META POST: Read this post by u/TheAngryObserver on problems with AO mods, and what his experience was and why it needed to be changed. these are the same problems that TSR has right now.
after reading this comment from DC, something needs to be done about the mod system here bc the subreddit is not improving and a lot of things that need to be done r not happening. https://www.reddit.com/r/thespinroom/comments/1iwoeq9/comment/mefnqnb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
WHAT DC SAID:
Like, if there’s something that needs to be done, we shouldn’t always have to force a people’s vote on it. There’s a lot of LARP and RP in this sub, and that’s ok, but let’s just take a step back. Early AO created people like Budderyfish. Remember him?
All of this time, there’s shut that needs to be done (that we can easily reverse) that we’ve sat on our asses for because of this LARP shit. It reduces efficiency and waters the sub down.
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this was a big problem on angryobservation. this is what u/TheAngryObserver said and what the major problems were. these are hte same problems we are seeing on TSR and what DC has described.
WHAT ANGRYOBSERVER SAID:
When I first conceived of the mod elections, it seemed like weaponized competition. What I wanted was lots of people with different ideas to improve the subreddit facing off, and the one with the most persuasive case for positive change winning and making the place better. The benefits were 1) lots of activity, even if it was larpy and annoying to some 2) mods that are more technically competent than me helping to improve the sub 3) whatever joy comes from being in a representative democracy, even if it is literally a popularity contest on the internet.
I was more naive at seventeen than I thought. Mod elections became a popularity contest on the internet and not really anything else. Very few users had actual ideas, and the ones that did barely changed anything if they won. I'd hoped for an active community between mods, with users constantly bouncing their ideas off of each other and even improving them. After over a year, nothing even close to this has happened. There were also other problems, ranging from the technical (the site is designed, basically, like a herd of chickens-- the older, bigger mod outranks the mods below and can do whatever and therefore making me a dictator) to the personal (not every mod that won people's confidence did a good job).
And eventually, the last rationale-- they at least were fun and generated traffic-- fell apart. Traffic has been stagnating for a real long while now, seemingly because this sub has failed to become anything other than a junior clone of YAPms (this is a separate issue I've got thoughts on how to tackle, but another day), and the mod elections have record low turnout even as we broke quadruple digits.
The stuff that happened in the other sub was something of a wake up call but I'd been planning to do this for awhile. They don't do anything good. I was originally intending to abolish them via referendum, but I don't see what the point of fighting unhelpful larp with unhelpful larp is.
As for the dismissed mods, I'm proud to consider them all friends and really, honest to God hope they're not going anywhere. But, this is not an internet popularity contest, or at least it shouldn't be. The only folks on the team now will be people I know personally to be, well, good, active mods and level adults I can easily reach throughout the day. This is a way higher bar then it sounds like, which is why I brought back two OG's-- u/xravenxx and u/PeterWatchmen, both great, reliable people I've known for years now.
Hope this suffices. Business will continue as usual otherwise
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i suuport DC taking whatever action is required. a lot of ppl are getting tired of the way this place is being run and there is too muc hmod conflict on the team which is not the way to run a sub,