Forum GM's (Admins) are you afraid of your friends?

[Spoilers]

I was wondering strongly about this. I do a lot of forum roleplaying. Now one thing that honestly bothers me is when someone who is friends with the person running the group, gets a free pass to run their mouth off at others. I am lucky, I admit. This only happened to me twice.

The first time was about 5 years ago, and I actually admit it was partially my fault. The mod in question was not a bad person, there was just a misunderstanding, where she thought I had done something that would hurt her friend (The Admin's) feelings. This mod had the decency to contact me privately in PM. Sadly I back then would flip my shit over being misunderstood, so I quit the forum.

The second time though was genuinely just the mod being a jerk. I posted a comment, on a news story I had heard, and I admitted that it kind of upset me, from what I knew of it. The mod deciding they didn't like my opinion decided to publicly bash me. I went to the Admin about it, and he's just all; "Oh lol, that's just how she is."

I think what bothers me so much about this, is that I kind of look at it from myself. I have no problem in letting my friends know when they need to back off. If someone is genuinely causing issues on my forum, I usually am the first to shut it down. If the person is just a troll, I'll block/ban them. If they're sensitive/emotional, I try to be supportive of them through PM messages, and on the forum to encourage their behavior to improve. When I notice my own friends being bullies in group RP's, I yank them aside, and I let them know.

I just don't know why other GM's/Forum Admin's are so terrified of reeling their mods in, when they start acting like bullies.

 

[Sidhe]

Not all forums are very professionally run, especially the smaller ones. I know when I was younger I ran quite a successful (no where near as successful as Iwaku, but decently successful) role-play forum, and had my friends as moderators/assistant admins. I was kind of a douche! I know I tried to be professional but I was also sixteen and amidst my pretentious 'advanced RPer' phase, so occasionally I would be a jerk. Some people see it as just a hobby and not a real community... does that make sense? More of a 'thing I do with friends' and less of a 'community I want to encourage and prosper'.

Also some people just let power go to their heads. It happens a lot on forums. A lot a lot. I see it a lot on reddit and I've seen it a lot on smaller role-play forums.

But Iwaku is incredibly professionally run. I say this not as an intern moderator but as a community member. I've always been incredibly impressed by the professionalism of the admins. They're unbiased, as they should be. For a large forum community like this, you need to be.

 

[Kagayours]

But Iwaku is incredibly professionally run. I say this not as an intern moderator but as a community member. I've always been incredibly impressed by the professionalism of the admins. They're unbiased, as they should be. For a large forum community like this, you need to be.

^ I second this. The kind of shit you described just wouldn't fly here. o_o We even have a "report a staffer" feature for when staff members act way out of line.

The admins here take professionalism very seriously.

 

[Vars]

I had friends as mods once. They broke the [clearly, publicly laid out] rules and I demodded them immediately. They and our mutual friends got mad at me because they apparently expected a free pass to break the rules because they were my friends.

The friendship was pretty strained after that, but tbh if you're someone who thinks breaking rules I painstakingly put out in the open specifically for mod transparency is ok, then there's no point in being friends.

Separate business from personal life.

Running websites is stressful and after it died in my absence (boot camp etc.) I just never picked it up again. I run a different thing now, one with no forum and no membership, specifically so I can avoid all that dumb drama. Running for over a year now and already better reputation than the one that ran 3+ years before me.
[spoili]Fursuit reviews if anyone was wondering.[/spoili]

 

[Spoilers]

Thanks for the answers so far, everyone. I do want to note on Opal's part...Reddit is why I came here. I won't name specifically, but there is a mod on Reddit on one of their roleplaying boards, and I'm not saying she's a bad person, just I think she lets the power get to her head.

 

[Dipper]

I know what this is like all too well. The very first roleplaying site I ever joined was full of nepotism and high-ranking members who lorded their roles over everybody and bossed people around.

Iwaku's far better in that respect. Professional, respectful, and it has the tools necessary to make sure staff members don't let the power cloud their common sense.

 

[Kagayours]

Thanks for the answers so far, everyone. I do want to note on Opal's part...Reddit is why I came here. I won't name specifically, but there is a mod on Reddit on one of their roleplaying boards, and I'm not saying she's a bad person, just I think she lets the power get to her head.

Well, I certainly don't think you'll see any of that here. The Security team here in particular discusses all security actions amongst themselves before any action can be taken. No one is banned until an agreement is made between the Security mods. It's sort of impossible for any individual staffer to go power-crazy that way. And I'm pretty sure anyone who was suspected of being the power-hungry type would have a very difficult time landing a Security position anyway.


One other thing I want to mention -- I think size is a factor regarding how well a site is moderated. In a place as big as Reddit, I'm not surprised that the moderation isn't so great. On a super-small forum, you're more likely to have a clique mentality form among the staff and the friends of staff because it's all just so... small. It's more of a small social circle than a full-blown community. I think Iwaku is just the right size, in that respect. Not so huge that moderating the place efficiently would be impossible, but still large enough that there is a definite need to act professionally for the good of the community, and a large enough team of staffers to keep things running smoothly.

 

[Spoilers]

This is the only RP site I've ever seen run as smoothly. Now granted the other site I use, doesn't really have any problems, but it literally has no management to control issues if they do come up.

 

[Kagayours]

This is the only RP site I've ever seen run as smoothly. Now granted the other site I use, doesn't really have any problems, but it literally has no management to control issues if they do come up.

I hear ya. Iwaku's management is really nice, and it's kind of hard to go back to anything else after getting used to this place. o_o" Sometimes I forget how bad other internet forums can be, because I've been here so long...

 

[ᴛᴏᴄᴋᴀ]

See, I never had that problem. Back in my earlier days I was a mod for the chatroom of my old forum. People would come in and out all the time, but I treated them all the same. If my friends did something and broke a rule, I'd whack them with my hammer as quick as I would someone I didn't know. Yeah, it sucked doing it to a friend, but rules are there for a reason.

The same went for GMing. My friends and I would take turns GMing, but we'd always treat everyone the same. Disrespect never got a free pass, friend or not. The group wanted to have fun, and that was always the intention. The minute someone started trouble they were gone, whether they were a friend or not.

 

[Sidhe]

Thanks for the answers so far, everyone. I do want to note on Opal's part...Reddit is why I came here. I won't name specifically, but there is a mod on Reddit on one of their roleplaying boards, and I'm not saying she's a bad person, just I think she lets the power get to her head.

Reddit seems to be reaaaally bad for mod power-tripping. Idk if you keep up with subredditdrama or not, but there's little bits of drama all the time about power hungry mods. Craziness.

 

[Nebulon Ranger]

I run my own and can say pretty confidently... not really.

We've all been staff elsewhere before, sometimes even before we met. Sure, we shitpost from time to time, but we don't break our own rules. We've had incidents with members that maybe could have been handled better, but nothing that would cause the death of the forum.

The second time though was genuinely just the mod being a jerk. I posted a comment, on a news story I had heard, and I admitted that it kind of upset me, from what I knew of it. The mod deciding they didn't like my opinion decided to publicly bash me. I went to the Admin about it, and he's just all; "Oh lol, that's just how she is."

That's a bad admin then. I'm not saying one should be super strict anally-retentive with their staff, but moderators are supposed to be the "most public" face of management, so this doesn't look very good on them.

 

[junebug]

Before I came to Iwaku, I was part of fanfiction (which was fine- i didn't have any problems) and fictionpress (really bad shit happened). Granted, I found it difficult to communicate with people on fictionpress because I was extremely shy and a people pleaser at that. These people didn't involve me at all. I didn't get to see the ideas they had, offer my own ideas, and I really felt out of place.

I was ignored rp-wise when I started new rps, people ignoring me, people failing to acknowledge that "Hey, I'm rping here too" and so, despite all of that, I stayed, which wasn't the brightest thing to do. I just didn't know what to do. Then I left and I stayed on fanfiction with @Hana for a while before finding Iwaku and inviting her and her friends over.

It was a refreshing change. A very refreshing change.

Now, even though I'm not on Iwaku as much anymore because I've found a place in another site that I enjoy more, I do appreciate the professionalism Iwaku holds. ^^

 

[Kestrel]

I just don't know why other GM's/Forum Admin's are so terrified of reeling their mods in, when they start acting like bullies.

Because people care about what their friends think, because the opinion of others often strongly influences our self-image and confidence. I guarantee you, if you feel your relationship with one or more people is on the line, it will affect your judgement. It will make you hesitate. It will make you rethink your case more than you would witnessing a random stranger. Part of your brain will look for a justifiable reason for the behaviour, because it's difficult to see people we care about acting like assholes because that's not the image we have of them.

I mean we can all act like we're all upstanding citizens, but fact is, most of us are not. When actually confronted with this kind of situation, many of us act the same way we would condemn in others and then proceed to justify it because we cannot admit our selves or the people we love to be like those people. Relations colour perception. It is actually very rare for people not to have a bias like that.

 

[Elle Joyner]

I think it goes without saying... Any friend who takes advantage of another friend really needs to be reevaluated as a friend at all.

That being said, I have encountered this before in closer knit groups, as a GM and as a player... Favoritism or the expectation of it, and while it can be annoying, for the most part at least in the case of GMing... It's generally pretty harmless. But that's because as a GM, I set the rules... And therefore make a point that everyone, myself included needs to follow them.

Best way I've dealt with this sort of issue is really just to tell my friend(s) in private that I can't give them special treatment, because it won't be fair to the other players... They generally understand, but that brings me back to my first point. Anyone who would willingly take advantage of you... Or expect you to risk your own reputation for them isn't a friend... Or at least not a very good one.

I would add though, that there are exceptions to the no-favoritism thing. For instance... People I've been rping with for ages don't need to fill of character sheet writing samples. I know them... I know their style and unless the sample is more of a prompt, so I can see where to place them in the plot, I'm usually inclined to tell them to skip it.