Major Arlene

So, here I am.

This has been a difficult 24 hours, to say the least. I recognize that moderating decisions haven’t been very popular here as of late. I also realize what’s been flying around has been a lot of misinformation and vitriol. So here’s what I’ll address.

1. I have always been as transparent as I can be about my own moderating decisions. If I ask someone to message me, it’s usually because there’s little sense in continuing to derail the thread the moderating decision was made in. I will always refer people to a second opinion or an admin if they do not find my decision was agreeable. 

2. I don’t have control of what other moderators do. I will address a non-public decision (i.e. a warning) as best I can but I won’t always have the answer, unfortunately. We mods talk a lot to each other but we don’t talk about every single action we take. 

3. I realize that it is not great that there is no FAQ, public staff page, or rules. This was something that was an issue long before I came on board and there have obviously been some attempts to address this. We’ve been working as hard as we can on it but rule-making on such a widely diverse public forum can be difficult, to say the least. I have said many times in moderating discussion that I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for people to receive warnings and sometimes not know what actions they could take to prevent being warned in the first place. This is something that will be addressed as soon as humanly possible. It will not happen overnight.

4. I tend to take as hands-off a moderating approach as I possibly can, but that does not mean there will be no consequences for shit-posting or shit-headery. Some people seem to think that any moderation action is a bad thing, and that approach simply does not work for this forum, due to the volume and diversity of members. 

Lastly, Endless, I’m going to address you, by saying that despite what has happened, I dearly loved and appreciated the Wadazine and its efforts. I loved contributing to it. I loved watching you grow into an avid reviewer and mapper. And that hasn’t changed. I hope you continue to do well for yourself, wherever your journey goes. And I mean that, sincerely. I can’t say I’m not disappointed at what has happened, but I will never regret the past year of contributions and fun we had. 

My door is open for anyone to talk to me, leave me constructive feedback about moderating, how to improve the site, etc. I’ve fielded all kinds of feedback from all sorts of places and people since I’ve become a mod and I appreciate the love and passion that you guys still put into this site and its longevity. But most importantly, I just want to know if something is a problem before it blows up. I don’t want anyone sitting here feeling like they can’t touch me, can’t talk to me, can’t look in my direction because I’ll ban them if they do it wrong- that has never been my M.O. I’m empathetic to a fault and I’ll always do my best to level with people. Just talk to me. I’ll answer, in kind.