Rules...

[Wide Eyed Wanderer]

I've seen a few examples around the site of people implementing the 'rules' fairly strictly over the last few days. While I accept that the forum needs a few rules to keep things running smoothly I fear that when there are so few members it sets a dangerous precedent.

The reason I left the original Lea forum back in 2006 was the 'Us & Them' culture that had developed, with too many mods enforcing the rules as they saw fit. I can see why the idea of having lots of mods may seem like a nice way of rewarding your mates on the site but really, the amount of people here right now we don't need any more than 1 moderator.

One of the other forums I frequent has literally thousands of members and only 3 mods. What they say goes, but they only post when necessary. Perhaps, if there's a rule that needs to be enforced (i.e. if it is breaching legal or personal boundaries) someone could have access to a 'Mod' account. That way there wouldn't be any personal resentment towards members who appear to have more power than others.

Frankly, petty law enforcement when the forum is this small is the sort of thing that will kill it off before it even grows.

I should add, this isn't a personal attack on anyone, it's just a heads up to something that could be a problem in the future. Too many mods spoil the broth.

[Azerane]

I understand what you're saying in regards to the number of member's we have, vs the number of mods as we really have far more mods than we really need. Though on the same count, if something were to happen, we've at least got people in practically every time zone to cover it, but not everybody is always going to be on either and not every mod can mod every forum. But I think that's pretty irrelevent seeing as how we're all pretty relaxed here anyway and honestly, it's rare that we ever have to do much except shift a thread around or discourage a double post or something

If there's an 'us and them' culture here, I don't notice it but I'm sorry if there is. I honestly really haven't seen too much modding going on, just shifting threads around, merging threads, a couple of casual reminders of not double-posting or chatting in threads (which we all seem to do regardless ) since lea's come back to life. The only 'strict' thing I can think of is the decision not to allow posting other people's art in the art thread, which I thought was a fair decision. But before I became a mod, I never saw any segregation on lea between people in that regard and I never have afterwards either. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, kind of rambling a bit. Basically, I understand we have quite a few mods, probably more than we need but you never know. I think in getting the forum set up again, a few rule reminders and modding actions are only naturally going to happen. If it is something that really is concerning you, even any specific examples, feel free to bring them up or send a PM to any one of us. We don't want to over-do our job. At least I know I don't. As it can break a forum down. I'm not power hungry, I don't get a kick out of telling people if something is a little out of line, in fact, I'm not that fond of it because Lea is a fairly tight-knit forum and I feel like I'm being mean when I do say things like 'please don't double post' etc. I just want things to run smoothly, like everybody else.

[Sombolia]

I do agree that the ratio of mods to members here is a bit excessive, but until it becomes a problem--which honestly I haven't seen, and I don't think will ever happen--it's nothing to worry about.

[Sadiki]

I do understand your concern about having too many mods and admins can be an issue. Especially if one goes mad with power. but we haven't really added too many mods here. Yes me, Fuzzy and Vidan are all new admins. I personally can't be anything but admin as in order for me to run Vbulletin here I have to have an admin account. Of course I could make another account that wasn't an admin but Super mod as I used to be but I do think that is rather silly. What comes to Vidan, he used to be a mod and he was helping me to clear some thoughts as well as will be helping me on getting Lea back on track as well as has an access to the database to make backup data base and all that stuff so we wouldn't have to start from scratch again. Fuzzy being an admin also helps as he knows way more about coding than I do and also if he went mad with power all he would have to do is close the server and we wouldn't be able to do a thing, luckily I know he would never do that.

Azerane and Sharifu have been super mods longer than I have so I don't see why we should be dropping them off and same goes for Wicked, King Simba and Teekay ( if he ever joins back ) So basicly only one who in the staff who never been part of it is Kanu and adding her had nothing to do with rewarding one of your friends.

I do admit we do have quite excessive number of moderation team compered to regular members, but sooner or later the forum will grow and also I don't really see harm on having good staff around helping to sort things out. At least I haven't seen any abuse from anyone. If you do, you can always report them.

What comes to rules. Well yes those are basically to cover our butts indeed. Would be rather sad if someone posted material that is not allowed for age groups that the page is designed for and we would be shut down because of that. I cannot see what you mean by being "strict" about rules in past few days? If something any of the staff members have done has made you feel it's unnecessary or if any of our rules is not necessary, you are allowed to discuss about it. I do think Leans are rather understanding so you should be able to state your mind rather openly without being bashed.

[Wide Eyed Wanderer]

I can understand that a lot of our mods have been mods for a long time, but it seems that more than half of the members are mods right now! This forum could run with a single admin at the minute, and I think there's very little that would be done here that could even lead to anything close to the site being shut down.

Anyway, obviously it's only me that seems to have a problem with it so I won't press the issue.

[Aurelian]

It's hard for me to read this without burning up inside. I'm not going to say anything here for fear of sounding petty, putting down an innocent person, or jumping to conclusions about something I am unaware of, but STM, I think you need to talk to Manda about a discussion me and her had shortly before the old Lea went down, and you should figure out why I feel like I have been slapped in the face. I am afraid I am getting upset over nothing, so please PM me when you two have discussed this. Thanks.

I have nothing more to say about this topic at this time.

[Nuduli]

Well, I suppose I should, speak up. ^^;; As I still don't really know anyone on Lea really well, I'll admit, it's a wee bit intimidating to make new threads some place even after reading rules and seeing so many staff members. I sometimes can't help but wonder if I'm going to be told 'not do this' or 'not to do that'. Er, no offense meant of course!

[Sadiki]

I'm still rather confused about the subject rising. 1 Admin on forum is not very good way to run a message board. Yes there is places that do that, but in example if both old lea's would have had only one admin on them, we would haven't had any protection against hackers or spammers or anyone who wanted to cause problems as the last 2 main admins were never very active on board. Same goes here, I'm not going to be around all the time, in example in just couple of weeks I'm going on a vacation for 2 weeks and if I was to be the only Admin around well if something happened during that time, well the place would be a mess when I get back. Also when it comes designing and all that, having more than one person work on the site is more than helpful. I knew nothing about Vbulletin, took me 106h to redesign and learn just the basics and get the place running and if I have to do everything that has anything to do with improving the site on my own, that will take way too much time and energy.

Also I never thought moderators or admins are intimidating if anything they are there to help to maintain the forum and keeping things in places where they belong, more moderators mean more eyes watching and finding things that need to be fixed, not that you are under constant supervision by the big brother.

Feral, I'll make sure to talk to Amanda and will happily PM you once I done so, It might take a while thought because I believe she is at work right now.

[Nuduli]

Also I never thought moderators or admins are intimidating if anything they are there to help to maintain the forum and keeping things in places where they belong, more moderators mean more eyes watching and finding things that need to be fixed, not that you are under constant supervision by the big brother.

Well I do understand they are their to help, which is always awesome, just sometimes it only feels that way. Not that they really are. Again, no offense, I just thought I'd put up my own little thoughts. I don't wanna start anything of course. But knowing that you're not always under constant supervision, is rather relieving, lol. It's just a thing I get at times when I'm on a big board and don't know anyone. So, now, I'll just, um, leave the thread. >.>

[Kihari]

I'm guessing that the number of staff here was something held over from Lea's younger and somewhat wilder days, but personally I don't have a problem with it, despite being rather an outsider here when I'm not just showing up to stick my oar in.

As I don't have much invested here (apart from the fact this is the last remaining TLK community I'm likely to be a part of), it would be no skin off my back to let someone know, in no uncertain terms, that they're being a massive prick.

Which I really don't see happening, so there we are.

Also, it's certainly a good thing to have people in every timezone on duty, especially while the site is under construction and all the kinks haven't been worked out.

[Wide Eyed Wanderer]

As Nuduli said, my problem was that when there are so many mods everywhere telling people what they can and can't do that the forum stops being fun anymore. That's what happened on the old Lea.

I'm just highlighting the way it could be perceived by new members; we need to break away from the clique-y nature of the last incarnation of the forum. Anyway, I've made my point.

[Guntur]

Indeed, don't hate me but I hope there will be no more clique-y or elitism attitude around here and act as one. I'm okay with the mods and "popularity" type of thing, but when people splitting other people when it comes to attitude and opinion? I doesn't work well and people will eventually left as there's a lot of "I'm leaving" thread popping around.

Like I said, don't hate me from posting that but I think we all learned this type of mistake for 7 years so technically there will be no problem for all of us.

[KanuTGL]

I can't help but take some offence here. I decided to not allow people to post someone else's art in the thread called "Post your TLK fan-art!". I have seen a few too many artists rage over people using their art for anything without their permission, even if given credit, to feel comfortable with that. Is that unreasonable? I wasn't being dead serious about "what I say goes. Mwahahaha", which I thought the smilie would indicate... >.>

Anyhow. On one hand, I can see how it's a little odd to have so many staff members, but on the other, I haven't seen it cause any problems before. At least in all the years I've been on Lea and I was only offered to be made a section mod a few days ago, hah.

Also, to my knowledge, if you don't actively seek out the list of staff members or look at the "personal titles" of the staffers who haven't changed theirs there is no obvious way of knowing who is on staff and who is not. When I first started posting on Lea it took me quite a while to figure out that some people were actually Mods xP So it's not as obvious who is in charge on this forum as it is on, say, Proboards.

Also, the staff have to follow the rules too

[HasiraKali]

I am so confused. This popped up overnight (literally for me).

I do see your point, WEW. There are quite a few mods on here, and while it's nice to have more eyes on things, it probably isn't really necessary at this time. We can work on consolidating and moving mods around. I'll talk with the staff and STM aboug it. I do agree with you.

Feral: I PMed you.

This is for everyone: In the moderator section, we have a thread which we post in whenever we do anything. This includes simply moving threads. It's kind of become procedure now. I've even posted in there when I've simply followed a member's request for a title change or deletion. It's a way for us to check each other and make sure no one goes crazy on the rule enforcing. I'm not saying someone couldn't just not post in there, but a log is made of everything, and I promise that if anything become suspicious it will be taken care of.

We also discuss the decisions that would affect y'all the most before we actually implement them. Closing Mt. Kilimanjaro to only admin posts is one such example. That forum is for forum announcements, and after discussing this, we decided that most members really didn't need to post in there. Rafiki's Tree is for questions, which is where a lot of the posts in Mt. K ended up being moved to anyway.

As far as rules, really the only rule should be: Don't do stupid stuff. Posting links to bootleg material that could get us shut down is stupid. Posting porn links or images on a message board dedicated to a film which (let's face it) is for kids is stupid. Fighting and name calling on the internet is stupid. So... don't do stupid stuff.

[Dare]

Eh, for the record...

I'm not on the staff because I'm "friends" with any admins, or because I'm "popular" - I actually consider myself to be somewhat of an outsider here, even though I've been a member of Lea since late 2003. I don't talk to Lea members outside of the forum and I don't even post here that often...the people that I've met here that I consider to be actual friend friends aren't even members anymore...

Though I'm sure nothing in particular was aimed at me, it does hurt to feel that folks on the board may feel that I'm on the staff not because I'm good at my job and truly have the best interests of both the forum and the rights of the forum members at heart, but because I happened to know the right people.

At any rate, if anyone feels like I'm being/been a toxic power-hungry harpy and not enforcing the rules as they are written, by all means feel free to approach me directly.
I promise not to bite - if anything, I'll actually respect you more.

[Sadiki]

I'll talk with the staff and STM aboug it.

Hey I'm still the same guy! And if you say "but with power!" I swear I.......

But yeah even if I got admin rights, constructed the board to this point it doesn't change a thing. I am the same person I was a few weeks ago. That I have chance to edit the appearance or any of that stuff doesn't make me any less effected by the forum rules. Yes I cannot be banned really, but I know better than that to follow the code. And as HK said we do keep log of what we do where most of the time people post things they have done around the board as we don't want an incidence where someone goes and deletes months worth of post without first discussing about it.

Basically I want to say that it's good that people do let the staff to know their concerns and what bothers them or to know what might be an issue. But I also want to insure you all that we are not here to keep you from posting or stating your opinions but mostly to help you, correct your mistakes and pick after you guys if needed and I do must also say that we barely ever have to do that, but when we do, it's good that there is most of the time one or more staff members around to answer those questions and / or issues that you may be concerned about.

[Vidan]

In my opinion, I think this discussion a bit premature, since we're still hoping other members of the previous Lea incarnations find their way here. The mods now were mods previously, and the ones that aren't super-mods only have access to a limited number of forums. So, effectively, you have ~ three mods for any given forum. You could argue that the admins are also mods, but they are really here to set the tone during Lea's rebirth and fix technical issues.

Personally, I don't intend to, nor want to, moderate anything. Primarily I'm here to assist with technical issues and backup the database regularly so we have an extra copy.

[Aurelian]

Azerane and Sharifu have been super mods longer than I have so I don't see why we should be dropping them off and same goes for Wicked, King Simba and Teekay ( if he ever joins back ) So basicly only one who in the staff who never been part of it is Kanu and adding her had nothing to do with rewarding one of your friends.

I think this is exactly the clickyness people are refering to. For the most part, the people you listed have done a great job, but Teekay, as much as I respect him, has been highly inactive over the last couple of years and in my opinion has not been a good mod. The fact that he has been listed as one forever does not qualify him as a good one. I know that nobody wants to deal with firings in such a well behaved forum, but removing Teekay might be a step in showing that we do not play favorites, as well as lessening the intimidation factor.

Wicked, I know how it is to feel like an outcast because you don't know anybody irl, like many here do, but that doesn't make you an "outsider"(unless you are refering to Zira's pride, in which case it's personal preference. lol)

The issue I brought up earlier has nothing to do with rules or the quantity of mods here. It is a personal misunderstanding, or so I hope.

[nathalie]

I can't read the whole topic right now, but I did read some comments.

I’ve been an admin on Lea since end 2004/ beginning 2005, and for 3/4 years (can’t remember things exactly) the only admin around.
I made decisions of making mods super mods, making super mods admin and asking for new mods.

Each of them, I asked them / “upgraded” them for their skills, their on-line time, etc …

NONE of these people were made staff-members, because I just happen to like them so much, that I wanted to do them a favor or anything!

(so yeah, some comments actually did offend me just a little bit, because I too made people staff-members)

And everyone started out as a regular mod.
No one just became an admin or super mod, every “higher” staff-member had to get through the same road starting out as a mod. Even I was a mod once (and I didn't even really knew Mufasa...).

I wasn't around much in 2007 - 2009, but I trusted Amanda as admin and all the others to make good judgements.

I don't quite get all the commotion to be honest.
Lea has always had a good amount of mods.
Specially due to the fact because everyone is from everywhere.
We usually made sure that when the US was asleep, Europe was awake if something should happen.

[Sadiki]

For the most part, the people you listed have done a great job, but Teekay, as much as I respect him, has been highly inactive over the last couple of years and in my opinion has not been a good mod. The fact that he has been listed as one forever does not qualify him as a good one. I know that nobody wants to deal with firings in such a well behaved forum, but removing Teekay might be a step in showing that we do not play favorites, as well as lessening the intimidation factor.

I can sort of see where you're coming from with this. But then again he has not even joined now so technically he is not a moderator. I know I have listed him on Forum rule section, which is pretty much copy and paste from old board. And I'm sorry I don't understand where people get the idea of us playing favors to the people. I never talked to Wicked out side the board and most people who are mods now been moderating the board longer than most people have been around and been chosen by Mufasa during the first Lea, I really don't understand why we should be dropping someone off just because the place got smaller, I just see no logic in that what so ever.

Also Nathalie made valuable point as we need someone around from round the world. And really if someone does realize that there is some sort of power abuse around here, please report it to me or another admin. If it's an admin report it to another admin. We don't play favors to people when it comes to running the board even if there is quite a few people in the group who knows one another.

But I can remove Teekay from the list, there is no problem with that as I doubt he is coming back, haven't seen him around in the longest time, thought with that logic I should not be part of the board either as I have had over 6month periods not checking Lea at all, but if someone has told me there is trouble I have always come to check it out. So yeah we can talk about this till the end of time but I don't think there is whole a lot of point to this.