[jibi]

We help out with our experience and knowledge; contributing to the forum, as well as the newly created FAQ, is our top priority (imo, although some of the others may disagree).

If moderation is to be done, then it's to be done. If this means banning someone due to vulgarity or continual complaints from other users, then so be it. I personally do as little actual moderation as possible, in the most native sense of the word, as I do believe in a sense of free speech. With that said, if someone is blatantly wrong about a certain topic, or if someone is being quite rude to other forums users (and yes, this goes for moderators, as well), or if someone is simply trolling around to piss someone off or simply cheat them out of money on the BST forums, then I, as well as the other moderators, tend to have good judgement on how to deal with them.

If you want to attack one of our moderators for the way they do things, especially when they are simply doing their 'job', then you pretty much attack the entire site as a whole (each of us are voted on by the others prior to being 'promoted', just so you know).

This is a forum, an open-to-the-public forum. We have persons of all ages on these forums. There are some younger (and older) members who have hot-heads about various subjects, or they simply thing any sort of authority figure is out to get them. This is not the case, in my opinion (I was a user here prior to having an open-door for a moderator position).

We are just like every other user on this forum - we will reply back to someone just as we would if we were a user; we will share information just like others do; we will do our research just like others; we will even search for our own issues then ask questions without the thought that it's a bad question... we just have the added responsibility to field complaints from other users (about other users) and the ability to take action against them. None of us abuse this pseudo-power and none of us hold it over someone else's head and ban the user just for the hell of it.

It is the (very) common perception that moderators or administrators on forums take their jobs too seriously and are card-bearing members of the modern day Gestapo. The simple fact of the matter is that people complain, we react accordingly; we notice someone out of place, we put them where they need to go; someone spreads false information, we'll correct them. In total, I've had 55 reports posts in the last week (that's almost 8 per day) - this is only from the 'Report Bad Post' function that most people don't know about. Add in the PMs, public comments, etc., and we have an awful lot of people who are offended by someone, in some form or fashion. These complaints never go unheard and are often dealt with, either publically or privately. Honestly, this is a forum for a broad range of people, and it's obvious that some are not going to get along with others (this includes moderators on both sides of the fence). This is part of life, and this part of our social psyche is not going to be any different on these forums, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it.

-J