"as the trickykid says, It's down to jeremy."

ha, I like that, the trickykid. Though The Squall wouldn't sound that great. Anyway, don't get your hopes down, I assure you that you have a MUCH better chance of becoming a moderator than me (that's not saying much, though)

Yeah, in the words of ObiWan: This is not the vBulletin you are looking for.

Wow that was geeky.

Wanna hear how I became a mod:

Here we go, answer stuff, lots of stuff... be funny while you're doing it, and above all be right. Research the snot out of the questions. Become a badass in a subsection of stuff nobody cares about but will. This is usually accident. I got really good with wireless because I worked for months to get a card work. Okay, that card actually turned out to be smoked, but still... I got to know stuff. Right now I would recommend: SATA, gigabit kit, or possibly Mac PPC + Linux. Who knows though.

Don't be a jackass. Absolutely vital. Especially when the temptation is overwhelming. Posting a careful and well thought out reply to defuse a flame war, or at least pour a much needed bucket of rationality on one is pretty much the only important thing about being a mod. When you are a mod you can toss down a cease and desist order on a thread with threat of a closing, but doing that is giving up... often necessary, but learning how to make people act on the forums as they "hopefully" act in public is a much needed mod skill. Some people would call the mod actions in this forum weak, I call it tactful.

Post in all the threads where Jer asks the population about policy and state and back up your opinion, especially if its unpopular, not a one liner... really post an opinion.

Be really really really careful countermanding the advice given in a thread. I still have to do this. This is especially important when the middle guy is dead wrong. Make certain you're right, and when you post, be tactful to the guy that was miles off.

Read the whole bloody thread. Well, if its 40 pages use your judgement, but if its 3, look through the whole thing.

And the most important part:

Be around for a long long time. I think I went a year. There have been mods that appeared that were just a badass in a can with a hundred or so posts, but most of us learned about 70% of what we knew here, and most of that learning the answers to other people's questions.

Mod post count used to be just before 1k, now its looking at around 1500, not including the badass in a can phenomenon. It'll take a while, one of the most important things Jer is looking for is dedication to the site, at least I think so, I've hung out with Jer in person twice now and he's still pretty inscrutable.

Cheers,

Finegan

Not just VBulletin ; Also :
EZBoards , PHPBoards , UBBoards(Did I spell that right?) and several others.
It's usual , that the mods have the power to delete posts/threads UNLESS the Admin disables it.
In fact : This is the first board I visit , where this is NOT the case.
And I've visited (and moderated) quite a few over the past few years.

Wow, if I had formulated a reply, it certainly wouldn't have touched the magnitude Fin's did. Finegan has always been methodical (or appeared to be) in his replies. He's always curteous, but not to the point of ass kissing. Finegan was a member when I first came to the boards, and he was very well liked as one. I especially liked reading his replies, and believe it or not, I took a night and went through reading quite a few of them that had nothing to do with anythinhg I was working on; simply because I liked to read his replies. Shortly after I 'got to know' Fin, he assumed the responsibility of a moderator. I thought this would change the way he replied, and that he was now part of the machine. I couldn't have been more wrong.

For me, I believe, becoming a moderator was a bit of a different story. I came on the boards, knowing slightly less than a slug about Linux. I read a lot, and took on projects to assist me in learning. I started posting replies to people's questions (with about a 60% success rate that acid_kewpie gently reminded of occasionally ) and realized I needed to some research to answer more. So I did. I read and read everything I could, googled many questions and read TLDP's on everything that interested me. I started off in Software answering all the questions on applications I had become familiar with, and then started warming up to the newbies. I had a special place for them, and knew what they were feeling; because although I may have gained a large amount of linux knowledge in a short time, and gained a large post count in doing so, I was still relatively very new. I would help answer the questions that newbies would ask (regardless of the repetetiveness) and really helped the newbies to 'feel at home'. I would take my time to thoroughly answer their questions, and if it was necessary, email them a possible solution as to not remove their 0 replies so a more knowledgeable user could post a better solution.

Eventually this led to me learning how to interact with newbies better, but also what questions newbies had. I started learning some more advanced things, but always kept my roots strong. I can only assume that this is a portion of the reason Jeremy picked me to be a moderator of the Newbie forum. That along with my knowledge and use of many distros for the distro forum. I certainly spent my share of time here as well, racking up over 8 thousand posts (many of them constructive) before moving from member to moderator. I would spend over 14 hours a day here, given my work situation I was allowed to spend much more time online than the average user, this gave me a sense of the community more so than most other members on the board. I was more than a power user or LQ Addict, I was the guy who you could count on to be here when you signed on. I learned people's style of replies, and found their strengths. In doing so, I could pair people with questions to which I didn't have the answer to. All of these things and more are likely part of the reason Jeremy chose me to as a Moderator.

Cool

Blah, Blah, Blah. Let me tell you the real way to become a mod. Moolah. Bribe Jeremy until you're physically unable to do so. Sure, the being nice and wise stuff helps too, but what really matters is the money.

NOTE: SEEING HOW LQ USERS GROSSLY, GROSSLY MISINTERPRATE WHAT I SAY, I AM SAYING THAT THE ABOVE STATEMENT WAS HEAVILY SARCASTIC, though it will still probably spark some riot or something.

MasterC,

Funny what you said about Fin's writing style

I have read just about everything on his site, because I like how he writes

It's very interesting and it makes you want to read more

Peace,
Whitehat

And booze. For butt smooching Finegan recommends a 25 year old bottle of Glenmoragne, or an eight year old Knob Creek, or for that matter an 18 year old blonde, but who's counting.

boozing up and rioting,

Finegan

Yeah, beer would help too. Remeber kid, as long as you have a dream, money, beer, and your name isn't Squall or unimaginative, you'll go real far kid. I expect big things out of you.










AGAIN THIS SEEMS TO BE NECCESSARY, THIS POST WAS SARCASTIC, I DON'T WANT IT TURNING INTO EVERY OTHER POST I MAKE A STATEMENT INTO. SARCASM. IT WAS SARCASTIC. A JOKE! DON'T GET ON MY CASE ABOUT IT

squall/unimaginative,

We really don't need disclaimers on each of your posts in all CAPS. That's what smilies are for; or a simple.. j/k at the end, etc.

Regards.

Maybe you don't, but lots of other people do. I can't even count the number of times that i have stated two simple words, and it has instantly turned into a battleground. I know caps are annoying, that's why I posted it, I wanted people to realize the point.

Okay then, I'm asking you now to stop.

Cheers.

You are all just being silly now - who'd want to be a Mod when we all know Rockers Rule!!

Take this at face value guys. Trickykid is doing his job exactly as the rules of this site specify. In many ways he has been very leinient with some of these flame wars. Remember, this entire site is owned by Jeremy, and he appoints the mods (answered above). Arguing publicly with the moderators is tantamount to trying to argue with the police officer when he pulls you over. It is a losing battle. If you feel you have been wronged by a mod on this site, email the moderator, or if that doesn't work for you, email Jeremy.

This is supposed to be a lighthearted discussion forum, hence the reaction to threads titled "I hate your country", "My religion/nation/etc is best", or the ever popular "Hey <username>" threads that we all flat out despise. General is supposed to be for fun, why can't people just relax and shoot the breeze without bringing up inflammatory subjects.

If you dig political, religious, or other flame-bate type discussions, that's fine in it's place. Check out icalledit.com or one of the thousands of other off-topic forums on the web designed for the purpose.

Ha, it would be nice if that where still the case, except that the docile prats who were the voting public in about 1970 were sheep, and now we have to wear "skid lid's" by law, which totally screw up a decent quiff or a "DA" and in fact it would be nice to have enough hair left to be able to have a quiff or DA, as well as the accompanying loud pipes and no lid - oh and not to have to worry about PC Plod chasing you down the road with an "intoximeter".

But the "bribe jeremy" idea sounded execellent. I'm sure that he'd be happy to pass out a few "modships" for a couple of hundred thousand $$$'s worth of hardware or free storage (or even "free money" for that matter). Though that's a hell of a way to change you profile title, cos he sure isn't gonna give you any mod rights/permissions to be able to do any actual "moding" unless you know what you're doing.

if all else fails, start your own forums, then you wouldn't just be a mod, you'd be ROOT!

regards

John

i couldnt do that! i have to stay and help support(yeah right) LQ.

i couldnt advertise a new forum anywhere, anyway, so how would others find it?