Moderator Notices: READ THIS FIRST! Rules of behaviour

I always thought old threads being bumped was kind of annoying. Reading a thread only to realize you'd already made the response you were going to make, or trying to get into a discussion with someone who hasn't posted in years. And, I suppose, it'd be easy for it to get kind of spammy (some misguided soul deciding to "help" by going to a bunch of old discussions and adding a bit of information that resolves the thread based on an episode that didn't exist at the time, or something like that).

 

I don't know what caused the rule, I just know it's standard practice across this board.

 

Okay, so it's been longer than a couple of hours... (but on the upside I've finally got everything completed for my application to get Canadian citizenship and I posted that off today )

Right, so... friendly reminders, mini-modding, telling people what to do etc.

For me it's a matter of tone. Being a moderator gives me the authority to tell people what to do in this forum "don't post on this subject again", no-one else has that authority. Which means that people shouldn't have to deal with other people telling them what to do. However, a request can be made by other people, "hey, we're getting off topic here and it's making things confusing, please can we stick to discussing Morn's audiobook career?"

I realise that this can seem a pointless difference, if I'm the only one with the authority to tell people what to do, then anything from anybody else should be taken as a request. But it does make a difference to the emotional experience of the reader (yes, I was a fuzzy-wuzzy literature major, I do not have a scientific mind!).

Remember that everyone's here just to have fun discussing the books, so if there's something about what someone's talking about or their writing style that irritates you then just scroll on by and leave them alone. But if it's something that's really getting in the way of your ability to have fun, then you can make the request - or message me and ask me, if you think it's serious enough.

Obviously if someone says something that's against the general rules of society - slurs, for example - then notify me AND tell them to knock if off: because otherwise it remains unremarked on if I don't see the notification right away.

Story ideas are a special case because they do need to be flagged and dealt with as soon as possible and also it's easy to cross the line into getting too specific in your ideas without realising it. So in the case of story ideas I positively encourage you all to point out to posters when it's possible they've written an idea in too specific terms - but you do need to be gentle, assume it's just a mistake, not that their being stupid.

@JD's post was acceptable in this context.

@Dimesdan I know you had a difficult experience with this when I first took over as moderator for this forum. I can't remember what it was now, but I do remember that I was basing my a lot of reaction on the other BBS moderators expectations and as I discovered, in your case they were incorrect (which made my very embarrassed and annoyed with my self). I hope this explanation gives you a better sense of how things stand now.


I'm open to further discussion, so post here if you have questions