- Joined
- Nov 14, 2012
I want to onboard up to 5 additional staff members for the Autism Thunderdome category, including a head moderator who will direct it. The following is an explanation of what I hope to accomplish.
My long-standing issue with the politics area of the site started in 2016 when the Trump election happened. The partisanism which started at that time affected every community online. The forum has endured it better than most, but we were not unaffected.
Areas of the main forum may be divided into three categories:
1. The on-topic boards, which are all for entertainment through derision and uphold a standard of archiving so that they remain entertaining forever.
2. The off-topic boards, which are for casual discussion.
3. Autism Thunderdome, which may be distinguished from off-topic because its discussions are combative.
I use the term 'combative' to distinguish off-topic from A&H. This is why people hate that board and its users. Everywhere else on the site, there is a team. People generally understand and appreciate that this site and our community is balanced on a fucking thread. A&H does not get that. They are mostly users who joined after all of our largest problems were taken care of and don't care about the rest of the site. I feel these users are exploitative and see the forum as a means to an end rather than something to contribute to.
Many of these people participated in places like 4chan's /pol/, reddit's r/The_Donald, Gab, 8chan, and other areas which are now either total cesspits completely useless to an ordinary person - or just gone. These users, either knowingly or unwittingly, intend to use the forum until it's similarly destroyed before moving on to the next host organism.
My last attempt to hire mods resulted in L50s essentially issuing an ultimatum that I let him site-ban a bunch of people or he "can't fix it". The nuclear option of just declaring the site partisan-free, disabling registrations, and banning partisans protesting the decision by shitting up the site is always on the table ... but I'd rather people be able to talk about news and events without shitting their pants.
In short, the users that only post in that category will need to join or die.
On-boarding staff, as I've learned, is pointless if they don't have something to do. Off-topic has obvious standards, but on-topic boards follow my design. There is an 'ideal' on-topic thread in my head and my rules for the boards try to guide both users and mods into shaping threads to this standard.
Autism Thunderdome has no standard. There is no way for a person to help me moderate it because there are, effectively, no rules. I can't help set up these guidelines because I don't like talking about politics. I don't want to moderate political discussion. I don't want to deal with people sperging out about abortion and circumcision. I don't care, because I believe I am completely powerless to effectuate political change, so there is no reason to waste breath on it. Therefore, I cannot run a board about politics.
What I need is someone who has an idea of how to run the entire category of Autism Thunderdome, with an emphasis on maintaining unity within the community. It can't just be a dumping ground of political extremism with continuous slapfights. People should no longer expect to be allowed to treat the forum with reckless disregard on the assumption that I can deal with the consequences of what they say and do.
I don't know how to accomplish that, so a prospective despot is going to have to pitch it to me. If someone has a real plan, we can talk about making a bunch of moderators to help out with this plan.
It also does not help I don't know any of you fucking people. I barely recognize anyone anymore. I'm so happy when I see a name from 2013 that I actually recognize. How am I supposed to pick moderators and put people in charge when I don't know them? I see some people who have over a thousand posts and have been around a year and it's like -- who the hell are you? How do you post that much and where at to avoid me for an entire calendar year?
So, I think that's what we need.
My long-standing issue with the politics area of the site started in 2016 when the Trump election happened. The partisanism which started at that time affected every community online. The forum has endured it better than most, but we were not unaffected.
Areas of the main forum may be divided into three categories:
1. The on-topic boards, which are all for entertainment through derision and uphold a standard of archiving so that they remain entertaining forever.
2. The off-topic boards, which are for casual discussion.
3. Autism Thunderdome, which may be distinguished from off-topic because its discussions are combative.
I use the term 'combative' to distinguish off-topic from A&H. This is why people hate that board and its users. Everywhere else on the site, there is a team. People generally understand and appreciate that this site and our community is balanced on a fucking thread. A&H does not get that. They are mostly users who joined after all of our largest problems were taken care of and don't care about the rest of the site. I feel these users are exploitative and see the forum as a means to an end rather than something to contribute to.
Many of these people participated in places like 4chan's /pol/, reddit's r/The_Donald, Gab, 8chan, and other areas which are now either total cesspits completely useless to an ordinary person - or just gone. These users, either knowingly or unwittingly, intend to use the forum until it's similarly destroyed before moving on to the next host organism.
My last attempt to hire mods resulted in L50s essentially issuing an ultimatum that I let him site-ban a bunch of people or he "can't fix it". The nuclear option of just declaring the site partisan-free, disabling registrations, and banning partisans protesting the decision by shitting up the site is always on the table ... but I'd rather people be able to talk about news and events without shitting their pants.
In short, the users that only post in that category will need to join or die.
On-boarding staff, as I've learned, is pointless if they don't have something to do. Off-topic has obvious standards, but on-topic boards follow my design. There is an 'ideal' on-topic thread in my head and my rules for the boards try to guide both users and mods into shaping threads to this standard.
Autism Thunderdome has no standard. There is no way for a person to help me moderate it because there are, effectively, no rules. I can't help set up these guidelines because I don't like talking about politics. I don't want to moderate political discussion. I don't want to deal with people sperging out about abortion and circumcision. I don't care, because I believe I am completely powerless to effectuate political change, so there is no reason to waste breath on it. Therefore, I cannot run a board about politics.
What I need is someone who has an idea of how to run the entire category of Autism Thunderdome, with an emphasis on maintaining unity within the community. It can't just be a dumping ground of political extremism with continuous slapfights. People should no longer expect to be allowed to treat the forum with reckless disregard on the assumption that I can deal with the consequences of what they say and do.
I don't know how to accomplish that, so a prospective despot is going to have to pitch it to me. If someone has a real plan, we can talk about making a bunch of moderators to help out with this plan.
It also does not help I don't know any of you fucking people. I barely recognize anyone anymore. I'm so happy when I see a name from 2013 that I actually recognize. How am I supposed to pick moderators and put people in charge when I don't know them? I see some people who have over a thousand posts and have been around a year and it's like -- who the hell are you? How do you post that much and where at to avoid me for an entire calendar year?
So, I think that's what we need.
