Same. Sending this thread to the cornfield with the other mod threads.
Jfc this is never going to happen.
furthermore you’d have a tremendously difficult time without my help. I’m not gonna say it is impossible but it would be very annoying. I’m not gonna cause that problem.
Regardless idgaf and can barely be bothered to respond this much to this. I really just don’t care anymore.
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I don’t really see where this is coming from. I took a tremendous effort while admin to not get sucked into drama or take any sides and thought I did a very good job.
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yo dogs I heard you liked 2p2 so I put some 2p2 in your 2p2
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Not suggesting you wouldn’t help out. But chads asked “What would happen if there was no transition between admins? Nobody would have the keys to the car and it would eventually stop working?” So I was talking about a hypothetical situation in which you were not available.
Could we pay someone to admin? I have no idea how feasible this is, but we have money.
As someone who has zero technical skills to run this website, but enjoys the community, is there anything I can do to help? I feel like there are likely several people in the same situation as me.
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Grunching about half way.
The problem I see is liability falls on the admin role. We now see how that might not be best for the site.
How to address it? Create an ownership structure that assumes liability. Problem is this requires actual people being liable, and signing up for it. The problem with that is those who hold the liability are going to have the strongest reactions to various activities on the site.
Coming up with a real ownership model given how decisions are made by all of us seems impossible, to be honest. So we are at an impasse. Can we actually work together as a group, accomplish an actual functional foundation for ownership, responsibility and liability with out grinding out every syllable for six months?
Under a new structure the admin role can literally be a job and perhaps will not be so problematic. But that would have to be seen.
I don’t know what the best structure is for all this, I am just pretty confident it is something different from what we are doing now.
Again all these requires the petty childish to either stop by those participating or it needs to be excised by the rest of the community. Doesn’t make sense to undertake this task with that sitting there ready to sabotage every single step.
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Pretty much this.
Some people think it is their birthright to
Challenge moderators ceaselessly.
To stop this we as a community simple need to make that not okay in the way it is being done.
Perhaps a suggestion box will be built for those who can’t help themselves. Maybe we will call them Victim Boxes.
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I have been thinking about this and even researching it. Would be fairly tricky atm and probably entirely dicey with the way things are set up.
I don’t think it’s a good idea atm.
You did a great job.
Thanks for everything you did and do.
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I’m aware as I re-read my post in moderation thread that it may be pointed out that none of this was my “responsibility” and I didn’t have to care about the things I cared about and tried to help - but that’s just how I am. It’s probably a life leak or whatever, but it was also made worse by the fact that people expected me to weigh in and do stuff that seemed far outside the role I signed up for. A good example is making those rfc threads. Why me? The role of admin was never clearly defined so to me it seemed like people made it into something way more than what I thought I signed up for.
At the end of the day though the reality is that when it comes to this website, me and ggoreo can press the powerful buttons. Whether that’s to mod/demod someone, ban, make design changes, policy about whether to anonymize people’s accounts, I could go on for a while but you get the picture. It’s an enormous amount of power in such a tiny community and this weighs on me. I don’t think the way that things are currently set up that this dynamic will ever go away, which is why I think you should choose another admin extremely carefully.
I think me of all people probably was a great fit for it because I dont really follow the political talk and am generally unaware of the cliques and political subgroups within this forum, so being biased is pretty impossible. That combined with my technical background (i literally maintain and design server infrastructure for a living) seemed like a really good fit but I guess I underestimated the role and over-cared.
Well, that’s not really a problem anymore. I will do the bare minimum to keep the site going but I don’t want to weigh in as an admin on any community issues or decisions and any posts I do make about that should be very much read as jmakin the pissed off user, and not an admin.
With regard to the health of the physical site, there is nothing to worry about, if you are worried. This shit is literally made for morons to deploy. I’m not joking I’ve done maybe 4-6 technical things in the 6 months I’ve been admin and only one was very technical (setting up our automated email to get past spam filters). I mean, like, this site could go on pretty much untouched for years if you upgrade the size of the server like I’ve been wanting to do for peace of mind.
It’s just $80/month to never have to worry for years potentially. I could even write automation to solve potential issues that arise. But, the problem remains that you do need someone knowledgeable at the helm in case something goes wrong and you’re ALWAYS gonna have the power dynamic that I described earlier.
This unicorn admin would also hve to be able to tune out a lot of noise. This is why I said before that no one comes to mind that could actually do this and also want to. Suzzer probably my first choice but he said he doesn’t want to and who can really blame him.
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Also thanks to the kind words people have said and to all the people that pm’d me, I’ll get around to replying. I’m not ignoring them it’s just too much for me to deal with right now, but I appreciate it.
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I don’t think I’ve explicitly posted it, but thank you for everything you do for this site.
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Full disclosure about being able to read the pm’s. I didn’t know about this feature til a month or maybe 2 months ago. I was just clicking around in admin account and accidentally saw some stuff I really didn’t want to see. I am shocked that that is a legit feature, but be assured that no one is reading your pm’s. The logs can be pulled by mods I believe, if they care to, and this can be shown. The logs cannot be deleted so there’s no way someone can read a bunch of stuff and then delete the evidence.
It is a capability I really, really wish was not there, which is why I encourage everyone to use encrypted pm’s. It’s a pain in the ass to set up - but, it really is the way around this issue.
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This seems like what the role should ideally be. I understand that isn’t really possible in practice long term though.
Thanks for keeping the lights on for us and for everything you’ve put up with to this point. I’m sorry UP has caused you undue stress, but know that you are appreciated.
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What’s the main problem, in your view? We’ve got jmakin chained in the basement, so the alternative isn’t great either.
Thanks for your service jmakin. Not it.
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@SensiblePerson Would you consider taking over admin/tech support? I don’t think we should even call it Admin because everyone seems to agree that all the parts of the job jmakin and zikzac hated shouldn’t be part of the job. We need someone to watch the servers and update the software once in a while. I think you’d be great.
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Since you asked nicely, twice, I’ll reluctantly – very reluctantly – agree to do it.
I’ll say that part of my reluctance is due to “me” things (I have a lot going on in my life already), but a big part of the reluctance is exactly the kinds of things jmakin is talking about. And I should further say that I have pretty much exactly the same take on it that he and zikzak do.
Countering my reluctance is at least a couple things: I think it’s unfair to jmakin to leverage his conscientiousness to basically force him to continue the job when he doesn’t want to keep doing it. Also, I would like to feel like I’m contributing to the community to give back, since I have gotten a lot of value out of it since the 2p2 exodus (along with a lot of angst too).
All that said, I think I could do what’s necessary to keep the forum up and running without getting pulled into drama or abusing admin powers.
So what I’d propose is:
With the community’s approval, commit to handling admin duties for the site for 6 months (Jul - Dec 2021). At the end of that time, we’d assess how it’s going, and either select a new admin, or I’d stay on.
What I would not commit to: being on call, fulfilling random site customization or configuration requests, or guaranteeing 24/7/365 site uptime. If that’s a requirement for the job, someone else will need to do it.
For reference, the last time we did an admin handoff, there was quite a bit of discussion in this thread (skim past the first few posts):
If anyone has questions about the admin role and responsibilities, technical aspects of the forum software, and/or the handoff process, they may be answered in that thread.
If not, all should feel free to raise questions here and we can discuss further. Hope that helps. Let me know what you (collectively) think.
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