

[~Lawful Sturdy Wing~ 522]

Honestly? Moderation here is the most brutal and arbitrary than "The Escapist" forums, only with less perma banning and way more nepotism. But I guess it goes to maintaining the kind of community the want. So it's not so bad 

[Wubsie 1,123]

The management on the forums is wonderful. 

God Tier in my opinion. I've seen some bad haters, spammers, and ads here and the staff gets rid of them quickly.

They lock bad/spam threads, take out bots, ban people that need to be banned, and keep harmony and peace on the forums.

An excellent staff. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAryFIuRxmQ

[Twiliscael 3,960]

I don't see any problems with it. All of the moderators and admins are very fair and down to earth.

 

The only thing I see wrong with it may be favoritism of certain members.

[Marcato 2,143]

Honestly? Moderation here is the most brutal and arbitrary than "The Escapist" forums, only with less perma banning and way more nepotism. But I guess it goes to maintaining the kind of community the want. So it's not so bad 

Now is this from your personal experience, or from what the people around you have said? 

 

I don't know about you guys, but I think the staff here does a bang-up job here! Most staff members on other forums and online communities I find just pop in and take care of there minimal duties and nothing else. The staff here goes beyond the call of duty to make this place fun and safe.

 

Good example are the Tech Admins. Most tech admins on a forum just deal with issues and such regarding the forum. Some don't even have tech admins. Meanwhile here we have two tech admins that add content and fun little additions to the forums!

~Chaotic Discord~ goes and does those things no one else wants to do while attending to his moderation duties at the same time.

Zoop and the other community admins help make sure we're happy a satisfied with the lower staff.

Community Stewards, (although I barely consider them staff myself) manage the extra bits that give us a fun bunch of games and options where we can meet up with our friends and have a good time, while moderating their respective sections.

 

I think I'll write a giant wall of text later explaining why the MLP Forums staff is significant in comparison to other communities. Sure, there have been the occasional issues, primarily back when the Boatloads of Moderators event happened, but those issues were settled out. 

[spas-ticShotty 3,584]

I would say it's pretty good, but since I've managed to be seriously pissed off by some of the staff decisions quite a few times, I'm gonna be upfront and say it's overall "so-so" for me. I disagree with a few things, and I've already made quite some rants on them at times (Earlier today is a good example).

Edited January 17, 2013 by spas-ticShotty

[Commander Urdnot 2,680]

Other than that 100 character limit, I have no problem with the moderation of the forums.

Edited January 17, 2013 by UrdiePie

[Shiki 5,855]

Many users are not going to like the moderators... because they actually do their job. They give warning points to those who break the rules and such; they do what they're supposed to.

 

People lean towards internet anarchy, so when they get in trouble for breaking the rules of a site, they get confused. I personally have only disagreed with the mods on two things; both extremely ambiguous and when it comes down to it, things conflicting against my personal morals (which doesn't get someone in trouble, of course). I would be much more inclined to speak to the moderators, as a person compared to an average user, because they are generally good people, in my eyes (though, I will admit I don't know much about each of them). If they weren't so busy (because I believe they actually do their job, as well as go to their real life job and other such things), I would probably try to actually befriend a lot of them, as I have Zoop. I love the mods here, and that's that. 

[Betez 1,734]

You guys are doing a wonderful job. Without you, this forum would suck basically.

[duidamasterXD 9,627]

I haven't ever really had any issues with the way that this site has been run, and in fact it seems to be managed infinitely better than any other forums that I've visited in the past. The mods that I've interacted with have been very approachable and seem concerned with making sure that we can enjoy our time here. So yeah, A+ from me.

Edited January 17, 2013 by DashForever

[Mephala 2,633]

Er.

Not the biggest fan of the mods.

I've never had a conflict with one of them but some of what they've said to others is kind of uncalled for.

They keep the Forums clean, I guess, but there's a lot of blatant favouritism that goes on too.

In short, not as friendly as I hoped mods to be, but professional wise (besides the favouritism) they do good work.

Personal qualms and business are distinctly seperate.

[Scootalove 10,689]

My honest opinion on the management is, they have been doing an excellent job so far. +A from me.

[~TheStealthyPony~ 166]

everything seems great and excellent.keep up the awesome work    

[Lightning Fluttershy 1,844]

All in all good however when I got suspended last November I did feel like I was treated unfairly.

 

All round good job keeping things under control I suppose.

 

I'm just going to kind of bullet mini rants.

 

• I sensed favoritism when I got suspended
• You sometimes cause fights rather than end them
• Maybe loosen up a teensy bit on what is and isn't borderline NSFW
• Go easier on people who recently joined. You're sometimes kind of cruel to new comers for warning points
• Try not to favor any members. I'm not accusing any specific mod but like I said, I've sensed it

Edited January 17, 2013 by Lightning Fluttershy

[Rainbow Dash Loyalty 1,275]

In my opinion I see that everything is great, I saw very little complaints but not big ones and the admins do their job very well-done and keep the forum really safe and friendly to the new members around here.

[Champion RD92 8,658]

Other than that 100 character limit, I have no problem with the moderation of the forums.

Exactly this. So many people have complained about the 100 character limit, yet nothing has been done to change this rule.

 

<p>

All in all good however when I got suspended last November I did feel like I was treated unfairly.

 

All round good job keeping things under control I suppose.

 

I'm just going to kind of bullet mini rants.

 

• I sensed favoritism when I got suspended
• You sometimes cause fights rather than end them
• Maybe loosen up a teensy bit on what is and isn't borderline NSFW
• Go easier on people who recently joined. You're sometimes kind of cruel to new comers for warning points
• Try not to favor any members. I'm not accusing any specific mod but like I said, I've sensed it

I also agree with everything LF said.

[Emerald Flame 381]

If I had a problem with the staff, I wouldn't be here, regardless of whether I'd been in trouble or not. I've left several online communities because the mods weren't being fair to other members, or just seemed to be in it for the power high, not for the community. I've also left communities because the admins were flat out incompetent, and made changes without caring about what the community members actually thought.

 

Luckily, there are no such problems here. The staff is friendly, they're active in the community, they do their jobs quickly and efficiently, and they genuinely care about the community.

[Retro*Derpy 3,183]

Well, as far as my opinions go, I think that moderation on this site is rather top-notch, but in a mostly good way. I haven't had any troubles with mods, so I would say they are fair? The mods that I have actually came incontact with were nice/serious about the situation, so that is a +. But as for activity, most of them are signed in as anonymous and sometimes people just don't feel like posting, but rather just stalking. That is a really effy question. 

 

Many users are not going to like the moderators... because they actually do their job. They give warning points to those who break the rules and such; they do what they're supposed to.

I deeply agree with this. It is kinda like the saying "Don't hate the player, hate the game" but rather "Don't hate the mod, hate the rule"

[XUNUSEDXXX 3,459]

Exactly this. So many people have complained about the 100 character limit, yet nothing has been done to change this rule.

 

 

I also agree with everything LF said.

 

Complaints aren't good. The 100 character limit keeps the forums have some sort of decency when it comes to good posts. I wasn't here when the 100 char. limit WAS here, but I heard that a ton of the responses to a lot of threads were <2 words, which is absurd.

 

If it requires a one word response, explain your point further.

[Fluttermoon 192]

Since I've been here, being a slightly newish user, I haven't had any problems with the staff. I have yet to really get to know any of them (if I even do), and during a particular situation where I had to talk to someone they were pretty friendly. So I give my own personal thumbs up.

[Shanks 10,816]

I haven't had much interaction with the moderators here so far but based on what I have seen so far this site is very well run and the few flame wars I have seen on here were put to an end in a timely and professional manner. As a former moderator of an anime site I have seen exactly what happens when you put the wrong people in charge. There were some seriously nasty flame wars toward the end of my time on that site, it was so bad I even saw flame wars between the moderators some of them in view of the other members.

 

It was a complete and total mess, ownership of that site had changed hands due to financial issues and the new owner kind of let it go to his head. The favoritism was completely out of control people were made moderators that were in it for the power trip people were getting banned for the most ridiculous of reasons while some others practically got away with murder. The place was in a constant state of civil war so I and many of the old guard members and moderators said "to hell with this" and left. It truly made me sad because that site started out as a nice and welcoming place. So I would like to take this moment to thank the staff for having the maturity to not let BS like that happen here.

[featheredone 56]

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Edited June 14, 2022 by featheredone

[NavelColt 22,880]

One more thing is the lack of reference threads. I feel that the managament of this forum is very much at times inadequete for the size of the database you guys use. I know there's a search function, but most often people may use them to find specific important threads. Some threads could easily make things clear with a thread that references important resoruces. One instance of this was when I helped Wubs on instructions to create a forum banner. Sure, there was a forum guide for how to make banners, but it was simply too far off the abyss, and I personally was not very used to the search function.

I take a bizarre interest in this point, seeing as I have a strange liking of creating, organizing and generally overseeing announcements and other threads that serve more as an informational resource than as a discussion base. That said, while we do try and emulate the practice of having pinned threads as resources, our descriptions for forums being one of our main examples, we also have the FAQ which is constantly being added to with specific forum questions that are brought up. It serves as an even more convenient resource than having threads pinned in separate forums since the FAQ is its' own entity in a single location, with its' own hierarchy of organization.

 

The downside being that, the FAQ, much like Support Tickets, is horrendously overlooked by the member base, something we've been striving to make easier with implementations such as the redirection forum. Seeing as how we're interested in both pinned reference topics and the FAQ to act as the guide for members around the forum, ideally using pinned topics for the bigger, over-arching questions and the FAQ for most other questions, I'm curious as to any thoughts you may have for new topics or articles that may make it easier for members to find and use both of these resources.

 

Perhaps the creation of a pinned topic or a global announcement that acts as a 'Resource Map', if you will. It could list everything from FAQ articles to pinned topics, non-pinned topics, even uoting specific posts, the one-stop go for everything that you can use as a resource to answer your questions or to help you do something.

[Kapi 215]

I honestly can't say anything but good things about the staff here. The only one I can't answer is "Mods/admins manage their area of expertise well (i.e. section mods for their...sections)." since I'm not active in all sections of the forum, it'd be unfair for me to judge areas I don't bother with.

 

Any time I've needed to talk to someone (Very rarely since the rules are pretty well spelled out and the FAQ section is great) all I've ever gotten was professionalism, and a great attitude, it makes me feel like taking care of this place is a full time job for them, and that's great! They're humans, just like us, they make mistakes, and they correct them when they see them. So yeah, there's my 2 cents, it is impossible for me to say anything better.

[Doctor XFizzle 8,669]

Oy! I tried doing this and I got my head ripped clean off its shoulders  Kyronea

Edited January 18, 2013 by Doctor XFizzle