Are the mods getting paid from this forum?

[Maged]

Hire more mods!!! and if not hiring, atleast accept a few volunteers. something has to be done about all of these scams occuring, and they stay up for 20+ pages and nothing is done. thats hardly moderation

That would require a policy change, not more mods.

This forum does need more moderators, but not because it isn't good at moderating-- because when moderators need to be PAID in order to do what most people would be happy to do for free, you know there is an apparent shortage of them.

There is actually a huge benefit to having few moderators that work many hours: more consistent decisions. You'll be hard pressed to find other forums that have such consistent decision-making as we have here.

Not to mention, I think the mods would eventually rebel when they realize that the forum is making over $4k/week and they aren't seeing a single cent. In fact, I was considering quitting right before this was implemented because of that. I even burned out and stayed away from this forum for almost a month because of the time commitment. Now that I'm paid, I can actually justify the time commitment.

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[Matthew N. Wright]

There is actually a huge benefit to having few moderators that work many hours: more consistent decisions.

Judging by the "Did you delete that?" posts in the moderator subforum, I highly doubt that. I think it's more likely that there would be more discussion of fair policies, which would jeopardize the current status quo.

You'll be hard pressed to find other forums that have such consistent decision-making as we have here.

Somethingawful.com. They ban everyone for everyone. Very consistent. 

Not to mention, I think the mods would eventually rebel when they realize that the forum is making over $4k/week and they aren't seeing a single cent. In fact, I was considering quitting right before this was implemented because of that. I even burned out and stayed away from this forum for almost a month because of the time commitment. Now that I'm paid, I can actually justify the time commitment.

Basically you just gave more reason to bring more moderators in. Why would you be burned out when your workload is so little thanks to 100 more mods joining? Sorry, but your response sounds more like rationalization than an actual argument,

[Maged]

I remember I had a thread with absolute posting rules posted in the OP, clearly stating that if anyone goes off-topic that their post will be deleted by a mod. Mods did this regularly, but then got bored apparently. When I asked Theymos directly, he said "Start your own self-moderated thread". This sent the message to me that moderators don't want to moderate. Once I found out they're being paid to moderate, that is no longer acceptable.

Two things with this:
1) This was before the upgrade to the report system. It was hard to keep track of what had and hadn't been handled.
2) This was also before we started being paid.

Matthew, I always cleaned your threads when I was online and I was made aware of an issue. In fact, we make more money if we handle these issues, so if I saw that now I would scope that up in a heartbeat.

Assuming you're speaking of the current situation where mods get paid, how would you know that aspect is incorporated in theymos' secret algorithm?

I don't, but I know theymos enough that I think that it is incorporated in at least some manner. I suspect that only one deletion in a topic per day or some such counts, though.

As far as upgrades go, theymos has done pretty well so far. Most recently, he added the trust system. He should seriously be paying himself just for that, but so far he really hasn't been* (as far as I know?).

The general consensus is that this was put in place to end the scammer tag thingy after pressure mounted to give BFL, a paying customer, said tag.

Well, that's true, but it was still plenty of work adding it. And it is useful.

[theymos]

these advertising campaigns that are earmarked "creation of good forum software".

The ad auctions say, "In order to collect more money for the creation of good forum software and for other useful purposes... ."

I'm curious as to why the ad money resides in various wallets, moved many times to perhaps cloak its origins.

Bitcoin transaction data isn't meaningful by default. I would need to take extra steps to make the transactions easy to understand, and I'm not going to do that. It's all transparent, though.

Total BTC received:  6499.60971212
BTC in my cold storage address: 3043.20940098
BTC in treasurers' cold storage addresses: 3250
Approximate expenses (total received - BTC in cold storage): 206.40031114
Actual expenses (from my records): 225.9696519

Expenses breakdown:
- Hosting: 27.96617
- Forum improvement: 40
- BTC storage: 21.9
- Mod payments: 136.1034819

This doesn't include any income since the last mod payment, and there may be minor floating-point errors that I don't care to account for.

[theymos]

As far as upgrades go, theymos has done pretty well so far. Most recently, he added the trust system. He should seriously be paying himself just for that, but so far he really hasn't been* (as far as I know?).

I do increase my "quality score" in the mod payments algorithm to account for this.

[r3wt]

Hire more mods!!! and if not hiring, atleast accept a few volunteers. something has to be done about all of these scams occuring, and they stay up for 20+ pages and nothing is done. thats hardly moderation

That would require a policy change, not more mods.

This forum does need more moderators, but not because it isn't good at moderating-- because when moderators need to be PAID in order to do what most people would be happy to do for free, you know there is an apparent shortage of them.

There is actually a huge benefit to having few moderators that work many hours: more consistent decisions. You'll be hard pressed to find other forums that have such consistent decision-making as we have here.

Not to mention, I think the mods would eventually rebel when they realize that the forum is making over $4k/week and they aren't seeing a single cent. In fact, I was considering quitting right before this was implemented because of that. I even burned out and stayed away from this forum for almost a month because of the time commitment. Now that I'm paid, I can actually justify the time commitment.

Consistently flawed decisions. consider adding a mod to do your dirty work, like banning and scamtagging scammers. this takes the heat off of you and eliminates the prevalence of scammers in the process.

[Maged]

There is actually a huge benefit to having few moderators that work many hours: more consistent decisions.

Judging by the "Did you delete that?" posts in the moderator subforum, I highly doubt that. I think it's more likely that there would be more discussion of fair policies, which would jeopardize the current status quo.

Those are fairly rare.

You'll be hard pressed to find other forums that have such consistent decision-making as we have here.

Somethingawful.com. They ban everyone for everyone. Very consistent. 

You know what I mean, Matthew...

Not to mention, I think the mods would eventually rebel when they realize that the forum is making over $4k/week and they aren't seeing a single cent. In fact, I was considering quitting right before this was implemented because of that. I even burned out and stayed away from this forum for almost a month because of the time commitment. Now that I'm paid, I can actually justify the time commitment.

Basically you just gave more reason to bring more moderators in. Why would you be burned out when your workload is so little thanks to 100 more mods joining? Sorry, but your response sounds more like rationalization than an actual argument,

I won't disagree. More mods would be nice to have. I've seen some really good reports, so I think we have some good candidates. Now you just have to convince theymos.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Expenses breakdown:
- Hosting: 27.96617
- Forum improvement: 40
- BTC storage: 21.9
- Mod payments: 136.1034819

Paying mods (something we can all argue isn't necessary if you bring in more mods who are happy to support the forums by working for free) is the highest expense it seems. The "useful purposes" line in advertising auction threads is not transparent. It's completely subjective.

The forum has not been transparent enough with backend operations in the 2 years I have been here. You did not announce handovers to other hosts, especially MtGox (which was a huge conflict of interest and allowed a for-profit business to look into our PMs whenever they wanted to to see who was competing against them).

The forum has not announced what the funds were being used for before soliciting for donations, and continues to do so under the guise of "creating a new forum" despite no such activity happening.

The forum has not developed a new forum software in over 12 months, despite receiving an admitted 6000 bitcoins now.

The forum pretends to manage reputations by creating "scammer" and "untrustworthy" tags, but doesn't finish the job by removing libel/slander or allowing innocent-until-proven-guilty members to make rebuttals to what the forum agrees openly as spam that is malicious in nature.

The forum spends funds given to it for advertising on moderator paychecks without telling anyone, and continues to ask for more without telling what it's for ("Other useful purposes" is not telling what it's for).

Please make the necessary announcements, be more transparent, bring in more moderators that don't require payoffs, do what you set out to do 12 months ago with the half of a million dollars you're sitting on, and either moderate reputations fairly or don't bother at all.

Thanks!

[worldinacoin]

I heard that the perks include

1.   Lamborghini with chauffeur (female btw, Victoria Secret's standard and above)
2.   $5000/a minute moderating
3.   Weekly payments via Bitcoins
4.   Helicopter in case of emergency trips
5.   Israel Iron Dome installations to protect against angry scammers' homemade missiles......

What have I missed?

[BadBear]

Don't forget the lifetime supply of alpaca socks.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Moderation and censorship are not the same thing. I wouldn't want TradeFortress to be a moderator for example, as he would delete any Ripple thread and call it "SCAM".

This is completely off the mark.

[gweedo]

Moderation and censorship are not the same thing. I wouldn't want TradeFortress to be a moderator for example, as he would delete any Ripple thread and call it "SCAM".

This is completely off the mark.

Actually not, you would mod those with emotion and feelings then being a neutral party.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Actually, on every forum I modded, I stay away from things that I have a strong opinion for and against.

[r3wt]

Actually, on every forum I modded, I stay away from things that I have a strong opinion for and against.

self reinforcement? you're better than that admin.

[gweedo]

Actually, on every forum I modded, I stay away from things that I have a strong opinion for and against.

So it would hinder your job as a mod.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Actually, on every forum I modded, I stay away from things that I have a strong opinion for and against.

You run paid libel/smear campaigns against companies you don't like and pay people to repeat your opinions as if they were their own (a form of astroturfing), all while asking neebies to add you into their trust pool on a financial services site enabling you to steal money later whenever you want, just to further this smear campaign. You're saying if you were a mod, you'd be magically the opposite?

[r3wt]

Actually, on every forum I modded, I stay away from things that I have a strong opinion for and against.

You run paid libel/smear campaigns against companies you don't like and pay people to repeat your opinions as if they were their own (a form of astroturfing), all while asking neebies to add you into their trust pool on a financial services site enabling you to steal money later whenever you want, just to further this smear campaign. You're saying if you were a mod, you'd be magically the opposite?

that aint all he does.

[QuestionAuthority]

Matthew, does your buddy Vladimir Marchenko still have a forum in the UK? 

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

You run paid libel/smear campaigns against companies you don't like

It's not libel if it's factually correct.

and pay people to repeat your opinions as if they were their own (a form of astroturfing)

Yeah, it's called advertising.

, all while asking neebies to add you into their trust pool on a financial services site enabling you to steal money later whenever you want

I have not stole any money. I have allowed OTHER people to swap their money, to demonstrate.

You're saying if you were a mod, you'd be magically the opposite?

I should have been more clear - I stayed away from being a moderator on topics I have a strong opinion for or against. WP:INVOLVED.

Also, we're getting pretty offtopic here.

I don't think anyone would have a problem with the forum paying moderators, but the way it's being done in secret (Blockchain trails doesn't count) is what upsets people.

[r3wt]

Also, we're getting pretty offtopic here.

I don't think anyone would have a problem with the forum paying moderators, but the way it's being done in secret (Blockchain trails doesn't count) is what upsets people.

boy, you really pissed in Mathews cheerios huh ?