Moderator on the Run

Not sure if I have posted in the right place, but here goes.

I was reading another thread about forum rules here and wondered what the go is with moderators.

I was a moderator on a forum for almost a year, at the same time I was asked to be a mod, so was another person. We built a good friendship, then one day a thread got out of hand, I became the attacked by almost every member of the forum, it was supposed to be a fun thing but turned very serious...a Dog War it was called, where everyone was campaining their dog as being the best, but somehow it turned into a war against my breed of dog.
Then an almost personal war against me, the other mod. one of the main instigators.
I plodded along for some months on this forum, with many personal attacks by this other mod. Finally I decided to move to another forum, this mod followed, bad mouthing me to the Admin of that forum. Her main comment was I should be moderating the forum doing my job properly, not participating in this other one.

Luckily for me, this new forum's admin and I got friendly and have now gone into partnership ourselves, unfortunately, we find ourselves shifting forums partly because of server probs, but to be honest, everytime we shift I am relieved as this puts that other mod further away, hopefully she will not be able to find me anymore, I have changed user names, but of course, eventually she will come across me and the new board..pictures give it away.
What do you do in this instance, she will obviously bad mouth me, how do I know that when our forum has a good reputation, she isn't going to bring it down by messaging our members...

I resigned from that board, the Admin put it quite bluntly that he didnt have the time to moderate the moderators.

What's your opinion, do any of you have trouble with your mods. like this, is this normal behaviour?

This is not normal.

Never reply to her, EVER!

If you are a mod, move her posts out of site to a hidden forum.

Have another mod PM her and state they know the history and to get lost if she is here for drama. In her own words, she should be at her forum moderating, not moderating you internet wide.

You must have brought something to the table for her or give her something if the behaviour continues.

Cut it off. Don't reply, don't post about it on all the admin realted boards, let it die here and now.

If you can't do that, then you deserve each other and out of respect should stay off of other peoples boards if all you bring is drama.

P.S.

Welcome to the forum. :)

Oh no, I dont go onto the other board at all now, nor do I reply to her at all, I have not personaly heard from her in over a month now.

I have never posted in the public forum of the site I was on about it, this all happened behind the scenes so to say, being a mod there, I would not bring myself to be so low as to air dirty laundry in public.

I am more than a mod. now, I am Administrator of my own Forum, in partnership with another person.

I can tell where she has visited the other boards we have moved from though, as us Admins and Mods. know only too well, how to do that.

I have no intention of wanting to create anything more with her, I just wish her to leave me alone.

Sounds like a good plan. Good luck with your forum. People stuff is very subjective, I'm no expert and usually a pain in the ass.

However, I know some code and a little about vB, so if I can help there, holler.

Yes, thanks for your advise, I am not the computer expert I do the other stuff with our forum, my partner is the computer wizz.

Btw, I understand if you delete this thread, being new here, I feel maybe it was a mistake to post what I did, I apologize for bringing up such a sensitive topic in public.

Cheers..

No no, that is exactly what this forum is here for. Moderating can pose many difficult questions, even for a seasoned forum master. Somehow members manage to keep coming up with new curve balls to throw at us.

Here you can talk about things, just as you have, with other moderators, and get feedback, advice and ideas, and blow a little steam too if necessary.

The only advice I have in addition, is this - ignore her.

I have been in similar situations. If you dont give them any attention, if they dont know they bother you, they quit afterwhile out of boredom. In the meantime, you are spending your time building your board, and becoming stronger and more sucessful.

Phew!! Thanks Joey, I am a nervy little thing, thought I had put my foot in it for a minute.

As I put in my first post on this topic, I am not trying to aggravate the problem, I am trying to get advise on how to resolve it, move on, and be in peace.

Hope you can all understand how I feel.

I can - been there

I have been thru the pointless wars myself. Sometimes moving on is the ONLY sensible option.

After not contacting this person for about 3 weeks now, he/she still persists.
I have received message from the Admin of the site involved.
Hoping that one day I will return.

So now I have moved yet again to another site.
How much longer is this to go on. Hopefully, now I will not be found.

Do you think this Moderator has more than just a simple problem.
Maybe more help is needed.

I mean, honest to goodness, you would think I did something really bad right, well no, I didn't, not anything that bad.

All I did was to moderate a member, who thought they were a moderator wannabe, this person started to advise in an open forum that this thread should be closed, or that post should be deleted etc.
So on their last post he/she put that this is the reason why we do not have threads like this...yadda yadda, so the first time in a whole year of moderating, I deleted that part of the thread and just left the rest. Letting the person know what I had done and why.

I was a helpful, easy going mod. I had a lot of experience in regards to the board specific topics, we went from only 5 members a day online to 64 in a year.

So some may say leave it be, well I went from a mod with a reputation so high they had to change the way it was shown, to an outcast, that is now pursued by the other mod. For what, well I don't really care now.
I just want to move on and be left alone.

So I ask in the rules, how much should a VOLLENTARY Mod have to take.

I have feelings, I am a person, is this forgotten in cyberspace!!

You need to desensitize yourself sometimes, especially online. You don't see people face to face and a lot of cowards who would be nice in real life, do become tough.
If this will consume you, it will eat you up. Focus on your social life in real life and don't take everything too serious. I have met a few people offline who I met online and let me tell you, it is never the same. I don't mean to come off cold but I think you are being too sensitive. I have heard stories of members following members from forums to forums. I have also had run ins at forums like the resource zone. When it comes down to it, this is not my life even though I am friends with many here (if not offline, then thru phone, AIM etc.).

I myself started on afternic chat about 5 years ago and was right away thrown into the flame wars where banned users returned with different user IDs and kept it going.
This has nothing to do with you. There are lots of angry geeks out there who want to vent and this is the only sense of power they will ever feel.

If you always look at "what have I done wrong?" when someone messes with you, then being a moderator may be too much for you at this point.

My friend who is a police officer gave me a ticket the other day ... know what I mean?

Sometimes it's just mind over matter.

PM me if you want to talk in private :)


Mike

It would seem to me that if the Admin wont help you - then they dont really want or deserve you as a member.

About 4 years ago me and my friend started sitetutor.net, now a community of 2.5k members. She was always emotional and whenever someone criticized, she would not be able to distance herself emotionally. Needless to say, things went bad, I let her have the forums and she sold them.

I have also been banned at resource zone and Ihelpyouservices forums about 2 months ago and decided to pick up the phone and call someone there and let me say this: people are not always how you perceive them sometimes.
I like forums a lot but in the back of my mind I am always ready for the next altercation because trust me, they will come. Just like in real life.
Mike

I have moved on, I just wrote to the admin, said I will not be returning and dissabled all private messaging, and email notification.
Yes I am sensitive to a point, but then again I am not a blithering, soppy idiot.

I am more than a Moderator now, I am an admin of my own site, and have vowed never to treat any of my mods with disdain. I have a place where all mods can go to vent, get understanding and support.

As much as forums may be cyberspace, I always keep in mind that we, everyone of us, has real feelings, are real people at the other end of the keyboard, and all are indivduals, whether weak or strong, and not meaning to come off on the sympathetic trail here, I am in remote outbacks of Australia, there is no opportunity for friends, my husband is dying, and I give more to people than they have given to me.

I hope my new forum will explode, I am caring, have many years of experience in my chosen forum choice of subject, and probably what I have done here too, is given too much info about my home life, but will not make the same mistake on my forum ever again. Never will I give information about my personal status on there.
As I have learnt one has to keep a professional status with forums, so as much as they may seem impersonal, they can become very much so.

We established a policy where every chalange or complaint about a mod or mod action must be made by PM or email. That includes mod complaints from mods as well as members. The post is generally edited or deleted, no mater where it's made. We won't let "sides" be established - it is kept at the personal level and out of the members eye as much as possible. Civility and decorum are key words at Religious Forums and they are strickly enforced.

The few times we have left a post or thread with a complaint, there has been a membership response that chides the complainer. They expect no personal attacks and they let anyone who does it know that it is not "cool". Our members remind others of the rules.

The more forums I read, including forums about running forums (hey, would those be metaforums?) the more I realize how lucky we are at subaruoutback.org. We have a freindly feel and no flames at all ... well, actually we do have a mods-only thread devoted to playfully flaming each other. The attacks are more like a pie fight.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/HabaneroHead/misc_images/Pie05.jpg

However, I have had a few scares as admin. A few weeks ago one of our "super moderators" attempted to merge two threads and accidentally deleted about 250 posts. I busted him down to "registered" status until he explained what happened via PM, then he was back to normal on the same day. He acted a little bit angry about it all for a short while but all is well now.

Yesterday, apparently, another mod deleted almost every thread he created, which was unfortunate because he was always a good source of mechanical advice. So last night I put him in registered and sent a PM requesting an explanation. I haven't gotten a reply yet.

owners need to choose their moderators wisely, and get them to work as a team.
I moderate 6 forums under different names, and all are great, we work as a team.
no moderator is better than another, we all stick together, and no moderator is too big for their boots. Sometimes the most knowledgeable or frequent posters aren't the best, as they have reputations to protect and are easily drawn.

Your administrator should have sorted the problem, and the "i don't have time" argument means that they do not care about their forum. The problem is with the administrator not the person who is chasing you around the net.

although if you PM me the names and forum involved i will happily go and stir up some lies for you ;)
LMAO !!


:wave:
James :D


EDIT
actually we do have a mods-only thread devoted to playfully flaming each other. The attacks are more like a pie fight.
we do the same...it's the best part of all the forums :eek:

I couldnt have said it much better myself.

Our little flame area is really for play. It deteriorates into pleasant conversation. We had a tougher time during the Bush-Kerry election; the owner and some of his close friends found out that the board members' politics was quite a bit further left than they anticipated *G*

We drew our political lines and had some pointed exchanges, but it passed with the elections. Now we might fire off a quick barb in some other context, but no real flames or hard feelings break out.

The admin is what makes or breaks a site. Admins should orient their moderators at the beginning and 'not have the time' in the later part when much damage has already happened. Lackof proper guidance and orientation sometimes discourages mods from moving on as they aren't confident with what they will be doing.