Buzvia Blog

What some moderators act like

If you have been on the internet long enough, you will eventually have to deal with a moderator who gives moderation a bad name.

Why people use moderators?

You see moderators mostly in the wiki and forum worlds, these are people who have been chosen by consensus or simply because they where one of the first to use the site you are posting to. People and companies use moderators to keep spam, abusive people and to try to keep the fames down when there are intense debates. They usually work for next to nothing, donating their time and “expertise” towards causes they believe in. Some, of course, do it just for the power trip.

What’s wrong with moderators?

Although the vast majority of board moderators out there are level headed, you have some people who treat their section as Holy and if you express anything remotely not to their liking, they just delete your post or even account without a word. I had this happen to me several times, one of the more “famous” ones was by a “professional” dream interpretation board that prefered pushing people into spending 40-90$ an hour to have their dreams interpreted instead of using my free DreamClue.com system. See: DreamClue.com: Ruffling a few feathers in the dream industry!

Why do bad moderators act the way they do?

Bad moderators act the way they due either because they suffer from an inferiority complex (hence controlling the thoughs of strangers gives them a kick) or worse, they are just plain idiots. Out of all the forums and other sites using moderators that make me question the educational value of kindergarten, I must say Wikipedia ranks right up there. Wikipedia itself is a great idea but too many moderators have no business handling any responsibilities beyond tying their own shoes. Moderation is a “job” that should be taken seriously, too many people are given this important task simply because they were present when one was needed. I have to admit though, Wikipedia has done wonders with how moderation is done over the past few years and are getting far better weeding the snakes out of their grass.

Do moderators have a future?

With the endless march of technology, you must think moderators are soon going to be giving the reigns to their bot couterparts, although this will happen in the next few decades, for now, I think they are safe. The advantage to having a human moderator is that they are able to be “accountable” (I use this incredibly loosely) while a robot is completely impartial which sometimes isn’t a good thing.

The Bottom Line

Moderation is a responsibility not to be taken lightly!

Followers so easily gained are just as easily lost...

What does the “Pet Rock” have in common with Twitter? The answer is, they are both fads which will soon fall-off into the oblivion of useless products.

Background on my Twitter Test

I began a Twitter test on December 10th to confirm or deny what my gut was telling me. During my test period of about a month, I accumulated around 360 “followers” while “following” a little over a thousand people.

http://blog.buzvia.com/twitter-test

What is Twitter?

Twitter is generally a social networking system like Facebook or Friendster but without any of the features that would make it remotely useful. In fact, if you replaced “followers” with the word “friends”, I would find it hard to tell the two apart other than being crippled by only typing messages up to 140 characters long.

The Social Mind Game

What Twitter has in common with social networks in general is how many friends or followers you have. I think without this little bean counter, very few people would find joy out of either system. Why? Because we are brought-up in a society where the number of “things”, be that friends, money or material objects are seen as a measure of social status. For instance, if I had 5 cars instead of just a motorcycle, people would see me in a very different light. The mind game with social networks is that it’s a “free” (if you don’t value your time) way of accumulating “something” more than somebody else. If I have 400 friends and you have only 20, somehow, it would give me more status, which, to be honest, is crazy logic but true. What I find ultimately sad about these systems is that they not only belittle the true value of a “friend” or “follower” but I suspect far too many people get an artifical boost in self-esteem using these hollow expressions of self-worth.

Gaming Twitter

Let’s get back to Twitter, this system makes MSN one look feature rich! The barriers to entry are GONE because there is nothing to install and it works on all browsers online no matter your system configurations. So at the end of the day, you have an application that is itching to be gamed, and that, after a month, seems to be the “game” with Twitter. How do you get to a thousand followers (ei: indifferent strangers)? Easy, add a bunch of people and delete them a few days later… repeat. I did this 3 times, each time, I tripled my “following” in order to double my “followers”. Now, what is the value to this? NONE! At the end of the day, you have nothing more than a bunch of indifferent people following more indifferent people all trying to get more authority off one another, whose value is just as worthless. This is exactly the same thing as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and the list goes on but at least those systems do provide some nominal value in finding actual, real, lost friends.

Pet Rock VS Twitter

If I had to choose between a Pet Rock or Twitter, I would opt for the Pet Rock because at least  you can throw it at somebody if you are attacked… with Twitter, you are stuck saying “help me” with a link to your webcam of yourself being attacked.

Just to prove my point, here is a very short transcript of what has happened in my Twitter account while I wrote this blog entry… I have nothing personal against these people but I don’t see any value in this… do you?

	thuyphan need to start blogging again half a minute ago from TwitterFox
	lukefrombuzzle Personal Brand Management at buzzle http://tinyurl.com/932p9w 2 minutes ago from web
	lukefrombuzzle Launching something new in 2009 – http://tinyurl.com/932p9w 2 minutes ago from web
	micheleneylon http://www.miniclip.com/gam… silly but addictive 3 minutes ago from TweetDeck
	thomascook Twitter phishing scam spreading – http://zi.ma/843 3 minutes ago from TweetDeck
	lukefrombuzzle Just decided to commit to the WP Remix theme…now there are issues with their server – damn, so excited! 3 minutes ago from web
	DanaFosburgh I think Crosby had Mclean’s jersey over his head before the puck even hit the ice. 4 minutes ago from twhirl
	remarkablogger IM IN UR DM PHISHIN UR PASSWURDZ 5 minutes ago from TweetDeck
	WineDiverGirl is eating olives, pistachios, n smoked gouda with a rockin’ 2006 Cab Franc…oh mamma! 6 minutes ago from web
	fuzzydave might head out soon for a pint – wanna join? 6 minutes ago from twitterrific
	cjow Has anyone heard of Zango? It keeps popping up when I want to watch streaming episodes online. Hesitant abt using it. Safe or no? 6 minutes ago from web
	lookielookies Contributors, Join Renate’s Birthday Giveaway http://aweber.com/b/1vzVJ 7 minutes ago from web
	remarkablogger That twitter phishing thing is actually a rogue AI that will set the apocalypse in motion. Sorry, my bad. 8 minutes ago from TweetDeck
	dreamreaper RT @troyapeterson: http://tinyurl.com/8lonx4 Yes, FB will kill Twitter. Are you kidding? LOL. 9 minutes ago from TweetDeck
	dreamreaper RT @AndroGeek: Android installed and running on an Eee PC in a matter of hours http://tinyurl.com/a94lme While Windows may be more popul 9 minutes ago from TweetDeck
	remarkablogger On a similar note, @rjleaman is the queen of non-profit blogging! 10 minutes ago from TweetDeck
	bnpositive Microsoft Weblog ::: My 3-yr Anniversary at Microsoft Weblog: It was three years ago today .. http://tinyurl.com/8uwa5r 10 minutes ago from twitterfeed
	newmoneyblog Updated my blog with Top Plugin Wordpress http://tinyurl.com/94em7o 11 minutes ago from TweetMyBlog
	Geek_News Readers: looking for suggestions for questions to ask Jamie Sorcher “the Gizmo Girl” at CES in Vegas. 12 minutes ago from Power Twitter
	Talkofthatown feels good to take action instead of relaxing 13 minutes ago from web

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Do you HATE Twitter?

Not at all, at the end of the day, Twitter is just another piece of software whose emotions for or against shouldn’t rise anywhere above or below indifference. My gut was telling me it was a waste of time, I did a month test to see if it was or wasn’t and at the end of the day, it didn’t suit me, my needs nor fill a gap in my life so I ceased using it as of today. Twitter does nothing for me personally, isn’t a source of self-esteem and I don’t care to know the intimate details of how other people live their lives as I got my own to live.

People HATE an outsider

I have visited a few blogs which say only wonderful things about how Twitter has changed their life (???), how it has lead them to new opportunities and find new friends.  I would post my objection to this type of talk and the result? I was called a loser and a failure etc… what I find interesting is that this is the same kinda talk that would come out of a school yard… but this was from adults! I find it fascinating how little people actually grow-up mentally when they reach adulthood. Having a difference of opinion doesn’t make somebody less valuable, actually, it’s an asset! But some people just can’t understand why somebody isn’t thinking the same as them and there is no point in trying to reason with them either.

The Bottom Line

Follow your gut… it will have a better track record than crowd mentality.