What's a "typical" day in the life of a MOD?

MODs! They are the backbone -- the workhorse, if you will, -- of ATS/BTS. But what is it that they actually do? What sort of access do they have to the decision making at this amazing site? What happens when one is named a mod? Does he get additional software? How are they assigned to the various forums? etc. etc.

I think that it would be interesting in learning about the day to day work that MODS put into ATS/BTS. I only ask because I am often astounded at the amount of time some of the MODS seem to online. I would be interesting in hearing about the work that is involved and about how they go about their work. Frankly, I think a lot of ATSers/BTSers would be interest as well.

Well, it starts off the same as most people’s I imagine.

Most of us wake up, take a shower, get dressed (always easy, standard black suit, tie, sunglasses), and get a cup of Jo…

We drive to a nondescript building, go through a few security measures, and dab some eyedrops after the retina scan.

We take the secured elevator down to the rail system, then it’s a quick jaunt to the ATS main HQ.

We usually grab a beer from the fridge, maybe some cold pizza, then view the previous day’s Echelon report.

We then sit in the cyberchairs and “jack in” to peruse ATS…

During lunch, some of us cruise over to the EBE labs for a game of holochess, but we usually lose. Still, it’s a damn neat game.

Anyhoo, it’s not too much different than a regular old 9-5 day really, so sorry to disappoint….

DRUNKEN STUPOR

well I don't know about Gazrok and his beer and holochess, but my day is alot busier. Some people tend to be slackers around here.

Once I've cleared security and have made it to my desk, I spend the entire day staring at let's see now....44..no no make that 45 different monitors as I track, monitor and divert ..oh wait I can't tell you that.

never mind the above, but besides that, we have to have mandatory courses, we have to attend either before or after our shifts. I finished the "Tree Hugging Liberal Moderatorship Class, but I failed the Neocon Nazi Moderation Course, so now I have to double up and take that along with Brainwashing for Dummies and Censorship For 2005 and Beyond.

The job itself isn't hard at all, it the damn "advancement" courses that are a killer, would you believe they even give us homework.

Oooh Oooh!! I can answer this one:


#1 Warn Skippytjc for baiting

#2 Warn skippytjc for personal attacks

#3 Move 4 of Skippytjc's posts to other forums

#4 Move 4 MORE of Skippytjc's posts to the trash bin

#5 Send Skippytjc "applause"

#6 Warn Skippytjc for the same post another mod gave him applause for

#7 Edit Skippytjc post for use of caps

#8 Send Skippytjc a u2u asking him to calm down in his last post

#9 Send Skippytjc a u2u telling him they liked my last post

#10 delete Skippytjc last post

And thats all before lunch!!!

Actually, I do do a lot of what skippy said. Not necessarily to skippy

When one becomes a mod, one gets access to the Cosmic forum where the staff hangs out. Even though I knew Cosmic was there before my mod days, it didn't dawn on me what Cosmic was for. We get alerts from other mods and FSME. We discuss board business and problems. It's how we communicate with admin and each other.
We get memos from the bosses.
We chill. Sometimes we chill a lot Sometimes we eat lots of donuts.

I also get to know many of the members in my assigned forums pretty well. I am becoming acquainted with the topics of my assigned forums.
Each I go through each of our forums to see what is being posted. I do a lot of reading. My husband wonders what I could possibly be doing on the computer so long each evening...and off and on during the day.
I check my u2u and answer them. I try to vote for as many ATSNN submissions as I can each day.

If anything could make being an ATS member, being a mod is it.
(And remember, you don't ask to be a mod. If you do you get put on the "no" list )


Hope this sheds a little light on mods.

[edit on 6-9-2005 by DontTreadOnMe]

1. Listen to skippy cry over being warned for baiting

2.Warn skippy for his twenty fifth "Muslims are the Spawn of Satan" thread that day

3. Move skippys "God I hate Muslims" thread from "Relationships"

4. Trash skippys "Muslims kicked my dog" thread

5. Accidentally hit "Applaud" when attempting to Warn skippy

6. Warn skippy for post and send apologies to other mods for mistake

7. Edit skippy for all caps for the tenth time that day

8. Send skippy a U2U asking if he has stoped his Meds

9. Send skippy a U2U asking him to take his Meds

10. Tell skippy the doctors will make him take his Meds

well one thing that is necessary to become a mod, it seems, is a wonderful, wry and sardonic sense of humor. You guys -- MODS -- are often so hilarious that I have to add this factor to the reason as to why I enjoy my stay at ATS/BTS so much. Thanks for the insights into the covert world of the MOD.

I sincerely hope that ALL of the mods sign into this forum just to add their two cents into the conversation. It really is enlightening.

We are given lots of leeway. We are assigned set forums and are told to patrol them once a day. If we are to leave for a while we are to provide notice. We are given the T&C as our lawbook.

Thats about it. Thats what we are instructed to do as a mod.

There's lots of extra stuff tho. Here's how I go about doing the above. I have the forums I have been granted responsibility for in 'myats', and also in 'my new'. Thats the first place I hit up. I usually don't have to clear security, since I usually spend overnight in Level 4 (the one with the orange walls) and just work from the connections there. Like I said the first place I go is to the myats screen. It 'looks' just like what everyone else sees, as long as you can read this sort of thing.
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If I am feeling really systematic on any particular day (meaning that FredT has administered the X9-1-9 shots), then I check into the complaint and suggestion forum
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and do what I can there. Then I move to a special thread that moderators, supers, and admin uses wherein they post things that they need advice for, I'll check for updates to any of my problems and give what advice I can on anyone elses. Usually an initiating post in that thread Will contain a link to a specific post, and perhaps some background on the situation. To help out you've gotta read all that and then check into the thread and see where the situation is as it is, and then make a determination based on the T&C. Often this requires liquidation of any troublemakers. Then I will check out another moderation thread wherein mods post notice of posts/threads that need to be locked, moved, or destroyed, but don't have official responsibility for the particular forum its in and can't therefore do anything. Usually rather than moving anything I just run the thread starter's IP address through one of our processors and get a home address for that user. If they're american then I get a photo and credit score and if they are english I ususally get a photo from a bar security camera and their Regal Domination Number from the Kings Doomsday List.

I remotely set the person's implant to broadcast a 'abeyance' signal and they get added to the Abeyance List. From here satellites in geosychnronous orbit will beam microwave energy into their heads to 'take them out' Pat Robertson style. This of course is assuming that they aren't wearing any Aluminium Counter-Measures Headgear.If this automatic process doesn't work then usually one of the super's reviewing the Abeyance list will notice that they've been on it for a long time and take care of it directly.


After this I'll move into the forums in the MYATS list, the ones I've been assigned to, and I'll start going thru the threads that have been added to or created that day. I usually try to make sure to avoid the ones made by Postbots, since these programs can get screwed up if they get caught in a discussion regress with someone using Fuzzy Logic, they tend to prefer having staightforward logic or simple dislogic thrown at them, which is what they are designed for.
While in the forums I will look for excessive vulgarity, flameing, abuse, trolling, and all the rest that are prohibited by the T&C. This often really just boils down to dealing with improper quoting, whether its big quoting or cut and pasting, and these warrant 'little warns', with small penalties and no 'red flags'. Actually what often happens is I simply edit the big quote, usally making sure to horribly mangle if and only include stuff that is pretty irrelevant. Extra points if I can actually cut off a sentence so that it makes it seem like the person responding to the quote has missed the point entirely and looks like an idiot. I tend to consider plagarism a serious offense. Sometimes when it happens they've cut-and-pasted sections from another website without making it a quote, without indicating that they got it from anywhere else, without giving a url if they did, and without even providing an introduction or any commentary. Often its pretty obvious that the poser is trying to pass it off as their own, and what I do here is make them invisible. This way no one can see their posts, and if they aren't careful when crossing the street they can easily get hit. If you've ever seen a topic title in the 'newposts' page, but then clicked on it and see no post there, thats what happened, they started a thread, and went invisible. Whenever we do stuff like this we send a u2u to the poster, I usually send something like 'is there any reason for me to remove the Global Ignore' (more detailed than that). Usually they don't respond at all, because they were indeed being dirtbags, and they just stay in limbo.


Not much of a punishment I suppose, seems kinda fun now that I think about it.

Anything that would warrant a red flag has to either be pretty straightforward, or if its iffy, that's where that advice stuff comes into. To help out in this sort of thing The overlord was able to work out a system recently wherein pressing a single button sends an electrical impulse into an elf's ass, thus prodding him to run on an oversized hamsterwheel, which is connected to a generator, which sends another electrical signal into that same elf's ass. That's important. Other boards are simply far too open to the outside world. We keep everything in a closed loop here.

After patrolling the forums that I've been assigned to I'll start perusing the board on my own. During the course of this I'll often get u2u's from members, and I'll periodically review the complaint-suggestion forum and the advice threads. Often I'll talk to members who are having problems of one type or another, and before long any of the little warns or big flags that i sent out will come back to me in the form of u2u's from members. Then after I respond to them there's usually a new addition to the complaint forum.

Like I said, thats when I'm feeling systematic. If I'm not, my interests coincide nicely with my forums, and I'll just start perusing the forums, moderating and participating at the same time. I have some forums that I'm not at all well versed in. I mean, I can't even fake it there like in the rest of them, so for them I usually just review with moderation in mind.

We actually spend a surprising amount of time talking to members and having back and forths with them, either trying to defuse one of the many fires that are smoldering and outright burning on the board, or trying to help them do stuff on the board and the like. Lots of us also have Special Projects that we work on for the board and these can take up a lot of time in terms of coordination and execution.

Eventually I'll move from Level 4 up to level's 1 and 2 to converse with some of the other mods, supers, and administators. Sometimes I'll pass T.Crowne

Or Amuk on the way
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Once on Level 1, just below ground, I'll watch Intrepid beat up some trolls with a big maple leaf shaped paddle and then I'll grab a beer, maybe go up to ground level to watch the auroras do some fly bys, and then head back under "The Hill" to start decontamination and sterilization to get back to Level 4.

Well I'm not a Mod but I found this particular podcast to tell me all I needed to know about the typical day of a mod............M*O*D*S



After listening to this............. you think twice about crossing one of these guys ever again. Classic stuff!

I sprinkle gunpowder in the coffee pot so that the mods will get in the right frame of mind when they hit the clock.

Now, if I could get them to stop drinking beer and start drinking my coffee, you are all so in trouble!

Edited for moronic spelling. The word I spelled incorrectly was "them". I hope it was a typo and not the onset of Alsheimer's.

[edit on 6-9-2005 by Thomas Crowne]

Originally posted by worldwatcher
well I don't know about Gazrok and his beer and holochess, but my day is alot busier. Some people tend to be slackers around here.

Once I've cleared security and have made it to my desk, I spend the entire day staring at let's see now....44..no no make that 45 different monitors as I track, monitor and divert ..oh wait I can't tell you that.

never mind the above, but besides that, we have to have mandatory courses, we have to attend either before or after our shifts. I finished the "Tree Hugging Liberal Moderatorship Class, but I failed the Neocon Nazi Moderation Course, so now I have to double up and take that along with Brainwashing for Dummies and Censorship For 2005 and Beyond.

The job itself isn't hard at all, it the damn "advancement" courses that are a killer, would you believe they even give us homework.

HAHAHAHAHA.......... LMAO very funny.

Originally posted by Amuk

2.Warn skippy for his twenty fifth "Muslims are the Spawn of Satan" thread that day

OMG you guys are so freaking funny, it would be funnier if it wasnt true. hehe

Correction:

I only hate TERRORIST Muslims, not all Muslims.

[edit on 7-9-2005 by skippytjc]

Well first thing I do after logging in is to venture to the Can China Invade Taiwan thread and see how many more off-topic post have been made since my last check. The thread is so large and takes so long to load that I have time to get two cups of coffee while I wait. ("Ah today I see it's a discussion about Hurricane Katrina") I'll trim out a few nasty comments like "India is stupid filthy people" and "China copy everything".

Then I'll warn a few people randomly just for the fun of it. Ironically the only person that actually deserved it will be the only one to file a complaint. "Moderators are Nazis for warning me when I said %$@*&#%".

Cruising through BTS I'll stumble onto a thread about some guy that has rings you can buy that will let you live forever. I have one on each finger and I'm still getting more gray hairs. I guess this is just spam. *trashes thread* After that I'll notice a post that raises copy-paste suspicion. It could be the fact that it's 1,200 words long, or maybe it's the links to other Rense articles at the bottom. Somehow I manage to determine that all the words except for the two words "Read this" are copied from another site.

Actually DontTreadOnMe is closer to the truth. You read through your assigned forums, check the admin forum, and make sure that all the complaints and Board Business questions have been answered. For the most part, people do know how to behave themselves. There are the occasional trolls that only want to stirr things up, but I just let Thomas Crowne deal with them all.

I do find myself being sucked in to threads that I wouldn't usually think of reading just because I'm browsing through them. You'd be suprised how much interesting stuff you can find in the around here.

I actaully Admin for another site with over 2000 members and about 100 posts a day.

Typically I log in thru my nueral net link every hour or so, scan new posts for inappropriant actions, move a few threads, do some orginizing, hack a few peoples brains, and then go about the rest of my life as one small part of the internet

End of line

I curious to know how much time MODS devote to ATS/BTS? Many of the Mods seem to be on ATS/BTS quite a lot of the time. Don't you have lives? Of course, I should be one to ask. I am finding myself devoting more and more time to this most interesting pursuit -- denying ignorance.

One time I figured out exactly what a mod does everyday. Unfortunately that information was erased from my mind by the mods with no residual effect. My feet are growing purple flowers, but I'm sure that happens to everyone...


Right?

EDIT:Spelling

[edit on 8-9-2005 by Voidmaster]

awhh crap, not the purple flowers again
*reminder to self, call lab, have specimen collected

It may seem like some of us are on all the time, but it's just that the clones

okay I'll be serious, I'm a stay at home mom, who does most of my "work" on weekends, my schedule is very flexible, so I'm on and off the internet all day and night.

THERE COMING TO TAKE ME AWAY, HAHA! THERE COMING TO TAKE AWAY, HAHA, HOHO, HEHE, HOOHOO!!!*Runs dancing into the sunset*