Hugs for Admins and Mods!

[Cutelestia 189]

I want to hug you for something very important to me. You know, as a Polish Brony, I've been spending a lot of time at another forums. They look almost identical to this one, but it looks like the language isn't the only difference!

 

So, those forums look nice, but there are some major problems with their staff. There are Admins and the so called ''Sector Mods'', but the ones who are supposed to give warnings are called...

 

Inquisition

 

What looks like a cool name is actually a horror. Let me explain...

 

So my story is, I was a member for 11 days, and I've made a thread where I asked if I should stay in fandom. Since I have Asperger Syndrome, everything I wrote looked like trolling, for example, me saying that I wish I was Twilight Sparkle, when in fact I was completely honest. So, one guy wrote a post where he used a lot of insults, was arrogant, and encouraged me to commit suicide by drowning myself. The posts he wrote were extremely hostile.

 

Something like this would get him at least a 70% warning on those forums which is 700 on this forums. So I contacted the staff...

 

Minutes later, my account gets permabanned. I couldn't believe my eyes. The explanation? Trolling. So apparently the staff doesn't know what Asperger is, and I did wrote that I have it. I made a similar threads to the ones on this forums, such as about the Virtual Equestria and Double Nostril Alicorns. 

 

Even if it was indeed trolling(And I wasn't), the best thing was to close the thread. And what about that guy who was hostile? He got 9%. That's like getting 90 points on this forum for behavior I've wrote about above.

 

Allright, I though. Oversensitive guy. But something was wrong...My title changed to ''Heretic''.

 

And then I found out the horrible truth: Inquisition was not a cool title for Admins and Mods. It was actually a very fitting name. Through a proxy, I've looked at the posts of the guy who banned me. He was obsessed with finding any violations in posts. Ok, one bad apple. But all of the members of Inquisition were like this. They were threating users for trying to question their methods. The one who banned me even threatened his friend with warns if he wouldn't stop expressing his own opinion. ''Trying to question staff without a good point'' was a warnable offense, and any Inquisitor could claim that your point was not good. Many of the warnable offenses are very broad and poorly defined and all are up to Staff's opinion.

 

For example, ''trolling'' was not even in the offenses chart.

 

Ever heard of Stanford Experiment? People who have power to punish, love to abuse it. The use of title ''Inquisition'' instead of ''Admin'' or ''Mod'' only increased the ''I have the power'' feeling. In my opinion, this changed them into Light Yagami, who at first punished criminals before moving to punish anyone for anything.

 

It's one thing to be responsible for the order on forum, but it is another thing to hold the whole forum at gunpoint.

 

And this is why I want to hug all of the staff here. You are who you are supposed to be, you are not drunk with power. I can really say you are like regular users. Many of even wrote some posts in my threads!

 

I remember when I once got 250 warning points for borderline NSFW, and some of my threads were closed many times because they were more suited for a blog update. Yet, staff here is very kind to me, even when it has to give warnings.

 

And that's why I want to hug you.

 

- For caring for this forum and not for your ego.

- For not being drunk with power, and using it responsibly and rather gently.

- For allowing people to question your decisions.

 

HUGS! This is the most friendly forum I've ever been on.

Edited March 10, 2014 by Flipturn

[SCS 7,537]

I'm glad that you are enjoying your time here. We do our best to carry out all moderation and administration actions with care, fairness and prudence. Not only are people allowed to question our decisions, but we welcome it and have an avenue set up for that purpose: the support ticket system. No staff team is infallible. 

 

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience on that other site. Honestly, I would be very wary of a site whose staff referred to themselves as the Inquisition. It is likely that they are referencing the Spanish Inquisition, a period of history in which mass murder was committed against people who chose not to conform to the religion followed by the people in power at the time. It's awful that that staff would refer to themselves with an evil name such as that, and it's even worse that they would label you a "heretic." The history involving the Spanish Inquisition is not a joke.

[Mlpfan185 1,763]

Something was here. Something was here. Something was here. Something was here. Something was here. Something was here.

Edited October 10, 2018 by NONAME

[Cutelestia 189]

I'm glad that you are enjoying your time here. We do our best to carry out all moderation and administration actions with care, fairness and prudence. Not only are people allowed to question our decisions, but we welcome it and have an avenue set up for that purpose: the support ticket system. No staff team is infallible. 

 

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience on that other site. Honestly, I would be very wary of a site whose staff referred to themselves as the Inquisition. It is likely that they are referencing the Spanish Inquisition, a period of history in which mass murder was committed against people who chose not to conform to the religion followed by the people in power at the time. It's awful that that staff would refer to themselves with an evil name such as that, and it's even worse that they would label you a "heretic." The history involving the Spanish Inquisition is not a joke.

 

Well, they are calling their group, which I believe is just a unfortunate name for moderators, ''Equestrian Inquisition''(Not like anything like that exists in the show). I've even saw a new member joining this group and being happy that she can finally punish someone for the first time. That's a responsibility. Was Celestia happy when she had to punish NMM? No, she cried. Unfortunately, forum members are either too scared, or think that by trying to befriend them they will have a lesser chance of being banned.

The staff here are exceptional, if not a bit overworked for the (mostly) free service they provide. I've been in charge of multiple forums/projects/administrative projects, and I've witnessed people becoming power Nazis. This is never something I've understood. These positions are not of power, but of servitude. Without the community, the position means nothing.

 

Keep on keeping on.

True. For me, worst thing is not that they punish people so often and for everything, but that they almost always, coincidentaly, give permabans. And that the people who support their opinion can break the rules, like insulting, and be actually brohoofed for that.

[Khaoios 1,970]

The staff here are exceptional, if not a bit overworked for the (mostly) free service they provide. I've been in charge of multiple forums/projects/administrative projects, and I've witnessed people becoming power Nazis. This is never something I've understood. These positions are not of power, but of servitude. Without the community, the position means nothing.

 

Keep on keeping on.

 

Same here..........It, in a way upsets me on how there are some people who think there better, when in truth there not. 

 

OP: I see what you mean.  As a moderator/administrator from several other sites, what that mod did was just unacceptable.  Not to mention, it is, what we like to say, "Half-Ass Duty".  Especially not to respond to your message, and instead call you something that, just blew my mind.  Now that's something.  Now, I've been here for already 2 weeks and I must say, I agree with you fully.  I am also impressed by the admins and mods on this site.  Out of all the admins/mods i've come across, I've never been around such a great team and I wish them the best and to keep up the great work.

 

P.S. As a halo fan and a member on the Halo website, we here "Heretic".....a lot,

[-Lyra Heartstrings- 100]

I love the staff on here (they keep it safe...thanks guys!)
 

Sometimes, staff close threads because they don't agree or there aren't people responding though...

thats not good at all

[Tholos 145]

This is something that I know from experience is actually done by close to every website's staff. Even in the best websites, all they can really do is do it under the table so it looks like it isn't taking place. Mainly because most sites use humans to moderate, and humans are always prejudiced, no matter what. 

 

I don't have enough experience to say whether or not it happens here, too, but I'd assume it does. I'd say it probably happens less often here than at other websites, though.

Edited May 1, 2014 by Tholos

[SparkleShy 38]

The staff of this website do what they need to do to run.

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

Aquila is the best staff member there ever was

#longliveAquila

[Inactive01 5,299]

The mods here are very approachable, which is a rarity these days. In most cases, visiting a forum meant being wary of doing anything wrong out of fear that you were going to be perma-banned. Here, I've never felt that one bit. Mods are people like you and me, and they're doing their best to keep things in good shape. Sure there's mods who are better than others, but at least one thing's in common in most cases. They're not going to be demeaning on you and they've certainly shown that they care about the good and unity of the forums.

[Shift 4,272]

At first I thought you were talking about MLPF and I was like
 

 

But now, I just want to say that you're an awesome person and I hope you stay around. It's great that you're having a better experience~

 

and i'm friends with a lot of the staff and I can easily say they're some of the coolest and best people around. Mod / admin power!

also i really just wanted an excuse to use this gif

Edited May 1, 2014 by Shift