A Moderator's Confession

[iamsuperdan]

A Confession

I’ve been here at MX for something over a year now. I joined MX on September 21, 2001. I quickly established myself as a respected member of the forums, and by Christmas of that same year, I was offered a moderator position. From newbie to mod in three months. Not bad.

At first, I took my job very seriously, and carefully thought out which posts or threads I would edit or delete. And my first banning came with great thought. Then came the backlash. I deleted a thread and received a ton of negative comments about it, a couple of emails, and a lot of people complaining to me on the various Messaging services. It was at this point I removed my Messenger usernames from my profile. If people wanted to reach me now, they had to know someone.

It was in early 2002 that I snapped. After a particularly bad spell of spamming and other bullpoop, I went nuts. I deleted a ton of threads, even more single posts, and banned a bunch of people. That was it. The mod power had taken over, and I was drunk with it. From that point on, I never second-guessed my actions. I banned, and although I banned many, I feel I always banned the right people. Yes, many of them came back with new usernames, but they came back changed, which is fine by me.

Most of us remember Noel. The Trooper. He’s the guy from Puerto Rico that said w00t, and foolio, and nucka a lot. He’s the one that went on and on about how much he loved Viviana, the girl that dumped him and went to the US for school. He went on and on about his ESP KH2 guitar and how good he was, yet he rarely posted in the guitar sections, and not once did anyone ever hear him play. We all got tired of his constant abuse because we listened to music that had melody, but was simple to play. If we didn’t like his music, we were insulted. If we liked anything played on the radio in the last 5 years, we were trendy. Yet, when anyone questioned his liking of Shakira’s music, it was brushed off.

Eventually, a few of us got fed up and felt something needed to be done. We created a username, one that had the sole purpose of insulting Noel and trying to get under his skin. We called ourselves the Anti Noel League, or A.N.L. for short. Most of you will remember some of our posts. We made our posts and tried to talk to Noel on Messenger, but he didn’t like us very much. I think that was the only time he didn’t have much to say. We can truthfully say that we were able to shut him up for a while.

By the time Noel was eventually banned (not by me though), we had 9 active members, including some moderators. A couple of our members followed Noel to TC and made some posts there. Yes, Noel truly hated us. But then he as banned, and the League were forced to re-evaluate their activities. We shifted focus, and became the Anti Nucka League, and would occasional berate only the truly stupid members of MX for their nonsensical posts. The A.N.L. is still semi-active, and currently has 4 members that contribute. Okay, so we still have 4 members that will complain to each other about things.

May 9th, 2002 was a truly great day for the forums. That was the day that my alter ego joined the forums. Now this alter ego has created a lot of buzz about the board. Many people love him, many people hate him. I think people hate him because he takes attention away from them. One thing is for certain; everyone wants to know who he really is. One of my fellow mods almost figured it out when he started tracing the IP and figured out that my alter ego was from Alberta. So I had to let him in on the secret. And for those who haven’t guessed yet…I am DISCO STU.

However, I am not The Fonz. The Fonz has recently appeared around the same times as Disco Stu. The Fonz is funny. Although I do know who The Fonz is, rest assured, it is not I.



Later on in the summer of 2002, I created the Administration account. I was tired of getting all kinds of emails and messages and posts complaining about my actions when I did some moderating. So the Administration account was created to allow us mods to work in anonymity. And all the mods seem to like it.

There was a phase this past summer where Android got himself a little friend. Together, they shared a thesaurus and had little conversations with one another. Everyone thought they were pretentious little sh[its. So, I decided to be totally evil and abused my mod powers. When a normal user edits their post, a message is automatically inserted into the post “Edited by so and so at 8:45am 10-26-02” or something like that. Did you know that when a mod edits a post, there is no little message in that post? A mod can edit anyone’s post and no trace is visible. Android and his buddy had some of their posts edited in an evil fashion. Alas, the love for each other that they appeared to be discussing was…elaborated upon. I know, I’m evil. So shoot me.

And now onto the most recent events. I banned pendrightheloved1. There, I said it. I was the one that got fed up. I was the one that actually did the deed. I banned a bunch of the other names he tried to sign on with: that panda account, Miss Black America, most of the pendrigh accounts he made. I remember three or four. I didn’t ban Agrim, but that’s only because someone beat me to it. I also banned fattymattk and his multitude of alternate names. The endless barrage of spam totally over shadows his positive contributions to MX, which do actually exist.

I have been mulling over my decision to leave MX for some time now. The forums have been becoming increasingly stale and dull over the past several months. The Pit has turned into a sea of stupidity and isn’t even worth going to anymore. If anyone does make an attempt at a serious thread, some *** clown decides to mess it up by randomly talking about incest or spanking or jizzing on an 8 year old. That kind of bullpoop gets old very quickly. The Rock/Metal forum has its ups and downs. There are periods where all the posts are civilized, discussion is good, and the threads are new and not rehashed. But conversely, there are threads where arguments start for no reason, flaming runs rampant, and there have been many times where the exact same thread appears 3 or 4 times on the first page of the forum! You know what people? No one will ever come to a consensus over the validity of “nu-metal.” We will never truly know “who the best metal band of all time is.” Thos threads are a complete waste of time, mainly because at any given point, you can go back one or two pages in the forum and find two or three of the exact same threads that will answer your questions.

Of the Forums I actually visit at MX, the Guitar Forum is the one place of refuge. It is the only place that consistently remains civilized. There are rarely flame-fests, and when a flame does occur, it never gets out of hand and people rarely get too bent out of shape. Threads are usually intelligent, as are the responses. Generally, the most civilized and smartest members of MX hang out here. I also like it there because we can post pictures. I’ll fondly remember the Dislokated Soulz thread. When I need a laugh I still go back and read that one. I remember my first cut down of someone. Some dude that came on bragging about his Ibanez Jems and Mesa Boogie stacks that he bought from some guy and his van.

Some words of advice to the newbies who read this. Do not make a thread announcing your arrival to the boards. People will hate you for it. Do not type in all capital letters or spell words wrong on purpose. People will hate you for it, and it makes all of your posts seem ridiculous. Even if you have something intelligent to say, people will discount it because it looks like it was typed by a retard. Don’t be an attention whore. If you make shocking posts just to draw attention to yourself, you are an attention whore. People will hate you for it. If you signed up no earlier than February 2002, you have no right to slag on The Trooper. People will hate you for it. He was banned in February and therefore, you have no dealings with him. Anyone who was here earlier than February 2002 can slag him off all you want.

I don’t know what’s going to become of my status here at MX. I mean, here I am, a moderator, and I’ve been responsible for a great deal of spam. I’ve abused my mod powers on many occasions. Will I remain a moderator here? I don’t know. In some ways I don’t see the point of remaining a mod. We take care of people who spam, then they’re just let back right away anyway, even after having been banned many times before. It kind of makes the existence of the mods pointless. Because of this, I no longer fell I can effectively moderate this forum. Will I remain here at all? I’m not sure. My motto has always been, when it stops being fun, stop doing it. Make of that what you will. Whatever happens, I will say this. I am not the only mod who has abused their powers. I know of others who have done similar things as I. The difference is that I have the guts to admit to my past indiscretions. I did what I did, I have no regrets. This is not an apology for my actions. My spam was far tamer than that of others. I feel my moderating actions (abuses?) were justified. And honestly, if you don’t agree, I really don’t care.

Talk to you soon,

Dan



PS. I stickied this thread for a while, just to make sure everyone gets a chance to see it. Mod abuse for personal use? Probably. It’ll be un-stickied soon.

to Dan!

[jarviss]

dont unstick it till i get to read it

-G

[LegionsofMarduk]

whoa...rock on Dan!

P.S. I KNEW IT!!!!!!!!!! DISCO STU!!!! I KNEW IT!!! (ok actually I didn't know it, but I did kind of suspect it.)

[Lactose Intolerant]

bitch

i share the congratulations towards you

I missed that part ... I kinda guessed that you were Disco Stu. Great job man.



btw, I remember people accusing me of being Disco Stu.

[Toozey]

I'm not being funny or anything but what is the exact purpose of this thread.

He's confessing everything. *duh*



<-------------- hasn't been banned by Dan so he clearly isn't that bad of a spammer

[Toozey]

Now I understand.

[Guerrilla Soldier]

haha, thats great...disco stu

ya, these forums have been biting the big one for awhile, i'd say.

[crazyman]

that's cool dan

it takes a real man to confess his actions

[leprechaun]

Dan is the Man.

Originally posted by iamsuperdan
Did you know that when a mod edits a post, there is no little message in that post? A mod can edit anyone’s post and no trace is visible. Android and his buddy had some of their posts edited in an evil fashion.

Oh, that's harsh! I know "shut up ****ing n00b". Whatever. That's just not right!

[July]

Its just the internet.....

[Eccles]

That was a good read Daniel. I enjoyed your honesty, and appreciate you only giving me warnings, and never a ban

Also, did anyone else think, halfway through reading the Trooper section that;

a) The Trooper had been unbanned or
b) Dan was Troop?

Dan Dan hes our man! If he doesn't like someone then he'll ban! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DAAAAAAAN!

[Kornish]

i agree with every word you said dan, i dont think you did abuse your powers, those who you banned deserved it.

As for A.N.L hehe

as for banning fattymatt and pendrigh you should feel no remose for them, you made the right decision in my eyes.

its like in politics if gov't gave in to what the public wanted all the time the country would be chaos.

you made good strategic decisions. And thanks for bringing back some memories too.

Your still the man , one of the coolest mofos in the guitar forum.

[jarviss]

! now i know who was putting :spooge: in all my posts , undetected

-G

Those mods are like Navy SEALs.. they are there .. but you cant find a trace of them