Sciongrad wrote:It makes sense in theory, but in practice, it seems there is no correlation between a moderator's GA competence and their resolution writing history.
I would argue many non-sensical rulings and actions by the mods are partially because so few have actually played the game. Is it really a shocking requirement that mods have extensive experience in the game they're moderating? We've made the mistake once. It'd be a shame to make it again.
Sciongrad wrote:Ard never wrote any resolutions but was, in my opinion, generally an exemplary GA moderator.
In your opinion. In mine, Ard did many questionable things. Nostalgia is no reason to put a rose filter over the past.
Sciongrad wrote:There are players in this forum who have never written any resolutions that are significantly more knowledgeable about the GA than players that have written several resolutions.
No there aren't. There may be players who can form a legal argument, like The Cat Tribe excelled at. But the fact is you need to actually play the game to understand it. If you guys are settling on an opinion that that's an unimportant metric, then Jesus, there's no hope.
Sciongrad wrote:I think player nominations and mod selection may be the process that could be most easily implemented. I trust the moderators will at least make an effort to create a council with some type of intellectual diversity. For critics that think the mods will resort to cronyism or favoritism: I can't imagine how that would happen without creating a riot.
What leads you to this conclusion? What history leads you to that? There's nothing at all to suggest the biases that guided past decisions will not be the same ones that guide who they pick for a council. Cronyism and favoritism have been the foundation of the mod team for over a decade. There have been "riots"-- they've just all been subdued, because the only person who can remove them (Max) doesn't really care to get involved at that level. There was a ton of outcry when Mall was made a mod, for heaven's sake.
Sciongrad wrote:I think the AO-Moderator Conspiracy[TRADE MARK SIGN] theories are a little bit stale, too, frankly. Even if there was a vast conspiracy, I doubt there are enough contributors on the AO forums that are currently active in this part of the game to fill even half the council.
First, it's not a conspiracy, it's fact. In most other games, mods would be removed once somebody uncovered a trove of 40-page plus hate threads for the players they're supposed to moderate, complete with tracking down personal websites and making fun of the actual people behind the nations. But the team is so insulated from consequences, there was absolutely nothing stopping them from choosing people in the right in group. That's why you got Flib as a mod, and Mall and Mouse as mods, instead of people far more qualified and deserving who were nominated several times.
There's no doubt at all that the mod selection process is rife with cronyism and favoritism, rather than a meritocracy. The point of my bringing this up isn't to complain that future mods will come from this same biased process (they will), but to show that you *won't* get a fair and balanced council if it's all left up to mods picking mini-mods. The same process isn't going to lead to different results.
I could be wrong. Maybe continued lack of interest from the broader player base, combined with term limits, will mean mods *have* to pick people they would never dream to pick as full mods. Maybe that will be a net benefit. But for me, I'd rather let players have more say in their game.
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