While I’m glad to see many dependable people being moved into mod positions, I’m more than a little dismayed with seeing someone so very UN dependable being moved into a higher position.

Now, before you say, “Oh, but TA does so much mod work, you have to at least give her a little credit,” consider that that was not a factor of TA being a fantastic mod as it was a factor of the other staff members being lethargic. There were and are quite well more than several users who would make a moderator in the scale of being leagues better than TA, or even at least just as decent, with none of the harassment. I seem to recall TA quite recently stepping down as a mod. Now, if the stepping down as a mod was just so that she could become an Admin, that’s brings to light a few points.

First of all, even in her own resignation, she couldn’t avoid drama. She started being her abrasive self right from her first post in a thread meant with only good intentions, basically saying that nation was full of people who didn’t care about the community. Face it, it’s not something to be ashamed of, but drama just follows her around. On that mark alone, it’s not really something one should be promoted into a place of conflict resolution for.

It’s not that people hate her, because people don’t. It’s not that nation is out to pick on her, because she does the majority of the picking on. It’s simply a matter of the fact that she has a hard time containing her bitter cynicism, and doesn’t care for the fact that she might upset others with her grandiosely frank language.

Secondly, it showcases her inability to hold herself accountable for her actions. Even if it was unintentional, she caused far more problems than she solved, and increased the bitterness and harsh feelings in the air by grand magnitudes. Any responsible person who accidentally had such effects with their mere presence would back out to try and mitigate the harm done to others, but not TA.

Honestly, an infraction is one thing. A public warning is another, but gestapo-style crude censorship is in another realm.

There are other ways to discourage errant behavior besides cracking the whip, and as a general rule, gentle methods are more effective than forceful methods. Oh sure, you can solve the problem of problematic users by using strict and unforgiving punishment systems, but there isn’t a single person on nation (maybe with the exception of TA) who comes to nation for those.

What is the use of moderating the community in such a way the portions of the community are destroyed in the process?

And I DON’T even want to HEAR from anyone that that’s not what’s going to happen. Within the hour of TA’s abysmal promotion, Arsik, our beloved admin, who was with us since before day one, has stepped down. Nation honestly doesn’t feel the same without him, and if you disagree with me, you’re thinking about a different nation.

The sole and only consolation to the fact that, not a tyrant, not an evil dictator, but just an all around rude person is in the admin position, is that the users are being shielded (for now) by a safety net of responsible and mature mods. Ithi and Elena, I’m looking at you two specifically, and I trust that the lot of the new mods won’t let TA bully any of the users any more with her newfound powers.

Also, it really is a shame that this is likely to be deleted very quickly. But I just wanted to quickly address these issues and hope that someone gets to read it.