Mod post

[lyndz.livejournal.com]

So I guess having two absentee moderators is pretty much worthless. I'm taking nominations to add another couple to the list. I apologize for all but abandoning LJ.

Comments

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Lafinjack, Yes Justice, and Fizzyland seem like good candidates.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

yes_justice & malasadas

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

What did I do to deserve....seriously?



I nominate lafinjack.....

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

Lafinjack, Yes Justice, Fizzyland, and Hardblue.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Steve_P

;-)

[oslo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it makes sense to start nominating people to moderate without any concrete sense of what those people would want to do with their control over this community. I personally think that, apart from a sticky spam post from time to time, it's been running just fine, for the most part. I worry that just granting someone that kind of power might inspire some kind of knee-jerk need to reform the community in a way that it maybe doesn't need to be reformed.

For example - this community's cartoon- and humor-focus has been pushed a bit by posts that include only videos, that aren't ha-ha "funny," that maybe just feature images and commentary, or that don't have any image or video content at all (e.g., straight commentary, twitter posts). While that's clearly a departure from the community's stated purpose, I would consider it an "evolution," and one that serves an existing demand for casual conversation that is not well-served by LJ's other communities devoted to political conversations. I would hate to see a new moderator, compelled by a need to "do their job," decide that what this community needs is a reinvigorated commitment to its nominal purpose, and in so doing cutting off a stream of content that has kept it active as of late.

At the same time, certain of this community's members have gotten carried away with attacking or goading Jeff (and I name him in particular because it has been primarily about him), in a way that I think disserves the other members of this community. I wouldn't suggest that they be banned or punished, but I think it would be helpful to have someone around with at least some patina of authority, trying to get them to stick to comments that others might actually want to read and engage with.

I would, most of all, hope that we can avoid a devolution to the kind of behind-the-scenes politics and ostensibly rules-driven "enforcement" that has made certain other political communities stiflingly unpleasant places to participate. For whatever reason, online communities struggling with identity crises keep coming back to this notion that all we need is more and better rules, enforced consistently, and time and time again, I've just seen communities evaporate under that kind of scrutiny - especially on LJ. This place is littered with dead communities where the last Acts were defined by this kind of "re-commitment."

[lyndz.livejournal.com]

Damn it, I can't just peacefully disappear from LJ forever? I guess I could make an effort to actually pay attention to what's going on here. It is kind of amusing and now I'm kind of wondering why I left.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

oslo

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

At the very least, there needs to be someone who is around a lot of the time and is able to delete spam.

I volunteer to take up the job - I strongly suspect I wouldn't be most people's first choice for non-spam moderation, and I'm okay with that, and I'm also okay with agreeing in advance that my job would be "delete spam, ban spammer, no non-spam moderation" - but there needs to be at least one person, preferably two or three people, around for big chunks of the day who can be pinged to do that.

For a full-on real moderator I think I'll third lafinjack. I think yes_justice and malasadas would also do well.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Decline the nominations with gratitude, but ya gotta be kidding me as well.

[madam-shapo.livejournal.com]

deborahkla - she is the smartest.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

To the contrary... absentee moderators are pretty much ideal. Anarchy should be made explicit in the rules.

If there must be a moderator, I nominate hardblue. He's the only person in this comm whom I routinely disagree with, yet retain the smallest shred of respect for.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

lafinjack & malasadas, telemann if they would want to do it.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Yes_justice...if he wants the job, which I doubt.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

Anyone but lafinjack that guy is the absolute worst.