Forum moderation isn't working.
There, I said it, moderating the forums is like fishing water out of a sinking boat with a colander, the more moderations we hand out the faster we sink, the harsher we are on users the bigger we make the hole.
But you know what, if you think the mods are the reason for the ship sinking, fuck you and start helping, don't jump on to the nearest life raft and float away criticising our efforts, if you don't want the ship to sink you need to do your part too and stop going for each others throats.
No, this is by no means directed at everyone, but not a day goes by without some sort of shitstorm, a wall of reports and for each and every moderation a person on the other end telling the staff we're wrong, that we're doing a terrible job, guess what, we're not blind, we know, but we keep at it with a colander because what the fuck else are we supposed to do?
I suppose in a way it's a given, the sites lifeblood is it's sales data, that in itself is a magnet for console war soldiers to come along, plop down and refill their magazines, but does that legacy have to be the backbone of the site, does that magnetizm have to mean we are eternally cought up in proxy battles and constant one-upmanship?
I don't think it does, and other staff don't too, which is why despite the fact every last one of us does this for free, we still try to stop the boat from sinking. We try, with activities, ideas and discussion threads to turn the tides, but there's only so much a rag tag group of strangers from across the world can do by themselves.
Hello, i'm a moderator and i'm corrupt as shit.
Yup, went ahead and really said that too, it isn't true of course, at least not entirely but that's the general attitude we get, day in and day out from anyone we dare to interact with, we're the "powers that be" and thus unless we're on all fours with a set of nuts bouncing like bongos on our chin we're doing things wrong.
But again, staff here are a rag tag group of strangers, sourced from ex-posters, each of us has our own biases, our own preferences, our own way of dealing with things, we're not angels sent from heaven to cast perfect judgement each time and every time, sometimes we get it spot on, sometimes we miss the mark by at least 43 degrees, and I say "we're" extremely lightly, since it may well be the case that this time tomorrow, or next week, or next month, i'll no longer be a "we" but just a regular user again, or banned, there's that possibility too.
The point is, we're only human, you're only human, we all do dumb shit from time to time, some more so than others, but when it comes to moderating a forum I, and any other moderator, and infact any user on this site would be lying if they didn't feel some sort of power trip, the ability to remove someone from the site entirely, either for a set time or permanently, that's quite some power there!.. or is it?
I would argue that it means nothing, a user gets banned and what happens? one less site on the internet to procrastinate on, simply move to the next community and you're good, most current and former VGC users already have or plan to, so i'm not going to pretend to be ignorant and lie like we've got an exclusive audience because we don't.
So Tach what in fucks name are you getting at?
I'm glad you didn't ask but read it in your own voice! well, honestly, i don't know, i'd like to wrap the thread with pretty paper and a nice ribbon in the name of fixing the forums problems and encouraging a more friendly and positive atmosphere but I know, you know and everyone else knows that so long as there is a difference of opinion, such a day will never come.
But you know what? its fucking frustrating, how can so many people love games enough to spend hundreds of hours a year posting on a forum, and spend most of that arguing?, how, with consoles these days sharing so many of the same games do people manage to spend that amount of time and so little on saying "actuallly do you know what, we're both playing this game, so lets talk about the game instead of hitting each other over the head with sales figures, legal nonsense and quarterly earnings reports that mean very little to us, maybe we might actually enjoy doing that?"
In a perfect world we'd have disagreements and debates where people actually treated each other like real life human beings and gave each other the respect for their own opinions, and presented negating proof to each other in a "actually please look at this" way rather than the usual "omfg stfu you're wrong look heres proof that you're so retarded you tried to dig up".
But let's not pretend that I myself am the paramount of great posting, or the role model by which others should set themselves by, because I'm not and frankly I'm not even sure why I was made a moderator considering some of the stuff I've posted over the years. But you know what, I make mistakes, I sometimes post in ways that I know aren't good, and that add nothing to the site, but I like to think that admitting that allows me to at least try to remedy my own actions.
Just for once i'd like the forums, even for a single day, to have people being positive, people respecting one another, people sharing their shared love for games BECAUSE of that love for games, rather than the love for shitting all over the thing someone else loves to score a few invisible points for your own team, a team comprised of people who honestly don't give 2.37 shits about what you're fighting over.
Fanboy isn't a bad word.
One rule i've hated on VGC has been the "no calling someone a fanboy" rule, partly because I don't see the term fanboy as a negative one, and by making it a taboo word you empower it with a negative connotation, link it, if you will, with the idea that it's a bad thing. It simply isn't.
If you love something enough to share it with others and defend it against attack you are by definition a fanboy or fangirl, so by making fanboy a taboo word what we're essentially saying is "it's not okay for you to tell someone they really love something", you could argue that it has a double meaning, and that being a fanboy also means you're ignorant to any negatives about the thing you love, but then that's true for anyone who likes something a lot, if for example you tell someone the car he spends all day cleaning and upgrading sucks because it isn't the same car you have, what you're actually doing isn't showing that person that what they like is bad, it isn't showing them that they're being delisional about the thing they like, all it is, is being a fucking jerk.
It may not be a nice thing for someone who loved the hardware they do, to ignore the downsides, shrug them off or even play up the positives for more than theyre worth, but who is it really hurting in the end? fucking nobody.
In that same sense, if someone calls you a fanboy of console A, B or C and you really like that console, then embrace it, because you are a fanboy!, but using that love for a particular console to belittle, attack or degrade someone who prefers something different, you're no longer a fanboy, you're just a fucking jerk, as per earlier.
So yes, I realize I use it occasionally too, usually when, you guessed it, I'm being a fucking jerk.
Can we fix it? Yes we can! or not?
Can we turn back the tides and bail this boat out of the water? who knows, maybe, maybe not, but in the end if the boat sinks people will just paddle out to the next one and pile on board until that, too, sinks.
But that knowledge shouldn't stop you from at least trying to keep this one afloat, even just for a little longer, right?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go pour another 50 hours into the buggy as shit, 0fps, Fallout 4.
Tachi -
You're animated and snarky (potental-ex) moderator.
