Your first experience as a moderator

[Wayne Luke]

I don't remember. What I do remember is the admin and his new partner being off on vacation when some issue arose on the forums. I emailed them and their response was "You're now the administrator of the forums, deal with it as you see fit". That was only a few months into my moderation career.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

I don't remember. What I do remember is the admin and his new partner being off on vacation when some issue arose on the forums. I emailed them and their response was "You're now the administrator of the forums, deal with it as you see fit". That was only a few months into my moderation career.

Wow, you must have felt awesome but intimidated at the same time. I'd be shocked if that ever happened to me.

[tryfuhl]

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

I don't remember. What I do remember is the admin and his new partner being off on vacation when some issue arose on the forums. I emailed them and their response was "You're now the administrator of the forums, deal with it as you see fit". That was only a few months into my moderation career.

hahaha, that's awesome

recall the situation?

[Dan]

Originally Posted by eJM

I was participating on a Compuserve forum in 1993 about Quarterdeck software - I was having problems with a product called QEMM. It was fun learning about it from the pros and I stuck around even after I found the solutions I was looking for.

Occasionally, a sysop (that's what they called moderators on Compuserve) would answer a question froma non-geek type with all these 50 cent words and computerese that a lot of normal people just didn't understand. I noticed they got an awful lot of replies like, "Hu???" So, I started "translating" so people could actually figure out what to do to fix their problems. I didn't always know how to fix it myself, but I knew what the sysop was telling them and just relayed it in every day language. And, of course, I learned a lot along the way.

One day I got an email from someone I never saw participate on the forum, but he had a QD email address. He asked if I was interested in being a sysop. I explained how little I knew. He said I actually helped promote their products on Compuserve better than the paid employees because people knew what I was saying. I took the job. A couple weeks later I got a box in the mail with every product QD sold and then some - and a T-shirt. I would get more software every time they had a new version or a new product.

That job put me in touch with WUGNET (Windows Users Group Network), where I took on sysop duties at a couple other forums. Turned out they also had a contract with Playboy and I got a job with them too. I got bold and applied for work with other forums and I guess I just got addicted to support forums before I made my first venture into the WWW (it wasn't known as the WWW when you were on Compuserve back then).

Now I really feel old.

Jim

Jim,

That's brilliant. Even playboy eh?


I think my first sort of mod role was in the AOL 4 days when I was a chatroom 'guide' (sort of a moderator). Though my first mod role I think was related to a car club/website I ran, we used to meet up at shows and what-not, the other clubs had a forum so I installed one for the lads. Nothing special, at it's peak it had only 2,400-odd members (I still remember that figure, sort of). I wasn't a member of any other forum untill I made that one. Since then I've been a member of any I've come across providing it's ran well.

Thinking about it now, I don't think I've ever been an actual mod on any other forum but my own, so admin only.

[Dave]

My first Moderator role was on TilersForums.co.uk | Tile Forums | Tiling Forum and i was approached by the owner ( Dan) and asked if i was interested...i was honoured and took the role up..nervous at first but soon got the hang of it and have since watched the forum grow at a very fast rate and others forums along with it...i now admin 8 ( i think) and would'nt swap it for nowt.....well a lottery win would be good...

[Dan]

I can't sort a lottery win out to keep you, but I can a ticket or two lol

You know lads, Dave had not only never moderated another forum (and he did it very well when he was a mod, and now Admin's even better) he'd never even registered on one before.

[Michael]

The only forum I have ever began moderating I really enjoyed and it was webprocafe.com, I knew one of the owners and I asked him if I could be one, I was very happy there until I got banned for owning a competing site, I didnt even want a link to it in my signature and offered to be a normal member, nope didnt happen

[Soliloquy]

That just goes to show some people are good at recognizing and promoting talent, others let their personal agenda get in the way of running their forum.

[BlisteredBlood]

Originally Posted by Ben

Talk about your first experience as a moderator on a forum...what thoughts went through your head? What did you feel? Did you fail? (Hopefully not)

When I first got started on Blue Moon as a mod about last year (and this was on Forumotion's DarkBB server), I had to admit it. It was a lot to take in, since I was one of three mods at the time. But I knew that I had to step up my game and do what was needed to be done in order to keep the general populace in line when the admin was away. There were some hardships to endure along the way, but you had to deal with it, be it a small slip up by one of the users to an outright assault on the site. I guess I'm what you call the type of guy who takes it on the chin and gets back up.

[paulh]

my first mod post was around 1995 on an IRC chat room based around an Australian web page called 40notout. (A cricket term but it often needed explaining politely to gays searching for kindred spirits)

probably the only reason I was chosen was that I was the other side of the world and could keep an eye on things whilst Australia and America slept.

over 4 years we developed quite a close community and then in 1999 one of the regulars got cancer and died some 6 months later and the spirit of the board just went with him and it died out.

[BananaQueen]

my first experience as a mod was when a bigger forum i was on split into 2 seperate forums when the admin fell out. since then one of the original admin has quit, and i was promoted to admin. we also changed from proboards to phpbb cause we thought there would be more things we could do on the forum, and although that meant starting over again and losing our 10000 posts, we are halfway there already

i was really happy when made mod because i always wanted to see what it was like to be a mod

[Combo]

The first forum I moderated was a Habbo.co.uk fansite forum which I moderated for a few months before it went down to pot, since then I have moderated and administrated many forums using all sorts of different softwares.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Combo

The first forum I moderated was a Habbo.co.uk fansite forum which I moderated for a few months before it went down to pot, since then I have moderated and administrated many forums using all sorts of different softwares.

lol Habbo, that's gone to pot now. The only good thing about Habbo is all these Retros.