Actually, all things considered (and pretty much in agreement with the flaws noted by Seamus) the karma system would be one of the LAST rule of thumb criteria that I would have considered for mods. I do monitor those comments made every now and again, and it is pretty amusing to see a group of "usual suspects" who will regularly give positive karma to ANYONE who has anything negative to say about myself or this site. And on a similar note, some of those members higher up in the karma ratings even actively took part in bashing this site, myself, and other members here. So for whatever reasons people hold dear to them about the karma system, using it as a measure of members most qualified (and wanted) to be moderators likely shouldn't be one of them.
Sorry, but no. There were a lot of possibilities to use as criteria, and I selected the one that I felt was best to utilize. Heck, VERY recently one of the members a lot of people felt would be very highly recommended to be a moderator here got himself worked up into a tiff and pretty much told me by his actions that if I didn't make this site the way HE wanted it to be, he was leaving. Personally that sort of attitude would make me pretty nervous coming from a moderator. But perhaps people with short memory spans have forgotten some of the problems I have already had with moderators who went into destructive mode here. Certainly I never would have expected THAT either from them, but it DID happen, and certainly CAN happen again. So there is no PERFECT way to select anyone for such a job.
As for the comments that anyone can buy into this, well yes, they can. I would interpret that as meaning anyone can help in a multi-faceted way with this site in that manner. Someone could very well want to help out financially here as well as being placed into a position whereby they
canmake a real difference in regulating the way things will go here. If they desire to do so, they can actively guide the manner in which posting on this site will be considered acceptable or not. And that is a bad thing? Not in MY book! Actually, I would classify that pretty highly on my list of GOOD things for this site!
As for abuse, well yeah, people can generally screw up an anvil with a rubber mallet if they are suitable motivated to do so. This will be no different. But they do have some risk involved if that is their goal, which will hopefully greatly limit that possibility. Blatant abuse would likely get that mod soundly nuked in short order. Which means that they would get suspended and fined $50 for that activity. This also means that unless they pay that $50 fine, then that $100 spent on becoming a higher level paid member JUST to attack someone with warning points will be flushed down the hopper as well. So how many members will be THAT motivated to "buy into" the warning system just to cause trouble? In my opinion, pretty darn few, if any.
Further, having this set up in this manner is just EASY on me. And EASY is a REAL GOOD THING right now. It is pretty nearly completely automated. If someone pays for the higher level membership, they are automatically granted access to the warning system. If they allow it to lapse when the year is up, or run
WAYafoul of being abusive with the warning points and get suspended, they will then lose that privilege. ALL this is automatic. I don't have to life a finger if I don't want to. And THAT is the way I want it to be. My original reason for doing this was because I wanted to be able to step away from the grind (and subsequent followup abuse) of enforcement of the rules here, yet give control to those members who pointedly want to use it. And honestly this was an experiment that I felt worth trying out to see how well (or if at all) it would work. And, so far, I do FIRMLY believe that this is REASONABLY accomplishing what I wanted it to.
So in a nutshell, this was my decision to make, and I made it. I am not entertaining any recommendations from anyone to change this system to something I have already considered and rejected. There may be tweaks involved down the road, but again, I am not at this time soliciting opinions to change anything prematurely. This project is still VERY young and needs some time to break in before making any decisions. To most of the mods, this is being one hell of a learning experience, so I fully intend to give them the time to grow into what is needed from those who choose to participate.
So Jim, this is for you: Cease with the campaign, please. I know it is difficult for you to let go of something, but this is a dead issue and you are following along in the footsteps of others who kept on badgering me about one of my decisions. It will likely continue until one or both of us just gets exasperated, frustrated, then angry at the other. I don't think neither one of us wants to go down that path to where it ultimately leads, if history is any guide.
