NOTICE - QPR Board: Mod Issues

Apologies for potentially boring you all with our modding problems but we may need to resign. Here's why.

Headlines

20 people (out of 40 or 50 regular posters on here) voting against our fair decision to increase Swords’ ban time, makes our position as mods untenable. There’s a cost to everything.

We could and probably should resign as mods on that basis.

However, given our need for consistency and stability on here, We’ve consulted a few of our notables and been advised to seek re-election and a mandate to continue should we receive a respectable majority, i.e. at least 85% of those polled to counteract those who don’t bother.

The question is, is it us mods those 20 voters had a problem with in the Swords poll, or their inability / unwillingness to understand, despite our best attempts to explain, what fairness means and the punitive elements involved in our modding procedures?

The only way to find out is to set before the board what we would need to continue as mods. This comprises a set of guidelines with particular regard to modding regular and/or popular posters which must be added to our current rules as shown by clicking ‘HOUSE RULES’ on BrixtonR's signature.

We have drafted these guidelines and placed them in situ pending your agreement. Please have a quick read through them.

Typos apart, they are non-negotiable. If enough of you vote to accept these as we’ve drafted them, we would be happy to continue as mods. If on the other hand, too many vote against the guidelines, we will not hesitate to give our notice and resign.

Further Detail for those who really want to know.

Been modding this board for just over 14 months now. Many acknowledge it’s a necessary but thankless voluntary task. We mods kind of know that going in but it takes time to realise what that really means.

Fact is, issues abound. The main ones relate to the largely unseen time, effort and pure aggravation involved in trying to keep the board reasonably harmonious in the ways we do things.

Whilst things like merging repeated threads, putting up and removing stickies, issuing informal words of advice and liaising with site management from time to time, is usually all straight forward enough, it’s the more challenging stuff from people who should know better that not only grates, but leaves us to question, ‘why me’?

The answer should be because our board matters to us - and we need a ‘ref’ around sometimes just to keep things flowing. Sure, football refs get screamed at for decisions wrong or even right but let’s remember, they get paid for their trouble. Mods on here don’t. All we ask is for a bit of respect, trust, empathy and support for what we have to do - especially on the more awkward and controversial issues.

Tbh, modding ‘outsiders’ (visitors from other boards) and newbies is rarely controversial and hasn’t been that difficult for the most part.

The real agg. comes with the need to mod a few of our own longer standing regular posters, people who are aware of the rules we operate by but who for one reason or another fail to self-moderate and choose to ignore the rules as and when suits. That inevitably leads to complaints being received and immediately signals work for the mods, usually work that isn’t wanted and could’ve been avoided had the ‘offender’ shown a modicum of care.

The problem comes with the time to take action, which might or might not directly relate the most recent offence. These regulars tend to be culture carriers on here, having generated some kind of a following enthused by the charismatic mischief / audacity involved in their posts. Cronyism in other words.

That’s when the mod, in their attempts to placate complainants and protect the board as a whole, becomes the pariah: a witch-hunter, ‘cobblers and up yer anal tract’, etc.. It’s like we suddenly become the idiot teacher, there to be targeted by the classroom clowns.

All very understandable I’m sure, but hardly supportive of our mod structures and therefore not for us, I’m afraid. Our down time’s too precious to **** around with people saying a wrong’s right just because they enjoy a sideshow and like the numpty who caused the divisions in the first place.

If this is all too much for some, imagine what it’s like this end…

The poll thread, when it appears sometime later today, will simply ask the following question and prescribe the answers a, b and c.

BrixtonR and QPRNUTS have unilaterally added a set of guidelines to the board’s rules. Do you accept them or not?

a) Yes
b) No
c) Don’t care

Answer ‘a’ if you want us to continue modding, and ‘b’ if you don’t. We’ll include ‘c’ as a ‘yes’ on this occasion, since it means you’re easy either way.

Thanks

 

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