[Fifi]

I have nothing against Matt. I don't think he's evil or the devil or what have you. I do however think he is often in the midst of great controversy. And I think this makes him a poor choice to moderate forums. Or at least to moderate the threads in which he is participating. Can a rule be applied that if he is participating in a discussion that somone else will take over responsibility for that thread?

[the_logos]

[tehScarecrow]

It seems like a mistake to have any of the people in charge of the top MUDs as moderators.

[Aarn]

[Fifi]

Ugh! I had no idea they were moderators. That's kind of disgusting. You all seem like very nice intelligent people... until you get to picking at one another, and then the professionalism goes right out the window. I think maybe Syoneezer needs to find a new way to find moderators.

[Fifi]

My point is I think there is too much squabbling and bickering and finger pointing and insults. The fact that much of it comes from the moderators sets a really nasty precident.

[Fifi]

I really have to apologize for posting at all. I had no idea that Valg and Kavir were also moderators. Maybe someone could moderate this thread into oblivion.

[Ilkidarios]

I myself think there's only one solution: I should be a moderator.

...  What, I can't be moderator?  What've they got that I don't have?  Well, aside from the MUDs...

I'll have to differ from you here, Aarn, Matt has pulled the trigger a couple of times.  Even though it's mostly been recently and confined to a couple of threads, we've had a couple of deletes and a couple of locks.  That doesn't bother me, as a matter of fact, I wish more flame topics were locked.

[Luvan]

I love our moderators, they keep me entertained

I mean, that is what these forums are about right? Amusing flamewars that typically violate what you agreed not to do when you sign up for an account here, with the moderators typically being the some of the largest flamers.

It seems nowdays the minority of posts actually do what this forum was created for them to do.

I dont know if I would even read these things as much if the moderators would instantly cut off personal attacks or flames that are not in the flaming area, but I would definitely have alot more respect for them.

[xotl]

I fully support Matt as a moderator, and I'm thankful he is doing it, as it's mostly a thankless job, really.

Thanks Matt.

Xotl

[nhl]

[Anitra]

Arn @ Mar. 31 2006,20:58
Umm, actually matt has deleted several posts, maybe not from you, but from others. He has also closed down at least 2 threads since he became moderator. One of them was the thread about which muds didn't allow players to buy perks, which to many was an important one that should have stayed open.

I never saw any of the others do this with posts just because they were inconvenient for them.
So yes, there is a problem.

[nass]

I didn't have any particular issues with him until yesterday, when he took at potshot at wotmud. He just went ahead and flamed without actually doing the proper research. His initial allegation that the triple exp was about voting here was proven to be wrong and he still refuses to apologise. He also made some big fuss about a zmud script made by one of our players.

Now my profoundly unproven hunch is the reason he's actually so peeved about this sort of script is because he pays for banner ads here, and maybe it undermines the effectiveness of his ad spend. I also suspect that he probably dislikes things like triple exp because it undermines the pay-to-play muds. We're going to keep doing it, and actually I hope all other non pay-for-perks muds too too - see, we're happy to give away some of those perks that you have pay for at those IRE muds.

Anyhow, onto matt moderating. One thing is no biggie, it seems like bitching about other muds is quite the trendy thing to do here so sooner or later someone will take a shot at us. But combined together it all feels a bit sordid, low, political - playing to the crowd. I was about to point this out but he'd closed the thread already.

Now I might very well be wrong in which case I'd be the first to apologise, but I'm not seeing much detachment or objectivity there. I'm seeing someone with big advertising bucks being a bit of a jerk, trying to push his weight around to make other guys look bad and arrange things even more in his favour. He wants even more people going to his IRE muds. Imo, it a bad combination and this won't be the last time there is trouble because of it.

Speech over, having done so for years (since about '96 or so on our boards actually), I do recognise that moderating is a tricky thing to do. But, If I had to call it, I'd have to say that someone who deliberately creates controversy and whose motive is somewhat unclear is probably not the ideal moderator. But then on the other hand maybe controversy helps this place with traffic, and it's not exactly as if I've stepped up to the mark to volunteer to moderate myself...

[Baram]

I was a little worried the first time I heard(and read on your forums) that you were giving game wide XP bonuses if people voted you high enough, but you said Adam contacted you and it doesn't happen any more, no problems here.

I wasn't actually sure if it was a violation of the rules, as technically you could say it is giving rewards for voting, but at the same time it's also rewarding those that didn't vote so... but Adam is the man that makes that choice, and we all follow them or leave. If it were me, I would have just emailed Adam with what I thought was a problem and let him deal with it, instead of posting publically about it... but hey that's me.

Point of my long post, we all do things differently, the case with WoT is solved, Adam and Nass have spoken, Adam said what needs to be done, Nass complied, no more problems. How about we let it die?

As for Matt closing threads, I'd have to actually read them fully(I just skim those that seem to be the same old circle of arguements) to give an opinion on that.. but if he closed a thread that had just turned into flaming and insults then I'd agree with him. If it was an intellegent arguement going on, then yeah that would be a problem. Though, it's Adam that makes that choice as well, not us.

[GuruPlayer]

[WarHound]

Meh. Matt is a bit of an uncompriimsing jackass, at times (who isn't?), but I highly doubt he would jeopordize IRE's 'sweet spot' here at TMS for the chance to whack a few non-complimentary threads. As much as some of us disagree with him, he's not an idiot or a monster, nor are the others.

I say: Rock and roll to Matt, KaViR and Valq. I've seen whining, crybaby, flaming threads roll on for days when they should have been sliced from day 1. Props to you guys for volunteering for a thankless, ****ty job.

Now, what we need is an iron fist around here. The same old Medievia or PayPerPlay/Perks discussion cluttering YET ANOTHER unrelated thread? Give it the wicked chop and set these wandering discussions back on the right path.

-WP

[Fifi]

I disagree that Matt is an ass. I agree that he's not an idiot or a monster. I don't think the others are idots or monsters or jackasses. They all seem like fairly nice very smart people.

What they aren't is moderate. I don't think they're particularly good choices for moderators. I think Orion Elder would be a great moderator.

[Kvasir]

Regardless of what they may think about the topic, I highly doubt any of the people mentioned would abuse their mod powers to edit posts to prove their own point.

As someone said earlier, they've never had any of their posts deleted in topics moderated by one of the people in the argument.

[Milawe]

[Threshold]

It is obvious that Matt is abusing his powers as a moderator. That's why there aren't any flames of Matt and/or Iron Realms games any more. That's why there aren't 100+ page threads bashing on their payment model or the fact that they call themselves free. He must be deleting all those threads.

Oh wait...