Moderator "Dids" out of control in WPT forum

Army Eye · #1 01-10-2006, 07:16 AM

Dids has been needlessly locking dozens of threads in the WPT forum in the past month or so. Some have been justified locks, but most, not. I think now he has offically crossed any kind of boundary 2+2 possibly could have given him, and something should be said.

His latest lock was of a thread that posed the question of who the greatest tournamment player of all time was. Now, I've seen a LOT of 'moderators gone power-mad' in my years on the web, but the reason Dids has for locking this thread, and several other similar ones in the past, is among the most insane I've ever seen. His stance is that, if the question in the original post is "impossible to answer", then it should be completely forbidden to discuss it. In other words, he'll close any thread which asks something subjective - something without a definitive answer.

Yeah, he just basically made up this rule so he had a reason to lock more threads. It's impossible to defend his reasoning as it misses the obvious fact that threads on a message board needn't follow a strict guideline of question -> factual answer. Sometimes people like to take a topic like this and have fun with it, debate, bounce opinions off each other. This is, in fact, incredibly common and no harm comes of it.

A tip to all moderators and propsective moderators: A GOOD and effective moderator does not log on to the forums with thoughts in his head like "Man, my moderator powers sure make me a stud. I wonder how many threads I can lock today?!". A good moderator should not moderate for the sake of moderating, but instead only use his power when it is needed. A good moderator should not be quashing discussion, but facilitating it.

Another example: a thread where someone proposed a big buy-in tournament with a fast blind structure all the way through. Regardless of the merits of the idea, what reason could one possibly have for locking this thread? The answer: none, unless locking threads just makes you feel goos for some reason.

If any administrators read this, my suggestion is that you either rein in Dids, or relieve him of his duties. He is a poor representative of your company. There are many people out there who would volunteer to moderate and do a better job than Dids. I can produce many more examples of rampant over-moderating if asked.

Fun fact: If Dids was moderator of the religion forum, literally EVERY SINGLE thread would be locked in accordance with his policies! That would be pretty rough [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

Monty_Brogan · #2 01-10-2006, 09:39 AM

I don't really even care much for Dids most of the time, but he's a very good mod. He probably locked the thread because it's been discussed like 700 times before. I'd rather try to mod 00T than the bunch of retards in WPT. If Dids is willing to do it more power to him.

diebitter · #3 01-10-2006, 09:42 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I don't really even care much for Dids most of the time, but he's a very good mod. He probably locked the thread because it's been discussed like 700 times before. I'd rather try to mod 00T than the bunch of retards in WPT. If Dids is willing to do it more power to him.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, I thought OOT was dopey, and then found both the 'Ranting Sklanksy' forum (aka SMP) and politics, so had OOT as third dumbest. WPT is worse!?!

Monty_Brogan · #4 01-10-2006, 10:09 AM

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WPT is worse!?!

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Easily.

Tony_P · #5 01-10-2006, 10:11 AM

Dids is the man.

WPT was on the road to becoming the worst forum on here before he took over.

"Fun fact: If Dids was moderator of the religion forum, literally EVERY SINGLE thread would be locked in accordance with his policies! That would be pretty rough"

Except SMP is not a free-for-all idiot-fest like WPT is, so he wouldn't.

Monty_Brogan · #6 01-10-2006, 10:21 AM

Dids taking on WPT is like some selfless special-ed teacher. The chances of any of the retards ever actually becoming a quality poster in any of the real forums is minimal, but they need someone to watch out for them and keep them from hurting themselves. Sure Dids could do something bigger, but he feels sorry for the retards so he does it anyway.

Dids · #7 01-10-2006, 11:06 AM

Short answer, which I will expound upon when I have a chance later today:

The OP has totaly missed the point of why I locked that thread. It's not about subjective opinions, it's about the fact that it's just plain nonsense to pretend to have a thread where everybody involve lacks the information to discuss it with any intelligence.

Banks2334 · #8 01-10-2006, 01:53 PM

I would have locked the "Greatest Tournament Player" thread as well since the poll constructed wasn't a good one. I believe the choices were TJ, Hellmuth, Juanda, DN. Couldn't the poster put a little more thought into it?

trying2learn · #9 01-10-2006, 02:45 PM

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I would have locked the "Greatest Tournament Player" thread as well since the poll constructed wasn't a good one. I believe the choices were TJ, Hellmuth, Juanda, DN. Couldn't the poster put a little more thought into it?

[/ QUOTE ]

if it's true that the poll had only those choices...it's not hard to see why it was locked.

lancasteraus · #10 01-10-2006, 03:07 PM

I don't care much for Dids either, but I have no doubt in my mind that he is fair in his moderating ways. As far as revenue, surely we can agree that a sensible forum is more engaging and draws a better audience than the asanine clusterfuck that is currently the WPT forum. I would wager money that he is doing a good job, you should probably just get over it or go somewhere else. I dunno.

L