Buster's Uncle
AC2 Owner
Ha. At last, my time has come!
I was a newb at Apolyton of 2.5 months' vintage when WPC happened in early 2009 and I followed the enthusiastic SMACer migration. At the shiny new place, there was naturally a great deal of talking and thinking and action about building a community and how forums work and such. That's remained an area of interest to me since; my SMACX modding didn't always draw the feedback it deserved, but socializing with people was very gratifying. I'm in it for the people.
-This account contains glaring omissions of drama and Nerdwarstm, BTW.
So, after several years as a very enthusiastic citizen-soldier of community building activity in the SMACX section (and straight-up partnering with the moderator in the private GotM team folder running SMACX 'cause we both hate PMs) there was an open call for moderators in late 2011, and I stepped up. I was asked to stay off managing people -fair; I had considerable history as a troublemaker and problem member I'm glaringly omitting- and focus on cleaning up the smilies and some graphical forum stuff of the kind. I made a major project of it, also pitching in majorly on janitor stuff like hammering bots, and cleaning out old bots from the member list - it was like stuff I'd been doing forever, just with more buttons. I do not mind the janitor stuff.
And when someone posted a Buffy nip-slip shot in Civ4, I was so sheepish in handling that no-brainer as first staffer on the scene that my popularity actually increased with that crowd, and the malefactor in particular. (Beta wasn't in trouble at WPC, and never did it again.) Related, I made a thread in SMACX, as a citizen, talking about what we needed to do as a community and as individuals about the ongoing Nerdwarstm problem I'm not getting into here. -Again, I was just making speeches as just another member -and I don't know if it ultimately did any good, either- but I definitely noticed that I was being listened to, unlike a few previous efforts to influence the community, definitely due to that shiny nerdbadge in my postbit. That there's the origin of my thoughts about the necessity of leadership as inherent to a forum staff job description, and it's also where my love of the 'Kirk-speeches' began.
[shrugs] Somewhere in this, I finally signed up at my moderating partner's side-project, Alpha Centauri 2, and a couple hours later got an email notification that I'd been made Administrator w/o any consultation. Well.
A glaring omission later, 2012, we were at AC2 putting in the work to make it live -WORK- and just naturally fell into I was doing the people management. My shock that I was good at it was as profound as anyone's...
I was never in it for any interest in telling anyone what to do, though I had always been a very bossy citizen - difference being that I've got opinions about what people do, but I have my own authority issues and am still uncomfortable being The Man. At any rate, the next year I offered to kick in half the bills and became, ferchrissakes, an Owner.
But, you know, I'm in this community for the excellent people, and I've put my money and my life, pretty much, behind that, making a good place, attracting them and keeping them. There are many good days when it pays off. I love the people.
I was a newb at Apolyton of 2.5 months' vintage when WPC happened in early 2009 and I followed the enthusiastic SMACer migration. At the shiny new place, there was naturally a great deal of talking and thinking and action about building a community and how forums work and such. That's remained an area of interest to me since; my SMACX modding didn't always draw the feedback it deserved, but socializing with people was very gratifying. I'm in it for the people.
-This account contains glaring omissions of drama and Nerdwarstm, BTW.
So, after several years as a very enthusiastic citizen-soldier of community building activity in the SMACX section (and straight-up partnering with the moderator in the private GotM team folder running SMACX 'cause we both hate PMs) there was an open call for moderators in late 2011, and I stepped up. I was asked to stay off managing people -fair; I had considerable history as a troublemaker and problem member I'm glaringly omitting- and focus on cleaning up the smilies and some graphical forum stuff of the kind. I made a major project of it, also pitching in majorly on janitor stuff like hammering bots, and cleaning out old bots from the member list - it was like stuff I'd been doing forever, just with more buttons. I do not mind the janitor stuff.
And when someone posted a Buffy nip-slip shot in Civ4, I was so sheepish in handling that no-brainer as first staffer on the scene that my popularity actually increased with that crowd, and the malefactor in particular. (Beta wasn't in trouble at WPC, and never did it again.) Related, I made a thread in SMACX, as a citizen, talking about what we needed to do as a community and as individuals about the ongoing Nerdwarstm problem I'm not getting into here. -Again, I was just making speeches as just another member -and I don't know if it ultimately did any good, either- but I definitely noticed that I was being listened to, unlike a few previous efforts to influence the community, definitely due to that shiny nerdbadge in my postbit. That there's the origin of my thoughts about the necessity of leadership as inherent to a forum staff job description, and it's also where my love of the 'Kirk-speeches' began.
[shrugs] Somewhere in this, I finally signed up at my moderating partner's side-project, Alpha Centauri 2, and a couple hours later got an email notification that I'd been made Administrator w/o any consultation. Well.
A glaring omission later, 2012, we were at AC2 putting in the work to make it live -WORK- and just naturally fell into I was doing the people management. My shock that I was good at it was as profound as anyone's...
I was never in it for any interest in telling anyone what to do, though I had always been a very bossy citizen - difference being that I've got opinions about what people do, but I have my own authority issues and am still uncomfortable being The Man. At any rate, the next year I offered to kick in half the bills and became, ferchrissakes, an Owner.But, you know, I'm in this community for the excellent people, and I've put my money and my life, pretty much, behind that, making a good place, attracting them and keeping them. There are many good days when it pays off. I love the people.
You are not wrong, and I understand the burnout issues SO much better than I used to -the absolute nadir of the job is being a target for your hard, hard work- but we did/do it for good reason, and there are rewards.
