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Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
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Gord
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
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 Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| just because wrote: |
| ... its their job and don't forget, they have VOLUNTEERED TO DO IT to SERVE YOU. If it wasn't for them it would be like koreanesl.com. Come to think of it, I'm thankful for moderators. |
But unlike Koreanesl.com, this site makes a metric tonne of cash. I could see volunteering when the forum was shiny and new, but not anymore. Plus it's not really a loss leader for people to just sit and chat as some people on it are trying to set up FAQs, lists, information, and basically doing their best to make it into a fine source of information of all things Korean.
In turn, this generates more traffic for the site, and the more traffic brings more advertisers who see the site as being a better value.
I'm not anti-revenue at all. Dave can make money off this, and that's fine. But to not share the wealth with the people who are helping him make extra money is not really cool. Anyone want to come over and do my laundry so I have clean clothes for tomorrow when I go to work to make money?
If he won't share the revenue in the slightest, why not just create a huge online site elsewhere full of info and moderate a forum there? At least then then no one else is making money off the free labour, and you could eventually turn it into a money making site down the road.
Hell, I could set up a server at KimchiKing's place for free, give him a free domain name like http://esl.2y.net, and set up the server and forum scripts. BOOM! You would have a free site to do anything with. |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm not anti-revenue at all. Dave can make money off this, and that's fine. But to not share the wealth with the people who are helping him make all this not really cool. Anyone want to come over and do my laundry so I have clean clothes for tomorrow when I go to work to make money? |
You've argued this before: "Why are you (slaves) working for free?" (others used the "slave" term, not you). Well, why does anyone else have hobbies, which (usually) don't provide income? Or do volunteer work in their communities? We (for the most part) enjoy it.
Note that Circus Monkey hasn't been around in several months. Know why? 1. He's busy and 2. He doesn't have to! This isn't our job! We show up and do what we want, when we want. And whenever we've offered "mod-ship" to users, never once have they turned around and said, "OK, but I want to be paid". It's just not an issue for us.
The second we start talking about pay, we also start talking about obligations. Essentially, we have none. Nor are we at all beholden to the schools and recruiters who advertise on the job section of the site, which we have no dealings with. A year ago there was a great conspiracy theory on Korean ESL and elsewhere that posts about certain schools got deleted if they advertised. After 11 months of moderating, I can tell you that we've never been asked to touch a single post about a school. Period.
Last edited by The Lemon on Tue Nov 18, 2003 8:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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kimcheeking
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Gord wrote: |
| Hell, I could set up a server at KimchiKing's place for free, give him a free domain name like http://esl.2y.net, and set up the server and forum scripts. BOOM! You would have a free site to do anything with. |
Well, then I could stop using my paid server for my site... I have no idea about how to set up a server. Maybe I'll take you up on your offer in the spring when I buy my new computer and retire the current one (server status) |
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Raoul Duke
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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| i am a sock puppet created for the purpose of moderating and i have no qualms about it at the present time. this is not news as i've said this before. |
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panthermodern
Joined: 08 Feb 2003
Location: Taxronto
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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| After 11 months of moderating, I can tell you that we've never been asked to touch a single post about a school. Period. |
In all due respect, with regards to the conspiracy theory, the moderators are not the one that delete posts which have reieved complaints from advertisers.
Advertisers don't contact the mods to place advertisements.
The question and answer is ... Who do they contact?
edit
To make this more clear: Advertisers deal with Mr. Sperling, and thus complain to Mr. Sperling. Mr. Sperling would be the one to edit or delete such posts, as it his right as the adminstrator and owner of the board.
Despite Lemon's comments (following) about nobody, Yes somebody does. I think that Lemon meant no moderators, not nobody, and not nobody is somebody, and that somebody is Mr. Sperling.
Last edited by panthermodern on Tue Nov 18, 2003 11:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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rudyflyer
Joined: 26 Feb 2003
Location: pacing the cage
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:10 pm Post subject: |
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I mentioned this issue about schools complaining to Dave S in October and he told me he has never gotten one complaint from a school regarding postings here.
It was a non-issue while I was a mod and still is. I can say with reasonable certianty that advertisers have no influence on what is said or done here |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| the moderators are not the one that delete posts which have reieved complaints from advertisers. |
Nobody deletes posts because the subject of the thread (school in question) is an advertiser here. I have never seen it, in 11 months. Period. |
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Gord
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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| The Lemon wrote: |
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| the moderators are not the one that delete posts which have reieved complaints from advertisers. |
Nobody deletes posts because the subject of the thread (school in question) is an advertiser here. I have never seen it, in 11 months. Period. |
That's because Dave doesn't consult you or any mods, but simply deletes it. Seriously. I've seen it with one recruiter and one school this year. Something negative goes up and they email Dave about it, down it comes. No reply, no requests for more info, just summary deletion.
There will be no speed bumps on the money train. |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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Your paragraph is factually correct - until you get to the money part - as is mine. He said in an interview last year that he'll consider deleting any post or thread if someone complains. This has nothing to do with advertising, which was an important part of the "Korean ESL" theory of last year.
Here's the relevant excerpt from that interview:
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Have you ever been directly threatened with legal action by a paying advertiser?
Never. I have been threatened by individuals and non-advertisers, including a major chain in Japan, which got a Los Angeles-based attorney to threaten me. Not a fun experience. At the advice of my attorney, and after research on the internet, I came to the conclusion that it's best to comply with requests to remove specific postings. Though again, this is not something that happens on a daily or even a weekly basis.
Isn�t there a contradiction between trying to provide teachers with information about schools and taking down negative posts?
Contradiction? Not really. I make it a policy to delete postings when requested to do so, and this includes requests from schools, recruiters and individuals, some of which are advertisers, but most of which are not. I feel that it is a very, very important responsibility of any webmaster, and to simply ignore these requests demonstrates complete and utter irresponsibility. An example? I had a call in the middle of the night from a woman in the United Arab Emirates. She requested the removal of her post in my Job Information Journal because, she claimed, that there was a "witch hunt" there to discover the identity of the poster and she felt unsafe. The article was immediately deleted.
You'll find plenty of criticism of my advertisers on my forums and Job Information Journal... Good grief, haven't you read the entries? A major Korean advertiser, in fact, asked that I not post anything positive or negative about his school, which is a large chain, and I refused. They still advertise, though. I have lost many clients because of my job forums and my journal, but have continued to keep them up and running. My costs are relatively low, so I can afford to do this. A corporate site could not.
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I think we're all in agreement that this issue has nothing to do with the moderators. We're not the people to pursue this with. And since Dave's not here, let's not treat the guy who provides the board that we all use as a pinada in his absence. If you're really fired up about it, e-mail him. |
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Gord
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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| The Lemon wrote: |
| I think we're all in agreement that this issue has nothing to do with the moderators. We're not the people to pursue this with. And since Dave's not here, let's not treat the guy who provides the board that we all use as a pinada in his absence. If you're really fired up about it, e-mail him. |
I did not mean to come across as ambushing or being offensive. I had only meant that I had witnessed schools/recruiters emailing Dave about a posting and down came the entire thread. I wasn't saying that this was a bad thing at all, but rather simply fiscally correct.
I did not know that he deleted any and all posts that anyone complained about. So be it, I was wasn't trying to complain and entrap the guy. It's his forum, power to him to delete threads as he wants. |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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Regarding socks and such.. actually I'm indifferent.. and they are free to do as is.. I prefer having mods as opposed to not having them. That is for sure.
But generally.. its kind of nice having mods joining in conversatins as who they are.. and not as a sock. It makes it more community and.. well.. just more natural.
If all the mods had sock pockets.. and then it would kind of feel like this strange police state of people you don't really know or really understand coming down and enforcing things from heaven or something.
Much more prefer interactive mods freely joining in on conversation and freely able to express their opinions on any topic or whatever else. If they do have sock pockets do to personal reasonings or based on experiences that forces them to.. I would understand that as well. But generally, I like the current system in place at this current time.
I also don't see why we need contractual-like written down rules of what you can and cannot get away. Then you have a 'lawyer' type system and 'you said this' and I can get away with 'this' as its not written, etc. It seems like a complicated a mess.. and you'd practitcaly need a lawyer to make to interpretations of its intentions and how to abuse the rightful intentions and on and on.. |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 11:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Tiger Beer wrote: |
But generally.. its kind of nice having mods joining in conversatins as who they are.. and not as a sock. It makes it more community and.. well.. just more natural.
If all the mods had sock pockets.. and then it would kind of feel like this strange police state of people you don't really know or really understand coming down and enforcing things from heaven or something. |
This was my thinking, too. That, and it became too much of a hassle to keep logging out of one account and into another.
| Quote: |
| I also don't see why we need contractual-like written down rules of what you can and cannot get away. Then you have a 'lawyer' type system and 'you said this' and I can get away with 'this' as its not written, etc. It seems like a complicated a mess.. and you'd practitcaly need a lawyer to make to interpretations of its intentions and how to abuse the rightful intentions and on and on.. |
There's been evidence of that in this thread. I don't believe the vast majority of users want that kind of environment. If they do, they're not telling us. |
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Austin
Joined: 23 May 2003
Location: In the kitchen
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 11:13 pm Post subject: Still silent... |
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Nobody is arguing that the moderators should not be allowed to voice their opinions publicly about a subject (about a user is another story).
Having the policy apply equally to users and moderators alike is the issue. |
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Raoul Duke
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| Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2003 7:53 am Post subject: |
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An observation:
It seems to me that some users expect the moderators to be Vulcan-ized- to be rational, objective, and unemotional 100% of the time. Some of the users holding such a belief also appear to be persons who go out of their way to antagonize certain moderators when they discover that this is not the case. As far as I have been able to determine, all of the moderators are in fact human and actually do get peeved when someone does their best to antagonize them. |
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buddy bradley
Joined: 24 Aug 2003
Location: The Beyond
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| Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2003 7:59 am Post subject: |
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As far as I have been able to determine, all of the moderators are in fact human and actually do get peeved when someone does their best to antagonize them.
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Thank you for that insight God. |
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