The Moderator Has Landed.
Pursuant to Bad Thoughts' request (which, does anyone else think it's funny that a guy called Bad Thoughts asked for a moderator? I guess it goes to show that Bad Thoughts don't equal Bad Actions) the emu boards are now being moderated.
Comments
And for the record, it's (I Must Not Think) Bad Thoughts! (I hung out with Billy Zoom a few times when I was a teenager.)
Craig
Are you a mod or a rocker ?
> I'm a mocker !
(Wiki about mods)
Getting people back on their side in the face of what they've been doing lately isn't going to be easy - they'll have to be very, very clever. I just don't see them getting there, but hey, you hire the right people, and who knows.
How interesting about that moderator service site. It really is an ingenious idea of a niche business and very relevant in today's internet based society.
I think I'm going to send them a resume.
Craig
It's a very good idea, and I bet partly related to some of the angry comments directed personally at Cathy. I doubt you'll be seeing her again over there, or possibly only for "official" announcements.
I take it jedwardK is gone??
he authored the last 10 blog-posts.
Daniel - A lot of people don't go to 17dots, and I think even some of them that do don't realize that jedwardk and Joe are one in the same.
Craig
What leads me to believe eMu is using one of these services is the fact that not one, but four board moderators suddenly showed up all at once. It's not like eMu to make actual decisions in general, but when they do, they almost never go into things like that in a more-than-half-assed way. Also, contract moderators usually appear in groups because they work shifts, trying to have someone monitoring the site 24 hours a day in order to handle all possible time zones. Left to their own devices, eMu probably wouldn't even think of something like that.
I suspect they're hoping this will be a "quick fix" for the bad-mouthing they've been getting, which inevitably spreads into the blogosphere if not contained... They probably thought it would be enough just to prevent Google from indexing the board pages, but maybe they've finally realized that it's not. They must have also realized that if they shut down the boards completely, that would only make things worse (bad-mouthing-wise) in the short term. It's a gamble, though - if they weren't basically an internet company, shutting down the boards would be almost a no-brainer at this point.
Of course, if I were a Moderation Services contractor for eMu, the first thing I'd insist on would be that they dump their boardware for something that actually works!
Interesting about the Mod services, but presumably they're only going to be as useful as the policies + guidance you provide for them to follow.
maybe so. i kind of feel like the moderators are pointless, tho (given what they seem to be doing at the moment). if the idea is "scrub away pattently offensive comments," then of course, they can do that effectively. but if the idea is to function more like a "rapid response team," addressing complaints and questions and hopefully easing subscribers' concerns, i think the exercise is doomed to failure.
Although I'm still of the opinion that shutting down the boards is pretty much a no brainer at this point. I don't see anything positive coming from them these days and if they're not going to upgrade the software they have better ways to communicate with subscribers.
EDIT: Best response so far, "I'd like to file a report against Wanderer. He makes my message board experience less than optimal."
i can actually see it, tho, with a little reflection.
disagree with your edit, tho. i'm agnostic about "wanderer," but there's a half-dozen regular posters there now who i think are making the experience "less than optimal" for me.
The eMessboard doesn't need moderators as much as they need a forum for customer-service type of questions/comments and a dedicated internal group to monitor and respond to the incoming stuff relating to questions about how to use the service, where to find their downloads, how to figure out when their account refreshes, etc..... I thought it odd that eMu really didn't have any real presence on their own messboard and would simply just let their customers answer questions about the service raised by other customers. I read some things that some question-replying customers stated as a 'fact' (and no doubt accepted by the questioner as such) that could only be a pretty good guess on their part since they don't actually officially represent eMu or know any of the behind-the-scenes details regarding some of the issues.
There are a 1,000 things eMu could do to help turn their image/business around..... putting in place a group of messboard moderators made up of people already on the eMu payroll was probably the cheapest simplest thing they could probably think of to try to run some sort of damage control campaign rather than actually figuring out what features their customers would actually find useful and result in them selling more product to a happier customer base.
i mean, whatevs. people have a right to logjam and troll an open message board if they like (unless the board operator puts a stop to it, which is its right). just my view of it, is all.
Wait...
Why do I need to be freed? Am I plugged into some sort of Matrix? Perhaps I'm a Prisoner and don't realize it? Or maybe I'm in the Truman Show?
Craig
Remember - Free your ass and your mind will follow!