Skydancer -- A Democratic Bluelight *see first post for link to Skydancer's response*

I guess it's time for me to make my comments. In a different forum organized by XTCXTC I wrote.

It's seems to me that Catch has made a mistake. He should have communicated better with the EDD mods.

I don't think he should resign. He puts in a lot of work, and that should be recognized, and respected. If everyone resigned every time they made a mistake all of our time would be spent finding replacements.
Click to expand...

It was pointed out to me that this was not the first time, and I have to agree. I hate to make this a long post, but I'm afraid there is no way around it. First let me discuss the model that Bluelight is trying to achieve, and then we can discuss alternatives if that is really what we are going to do.

Drama is a killer in web forums. If a large number of people are trying to iron out how things are going to be organized a series of personal disputes will normally gum up the process. To prevent this it's nice to have 1 or 2 people at the very top that really aren't involved in the day to day friendships, and fights that go along with the forum. A person like catch who doesn't really socialize in the forum has no allegiances or enemies to punish, or reward. You'd probably be surprised at how little catch even communicates with the top level staff. The fact that "Catch doesn't care" is really by design. He’s supposed to look at the most basic functions and make sure they still work. His biggest mistake was getting into the EDD issue in the first place. He should have handed the complaints received to the forum mods, and Jr. Admins and let them figure it out. When they came to a conclusion he should have only been the person who executed it, and beyond that let his name stay out of the mud. This is the ideal model for a forum. Where lower tier staff members fight the fights, and take the heat, and the guy at the top makes sure the shit still works.

I expect that Catch took action on this particular issue because the complaints came from people in the top tiers. Not many bluelighters, and probably even some mods don't know Catch's e-mail address, and the complaints were not aired in support, or in the staff forum. That was a mistake for the 5 people that complained about EDD. By taking this issue directly to him, and circumventing the community, and EDD mods they drug Catch into this. They probably thought this would make for faster action, and didn't realize the danger they were putting catch in.

However this is all just a matter of dividing up blame, and for the most part unproductive. If we are proposing changes I'll air my thoughts.

1. Catch should not resign. He provides an excellent service to the board, and is a under valued resource.

2. Catch should not make organization, staff, or policy decisions to the board that are not technical (file structure, layout, design, etc.).

3. Organization, staff, and policy decisions that do not directly impact specific sub forums should be handled by a vote from Skydancer, XTCXTC, and administrators. An example of such a decision would be changing Midget Porn, to staff forum, or adding a LEAP banner.

4. Decisions that have a direct impact on a sub forums should be handled by a vote from the moderators of that forum, the administrators (if they wish), Skydancer (if he chooses), and XTCXTC (if he chooses). I put the options in there because generally these people don't want to be part of every decision. When SLR chose a new mod the optional people listed there really didn't need or want to be involved. On the other hand when a major change is proposed like the current EDD situation those groups should have the option of a say.

5. Major changes (like EDD), should only be made after some amount of feed back is gathered from the sub forums users.

6. Post quotas for moderators should continue. Now realize that when I say this I'm probably on the chopping block for this quarter. Due to some changes in my job I will most likely not meet my quota. I wish that wasn't the case. I like my spiffy Senior Moderator title, and I like being able to make changes all over the board, but moderators need to be VERY active on the board. It's not fair to my fellow moderators, or the Bluelight users for me to have this power if I'm only reading 10% of the posts that come through my forum. It leaves me with an incomplete picture of what is happening in the forum. In the last month I've only taken action on one post, and even then I did it at the exact same time SLM was taking action. I'm not active enough to do my job effectively, and I'm still on every day. SLR is a bit different because we have extremely dedicated mods. SLR normally has at least one, and most the time two mods reading it at all times. In the past I had it up for 8 to 12 hours a day reading new post the minute they came in. I can't do that anymore, but we might have an SLR user that can. In which case that user should be given a shot, and I should step aside.


More could be said, but I'm going to stop here for the moment.
 
*Warning - This is a long post. Hell, this is the *second draft* of a long post. It's long, but I think it's valid. And what can I say, I feel strongly about the issue and had a lot of time to kill at work.*

Reading over this thread I've noticed a lot of people making a lot of very valid posts about the current state of Bluelight and how the administration is running it. A lot of people have made suggestions, or downright accusations, that the administration doesn't care about or respect the user base and mod staff. Passions are running high, tempers are flaring, and god damnit, a revolution will be born!

Also, the theme that "Catch-22 is running Bluelight like a business and not as a community" is very prevelant. But what I think a lot people are failing to do is look at this from another perspective. Look at it from Catch 22's perspective. Look at it like a potential business. Don't worry, I'm not taking his side. This will probably make you more upset.

-Customers/User Base - Bluelight has a huge User-base. be thankful xtcxtc is paying the bills and that Upper Administration isn't greedy, cause they could make a killing selling demographic information.
-Moderater Positions - Again, Bluelight has a huge user base, the majority of which would *love* to be a mod. Lets face it, it's a status symbol and it makes you feel important, and most everyone else wants what you have. Because there is so much demand and very little supply, that makes the current mods completely expendible. The job requires no skill and very little training. Upper Management *loves* positions like this. You're basically a Fast Food Restaurant employee, but instead of being paid very little, you aren't being paid at all. The icing on the cake is that you are jumping over yourselves to volunteer to do the bitch work of the site. The stuff that the Senior Admins cant be bothered with - Topic pruning, thread locking and baby sitting.
-Super Mods - Just a mod that handles more than one forum, and deals with a little bit more of the bitching and complaining. Just as expendible as a mod.
-"Administrators" - This position is a joke. Virtually no real desicion making power. You get to ban trolls. The ultimate status symbol, everyone wants this position.

The point here is that none of these positions require much energy to fill, and they are all easily replaceable. Even the people that fill "important" jobs like Administrator arent important and can be easily replaced.

Catch-22 has obviously exploited this, and he's found a wicked good excuse for it - Post Quota's. The "case by case" basis of how people are removed just makes it easier to target out whomever he pleases. I think it's pretty much universally agreed upon that Post Quota's are a bad idea, and do not improve the quality of posts/work a mod does, but rather denegrates it. This isnt a taiwanese sweatshop; Quantity over Quality is a stupid business model for this operation.

"Bluelight as a business" isnt an inherently bad idea. The sites mission used to be to become a credible harm reduction resource. There's plenty of ways to implement a system to achieve this that woudl require some business-like structure. But this requires lots of communication, and I think this is the key point in where Catch-22 seems to have failed.

Catch-22 doesnt care about your opinions, your suggestions, your ideas, your viewpoints, or your concerns. He has repeatedly demonstrated this. Reading over this thread, there are loads of accounts to support this claim. He also doesn't respect you. He know's you're expendible, and he treats you as such. You are not a unique and indivodual snowflake. This is the Catch-22 show. You're just an extra.

Too many rules have been created. The spectrum of the board is both extremely broad, and ridiculously narrow. There's no room for spontinaity (sp?) anymore. If an interesting thread gets started in the wrong forum, its locked, moved, or deleted, thus completely ruining the momentum of the conversation. This is not only encouraged, but you might lose your job if you don't enforce it.

A tattle tale system has been implimented which makes it possible for anyone to report anyone else as a troll, just for saying something they dont like or agree with. Many of the most interesting and intelligent posters are the ones that have controversial opinions and use language that may not be nice, but words that resonante truth, and often times they are silenced cause some sheltered little brat didn't like the fact that it was pointed out to them that the only reason people like her is because of her tits. Since when did being mean, but honest, become the mark of a troll?

And then of course, the main problem - all of the decision making power rests on one man - Catch 22. Skydancer is the supreme, ultimate authority, of course, but his lack of participation seems to be the reason Catch-22 has his job to begin with. Based on what has been said in this thread, there is zero discourse or discussion happening. C22 is implementing policy and making decisions without the input of anyone else. When he does "open the floor" to opinion, its in a poll, which 2 extreme poleraized choices, with zero tolerance for any discussion whatsoever. He's obviously very good with numbers, but he has absolutely no personable skills whatsoever.

Here's the rub. Skydancer obviously *adores* Catch-22, otherwise he wouldnt have given him the job. Skydancer is also about as receptive to comment as C22 is. The only way you're going to get rid of C22 is if Skydancer removes him, which is incredibly unlikely; or if he resigns, and that's unlikely as well, unless he buckles to the "OMG They hate me I better quit and leave town" train of thought.

Something extreme needs to happen, but the only person with left with any leverage has already said that he will not use it. xtcxtc isnt going to pull funding to the site, even though he is the person to start this discussion. I think thats highly comendable, and definitly respect him more for not using his positioning. However, no one else has any leverage in the situation.

A lot of people genuinely do love this community, and will continue to toil thanklessly, no matter how frustrated they are, cause they still hold on to hope that they might be listened to and appreciated someday. Walt and Catch probably wont ever come right out and say "It's our way or the highway" cause that would drive away a lot of the people who want to help. Unfortuneatly, that is exactly the way they are running things. They exploit and take advantage of the people that (more or less) thanklessly devote their time and they get away with it because everyone lets them. Worse than that, they just dont respect you or your opinions. They don't even respect you enough to tell you to fuck off. Thats just sad.

And there isn't anything you can do about it.
 
Last edited:
64tf said:
Post quota discussions should be taken here

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=184144&r=10

SO mods, I hate to take action in your forum, but I feel like I kind of opened that can of worms.
Click to expand...

It's perfectly ok :)

It seems everyone has a lot to say on this subject, and I'll speak for Chrissie as well as myself, that we're happy to host this discussion in our forum.

Also a quick thank you to everyone for keeping the thread of high quality and good discussion, while respecting forum guidelines.

PLUR! =D
 
Just for my $.02....

I've been here three times now. I was here back in 2000, as another screenname. I left for other things, but mainly because I joined the Army.

When I finally got out I came back here, because I missed everything I had when I was a member here. I had made friends through this site, and even had some good times from meeting people through this site. I may not be the most appreciated person here, or the most respected, but that doesn't bother me. I come here now to learn about other people, and see different points of view. I certainly do not agree with them all, and it creates a mood of tension, which is usually broken up with something humorous. Every forum seems to have that one person, or at least used to. I feel that is what has been killed here.

The restrictions on what can be said, without causings others to cry about seems to be distorted. I can't talk about my child having sex with another person's child, but I can certainly be labelled as a racist, and called rather derogatory terms, that are inherently racist themselves. I can read three paragraphs of hate about one group, but as soon as someone points that out, I'm again being labelled as such by members of the mod/admin staff. I find it ridiculous that even mods, and admins can use the threat of banning someone, or other such things to keep people in line about topics that are frowned upon, but spoken about from the opossing POV so openly.

[edited - off topic. discuss this with the person in question and not here, please]

Not something I appreciate, especially when it causes other people not involved with the discussion to lose work of their own from it.


I usually refrain from these types of discussion for this very reason, nothing good ever comes from it, but something does need to change here. There are way too many issues, that a crying to be fixed here.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
BilZ0r said:
I just wish people weren't being so mean, you know? If I was him, and I read this, I'd probably be one upset mother fucker.
Click to expand...

With all due respect to Catch, he kind of brought it on himself in a major way.
 
Please keep this discussion on topic. If you have issues with someone else in this thread, contact them or the support mailing list. I removed/edited the off-topic replies.

Thanks :)
 
^^That's BS

That's the thing those posts were ON TOPIC, they were specifically ON TOPIC. That topic has brought about part of my feeling on this thread, but if really is not be heard, please ban me. I will not tolerate that shit in my house, much less come to this place, and deal with it here.

I read all 10 pages of people bitching, but no real reasons why they are bitching. I brought up a serious example of what is wrong here. I have even spoken to XTCXTC on this in more than one PM. I'm sure he has read them, and I noticed he started spending some more time in the CE&P. The issues dissappered there shortly after. Now everything is dealt with with do speed, but what's going to happen in there after he takes off for a while to live his own life?

Shall I be ignored because I leave a bad taste in the mouths of everyone, or just those that are in charge?

I've made my complaints known to the Admins, but nothing was ever done, and I was even shut out by one, the first one I brought it to.
 
your points are perhaps valid, david, but this thread is not the place to express them. please respect that. about them being "on topic," the part about the post quota is definately on topic as well, but that too was split from this thread...

bilz0r, if you were catch, you wouldnt be upset because you dont care what any of us thinks. and if you DID care, you wouldnt've acted the way you did towards us
 
-Thoth said:
Originally posted by killarava2day
What is the 'post quota' anyway?



mods get sacked if they dont make a required number of posts in a forum.

Like CMB.

It also happened to me. Without prior discussion, despite inital assurances such descisions were to be made on a 'case by case basis.' I was only privy to the descision after it had been made. After putting nearly 4 years of work into CEP, it did leave a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.

Not to mention, the forum was subequently then left with only one active moderator: Belisarius. It was months before the go ahed was given to select a new mod. I feel somewhat miffed that I was 'retired' from a busy forum for no specific reason other than a beurecratic desire on catch's part to reduce the ammount of staff involved with the site.
The reason given for this 'reduction' was ostensibly that moderators were milking the 'prestige' of holding a title, and they wanted to cut down on this.

I think that sums up the kind of attitude the management of this site held for its volunteers right there: That they were doing US a favor by letting us engage in the work. All that fucking unpaid, vigilant work. I feel our work wasn't particularly valued at all, in the end.

Pretty damn dissatisfying actually. I'm sad it came to this.
Click to expand...
I would have never of made the cut either if I didn't quit when I did. The fact that I spent hours upon hours every day moderating, left me with hardly any time at all to consider posting anything constructive. I feel the pain of past moderators that were fired because of the "post quota" We all know that there is more to moderating than just posting...
 
David,
This thread is about a specific topic, not your qualms with a certain moderator, which is what was removed. If you have issues that you don't think will be listened to on the support mailing list, please post them in the support forum, not here. Thank you.
 
Re: Skydancer -- A Democratic Bluelight.

^^Umm, where was it said, that I'm unable to have my points heard in a thread about making Bluelight more democratic? Please tell me where. I have valid points, and they are on topic. These are the arguments I'm making. I feel things need to change, and some people need to go, by choice of those under them, not by choice of Admins, or whatever...

My complaint was about nothing being done to at least settle this BS I have been experiencing here for the last three months. I even brought it to the attention of a mod, and two Admins. One said he'd like to see me banned anyways, and ignored me after some rather less than tasteful words. The other said that's fucked, but there's nothing he can do about it.

I brought it to XTCXTC's attention, and two weeks later this thread pops up, fucking shit, you want me not to read everything in this thread, and simply ignore it? I'll post my thoughts, and mainly my reasoning behind them. I've put a lot into this forum, of course not all for the better, but I'm not in the position to do anything worthwhile ATM.

xtcxtc said:
i know you do not favour same but anyway will have to be brief as i need a nap before going out to find some of my "angels" ( or some new ones ).

have been meaning to refer to the main quote here for over 1 year >>

http://en.thinkexist.com/quotation/criticism_may_not_be_agreeable-but_it_is/219095.html

Winston Churchill 1874-1965) ( one of the alltime greatest politicians )

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

**********************************************

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

"Any 20 year-old who isn't a liberal doesn't have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn't a conservative doesn't have a brain."

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things."

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."

btw i was very right wing when i was younger but have become more liberal as i got older --- p'raps largely because of that cretin shrub.
Click to expand...
 
chrissie said:
David,
This thread is about a specific topic, not your qualms with a certain moderator, which is what was removed. If you have issues that you don't think will be listened to on the support mailing list, please post them in the support forum, not here. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Maybe you missed my thread there over a month ago, and I even got a fucking claws for posting in the support forum, wan to see that one too? I got two for bringing up a topic that was supposed to be PM only, and one for bringing it to the attention of the Admins in there. Even before this I brought it to Michael, he said he didn't care, because he wanted me banned anyways. This is what I am talking about, nothing was ever done and even to this day i still get shit for it. What did I do that was so wrong? Please point it out for me, and everyone else to see...

Nothing happened. Am I getting through to you yet? Are you seeing the reason I'm bringing this up?

The title of the thread says a more democratic bluelight, but I can't post on that? Are you saying, that this thread is just more placating?
 
In case you didnt notice, I kept most of your post. I removed the arguing in the subsequent posts. If you care to argue with someone, do it elsewhere. If you care to argue with me about this for some reason, feel free to message me.

Now back to the discussion....
 
edit: offtopic. If you have an issue with the edit, take it to PM don't argue about it here - thanks - SLG
 
Last edited by a moderator:
David ~ Please be respectful of Chrissie's decision to edit out part of your post. I had JUST stated that I was very pleased with how this thread was going and that everyone was able to express their concerns in a MATURE manner while respecting certain boundaries.

Please do not ruin this for everyone else. Should this thread take a wrong turn, the discussion may be forced to be ended. If you have a problem with the way in which your thread was edited, you need to discuss that via PM with Chrissie.

Fighting with the forum MODs publicly in the forum is not acceptable, and you're being disrespectful.

Of course you have just as much a right as anyone else to state your opinion, however there are boundaries you need to respect.

Thank you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top