The Stand Still, Stay Silent Fan-Forum
About the Site => Website Help and Rules => Topic started by: Eich on September 01, 2014, 01:13:03 PM
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Okay, so: With the forum being here now, we'll need moderators. Mods look after the forum, making sure users are obeying the rules, checking in on and responding to complaints and reported posts, and generally keeping things running smoothly. Mods can issue warnings and ban people who break the rules too many times; these kind of decisions are left to each mods' individual discretion, but no mod should ever issue warnings or ban someone for personal reasons. Mods should never abuse their status.
I think two will be a good preliminary number to look after the site in it's beginning phases, because we have a very calm and kind community; I don't expect any trouble from anyone in particular. Anyone can apply to be a mod, but only a certain amount are needed, depending on the number of users. If you want to apply, just say so in a response, and say why you think you'd make a good one.
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May I be a mod *cough-Troll-slayer-cough*?
As for why, I have a feeling I'll be on here fairly often, and I also have the habit of reading just about everything there is to read, so I doubt I'll miss out on a lot.
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I'd like to moderate too, if you'll have me. I have been in many communities and forums and seen a lot of drama but never taken any part in it. I visit here regularly and because of my work, I might be here early in the morning or late in the night, and everytime in between.
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Well, I could moderate, too. I don't think three people will be needed, especially because we have a very nice community, but if you need help, I'm up. I'm here a lot and read more or less everything there is to read, and maintaining order is a thing I often do in real life when not even asked to :P
... Plus, I want to be known as troll slayer.
EDIT: The people above are right in considering time zones. I'm in the +1 time zone, meaning I can cover a lot of Europe.
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I'm interested but I only have an android phone so idk if I would be as efficient as others
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I'd like to help too, if you can use someone in the Pacific time zone. I sometimes log in before work (like now), but mostly from 7 p.m. until very late.
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Are there any positions open for back-end stuff? I'm a software engineering student, maybe I could help out neatifying the forum a little bit :3
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I'd like to help too, if you can use someone in the Pacific time zone. I sometimes log in before work (like now), but mostly from 7 p.m. until very late.
That's a good point actually.
Although probably not much moderation is needed [especially in these early days], and 2 mods would more than enough - it might be useful to try to generally cover the timezones.
So for instance 1 person in North-America, one in Europe, and one in Australia.
First two should be easy, not sure about the latter.
sidenote: Sunflower, unless I'm mistaken the default color is reset to black, so you won't have to use color-brackets anymore to write in black.
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First off, please don't anybody get any hurt feelings if I don't pick you to be a mod. I don't like hurting feelings, and it'll make me feel bad... Aaaaaanyway, on to the thing.
I've been considering time zone help from the start, and it makes me pretty happy that y'all thought of the same thing. I've set the forum to my time zone for exactly this, actually. I can moderate from the forum's 5:00 pm to 11:00 pm, on most days. I really like Psycho's suggestion of one from each third of the world. That would mean someone would always be able to deal with reported posts within a reasonable amount of time. However, the majority of members are from Europe and America, so a European helper would be ideal for the moment.
Noako, you're in Europe, right? Having been in a few online communities before means you pretty much know what to expect if something less-than-ideal happens. Your work means you're awake during the day, and get internet access?
Also, Sash, I think I've pretty much got a handle on things for the moment, but I might need some help in the future. If I need anything codey or programmy, I'll send you a pm asking for help. Honestly, I was really hoping someone with some technical knowledge of internet stuff would show up, so I'll be keeping you in mind.
Everybody else, I think one mod should be able to handle things as they are now. We currently have about 80 members (which makes me very happy, btw), so I think I'll add another mod position once we reach 100, which might even happen tomorrow, at this rate. :)
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Eich, we're all grateful for the time and skill you've invested in building this forum and giving us a place to play. You've been admirably thoughtful, open, and respectful so far. So I think you can count on most forum members trusting your judgment, and not getting their noses out of joint for petty reasons.
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Noako, you're in Europe, right? Having been in a few online communities before means you pretty much know what to expect if something less-than-ideal happens. Your work means you're awake during the day, and get internet access?
Yeah, I'm finnish. My work schedule can be anywhere between 8am-9pm (my time, gmt+2), so if that's a problem, I understand completely.
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Yeah, I'm finnish. My work schedule can be anywhere between 8am-9pm (my time, gmt+2), so if that's a problem, I understand completely.
It might be. Do you want to give it a test run for a couple of days? If you think you'll be able to moderate enough, you can keep the mod status.
Also, we now have (exactly) 100 members, so another mod's in order... but I think we'll test run this too. We'll see how Noako (if she [assuming she, from the avatar] accepts) and I do for the next three or four days and, if we can handle it, I'll close mod applications for a little while, until they're needed again. Does that sound okay to everyone?
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Yep, sounds good! P.S, if time-zones are important information for the future, I'm EST, so...*Googles* gmt-4.
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Yep, sounds good! P.S, if time-zones are important information for the future, I'm EST, so...*Googles* gmt-4.
Same, I'm down here in South Carolina, trying to avoid the deadly, deadly humidity (though, if you're a Floridian, you can easily 1-up me there).
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Sure let's try this.
(Also wasn't Aksel male?)
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Presumably it's in the comics best spirit to be utterly confused about each other's gender ^_^
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Sure let's try this.
(Also wasn't Aksel male?)
Aksel is a man's name, and I'm pretty sure he's described as a "dutiful grandson".
(also, congratulations)
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Sure let's try this.
(Also wasn't Aksel male?)
That was my reaction, but maybe he deduced female because Aksel apparently has some fangirls. Or he looks girly.
Presumably it's in the comics best spirit to be utterly confused about each other's gender ^_^
That's also a good idea.
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Sure let's try this.
(Also wasn't Aksel male?)
Alright, welcome to modtown.
And, yeah... I saw long hair. So you are a male?
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Alright, welcome to modtown.
I have... the poweeeerr!!
No seriously thanks for the trust, I hope things go along smoothly. We have such a good community I believe all will be well. Again. (http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=55)
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Hans the mods for different timezones makes me think of grey wardens from "the Dresden files" obvious reference is obvious
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How many *active* mods do we have at present? And of them who is from the european time zone? I think it would be helpfull two have about two or three more mods of different timezones. We still are able to apologize and be reasonable and delete stuff so far but I guess suggestions from a Mod sometimes weigh more than from a regular user. Not sure how well it will work now and how long the current peace will hold.
And nobody wants Eich to come back out of his nice beach holiday =)
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How many *active* mods do we have at present? And of them who is from the european time zone? I think it would be helpfull two have about two or three more mods of different timezones. We still are able to apologize and be reasonable and delete stuff so far but I guess suggestions from a Mod sometimes weigh more than from a regular user. Not sure how well it will work now and how long the current peace will hold.
And nobody wants Eich to come back out of his nice beach holiday =)
Based on user privileges the people who are able to perform mod-functions are Eich, Hushpiper (Admins), Noako (Moderator) and Sunflower (Moderator/Skald). All of those are active except Noako who has been MIA since the 9th of January. Noako is in the European timezone while the three others are in US timezones (Eastern for Eich, Pacific for Sunflower).
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We do need some mods in different time zones now. I doubt Noako's going to come back at this point... The first time we did this, I had people list off qualifications, though, I know several of you well now, and I'm sure many of you could handle the position. Kex, you already moderate a much rowdier group at your job, I'm sure you'd do well with the task. :)
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We do need some mods in different time zones now. I doubt Noako's going to come back at this point... The first time we did this, I had people list off qualifications, though, I know several of you well now, and I'm sure many of you could handle the position. Kex, you already moderate a much rowdier group at your job, I'm sure you'd do well with the task. :)
blushes
uuhm
weeeell I could, yes? keep in mind that I work though. So can look in the afternoon.
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Based on user privileges the people who are able to perform mod-functions are Eich, Hushpiper (Admins), Noako (Moderator) and Sunflower (Moderator/Skald). All of those are active except Noako who has been MIA since the 9th of January. Noako is in the European timezone while the three others are in US timezones (Eastern for Eich, Pacific for Sunflower).
AFAIK I don't have full Admin powers, namely the ability to lock or delete threads, delete/rename individual posts, or ban specific users. (I'm not necessarily asking for those, either.) I can split and merge threads and rename them, and move posts, that's all.
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AFAIK I don't have full Admin powers, namely the ability to lock or delete threads, delete/rename individual posts, or ban specific users. (I'm not necessarily asking for those, either.) I can split and merge threads and rename them, and move posts, that's all.
Yes, that's why I said Moderator/Skald. Only Eich and Hushpiper have Administrator powers. I think maybe you mean you don't have full Moderator status (which would normally include the abilities to lock threads and delete posts). I can't recall having seen the skald position explained anywhere so what powers you do or do not have is a matter of some guesswork. Maybe it should be explained in the useful information thread so people know what to request of whom.
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AFAIK I don't have full Admin powers, namely the ability to lock or delete threads, delete/rename individual posts, or ban specific users. (I'm not necessarily asking for those, either.) I can split and merge threads and rename them, and move posts, that's all.
You should get full rights to then of course. You are a very calm and reasonable person and can handle the art of writing most best and comforting =).
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You should get full rights to then of course. You are a very calm and reasonable person and can handle the art of writing most best and comforting =).
Thanks for the vote of confidence. But as Eich knows, I worry that if given the Ring of Power I'd very quickly slip into "All shall love me and despair!" (https://reprog.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/i-wish-jackson-hadnt-ruined-galadriels-speech/) mode.
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Thanks for the vote of confidence. But as Eich knows, I worry that if given the Ring of Power I'd very quickly slip into "All shall love me and despair!" (https://reprog.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/i-wish-jackson-hadnt-ruined-galadriels-speech/) mode.
Hehe. I am used to being hated by my pupils ;). Okay no need to step in too often as far as I can tell from the last months. But this afternoon made me a little sweaty.
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I could go ahead and bump you up to mod, sunny. Skald status was mainly cause we didn't need a moderator at the time.
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I could go ahead and bump you up to mod, sunny. Skald status was mainly cause we didn't need a moderator at the time.
Wow, really? That sounds wonderful! Thanks!
*clouds boil ominously on the western horizon*
In all seriousness, I think adding another mod in the Euro time zones would make sense. I'm not only 3 hours behind Eich, I'm a serious night owl and am often up till around 2 a.m. PST (when the Pacific and Japan are active). So the Euro-time postings I see are generally shortly before people's bedtimes or first thing in the morning.
BTW, I see Fimbulwaffle has now hit 2,000 posts. Should we let her repair conquer another Derelict Airport? I'm assuming she's made Charles de Gaulle/Paris ship-shape, or at any rate cleaned out all the duty-free liquor and chocolate. ;)
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Wow, really? That sounds wonderful! Thanks!
*clouds boil ominously on the western horizon*
In all seriousness, I think adding another mod in the Euro time zones would make sense. I'm not only 3 hours behind Eich, I'm a serious night owl and am often up till around 2 a.m. PST (when the Pacific and Japan are active). So the Euro-time postings I see are generally shortly before people's bedtimes or first thing in the morning.
You being a night owl might help a lot though, cause you cover european wake-up time or could pass mod requests on. I feel that mods will seldomly need to do anything. From other boards I know that people would call in, if they felt left alone. Taking action was not always first thing a mod had to do. Users decided when it is time to call for help (help requests often included phrases like "close this thread down" of any sorts). Also you are accepted due to your work in already managing all the topics by putting them together in a logic order.
BTW, I see Fimbulwaffle has now hit 2,000 posts. Should we let her repair conquer another Derelict Airport? I'm assuming she's made Charles de Gaulle/Paris ship-shape, or at any rate cleaned out all the duty-free liquor and chocolate. ;)
wasn't there a list of promotion-suggestions in one of the older threads? Somehwere in the non-urgent-improvements?
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wasn't there a list of promotion-suggestions in one of the older threads? Somehwere in the non-urgent-improvements?
Yes, but since the preview of the crew lounging on an aircraft wing was the furthest we've seen them "progress" above and beyond the random Known World citizen back then, IIRC it ended with the airport-ruling.
With what we've seen of the possibilities in the Silent Lands now ... "(Pro)Moated Castle Count", "Gondoliere in a Flooded Suburb", "Tuna Palanquin Traveler", "Fictional School Principal", "Blackmail of the Seven Seas", "Librarian of a Thousand Singeing Books", "Commander of the Ent" ...
(I guess that I'll have to forget about calling a post-Rash allusion to "Moby Dick" by the same-initial-sounds name of "Monster Dick", though.)
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"If there isn't a mod, it would be necessary to create one." Just make a robot mod that handles issues with prejudice. 24/7 forum-wide coverage; destroyer of trolls, closer of threads. Your move, creep!
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"If there isn't a mod, it would be necessary to create one." Just make a robot mod that handles issues with prejudice. 24/7 forum-wide coverage; destroyer of trolls, closer of threads. Your move, creep!
I suspect Eich already has a few of these prowling our perimeters, shooting down the robot-vendors of fake Gucci bags and sketchy pharmaceuticals. :o
Within our walls, the job's a lot more like hosting a very large cocktail party -- supplying refreshments, directions, answers, and introductions to other kindred spirits. Only occasionally have I had to say to a guest "Heyyyy there, cowboy, why don'tcha put that flamethrower down before someone gets hurt" (while hissing at Eich to put the liquor and breakables out of reach). We haven't had to bounce anyone yet, I'm glad to say.
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In all seriousness, I think adding another mod in the Euro time zones would make sense.
I suppose previous activity has to be pretty high for that?
I'm active now, though I may not seem it, and I've had previous experience with SMF moderation and such, so I'd volunteer for this if you want.
Only, I don't think I'm well-established enough in the community, really.
Still, if absolutely nobody else applies, there's always me I suppose.
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But seriously; if you guys need a EU mod, I'm game for that. Although you should deffo put higher priority on ParanormalAndroid though.
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But seriously; if you guys need a EU mod, I'm game for that. Although you should deffo put higher priority on ParanormalAndroid though.
Nice of you, but you have more posts.
Pistols at dawn?
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Locked and loaded, hombre.
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I think the number of posts does not really matter. What matters if someone stays calm and is able not to step into conflict on the one hand. On the other time in here should be a valid thing. The balance of kindly asking and mildly suggesting solutions is key here.
Also whoever is Mod should help Sunny in splitting/renaming topics or PM-ing people about renaming. Also having about 1-3 Mods per (bigger) timezone seems a reasonable thing to do. If there would be three in Europe, one can easily say "Okay I am on holiday for a few weeks now".
Also what about JoB? As far as I can see harsh words are rare (I might be wrong) and his eloquence is outstanding.
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Pistols at dawn?
Stick to the style, dudes. Icelandic special characters on a numeric keypad! :P
Also what about JoB? As far as I can see harsh words are rare (I might be wrong) and his eloquence is outstanding.
I'm a) a night owl with waking hours that match the East Coast better than my home continent (which sort of defeats the purpose), b) a traveling technician who can be dispatched to a customer site without Internet access for a couple months from one week to the next (though it's highly unlikely to happen anytime before autumn due to the project I'm currently in), and, perhaps most importantly, c) not a stranger at all to the meltdown(everyoneelse) method of supporting my opinion once buttons get pressed. (Gotten better, but I'm not yet old to the point that I can only shake my crutch menacingly in the first place.) I'ld guess that you have better friars to fish.
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Alrighty, Kex and Sunny, welcome to mod town.
Also, new ranks for 2500 posts: Admiral of a Sunken Ship.
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Alrighty, Kex and Sunny, welcome to mod town.
Also, new ranks for 2500 posts: Admiral of a Sunken Ship.
Awesome! I will remember that with great power comes great responsibility. :)
EDIT: Congratulations to my wonderful co-moderator, Kjeks.
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*dough* so many buttons, now I edited sunny's post :-[
was able to change that back at last...
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Also, new ranks for 2500 posts: Admiral of a Sunken Ship.
....... does that mean we have to give up our airports and turn into mermaids if we ever reach that rank, or... do we just add it to our empire of broken things
(or is it the fandom kind of sunken ship?)
edit: *facepalms* I forgot to say my congratulations to our new mods!! CONGRATS
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hurray!
congrats to our new mods
(https://41.media.tumblr.com/8654f45ac7af6825f9aea5e8a8aea378/tumblr_inline_nlno7eyq8g1r2g2kx_500.png)
or is this one more appropriate?
(https://40.media.tumblr.com/5cf779fae720ba06a685d755741ae916/tumblr_inline_nlheyv4Uhh1r2g2kx_500.png)
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....... does that mean we have to give up our airports and turn into mermaids if we ever reach that rank, or... do we just add it to our empire of broken things
(or is it the fandom kind of sunken ship?)
Just add it to your empire. I for one would not give up Moffett Airfield (a/k/a the Google Top Sekrit Science Base) for all the ships at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. (http://www.pearl-harbor.com/arizona/arizona.html)
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Also, new ranks for 2500 posts: Admiral of a Sunken Ship.
(I was there~)
Also, congrats to our new mods!
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Congratulations kjeks and Sunny!
*sharpens dagger*
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Congratulations! You two will surely do a wonderful job!
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Yay!
I for one welcome our new overlords.
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I had a long post typed out, but my connection bird when I tried to post it.
Basically, I think there's an option to automatically remove accounts, not sure if it can take post count into consideration, but I need to find it and see if it exists first. Also, with the new mods, we'll need a standard process for banning and deleting accounts. I'll work on that when I get home.
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Alright so this question is probably going to sound a little silly:
What do the titles under your post count titles mean? Is Troll Slayer for moderators, and Thor for admins? What's a Skald, or a Slayer of Silence? And as for as the little boxes that add up the more you post, once you max out your space, what do the different colors mean? And one more question: how do you think up the new posting levels when someone goes over the last one, are they preset?
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- The post count titles for regular members are just SSSS-ified versions of SMF's Newbie, Member, Senior Member, etc. post-based titles. What they aimed for when they thought up them (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=16.0) was stripping the rank-iness feel from it by these new names AND making them sound cool, of course. 8)
- Skald is kinda a lowrank moderator status. They can do organizing related stuff but not the peacekeeping part.
- Troll Slayer is our fancy name for Global Moderator, Thor is admin.
- This whole wonderful mess is basically powered by SMF's usergroups feature. User groups can be various types:
- the ones you get into by post count,
- the type that you have to get put into by a moderator / admin,
- there are also types that you can only get in by requesting invitation,
- and there are ones you can just join with a click.
(we don't have groups of the latter two currently) - The main purpose of user groups is managing permissions. For example, you don't have to give forum magic powers to every moderator individually, you can set those permissions for the moderator usergroup and everyone in that group gets forum magic powers then. Or another example, we could have a separate usergroup made for giving image removing rights in the Reaction image hoard.
- The little boxes don't follow some very strict logic, but they can be set individually for every usergroup. For example we could make Scouts have 4 boxes and Citizens just one, or make Airport Rulers have 5 little airplanes instead of boxes... with our current settings, yellow boxes are regular members, green boxes are Skalds, blue ones are Moderators and red ones are the Admins.
Aaaand sorry for rambling. I hope I helped. :)
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Alright so this question is probably going to sound a little silly:
What do the titles under your post count titles mean? Is Troll Slayer for moderators, and Thor for admins? What's a Skald, or a Slayer of Silence?
- The post count titles for regular members are just SSSS-ified versions of SMF's Newbie, Member, Senior Member, etc. post-based titles. What they aimed for when they thought up them (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=16.0) was stripping the rank-iness feel from it by these new names AND making them sound cool, of course. 8)
- Skald is kinda a lowrank moderator status. They can do organizing related stuff but not the peacekeeping part.
- Troll Slayer is our fancy name for Global Moderator, Thor is admin.
- This whole wonderful mess is basically powered by SMF's usergroups feature. User groups can be various types:
- the ones you get into by post count,
- the type that you have to get put into by a moderator / admin,
- there are also types that you can only get in by requesting invitation,
- and there are ones you can just join with a click.
(we don't have groups of the latter two currently) - The main purpose of user groups is managing permissions. For example, you don't have to give forum magic powers to every moderator individually, you can set those permissions for the moderator usergroup and everyone in that group gets forum magic powers then. Or another example, we could have a separate usergroup made for giving image removing rights in the Reaction image hoard.
- The little boxes don't follow some very strict logic, but they can be set individually for every usergroup. For example we could make Scouts have 4 boxes and Citizens just one, or make Airport Rulers have 5 little airplanes instead of boxes... with our current settings, yellow boxes are regular members, green boxes are Skalds, blue ones are Moderators and red ones are the Admins.
Aaaand sorry for rambling. I hope I helped. :)
Thanks for the great explanation, Eriaror. (Why haven't we promoted *you* yet? ???)
Trinka, there's no such thing as a silly question. Never hesitate to ask! :)
Here's some background:
I was calling myself "Forum-Skald" long before I got any actual powers, just because I was taking it upon myself to do skaldish things -- e.g. ferry interesting content over from Disqus, create new threads, organize existing content, and explain our content policies to others, as well as writing poems and little scenarios myself. (Historically, a "skald" in the Viking culture filled the role of chronicler, historian, reporter, poet, secretary, publicist, county clerk, and more; the title has been revived in the Known World, as we see in Torbjörn.)
Initially, Eich gave me the functional title of Skald when he endowed me with a custom subset of Moderator powers, specifically to handle content. When he bumped Kjeks and me up to full Moderator powers, the title automatically changed to Troll Slayer.
Hushpiper has the function of Admin but the custom title of Slayer of Silence because she led the effort to diagnose and fix a serious problem we were having around Christmas last year: an overactive censorship filter that was eating people's posts for no apparent reason.
Eich has the custom title of Thor because he founded the Forum and is our lead Admin. All hail. :D
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Thanks Sunflower and Eriaror, that was super informative! I've been wondering about that stuff for a while, but never took the time to ask. And on the note Sunflower started off on, Eriaror, and other forum member who do a serious amount of debugging and cool programming should have their own title. I think it would be a cool way to reward them for all their techy hard work! Plus it might aid in recognizing who would be a good person to talk to if you had some input on the features of the site and how they might be edited to function better.
And on Eriaror's note, if you want me to make little tiny adorable pixel pictures to replace the current squares, I would totally do that. Like little airplanes for airport rulers, and binoculars for scouts, or little houses for safe zone citizens, and Thor could have little Mjornirs! Oh, that would be too cute, I'm getting all excited just thinking of the idea! If this is something that is too crazy and endeavor to even consider, go ahead and shoot me down, I won't mind.
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You might have noticed, that Feartheviolas has helped in skalding a lot. Also she sped up skaldingwork by categorizing artwork in a handy spreadsheet (and regarding the SSSSArtmusem by help of Curry, Para, Jesty, and Ana). Also she helped clearing our thoughts in discussions. By working on projects with Eriaror she got to know the depth of the board very well. Thus we are happy to announce that she joined the team of moderators and now can help in keeping our board secured against spambots, unwelcome advertisement and other nasty stuff.
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You might have noticed, that Feartheviolas has helped in skalding a lot. Also she sped up skaldingwork by categorizing artwork in a handy spreadsheet (and regarding the SSSSArtmusem by help of Curry, Para, Jesty, and Ana). Also she helped clearing our thoughts in discussions. By working on projects with Eriaror she got to know the depth of the board very well.
Thus we are happy to announce that she joined the team of moderators and now can help in keeping our board secured against spambots, unwelcome advertisement and other nasty stuff.
Congratulations to our trusty and well-beloved new Troll Slayer!