Posted by COMF aka M13 on March 22, 1999 at 21:26:21 {MW/ygipopMGHU}:
A long time back, I volunteered to be a moderator on this board. When I got the tools, I moderated to the best of my ability the way I saw things then. But my perception changed, and so did a lot of other people's, including some of the founders/supporters of H2O. Things got fuzzy... it was hard to tell what to delete and what not to. There were instances where I asked for guidance, and the H2O silent partners answered saying to leave the post up.
Eventually, with me as with every other moderator of that time, it got to the point that we didn't delete anything at all except profanity or pornography. Then, somehow, things shifted back again in the administrators' minds, and they became unhappy with the content of H2O. But by this time we moderators were already seasoned and set in our ways. So, the new batch of moderators came in, the egotistical, overzealous ones who felt no responsibility toward the board or the posters here, and just whacked away indiscriminately with no explanation or help offered.
That led to the outcry, the discussions about the FPP, and finally the changes that we are seeing now.
Well, I for one am grateful to H2O for all it has done for me, helping me see things clearly and tie up some loose ends in my life, and giving me association with folks who have experienced what I have. Now that the administrators have made a serious effort to meet us halfway on the moderator abuse issue, I'm ready to do my part to meet them halfway, too.
So, I'm going to do the best I can to enforce the FPP and follow the new moderator guidelines. I hope some of the other older, "seasoned" moderators will do this, too, and maybe everybody will settle into a comfortable compromise that enables the board to function according to its purpose, and not mainly as a discussion board about moderators.
COMF