Hi everyone, I just saw the post here: http://ift.tt/22YlE5o and wanted to address it fully. Moderator application information is at the end of this post.
I will answer all of the points from that post at the end of this one, but in order to explain my side of things, let me show you the private messages that zeuph sent me in regards to the moderation of this subreddit. I normally wouldn't be airing dirty laundry or wanting to cause drama, but zeuph has presented me and my responses in a completely unjust way, and I feel that its necessary for me to show the entire conversation so that people can come to their own conclusions as to what has been said and done. I apologize that it's so long, but 95% of it is zeuph PMing me.
The following is the first message he sent me about a month ago:
"Dear omfgninja,
I come to you in a time of dire need, not of assistance. Rather, I would like to ask you something that's both frustrating and infuriating at the same time. I am a frequent viewer of a subreddit whereof you hold the highest seniority. Recently, this subreddit has had some downfall and people have been upset regarding the content and how the mods interact with the users. Unfortunately, I cannot do other than agree with them due to the fact both mine and others' messages have gone unanswered when messaging the moderators. Also due to the fact that there seem to be lack of engagement from the moderators part.
The subreddit I'm talking about is r/aliens and I've been an active user on a near to daily basis for one year and active in both exopolitics, ufos and aliens for soon 8 years. I contact you because I want change. I am sentimentally tied to that community and I've tried reaching out to other communities on the internet in hopes of finding similar qualities with moderation. I would gracefully like you ask for your co-operation in changing the subreddit to the better or your personal resignation. Previous attempts to rejuvenate the forum have been to no avail, the most recent moderator were active for a short time and then left, making a rule yet not upholding it. There are currently at least 2 or 3(quite new) posts that are breaking the rule gintoddic enforced.
I would like to suggest that you personally either wake up your moderators or hand over the ownership to someone capable(Not that you're not capable, but maybe being a moderator on over 50 subreddits takes its toll). Make some stickies and maybe flairs(which both we had at one time). Poll on what people want to see as content(You'd be surprised how different people vote from how different people comment) or establish a strict control over the content.
With that said I want to suggest a third option which is handing over the subreddit to me. It's not because I feel entitled to it, it's because I believe I can remove the negativity and create a good atmosphere everyone enjoys. I am very aware of the phenomena and have been involved for many years. I will enforce certain rules and try my best to sticky and flair where appropriate. I would also like to add that I'm active in this movement both politically and as a hobby for maybe 4-6 hours a day. That will continue. I am also active in other communities following the same or similar agenda. I am very sincere and believe I would do a good job. I will put down the time needed. I understand how difficult it may be but this is a very small community we're talking about. It's about 15000 subscribers, 20-40 visitors at one time seem to be regular. About 0-4 posts per day(depends a lot on the recent news). I would like to argue that since this is a small community with a extremely broad spectrum of content, some involvement is likely required to either understand or establish rules under certain circumstances. This is why that I personally beg of you to hand over all rights for the subreddit to someone capable as mentioned above. Since you're moderator on over 50 subreddits I have a hunch that you would most likely not hand over moderation just like that and all I can say is, please consider it and please understand that my passion for this stretches maybe as far as your involvement with Team Fortress 2(maybe not quite but more of an expression to show the massive amount of time I've spent following this movement). It's a small community and even they deserve the proper, volunteered, janitorial service other subreddit gets.
That's all I can say and have to say. Nothing is ill towards you and if I've offended you I apologise deeply. If you have any questions to me, feel free to ask. Feel free to go through my history in order to establish some sort of personality behind these words.
With regards, Zeuph"
First let me say that I am busy person, and I really don't have a ton of free time for every request that comes my way. I did take the time to read the entire thing, but I chose not to ignore it. Firstly, I don't really see any reason why I should "Step down", there's no benefit, if anything, if he simply had just asked to be a moderator, I would have probably added him. Secondly, toward the end, he mentions the time that I have spent playing the game Team Fortress 2. It was kind of an offhand comment to try to guilt me into wanting to give over the subreddit, but in reality, I haven't spent hardly any time playing that game for a couple years now, and it was a disrespectful thing to say to someone whom you are asking a favor of. If you had kept your message short and had simply asked to be a moderator to clean things up and add to the discussion, it would have been no problem and I probably would have added you and I wouldn't be writing this right now.
After a month of no response, zeuph writes to me again and says:
"Please consider handing over the subreddit /r/aliens. It's a daily occurrence that a thread is formed because of the lack of moderations. Mods have left us time and time again and at most being active for a week max. Please let us moderate it ourselves and keep it clean of trolls and horrible content. The sub has too much sentimental value to me to just move on yet. I really hope you will see this and hand over the permissions to someone else. Regards Zeuph"
He's again asking to take over the subreddit. If he had simply asked to be a moderator, that would be no problem. So I responded with the following question:
"I'm not giving up ownership of the sub. Who else would you say should be moderating?"
Again, I don't have much time, but I figured I would respond to him this time. I didn't feel like he would be a good moderator, but I figured he could at least suggest someone so I could potentially add someone and get a moderator team going, and maybe add him later, but instead of responding to my question with a list of other people who might be good moderators, he said the following:
"Anyone invested. There are currently nobody looking after the sub. There's no answers to anyone's questions. There's no answer when contacting them directly. May I ask why you wouldn't consider giving up the ownership? Is it of value to you in any means?"
He didn't respond with someone who he thought might be a good fit for the community, instead he just further pressed the issue that I should step down, for whatever reason.
After he sent me that, he posted the message here: http://ift.tt/22YlE5o
Just for the sake of making it easier, here's what he said:
"Hello. I have been invested a great deal of time in this sub and am appalled by the lack of moderation. I have time and time again contacted the moderators with various questions, suggestions and other means of fixing it because clearly there's absolutely no effort what so ever by anyone. I have also contacted the most senior moderator to hand over the ownership to someone capable. Today I got a response which was no, omfgninja will not be handing away the ownership. Instead he/she asked who would be capable as a moderator. This frustrates me because clearly omfgninja and the other moderators have no interest in the subreddit and what seems to be no sentimental value. I don't know why keeping the ownership of a subreddit with such controversy and scares member base interests anyone other than using it as a "badge" on your user profile because this user have plenty subreddits under his/her name. Not that it's that much of a bad thing, it's just boggles me why you would hold on to something where the members clearly want to see change in the leadership. Anyway, my post will end abruptly because I need to leave but what I wanted to say is that if you're, just like me, invested in this field of study and forum then please ask the moderators or the most senior moderator to make something to change this. I want to see stickies, flairs and removal of posts. I want to see discussions and speculations from these individuals. I might edit this post to expand on why I feel this way and why you should, if you too have a invested interest just like me. Thank you for reading. EDIT: If you want to see change, please consider sending a PM to omfgninja. Maybe he/she will reconsider changing ownership.
Just to break down the message, piece by piece, you claim here:
"I have time and time again contacted the moderators with various questions, suggestions and other means of fixing it because clearly there's absolutely no effort what so ever by anyone."
I looked through my message box, and the previous messages you sent me were the only messages you sent me. Maybe you sent stuff to the mod mail, but you are making it sound like you've tried everything you could to get a change here, but instead the very first message you send me is a rambly wall of text about why you think you deserve to take over the subreddit. I can't really say that you got off on the right foot here.
"I have also contacted the most senior moderator to hand over the ownership to someone capable. Today I got a response which was no, omfgninja will not be handing away the ownership. Instead he/she asked who would be capable as a moderator."
I again don't understand why you feel like you need ownership of this subreddit. And its true that I asked whom you thought a good moderator would be, but I guess that wasn't the answer you wanted because you were only interested in being the only moderator yourself.
"This frustrates me because clearly omfgninja and the other moderators have no interest in the subreddit and what seems to be no sentimental value."
If I had no interest, I wouldn't have responded to your second message asking who I thought good moderators would be, and I wouldn't be typing this now. The main issue is here that I would have started adding people if he simply would have started talking to me about it and came up with a list of potential new moderators, but instead he decides to misrepresent me and try to create drama about me in the sub, sorry but this was the wrong choice.
For now, I've banned zeuph. If he would like to come back, he can write me an apology and PM it to me.
If you would like to be a moderator of this subreddit, just send me a message as to why you think you would be a good fit, also mention any other moderating experience. Thanks
Submitted April 24, 2016 at 01:31AM by omfgninja http://ift.tt/1UajKhz
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