Welcome our new Staff Members!

[FrozenTaters 4]

Congratulation and Welcome to the City

[elavery 1,013]

Welcome to all the new staff.

[Forthwall 1,118]

Have fun ya'll

[Vahr 343]

Congrats to the new moderators! Glad to see some fresh meat faces.

I'm not that scary I swear! I'll just disappear back into the shadow realm.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

On 11/01/2017 at 10:12 AM, Toothless Stitch said:

Hi. I'm new to this site, can someone tell me what moderators are?Thanks

Sorry for the confusion.

We should've gone over that in Orientation Week. How did we forget to explain the most fundamental principles of moderation?

Anyway, just in case you're still not 100% sure, this rather sums it up:

Before anyone asks... no, that's not me.

Using this, it's also conveniently possible to figure out what admins do.

[LivingInThePast 364]

I've been here for over 10 years on and off (mostly off), and of these, I've only heard of maybe one or two. I'm a bit concerned because often mods will make or break communities, as they start to become echo chambers for certain point of views and use their small bit of granted power to run what they can like a despot and engage in disproportionate banning and petty battles, and all forums start to become this sooner or later, but my knee-jerk response is that too many mods spoil the broth.

Just my opinion.

[CorinaMarie 29,892]

10 minutes ago, LivingInThePast said:

I've been here for over 10 years on and off (mostly off), and of these, I've only heard of maybe one or two. I'm a bit concerned because often mods will make or break communities, as they start to become echo chambers for certain point of views and use their small bit of granted power to run what they can like a despot and engage in disproportionate banning and petty battles, and all forums start to become this sooner or later, but my knee-jerk response is that too many mods spoil the broth.

Just my opinion.

You certainly are entitled to your opinion. I suggest you keep a real close watch on what we do just in case. Who watches the watchers and all that. However, nearly everyone on the site is well behaved, articulate, and helpful to others and so it needs very little moderation with regard to the content or on going discussions. A lot of what we do is just tidy things up when they are misplaced. Like moving a topic to the correct forum.

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

1 hour ago, LivingInThePast said:

I've been here for over 10 years on and off (mostly off), and of these, I've only heard of maybe one or two. I'm a bit concerned because often mods will make or break communities, as they start to become echo chambers for certain point of views and use their small bit of granted power to run what they can like a despot and engage in disproportionate banning and petty battles, and all forums start to become this sooner or later, but my knee-jerk response is that too many mods spoil the broth.

Just my opinion.

yea this is certainly true, I used to be a member of a community for a TV show , and the mods were always on a power trip. 

Cori has recently become a mod here and @CorinaMarie does an excellent job with helping anyone who needs help on here. She's great. 

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

Well, I do believe for any online community to flourish, there needs to be a careful balance of moderation. Too much and it can become overpowering, but too little and it quickly becomes a free-for-all. Rest assured, all new staff were considered based on their existing proven contributions to the site. It was a very thoughtful, not a random selection process. With so many helpful and valued members, finding suitable candidates is never easy. However, from an admin perspective, the idea is to always make these decisions considering the wider implications.

This is a voluntary team effort to keep Simtropolis open and enjoyable. Generally, city-building rarely encourages spiteful discussion. Although when situations do require a response, it's reassuring to have people on hand to restore calm and stability, in the fairest possible way.

Sure, we're not robots. We all make mistakes and learn from them. But as site staff (both new and old), our goal is to always strive to maintain the right balance, for the benefit of everyone in this magnificent community.

While opinions are most welcome, I kindly ask this topic now returns to the same cheerful manner as before. Thanks!

[APSMS 1,893]

2 hours ago, LivingInThePast said:

they start to become echo chambers for certain point of views and use their small bit of granted power to run what they can like a despot and engage in disproportionate banning and petty battles

While this may be true, I wonder what viewpoint it is that you're worried about. Consensus among staff is usually a good thing. Politically I think the mods picked covered the entire spectrum, and most of the mods seem to be pretty open about community viewpoints too regarding the essential stuff (like community handling and so on).

Having been [made] the moderator of an FPS server website where the owner/admin/main dev got into a shouting match with one of his server mods and valued players in the midst of that conflict, I think I can safely say that sometimes there are no easy answers to such disputes. Certainly I would like to avoid the big brother approach that can come about when you have a vast number of mods that all have moderator privileges but I think we're all interested in avoiding that approach and that appearance. As a reasonably seasoned member of the forum (nowhere near 10 years but still a decent amount of time), I appreciate both the help of the mods in keeping things clean as well as the general freedom that the website provides in letting users make mistakes and be reasonably annoying until such time as they can learn the ropes both of SimCity/C:S and foruming in general.

EDIT: ninja'd by Cyclone Boom. Just my $0.02 worth. Carry on. Not trying to spark debate at all, just allaying fears.

  Edited January 17, 2017 by APSMS  
Ninja'd by CB

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

2 hours ago, APSMS said:

...

Just my $0.02 worth. Carry on. Not trying to spark debate at all, just allaying fears.

shouldn't it be your 2 simoleons worth?? 

[APSMS 1,893]

@AprilAero That would be assuming that I'm keen on seeking out special characters to paste into my posts rather than simply substituting the dollar sign for simoleans as an effective shorthand.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

5 hours ago, LivingInThePast said:

I've been here for over 10 years on and off (mostly off), and of these, I've only heard of maybe one or two. I'm a bit concerned because often mods will make or break communities, as they start to become echo chambers for certain point of views and use their small bit of granted power to run what they can like a despot and engage in disproportionate banning and petty battles, and all forums start to become this sooner or later, but my knee-jerk response is that too many mods spoil the broth.

Just my opinion.

I've been a moderator here for over 10 years, on and... on (entirely on), and I can honestly say that this is one of the best batches of new moderators I've ever seen. And in the 13 years that I've been on the site total, it has only gotten increasingly more peaceful.

It's the last thing I'm worried about. 

[Eggman121 1,052]

First of all congratulations to all the new moderators that have been allocated. I know many of the moderators from other sites and I can agree more with Jasoncw!

Many of the Moderators are members on other sites as well I know they have a great reputation and are frequently helpful!

I think with cross site support different sites can support each other for the preservation of such a great community that has been built up with fundamentally great people.

Many of them I regard as close friends as well. We are all in for it together.

-eggman121

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

23 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

You certainly are entitled to your opinion. I suggest you keep a real close watch on what we do just in case. Who watches the watchers and all that. However, nearly everyone on the site is well behaved, articulate, and helpful to others and so it needs very little moderation with regard to the content or on going discussions. A lot of what we do is just tidy things up when they are misplaced. Like moving a topic to the correct forum.

If I had to guess who watches the watchers I would have to say it would be these guys. 

[Ceafus 88 1,899]

Congrats guys, it's good to see new faces on the team. Thank you to all the staff for the work you do.   

It is really odd seeing my sign in use. Kinda cool though, I don't get to see my content in action a lot of times, so thank you!

[matias93 7,535]

Seriously people, I have to clarify something important for the community, this shouldn't be overseen; 

On 16/1/2017 at 10:38 PM, AprilAero said:

On 16/1/2017 at 9:53 PM, APSMS said:

...

Just my $0.02 worth. Carry on. Not trying to spark debate at all, just allaying fears.

shouldn't it be your 2 simoleons worth?? 

Do you know how much a simoleon buys!? That saying is simply unsustainable at this change rate, 2 simoleons would be enough to buy a gamer rig!

[SimCoug 5,976]

I'm gone for a month or two and I find out it's getting crazy around here.
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes!
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!

Glad to see a new crop of Moderators are around to help straighten things out  

[metarvo 711]

On 1/18/2017 at 6:17 AM, matias93 said:

Do you know how much a simoleon buys!? That saying is simply unsustainable at this change rate, 2 simoleons would be enough to buy a gamer rig!

True.  It doesn't take that many simoleons to build an airport or a power plant when you think about it (at least compared to RL currencies), and just look at how cheap those roads are!  Here we are throwing that saying around like candy, myself included.  Thankfully, we do have some new moderators active to regulate the exchange rate a little more.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

On 18/01/2017 at 3:22 AM, Ceafus 88 said:

It is really odd seeing my sign in use. Kinda cool though, I don't get to see my content in action a lot of times, so thank you!

Ah, the chief architect! No worries, thanks for designing it.

The llamas sure gave a grand effort hauling those letters up Mount Simtropolis. But from the looks of things, it clearly paid off in the end. Also since it's been more than a year, they needed a decent workout in preparation for a certain upcoming community event...

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

1 minute ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Ah, the chief architect! No worries, thanks for designing it.

The llamas sure gave a grand effort hauling those letters up Mount Simtropolis. But from the looks of things, it clearly paid off in the end. Also since it's been more than a year, they needed a decent workout in preparation for a certain upcoming community event...

there was a rave for SimCIty 4's 14th birthday and the llama's partied their heads off. 

 

[matias93 7,535]

In any case, there ought to be some impressive packing skills to put the sign pieces on the tiny bags llamas use to load:

In fact, it looks that the guy in the photo is making much more physical effort than the llamas, which is unsurprising knowing how much aymaras love and care for this animals 

[metarvo 711]

I knew we used the llamas for something around here. 

[Fantozzi 4,068]

 

May the force be with you!

 

[matias93 7,535]

Happy to see you back, Fantozzi!!

[metarvo 711]

That's not how the Force works!