Nothing personal as such, but the attitudes of some mods (and the likes) towards other members of the community leave a lot to be desired. The general attitude seems to be that everyone who isn't a mod is a retarded idiot who can be treated however badly, regardless of whether the member has given any reason for such behaviour. It's especially obvious here in the Problems And Suggestions -section where people come to get help, not to be told off by the people who are supposed to be helping them. It's regrettably often that the asker receives an utter chewing first, help second - IF they're lucky. Not to mention that many mods seem to regard critic about problems on the site as a personal insult instead of as an opportunity to fix the problem and make the site even better. While I understand that when somebody asks a really stupid question that has a painfully obvious answer, it can be really tempting to slap the dumbass across the face and not help them at all, but that's just not the way it should be done.
Think of it this way - you mods offer service, and we members are customers. And there's this little thing called customer service. If you had a problem with your computer and called a tech support, would you appreciate being called a dumbass and whatnot before receiving any actual help? And you have to understand that not everyone is an internet-wiz with a lot of experience on online forums and all their subtleties, so something that would seem like a really stupid question to you might not be all that stupid and obvious to someone else. You can't just assume that everyone who has a problem is a retard or hasn't read the rules!
I don't know if you've thought of this, but being treated like shit by a forum's mod is a very efficient way of making a forum feel uncomfortable and insecure - you really don't feel like expressing your opinion in a forum like that, not to mention ask for help or report about possible problems. And no matter how you might personally feel towards the people here, as a mod it's not your place to take it out on random people. If the only way you can interact with other members is by treating them like shit all the time without a reason, you shouldn't be a mod.
This is not to say, of course, that all mods here act like this, just an unfortunately big amount of them.

I hope at least someone took the time to read my message, even though it's pretty long. Please try to not think of it as bitching or a personal insult, but as an opportunity to make this site even better than it already is: the only way an artist will ever get better is if he receives criticism - he might not like it at the time, but it's the only way he can improve further. No matter how much an artist practices, there are always some things about his art that he won't notice until someone else points it out. And this applies to everything.

Even if you're going to delete this message, please at least read it first.

Thank you for your time.

Care to name this 'big amount' of moderators that according to you is supposedly acting like that?

I'd say that though it does depend if you take things as sarcasm or not.

ShiNN

Care to name this 'big amount' of moderators that according to you is supposedly acting like that?

I haven't been keeping up a list, if that's what you're asking, and don't frankly see the point of naming specific people - that's not the point of this post. I'm sorry.

hatesyou

I'd say that though it does depend if you take things as sarcasm or not.

Oh so it's Bantam? The 'big amount of mods'? For your own information guys, Bantam is the current owner of this website but he's not part of the moderation team. I read an accuse to the mods in this thread. Be clearer, please.

frostious

ShiNN

Care to name this 'big amount' of moderators that according to you is supposedly acting like that?

I haven't been keeping up a list, if that's what you're asking, and don't frankly see the point of naming specific people - that's not the point of this post. I'm sorry.

Here's the list of the current staff that works at AnimePaper, divided and organized according to the tasks assigned: http://www.animepaper.net/group/staff/

Not a long list as you see. Since you bothered to write a huge post complaining about the moderation you might as well indicate precisely the mods (and I'd suggest you to pm them as well if you have any personal issue towards them) so that they can read and eventually reply to defend themselves. Being all general and vague won't surely benefit you.

ShiNN

hatesyou

I'd say that though it does depend if you take things as sarcasm or not.

For your own information guys, Bantam is the current owner of this website but he's not part of the moderation team.

Of that I am quite aware and as I said I take that comment with a dash of sarcasm. Others however may not.

This is one of the subtleties of forums that I mentioned: I don't know all the ranks of people here, and English isn't my mother language, so when I say "mods (and the likes)" I mean moderators, administrators and generally people with a "higher" rank than average members - sorry if it was confusing, it's just a whole lot easier for me to call that group of people "mods" than list them all individually. Sorry again, it was my bad.

And frankly, being an owner of the site still doesn't mean it's okay to be rude to people. True, if you're the owner of a site you can pretty much do whatever you want, but it's still not a very "professional".

ShiNN

Since you bothered to write a huge post complaining about the moderation you might as well indicate precisely the mods (and I'd suggest you to pm them as well if you have any personal issue towards them) so that they can read and eventually reply to defend themselves. Being all general and vague won't surely benefit you.

That's exactly the reason why I didn't mention specific people - I don't have a personal issue with anyone, there is no need for people to defend themselves, my purpose was not to point my finger or to accuse anyone. What I wanted was for people to read my message, think of their own behavious and conclude for themselves if their behaviour is proper or not, and act accordingly.

Like I said, it would be nice if people would try to see my message as more than an attempt to insult individuals. But if you feel that I'm completely out of line with this, then you can always delete it and ban me - it's not like there's anything I can do about that. I just tried to express my opinion, and in my own mind was rather tactful and decent about it, so I apologize if it came out sounding like something else.

Nothing personal as such, but the attitudes of some mods (and the likes) towards other members of the community leave a lot to be desired.

This is not to say, of course, that all mods here act like this, just an unfortunately big amount of them.

You know, considering that all the other mods are performing mod duties that has little to no contact with the members, that pretty much points to me and ShiNN as the "unfortunate big amount of moderators" as we do most of the forum-side moderation as well as the interaction with the AP members.

...You guys are delibirately trying to ignore what I'm trying to say, aren't you? I've said it so many times before that I'd rather not do it again, but this is not meant as a personal attack against anyone specific, so why do you insist on seeing it as such?

I was hoping - honestly hoping - that the "mods and such" would be professional enough about their task to be able to take this all as constructive criticism (that's all I intended this to be).

If i can put a word, from what i've seen for the short time i've been here, (i'm gonna speak bout Session Zero since it's the forum i'm mostly posting and reading) mods are rather gentle and helpfull about criticisms and advices on walls most of the time, but i must say i've seen a few posts (don't ask me to look for these posts among the hundreds of session zero) where answers where quite harsh and rough, or at least could have been understood as if by the readers. Wether it was meant to hurt or not, the fact is IMO it did hurt the person it was adressed to.
As far as it concerns me (siince i've never been victim of such posts), i put this on misunderstanding. to me it's just that you wanted to say something but expressed it the harsh way. Sometimes you just throw a verbal punch without being aware of actually throwing hard.
As a mod myself in my group, i admit i'm sometimes pissed of by some member's post but refrain from scolding them too harshly and publicly, even if i direly want to XD well that's what i had to say, hope my english can be understood by everyone.

Well, it entirely describes in a matter if you understand what they wanna say, the reason why mods are mods is because they are simply the backbone of a forum, they in turn help to keep the place alive for us members.

With every community, a high necessity of people are necessary for the community to grow, constantly increasing members mean the need for more staff as well necessary for member to understand that they too, are humans and needed to eat, sleep, work, blah blah blah... and they too feel the pressure to work for a community, in example, you would think that certain mods and admins have attitude problems, but in any case, they are simply doing what they think is right.

I kinda feel that it is sometimes a burst of anger from me too when I am being insulted by mods (namely in minitokyo, since a lot of the old jeezers there are rather demanding), I felt like I would go and tell them that screw off, I don't care.

Then, think about it, if I am the only one here screaming and kicking, and ended up breaking my com, what is the point? What is posted on the net stays on the net.

I believe mods (as far as I know in AP) have rather good attitudes in general, I feel that they are doing a nice job, most mods like it or not, are professionals in real life, they have a work load, they have a life, like all of us, they have an attitude, and they in turn resolves matters according to what they see as right, see as true, see as policy to guide them, as well as their attitude.

I am sure it is only the way they act. You have the same way you act too, if you act out like one of them, say, for some unlikely reason you are given the modding power of AP, would you have done the same say maybe after 3 months? 6 months? a year?

I do not know, but know well enough that well, it is not easy trying to keeping up with a business man attitude.
I too, am sarcastic when needed to be, and I am sure in that particular example that hatesyou has provided, there has been many examples before...
check it, almost every thread here in the forums and suggestions have a lot of them...
so live with it, you know, after all, it is a generally teen- young adult ran modern oriented forum/community, if you expect five star service, perhaps the mods here will really need to be employed on a basis of "40 year olds with a masters in hospitality and services industries"

I am sure they too, do not want to pretend as another sort of person on the web, since in real life, having a job, especially if you happen to be in the service industry as I am (ironic isn't it?), you tend to hide your attitude and dissapointments behind a fake smile and fake respect, I for more than one, hated that.

On the net, they are still working, and lookie here, surprised? unlike tech support, they DON'T get paid for their exemplary workload, as well as carrying a fake smile and speaking in a professional matter. You know what is worst? They can't even relax on the net, what pain is that?

After thinking through all that, if you still wanna feel homey, small communities unlike AP has a lot of spaces for you to fit in, such as small little forums built by a round of friends, and so on.

On behalf of the AP team I would like to sincerly apologize to frostious for his traumatic time at AP, I would like to let everyone know that his generous payment to be a member at AP has been refunded and we are sending him a basket of apology flowers to his doorstep as we speak.

If there is anything else we can do for such an important member as yourself, please let me know personally, I will do everything in my power to respond within seconds to whatever demand you have.

Yours faithfully

Bantam McBantington.

That was sarcastic? muahahaha