holla @ shy #announcement

holla @ shy #announcement blog

I feel like I've been a bad admin lately, still getting, being too busy with work-related stuff, but as far as that goes, things should be calming down since the beginning of the semester rush is over. I'm sorry for that.

Still, I want your honest opinions: How am I doing as admin? What am I doing right? More importantly, what am I doing wrong? Do you have any suggestions for how I can improve it? Do you have any other suggestions?

Also, I have a couple of new nominations for mods in mind. I won't say whom yet, but I want this to be a democratic process, i.e. for most of you guys to approve of my decisions before I make them. I also haven't contacted the nominees yet, but I will be doing that one day next week, and if they accept, I'll put up another post seeing if you're all cool with it.

Thanks guys for hanging in with me while I get the hang of running this crazy train! Being the conductor was the last thing on my mind when I made my first comment way back in 2008. It still kind of feels unreal in a way.

5 comments

old comment by Anon-e-moose

How am I doing as admin?

Extremely well, I'd say. Since the server move, the little niggles have been ironed out: certainly restored the image resizing facility from Distind-era FSTDT. Which brings me to:

What am I doing right?

You've ensured that FSTDT has grown a pair.

While we acknowledged that Distind was a fairly hands-off sort of admin, and let things roll their own way, there was that perennial problem: Trolls.

But even His4Life got so bad, even Distind'd had enough.

Otherwise, there was that problem: too many retards allowed to crap up the place. And a newly refitted ship can't get rocked about by disruptive elements; certainly too many: NeoMatrix & TimeToTurn (a.k.a. Kiwi Farms' resident BS artist Dynastia) are more than enough to allow them being our resident Lolcows.

Which is why I'm glad we have our resident Chris Hemsworths Ravy & Pharaoh Bastethotep, to wield Mjolnir.

The trolls would no doubt whine & bitch about 'MUH FREEDOMS!' (I refer you to Nameless Coward & the Ugly Toad), but considering how so many forums/boards would've banned them way before now: and Loony4Life had shitted up FSTDT for nearly eight years, then I'd like the trolls to give me just one good reason as to why they shouldn't be banned; for when I can give them one good reason as to why they should: Brenda Leyland. She thought she was 'Entitled'.

Aww. So you don't like no longer having the right to spew your subjective 'Opinions'? Am I subjectively supposed to give a shit, o fundies & rightists? Don't like being banned from so many sites/forums/boards etc, o bridge-dwellers? Well then. Follow her example. Or simply accept your b&. And like it.

Yours must be the size of Death Stars, shy. With the power of Starkiller Base.

And may they continue to grow.

old comment by Yossarian Lives

I think you're doing well overall. :)

With regards to banning trolls, I have nothing against this and can see the reasons for the banning of the individuals involved. They were not funny, they were aggravating and derailed comments sections with their comments. If I was admin I'd leave them be, because it stops them from coming back and claiming a silencing of their freedom of speech, but it's your site so it's perfectly reasonable for you to give some criteria for using the site. I think it might be good idea to lay out some terms and conditions, where it clearly states violations would lead to banning. That way it can be demonstrated that the violater was banned for being unreasonable and it would nullify their arguments about how violations are arbitrary or biased if they're followed through consistently and honestly. Then FSTDT will not be at risk for being framed as unfair, because whenever someone bleats about how this site censors dissent you could point to the rules which have been violated by the banned user. The banned would still bleat, as Milo continuously does over his ban from Twitter, but it'd demonstrate FSTDT's integrity to the audience and it'd allow the admins and moderators to follow an ethical policy on this that would promote fairness.

Also, if you're going to have more moderators it might be an idea to give an extra day or two for quotes to pass through the system. Then enough opinion from varying people could be heard and would enable any doubts to be cast over a submitted quote before it gets published.

old comment by shy

@Everyone: Thanks for the feedback.

@Moose-Kun, @Yossarian Lives: That's more or less how I feel about the matter of trolls.

@Yossarian Lives

Also, if you're going to have more moderators it might be an idea to give an extra day or two for quotes to pass through the system. Then enough opinion from varying people could be heard and would enable any doubts to be cast over a submitted quote before it gets published.

That's exactly what I have in mind.

@Mister Spak: I'm going to do something about the wall-of-text problem soon. I'm probably going to do a "one-screenful" limit for FSTDT and RSTDT by setting a maximum length to the submission textbox. As for CSTDT, I'm letting it be; long screeds have kind of been the norm there for a while and are kind of a conspiracy-theorist hallmark. Instituting the limit for FSTDT and RSTDT but exempting it (or making it larger) for CSTDT will require some coding on my part, and I'm having trouble focusing and finding motivation today. I get my ADHD meds filled tomorrow, so I should be good to go then.