[Q] Should I be frightened of the mods?

[Amorosa-Coonarra Coasts]

I know it's a silly question, a downright stupid one to ask,
but should I be scared of the moderators?
They can seem scary.
I know they're just trying to ensure everyone follows the rules,
and I respect that, but I'm just a little scared.

[Reploid Productions]

The only folks who have reason to be scared of us are the folks who persistently break the rules, or live to tapdance just on the edge of breaking the rules. (Mostly because those who love trying to see how far they can push the limit invariably end up falling over the edge.)

Otherwise, we're total dorks playing a silly nation game like everybody else.

[The Black Forrest]

You should be scared. Reppy is the scariest of them all.

Actually she is quite nice in person.

Follow the rules; avoid the old timers; eat your vegetables and get enough sleep and you will be fine.

[Infected Mushroom]

Well I mean, they do wield the power of life and death in the world of NS.

[Kashimura]

The mods are pretty amicable. The only thing I've ever seen them persecute with extreme prejudice regardless of context is spamming moderation. I wouldn't fear them any more than a teacher or police officer.
And believe me, if I was being held at banhammer point and being forced to dictate this from a deck of cue cards, I would blink twice to let you know.

[Greater Miami Shores]

You should be scared. Reppy is the scariest of them all.

Actually she is quite nice in person.

Follow the rules; avoid the old timers; eat your vegetables and get enough sleep and you will be fine.

Dude, we finally strongly agree with each other, we have nothing too fear from the Moderators, all we all have to do is follow the Democratic rules of Freedom of Speech and Democracy, respecting our different, economic, political, cultural, social and religious views, while strongly disagreeing with each other. We are all NS Friends and Discord Friends, who can RP with each other. Despite our different Politics. Politics has nothing to with Friendship. I say Discord, because many of us use Discord as well. We all need to follow the rules of decency of NS, of No Baiting, No Trolling, No Flaming, and no using foul language against each other. It is easy to do. We all need to follow the rules of the Moderators and our Almighty Goddess Violet, and respect them. Then their is nothing too Fear from the Moderators. This respect and these respects is not earned, this respect and these respects are given, this respect and these respects are called Freedoms of Speech and Democracy. Problems Solved, with Pride and Honor. GMS Crazy Cuban Alberto.

[Greater Miami Shores]

Well I mean, they do wield the power of life and death in the world of NS.

Respect the Moderators, follow the rules and we don't have any reasons to fear them.

[The Archregimancy]

Oh, absolutely.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.

The Moderators were, the Moderators are, and the Moderators shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned, and to you unseen.

The most merciful thing in the forums, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all their contents. You live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that you should voyage far. NSG threads, each straining in their own direction, have hitherto harmed you little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of your frightful position therein, that you shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light.

Outside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Frisbeeteria, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.

Reploid Productions knows the gate. Reploid Productions is the gate. Reploid Productions is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Reploid Productions. She knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. She knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.

Sedgistan cannot be described - there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful.

And where Katganistan went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Archregimancy R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

[Greater Miami Shores]

Oh, absolutely.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.

The Moderators were, the Moderators are, and the Moderators shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned, and to you unseen.

The most merciful thing in the forums, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all their contents. You live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that you should voyage far. NSG threads, each straining in their own direction, have hitherto harmed you little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of your frightful position therein, that you shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light.

Outside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Frisbeeteria, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.

Reploid Productions knows the gate. Reploid Productions is the gate. Reploid Productions is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Reploid Productions. She knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. She knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.

Sedgistan cannot be described - there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful.

And where Katganistan went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Archregimancy R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Deep.

[The Blaatschapen]

I know it's a silly question, a downright stupid one to ask,
but should I be scared of the moderators?
They can seem scary.
I know they're just trying to ensure everyone follows the rules,
and I respect that, but I'm just a little scared.

You should not be frightened of the mods.


And I'm not just saying this because they have me locked in their basement.

[CoraSpia]

Only Arch. He has a habit of digging too deep and letting up things that should have been left buried forever. He'll release the balrog soon.

[South Americanastan]

Oh, absolutely.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.

The Moderators were, the Moderators are, and the Moderators shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned, and to you unseen.

The most merciful thing in the forums, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all their contents. You live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that you should voyage far. NSG threads, each straining in their own direction, have hitherto harmed you little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of your frightful position therein, that you shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light.

Outside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Frisbeeteria, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.

Reploid Productions knows the gate. Reploid Productions is the gate. Reploid Productions is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Reploid Productions. She knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. She knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.

Sedgistan cannot be described - there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful.

And where Katganistan went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Archregimancy R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

I’ve got a film studies class next year, and I’m gonna use this quote as the premise of a movie if I have to make one.

But seriously, don’t be scared of the mods. Except Reppy. Reppy holds the sword of DEAT.

[The Holy Therns]

Yeah. You think you're safe, everything's good, them BAM! Arch jumps out from behind a dark corner to give you an enlightening and entertaining history lesson.

Wait, that's not scary, sorry.

[Grishahakkaverchynot]

I know it's a silly question, a downright stupid one to ask,
but should I be scared of the moderators?
They can seem scary.
I know they're just trying to ensure everyone follows the rules,
and I respect that, but I'm just a little scared.

Don't worry, you should be fine.
The only people who have reason to be afraid of the mods are well, persistent trolls. (Or DOS players sneaking back on)

[Bhang Bhang Duc]

I know it's a silly question, a downright stupid one to ask,
but should I be scared of the moderators?
They can seem scary.
I know they're just trying to ensure everyone follows the rules,
and I respect that, but I'm just a little scared.

Absolutely you should, nobody is safe from them. Fris even slapped a retroactive warning for flaming on William Shakespeare once.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=345241&p=25004171&hilit=Shakespeare#p25004171

(They also have a sense of humour.)

[Northwest Slobovia]

The most merciful thing in the forums, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all their contents.

...for which we are eternally grateful.

Of course, no one would have believed in the first years of the twenty-first century that this forum was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than mods' and yet as mortal as their own; that as mods busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a mod with a banhammer might scrutinise the transient posts that swarm and multiply in a thread of politics.

[The Archregimancy]

The most merciful thing in the forums, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all their contents.

...for which we are eternally grateful.

Of course, no one would have believed in the first years of the twenty-first century that this forum was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than mods' and yet as mortal as their own; that as mods busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a mod with a banhammer might scrutinise the transient posts that swarm and multiply in a thread of politics.

I must confess the stress and danger of moderation have left an abiding sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind. I sit in my study writing by computer monitor light, and suddenly I see again the healing valley below set with writhing flames, and feel the house behind and about me empty and desolate. I go out into the road, and vehicles pass me, a butcher boy in a cart, a cabful of visitors, a workman on a bicycle, children going to school, players appealing their warnings and bans, and suddenly they become vague and unreal, and I hurry again with the other moderators through the hot, brooding silence of the forums. Of a night I see the porn spam darkening the silent streets, and the contorted excuses about 'brothers knowing my password' shrouded in that layer; they rise upon me tattered and dog-bitten. They gibber and grow fiercer, paler, uglier, mad distortions of humanity at last, and I wake, cold and wretched, in the darkness of the night.

I go to NSG and see the busy multitudes in TET and the CDT, and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of the past, haunting the threads that I have seen silent and wretched, going to and fro, phantasms in a locked thread, the mockery of life in a galvanised body. And strange, too, it is to browse the Moderation forum, as I did but a day before writing this last chapter, to see the great province of reports, dim and blue through the haze of the smoke and mist, vanishing at last into the vague lower sky, to see the people walking to and fro among the flower beds on the hill, to see the sight-seers about the GHR report page that stands there still, to hear the tumult of bickering in NSG, and to recall the time when I saw it all bright and clear-cut, hard and silent, under the dawn of that last great day. . . .

And strangest of all is it to post here again, and to think that Blaat was once counted among the mods.

[Side 3]

Moderators? Pffft. Those guys are a bunch of weenies. Especially that Archregimancy guy. I hear he sleeps with a body pillow of Rutherford B. Hayes.

I am writing this of my own free will. The moderators of Max Barry's online game NationStates are all lovely, benevolent, and definitely not weenies. The moderator The Archregimancy does not, nor has ever, slept with a body pillow of former U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes. On an unrelated note, I am now voluntarily quitting NationStates to live as a hermit. I am safe. Do not come looking for me.

[The Huskar Social Union]

If you insult Archaeology or get a historical fact wrong then Arch will literally eat you but the rest nah you should be fine.


edit: but in all seriousness no you should be fine honestly. Ive never had what i would class as a bad interaction with the mods on here personally, others might have different experiences and there have been some... contentious rulings but nah you should be good.

[Farnhamia]

*scrolls through the thead, making notes on a tablet device and smiling*

[Blue Nation 6]

Read the rules, obey the rules... be the rules!

If you do that and play nice, you have nothing to worry about

Of course, when reaching out the mods, don't forget to leave them an offering of cookies

[Katganistan]

I know it's a silly question, a downright stupid one to ask,
but should I be scared of the moderators?
They can seem scary.
I know they're just trying to ensure everyone follows the rules,
and I respect that, but I'm just a little scared.

Yes. They are utterly terrifying, and it's probably because they are devoid of humor, can teleport under your bed or inside your closet at any time, and devour the fear of innocent posters.

[Greater Miami Shores]

*scrolls through the thead, making notes on a tablet device and smiling*

This sounds scary. GMS Alberto.

[Ethel mermania]

Just carry a whip and a chair you will be fine.

[Crazy girl]

Only if I haven't had my coffee yet.