To all moderators of communities...

[armoralchemist]

Well, this is something I posted as a reply to a mod posting in elricest. It contains some of my views on LJ communities (especially the ones that are not-so-active now), so please read if you are interested. =3

Comments

[hiroto]

I do find it funny some communities don't allow sales of unofficial merchandise... but they allow people to resale doujinshi all the time. I guess someone forgot to explain that doujinshi are fanworks...

[armoralchemist]

Yeah, weird standards. A lot of moderators think they *own* the community... forgetting that if no one joined, the community they "own" is really nothing.

Though I do agree that for large and very active communities, some rules are needed to keep it under control but... for inactive communities, I think some sale and "spam" posts should be allowed.

[hiroto]

yeah, I mean if the community is kind of dead... why restrict activity? lol

Anyway, I also think something can be said about the way mods... mod. Like... that doujinshi thing I brought up. I unfortunately posted a semi-sale post (asking people if they were interested in some hand made charms, not realizing that comm, unlike the other I posted at, did not allow unofficial merchandise), and the mod deleted my post. I was fine with that, since as much as the rule is a double standard on doujinshi, I still broke the rule by assuming it was like other comms I've posted to. But the mod was kind of rude... she just left this comment like, "read the rules" and then deleted my post.

It's like... whatever happened to being polite? I mod some other communities unrelated to specific fandoms, but I would never reply with such blunt and borderline rude comments to people who break rules. I know it's the "internet" but there's still real people behind the usernames, you know?

[armoralchemist]

I know! I got this "This is your first warning. Sale-spam is against the rules. You have one strike." for making a post about trying to sell my FMA yaoi game (yes it does have elricest in it). I think this is more rude than your "read the rules" reply. What strike?! They didn't post anything about such strikes beforehand. That mod wasn't even there when I joined the community 5 years ago. Geez... people and their power-rage.

[blackspandex]

I came here just because you were my random journal of the day and I was very very pleased to see this post.

I was hoping that it wouldn't be negative about A12 either (because I'd obviously try and fix it) lol! So I am guilty in reading it for two reasons - One I wanted to see what it was about and two because I read this line:

Don't forget - it's the members who make the community strong. Without the members, a community is not a community.I've always thought the very same thing about a community. So from a member standpoint in the elricest community that you're talking about - I can entirely see what you're saying. I also posted a reply to their 'rules change' and that they needed to re-think what they're doing to their community

[armoralchemist]

Oh, I think you were a fine moderator. No one is perfect... I know I'm not. As a mod for a forum somewhere I'm very strict on the etiquette of the members (must say thank you when you are taking stuff, no going off-topic...etc) while for the quiet forum as long as people don't spam with one-word like "lol", I let them go...

My post here was more or less a rant to begin with... It's one of those "I feel better after posting it", and it didn't matter to me whether or not it was read by other people.

Though that being said, I'm still happy that you took the time to read this and gave a long feedback ^_^ I definitely am not taking your comment here as "something bad"... (Though I do realize that my replies at the elricest comm might have got outta hand since I was pretty tired back then when I commented lol!)