Should Mods have term limits?

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely"

Should mods have term limits?

Not going to clamp down on this immedietely but want to ask something real quick.

Do you mean SPECIFICALLY DP mods? If so at best this should likely go to the "Suggestions" forum.

If you mean Mods in General, no problem, though you may want to mention that so people aren't confused.

To all, going to try and let this go and see if it becomes a decent discussion. If it starts shifting to complaints about certain mods or mod actions and begins to near 6a then it may get moved. Just a heads up.


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If this is a general sense, I'd say no. Typically boards that have mods have a number of them that are able to police themselves. If an entire board becomes corrupt then usually the reprucussion is that hte membership leaves en masse, which both rectifies the issue and puts in an iherent reason in the back of peoples mind when modding boards to be sure to police their own if they wish to see the board live on.

Zyphlin said:

Not going to clamp down on this immedietely but want to ask something real quick.

Do you mean SPECIFICALLY DP mods? If so at best this should likely go to the "Suggestions" forum.

If you mean Mods in General, no problem, though you may want to mention that so people aren't confused.

To all, going to try and let this go and see if it becomes a decent discussion. If it starts shifting to complaints about certain mods or mod actions and begins to near 6a then it may get moved. Just a heads up.


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If this is a general sense, I'd say no. Typically boards that have mods have a number of them that are able to police themselves. If an entire board becomes corrupt then usually the reprucussion is that hte membership leaves en masse, which both rectifies the issue and puts in an iherent reason in the back of peoples mind when modding boards to be sure to police their own if they wish to see the board live on.

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Primarily I'm speaking about foums in general,...

But this is where I am posting as of late.

If you want to move the thread (or delete it) that's fine with me.

To phrase my question another way,.... "what would be the harm in term limiting Mod status for a fixed time period?" That would give more people the chance to Mod, develop new perspectives on the forum,... and give a cooling off period to some who (in my opinion) need to get over themselves.

:kissass

They seem to do a good job. I don't see where its needed. Of course my say in the matter is nil.

It's a full time volunteer job - they don't get paid.
I think suggesting how they should/shouldn't do their volunteer job is ridiculous. Judges of the Supreme Court don't have term limits - neither should forum moderators.

And donating money to keep a forum going is not the same as paying a mod for their services.

Also - if you tried to limit in some way how long/how often someone could moderate you'd be having forums without moderators seeing as how it's not a contractual job of some type. Being a mod is a demanding and sucky job - which is why I don't do it, anymore.

On top of it being sucky because you're having to babysit adults all day - it's a headache and very time consuming. Believe it or not, it can also smear your good name.

I was a moderator for a jewelry-forum that was also heavily personal - being close friends with the people in real life, not just on the net. Someone was in contention with my business and riled against me, slandered me in the community and I had to change my business name and my online name just to keep making jewelry.

So - unless being a mod becomes a paid position and comes with some type of legal security against slander and other issues - no, it shouldn't be limited at all.

Privately owned board. Vague owns the board, so Vague makes the rules. If he wants the mods to have term limits, so be it. Since it appears he does not, then that is the way it is.

Redress said:

Privately owned board. Vague owns the board, so Vague makes the rules. If he wants the mods to have term limits, so be it. Since it appears he does not, then that is the way it is.

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I don't disagree with this.

However, my poll question is not about the curent reality of the situation.

My poll question is about what you think about term limits in more of a general sense.

Chuz Life said:

I don't disagree with this.

However, my poll question is not about the curent reality of the situation.

My poll question is about what you think about term limits in more of a general sense.

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Term limits in a general sense are stupid. If some one is doing a good job, keep them, don't get rid of them due to some arbitrary timeline.

We have term limits in Florida. They've limited the quality of our representation because it takes time to learn to do the job. About the time our elected reps get good at their job and actually know something, they are term-limited out of office. It's a ridiculous non-solution for a non-problem.

Sometimes, a proposed "solution" makes things worse. In the case of Florida, term limits were designed to keep people from staying in office forever, and building cozy relationships with lobbyists. Term limits have given elected officials fewer reasons for accountability ("I'll only be here 4 years") and required them to build even cozier relationships with lobbyists to get up to speed on issues faster.

It doesn't work in government, and I doubt it would work here.

No... Good mods are hard to find. I don't see how an arbitrarily set time period to remove effective mods helps the board.

Not only would you lose experience, but the consistency that comes with a group of people working together to create an overall "tone" for the forum.

Yes. The points that it's babysitting, difficult, volunteer... blah blah... irrelevant. I think term limits overall are a good thing. We tend to get too comfortable, to arrogant, too used to current positions especially once we get good at them. We as humans, start feeling entitled...

I would urge term limits, but since this is a private board - that trumps all. So if Vauge is open to it, great. If not, that's fine too as I'm also a proponent of "if it's not broke don't fix it". What I see is on this forum as opposed to others is that people are open to discuss and disagree while rules are applied VERY fairly. I haven't seen the abuse of power by a few mods as I've seen in other boards which were well run, but tended to have a few rogues roaming about bashing heads when they had a bad day (at least that was my perception).

Chuz Life said:

Primarily I'm speaking about foums in general,...

But this is where I am posting as of late.

If you want to move the thread (or delete it) that's fine with me.

To phrase my question another way,.... "what would be the harm in term limiting Mod status for a fixed time period?" That would give more people the chance to Mod, develop new perspectives on the forum,... and give a cooling off period to some who (in my opinion) need to get over themselves.

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transparent:

b : easily detected or seen through : obvious

It would be nice, but it's Vauge's board.

If only.

Vauge says I still have 2 years left on my contract before I've paid back the cost of the steerage ticket.