The policy has always been that SJ posted looking for volunteers....it was made very clear. And anyone who applied was reviewed and chosen depending on various criteria. The position was offered to a few of the vets who we thought might be interested....those were refusals as most of them preferred to continue on in a member capacity here....but any vets could have equally applied at any time.
When I co-owned an online group, it was small, like 1000 members. With that number of members, it was easy to own it, moderate it and interact with the members. But with a group this size, that is almost impossible. Most of the moderators here end up giving up a lot of the socializing here to take care of the matters that come in and need moderation. See my post count? That's not from forum posting...that's from posting in the backend, trying to take care of my
mod responsibilities. When people realize this, they are not so gung ho to moderate....and prefer being able to participate in the forum as they have been.
And with being a
mod, not only can you not say many things you'd like to, but you also don't have the time to actively participate as you do as a member. It's just the way it is.
As SJ said, a large focus of this job is keeping track of spammers...and we are not talking about Nike and ....... We are talking the multitudes of suppliers who try to sneak in here and advertise without registering first. Or the ones who pretend they are members and go around spamming a site in all of their posts. Think it's easy to spot those on a forum this big?
And we are equally devoted to making the forum a safe and harmonious place for those with an interest in the ecig world to congregate without fear of being ridiculed, insulted, called names, sworn at, etc. Maybe if you ever read the
reviews from people who actually appreciate ECF, you will see that they are thankful for that.
And you would not believe the number of daily complaints we get revolving around those issues either, and each one is addressed. And in doing so, sometimes the mods are not popular people. And that is another reason some do not want to act in that capacity. Yes, there is a job to do and that will involve infracting people and banning people and I think it's pretty obvious why some would not want the job simply for those reasons.
SJ has set forth rules to protect the majority of people here and we are here to enforce those rules. We are here to try to keep ECF as trouble free as possible, while trying to keep it running as smoothly as possible. We have found the majority of members prefer this so we choose not to subject them to a handful who want to come in and be disruptive. And that takes a lot of work.
As a long time member, I can clearly remember several complaints of people not wanting to come here any more because of the constant bickering. Well, we've taken steps to manage that. The big complaints now are 'I am an adult and I want to say what I want to say'. Well, sorry, not here you won't. If you can't say what you have to say with some modicum of civility, then you're going to have a problem. And if you can't be respectful of the rules, they you're going to have a problem. It's really as simple as that. And I think the rules are pretty specific in the Forum Rules section....and the mods here are expected to enforce those rules.
So all in all, we had hoped more vets would be interested in moderating here but for their own reasons, they were not....so choices were made. It is what it is.
ECF is for old and new alike and for those just learning about ecigs, it is a place for them to safely start out. At some point, they may choose to stay and try to learn more, or help others along the way...or for their own reasons, they leave. And so goes the life cycle of an online forum.
Lu
