At the end of the day - we have far better things to do with our time than defend ourselves here. We try to help the community by keeping the forum nice, and if that means locking posts and banning people then get used to it, but at the end of the day it's done because we feel that it's necessary, not because of some strange ego malfunction that it's assumed all the new mods have.
I've been avoiding posting here, because I don't really need someone I'll never meet telling me about abusing powers that they just don't understand. I mean, what is it - do you think we're sitting grinning when we have to newbie slap a user?, no we're annoyed because we should'nt have to babysit anyone here, same with people posting inapropriately, anyone who's ever been offended here would happily take action if they could, and more often than not you make half a dozen people happy for every newbie that you slap, fair trade IMO.
The only time I really feel like a mod is in general discussion - everywhere else I'm posting like any other user here, I probably spend more time in DBPro discussion than anywhere, and it's not because I find the need to moderate there. I often see peoples posts being vandalised with nonsense, and hell yeah if a newbie vandalises any of your posts then they better duck because that annoys the heck outta me.
Everyone here should know that the moderators are a team, if we're concearned about someone we bring it up - the mod lounge is our coffee room where we get to gossip about you all, and warn each other to keep an eye on certain people when necessary. If one of us goes out of line, more often than not another mod will bring it up, and if we're in 2 minds about how to best deal with something, we make a post and get input from the other mods or Rich if need be.
I just don't think there's a lot of appreciation for what happens behind the scenes, and I don't think people realise the amount of thought we do put into taking action. Newbie Slapping seems be considered really bad - WTF! - it means that if you posts crud it won't be approved, that's ALL!. We all know how volatile some people can be, newbie slapping is the best defence against escalating the situation and ending up just banning someone.
Van-B
