comment and give me a thumbs up
11-13-2014, 03:59 AM
#1
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 188
11-13-2014, 11:24 AM
#4
Super Moderator
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Northern California
Posts: 18,381
The spammers are a definite PITA for mods (yes, we're the ones who get to delte all of their spam). Mods have been talking with Admin for quite some time about ways to prevent more spam with the software HNI uses. It's not as easy as simply banning an IP address since so many members also seem to use the same IP addies from time to time. Admin has been having the mods move the spam posts to a separate Admin/Mod only forum where Admin can go through the posts and ban obvious spam only IPs and/or email addies during the registration process. It's a bit time consuming as mods move the spam to the folder (sometimes we actually see it first and just do it before a complaint is filed), then permaban the spammer and finally clean up all of the leftover member responses to the spammer.
As you can guess, that takes a while. There are only 8 moderators in the mod list that are assigned to forums and have full mod status. Most listed moderators are either vendors or mods only for some kind of contest and do not have full mod status and authority (can ban people).
There are a bunch of Admin (administrators) listed but only one (HNI Christine) is the actual website Admin (all mods are under her in the pecking order). The rest of the listed Admins are actual employees of Internet Brands (IB) and are much higher in the food chain. They have HNI Christine and the full mods handle most of the day-to-day issues in the forums.
There are 28 Super Moderators listed. Of those 28, 5 are either IB employees or a generic log-in, such as "Admin" or "Moderator." Of the 23 remaining Super Moderators, one passed away recently and has been left as a super Mod as a continuing sign of respect and memorial to him (he was an all-around good guy and many of us were very sorry to see him pass).
This leaves 22 Super Mods and 1 Moderator-only to work on the spam. Of these 23 Mods, only 11 have logged in in the last week. 4 other Mods last logged in from 3-6 months ago (in 2014). And the rest haven't logged in anywhere since 2010 to 2013. That leaves 9 Super Mods, 1 regular Mod and 1 Super Mod--Site Admin (11 total) to handle all of the day-to-day stuff which includes chat rooms, spammers, rules violations, member complaints and everything else that comes along and needs fixin.
That's 11 Mods working on 58 Forums, 15 sub forums, complaint tickets (some of which are more complex after the next 20 or so members jumped into the flame-war) and chat (which is a minute by minute time consuming responsibility and isolates you from everything else while you're in a chat room).
Most of us have day jobs, spouses, families and other responsibilities. That's why most of the active mods are "in and out" (kind of like the burger chain) of the forums throughout the day and are often not logged in due to those other considerations.
In summary, I wish we didn't have to put up with spammers because they take up a LOT of Mod time and are very annoying. I wish the software had some magic button to fix the problem but it obviously doesn't. I'm sure I missed seeing some new spam while writing this lengthy response but sometimes members need/deserve to hear about the rest of the story and why (big moderator lists to the contrary), it's often only a handful of mods working on spam and other complaints, etc. on any given time or even day or week.
Hopefully this explains a little more about what is happening with spammers and other complaints at HNI.
CalHunter
Moderator
As you can guess, that takes a while. There are only 8 moderators in the mod list that are assigned to forums and have full mod status. Most listed moderators are either vendors or mods only for some kind of contest and do not have full mod status and authority (can ban people).
There are a bunch of Admin (administrators) listed but only one (HNI Christine) is the actual website Admin (all mods are under her in the pecking order). The rest of the listed Admins are actual employees of Internet Brands (IB) and are much higher in the food chain. They have HNI Christine and the full mods handle most of the day-to-day issues in the forums.
There are 28 Super Moderators listed. Of those 28, 5 are either IB employees or a generic log-in, such as "Admin" or "Moderator." Of the 23 remaining Super Moderators, one passed away recently and has been left as a super Mod as a continuing sign of respect and memorial to him (he was an all-around good guy and many of us were very sorry to see him pass).
This leaves 22 Super Mods and 1 Moderator-only to work on the spam. Of these 23 Mods, only 11 have logged in in the last week. 4 other Mods last logged in from 3-6 months ago (in 2014). And the rest haven't logged in anywhere since 2010 to 2013. That leaves 9 Super Mods, 1 regular Mod and 1 Super Mod--Site Admin (11 total) to handle all of the day-to-day stuff which includes chat rooms, spammers, rules violations, member complaints and everything else that comes along and needs fixin.
That's 11 Mods working on 58 Forums, 15 sub forums, complaint tickets (some of which are more complex after the next 20 or so members jumped into the flame-war) and chat (which is a minute by minute time consuming responsibility and isolates you from everything else while you're in a chat room).
Most of us have day jobs, spouses, families and other responsibilities. That's why most of the active mods are "in and out" (kind of like the burger chain) of the forums throughout the day and are often not logged in due to those other considerations.
In summary, I wish we didn't have to put up with spammers because they take up a LOT of Mod time and are very annoying. I wish the software had some magic button to fix the problem but it obviously doesn't. I'm sure I missed seeing some new spam while writing this lengthy response but sometimes members need/deserve to hear about the rest of the story and why (big moderator lists to the contrary), it's often only a handful of mods working on spam and other complaints, etc. on any given time or even day or week.
Hopefully this explains a little more about what is happening with spammers and other complaints at HNI.
CalHunter
Moderator
