A day in the life of a moderator

Sort:
Andrea

Cats have 9 lifes.....!!! 

Mi_Amigo
52yrral wrote:

  Careful cs, curiosty got the cat killed!

actually, that's half the quote.. the full quote is 

~Curiosity Killed the Cat, But Satisfaction brought it back

Farm_Hand
MGleason wrote:
Postafi wrote:

Careful what you wish for.
Once you become a moderator, there are a lot of advantages of course. You can delight in informing on, provoking and hounding your fellow members from multiple accounts, like never before. You will not be sanctioned.
But all this comes at a price. The pleasure of eating forbidden fruit will be gone. The romance of the highwayman lost. You will have become an eunuch in a harem. Unable to enjoy what is laid bare before you.
There will be no risk attached. No risk = no adrenaline.

No, you don't understand.  The best perk of being a mod is the deep respect and appreciation we feel from members like you.  Sometimes it's carefully disguised - you don't want everyone to know about it, after all - but we feel it all the same.

That's one reason I wouldn't want to be a mod.

Same reason ghost of pushwood, in one of his incarnations, didn't claim the NM title i.e. people treat you differently.

Of course not all people... I told a mod to **** off a few times. For anyone wondering that's a quick way to get banned. They may not demand praise, but they're pretty touchy when it comes to vulgar defiance.

Andrea

Ha ha ha ......

Wasn’t there a forum you want to care for all animals - or am I wrong?

 

Only asking .....

Andrea

Ha ha ha ......

Wasn’t there a forum you want to care for all animals - or am I wrong?

 

Only asking .....

MGleason
Postafi wrote:

My respect-o-meter is abuzz at @MGleason's diligence.

Pity that longstanding loyalty to an unworthy cause and unethical employer brings such meagre rewards.

Another perk is that all these multiple accounts you keep talking about us using to harass people make it easy to get the bans and mutes we need (see OP).  If I'm short a couple bans, I can just create a couple accounts, have them harass people to the point of needing banned, and then ban those accounts - and I have all the bans I need for the day to get my salary doubled.  All without making anyone unhappy by banning someone else's account.

Reepicheep14
ilovesmetuna wrote:
ProphetessMio wrote:

Ha ha ha ......

Wasn’t there a forum you want to care for all animals - or am I wrong?

 

Only asking .....

a mouse is always safer in mah bellay, than being chased by eagles and hawks 

I have nothing to fear from eagles and hawks - or cats.

Wind
old_school_dad wrote:

I imagine it like this but with Eriks face on the screen

 

Hm! Actually I just googled it...

null


MGleason
Wind wrote:
old_school_dad wrote:

I imagine it like this but with Eriks face on the screen

 

Hm! Actually I just googled it...




LOL

MGleason
Postafi wrote:

Sounds like quite a hamster wheel.

Ah, but isn't it great to have your salary doubled?

Mi_Amigo

what the hell

MGleason
Postafi wrote:

Accidentally, we may have stumbled on the reason for Nakamura's performance at the Olympiad.

Yeah, those advertising dollars really help boost his play.

RussSonLeYT
MGleason wrote:

Since many of our members misunderstand what moderators do, I thought I'd write up a description of a typical day.

 

At 5:00, we get up and get ready for the day.  Moderators work long hours, so it takes an early start to be able to fulfil all our duties.

After breakfast, we log on to chess.com and go to @Erik's page.  We stare at his picture for five minutes, and then repeat "Erik, Erik, Erik, I am here to serve you today."  This helps to put us in the right frame of mind for the day's activities.  Then we begin monitoring the forums.

The servers only have so much space available for each day, and if the level of activity in the forums was too high in the previous night, we might have to delete a few comments to save space later.  If we delete one of your comments that you thought was particularly brilliant, sorry, but we're trying to keep the forums running smoothly for the rest of the day.  If the servers got filled up, we wouldn't have any space left for the spammers.

We have a daily quota system for bans and mutes.  If we don't mute ten people, our salary for the day is cut in half.  On the other hand, if we ban at least five people, our wages are doubled.  I try to get five of my mutes and two of my bans in before lunch.  Since people have to pay $50 to get unmuted and $100 to be allowed to create a new account after getting banned, this is a very important source of revenue for chess.com, and moderators are encouraged to do their part by ensuring a sufficient number of people are muted and banned.  Regular members can do their part by reporting cheaters (select Report Abuse under the Help menu).  This helps raise the money needed to pay for Erik to take his family to Bermuda four times a year.

We actually love spammers.  Not only do they make for relatively quick and easy bans, but they always want to come back with new accounts, which means lots of extra revenue.  We reward them by letting them post half a dozen comments before we ban them.  This is why it's so important to delete enough comments earlier in the day to ensure there's room on the servers for the spammers.

After I have all my bans and mutes for the day, it's time to start looking for references to competitor sites.  This is a major part of our job, and usually takes a couple hours.  Some moderators prefer to do it in the morning, but I like to get my bans and mutes in first.

Then we spend a few minutes helping members with problems they're having or addressing abusive behaviour.  This needs done, but it's really a much smaller part of what we do than people think.

We usually finish all our tasks at about 11:00 PM.  We then send @jdcannon a note, and he transfers $0 to our account, doubled or halved according to the number of bans and mutes we were able to manage during the day.

We wrap up the day the way we began, by going back to Erik's page and staring at his picture for five minutes, then repeating "Erik, Erik, Erik, I am happy to have served you today."

 

All told, it's a hard job, the hours are long, and the pay isn't great, but it's very rewarding.  The site members all love us, and nobody ever complains.  And we get to help pay for Erik's family holidays (or vacations for you Americans).

If you're interested in joining us, you should contact @jdcannon.  You must be at least 18, and normally also a site member in good standing for at least six months.

 

Nobody ever has any complaints about moderators, but in the unlikely event that you do, you should direct your complaints here:

 

 

I hope that helps all of you better understand what we do.

 

Note: some of the details above may not be entirely accurate.

Funny

pranay_p

Soma was in brave new world.

Lord_Hammer

LOL the Red Bull. 

MGleason
Postafi wrote:

@MGleason would you use your tiny influence at chess.com to have the Vote Chess button returned to its proper place under Play, or would you accept any amount of crap coming form them?

I've already requested that change.  I agree it seems a strange decision to put it under the More menu.

Mi_Amigo

@erik said that VC is not used much here so he pushed it out

Andrea

yes, sad story sad.png 

Lone_Bird960

Easy: he can create 2 fake ones and ban them. 

Loudcolor

bitter a f