Armchair Moderating

[jkrohn]

<rant>
This is becoming a huge problem here and is happening more and more often.

See this thread today as an example.
http://www.techimo.com/forum/t62719.html

If people see something that they think is spam, warez, or against board rules we actaully have a button to solve that!

Believe it or not there is a link that says "Report this post to a moderator" and you don't even have to post to use it! That's right!! No post and you get a moderator to take a look at it and deem if *they* think it against board rules.

Another thing that is starting to bother me is when one person feels the need to armchair moderate with a "Boy you won't last long around here" post, it seems that all the lemmings take that as their cue to post "Yeah he's right, you horrible spammer".

How this does anything other than up their post count I don't know. To these people as well, you don't need to post to use the report to a moderater link!!!!!

I am just growing tired of what I see more and more nowadays, people jumping on threads that they see as "spam" or "warez" and simply posting to pseudo flame the guy rather than just clicking the link and leaving it be for a moderator to decide. This situation is worse when the person turns out to be wrong. I think it does nothing but make the board look bad when it allows its members to jump to such conclusions and not follow protocol or use the tools that they have.
</rant>

Jkrohn

[caddmannq]

I've been guilty of a bit of this myself...

But you're right. It's both annoying and unproductive.

[Centurion]

c

[Cyclone2]

lol Wiz But have to agree somewhat with jkrohn, do it tastefully or not at all, the mods know the rules best of all.

[JacobM5727]

since when has everything been about post count?
i dont give a damn about my post count, i mean, i do, but i do not go out of my way to improve it. i dont care about spammers anymore, because no one else seems to, so i will just keep my mouth shut from now on, but dont be so childish, if i see someone being a dumbass, i should be able to say something without it being an attempt to increase my post count

[jkrohn]

if i see someone being a dumbass, i should be able to say something without it being an attempt to increase my post count

Unfortunately it comes down to a few different things
1) Who says you are right? On many occasions people are correct to chide people, though as of late there have been many times when the people are completely wrong.
2) Fine, no problem, so a person comes and is obviously breaking the rules. Someone comes and posts. No problem. Now why do five other people feel the need to post when the situation has already been taken care of?

Jkrohn

[caddmannq]

Law of the Rat Pack?

I have been guilty of doing this as well, but I do agree with JK.

If you are unsure of the veracity of a post, just report it, or even PM the member if they are a long-timer (I did that for someone who posted an inappropriate request for a price check without realising it - was kinder than just telling a mod or posting their mistake for all to see).

It's not about post count, it's about the credibility of the site and it's members. Leave it up to the mods to make judgements. And let's treat one another with respect, regardless of how long we have been here.

Cheers
Mick

Why? Because we are lemmings, nyuck nyuck nyuck...

I know what you mean. But as we approach 100,000 (currently 99546) members, you've got to expect a little flaming. After all, there aren't a whole lot of boards that actively seek out and end flaming and double posting. With experience, comes patience and wisdom. As for our members with longer "time in," I think the volume of twerps that stumble in and post flame bait and idiotic "I want pr0n" declarations can cause some of them to act out of character.

But yeah, I guess we all have to watch ourselves, and maybe a PM to our friends on the board to settle down on such occasions would help. I mean coming from a friend and all...

[Ed_S]

Well... there's a l o n g history of members helping by posting reminders to other members. I've done it, and most likely will again.
So?
I'll only yell for a mod if something's pretty flagrant.

In the topic you linked, what's the problem anyway? A site is linked and opinions were asked for. So? He's not spammed or anything, I find ONLY that one topic.

Unless - is that now considered advertising or something? Never used to be, in fact I remember many announcements of forum launchings that were met with open arms rather than accusations of "advertising a competing site".

I'm rambling...back to the point. I wouldn't flame someone, as you put it, but I would not think twice about cautioning them if I thought they were on shaky grounds. I've even PM'd a few times to say "you might want to edit that before it's seen"
I mean really, why bother a mod with every little indiscretion?