mod post/community feedback
VERY IMPORTANT POST! PLEASE READ!
First of all, I want everyone hear to know how dedicated I am to this community. As a few of you may have seen, wednesday night there was an altercation between lost_cosmos and myself. I feel it is my obligation to explain the situation, what has been done and what will be done in the future to help avoid any forthcoming drama or confusion.
I think we can all agree that sufficient time was given for this challenge, 2 weeks time and many reminders were given, this entire thing basically started because she was upset that I had posted the voting before midnight and she unfortunately missed the deadline, she was not the only one who had missed the deadline either and you know who you are and I want you to know that I do appreciate the way you handled the situation. Because of this bitterness many issues and accusations against the way I mod this community as well as my relationship with the mod's over at our sister communities - mainly raisingrrrl and vimh_graphics. This post will be to defend my position and more importantly get feedback from everyone else, if there is a problem I have always said please bring it to my attention so if you have a problem with the way something is done or with something I do please let me know! I had planned on doing a post like this complete with a poll and everything at the end of the round but since all of this was brought up I might as well do it now.
A lot of the following should be common sense but for the sake of clearing the air I will in detail explain my decisions, philosophies and how I choose to run things -
Deadlines/Posting: Each week the deadline is set for Tuesdays, if someone asks for a specific time I typically will say by midnight because that lets me know whoever has asked is going to participate and I don't mind waiting if that means they will get their submissions in. When tuesday night comes and I do not have word from anyone wanting to enter last minute I might decide to post the voting a few hours before midnight. In this case, voting was posted at 8pm central time, between waking up early and finals to study for I saw nothing wrong with that decision.
One thing that was brought up was inconsistencies, for instance some weeks the voting/challenge posts may go up a day or so late. This is simply because like everyone else here I do have other things going on in my life. So no, this is not my first priority and livejournal will always come second to what is happening in my life, my baby is due in August and I have not decided what will happen then and I am trying to balance all of that with going to school full time. That is not to say however that I do not dedicate as much time as possible to this community, I spend many hours a week doing as much as I can to keep this community running and as unpredictable as possible.
Extensive Challenges/Bonus/Voting: I usually come up with an idea and run with it, Ch. 08 was meant to be another simple lyric challenge but judging by past lyric challenges they hadn't been too successful so I decided to do something unplanned and a bit different. Different pretty much sums up all of the tori communities here, when toridesktops began, Cara created lims_tori and let me come in and help, and Rebbeca and I began tori_stillness we all decided that we would become sister communities and provide something different and unique as opposed to the plain overdone picture/quote challenges every week. We have apparently been successful because all of you have reacted positively to our decisions. We do this for you, to do something different, to challenge your creativity and in most times are simply in awe of the response we get.
For this challenge in just 2 weeks all of you worked together to submit over 200 icons which is simply astonishing to me, because I could see all of the hard work everyone put into the icons I didn't feel right about simply having one 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner so I decided to go back to previous challenges throughout the tori communities and take different voting categories used in the past and apply them to this challenge. I wanted to acknowledge all of your hard work and effort, show how much I appreciate your devotions. I suppose perhaps some of the categories could have used an explanation and that is my fault but there is never anything wrong with asking for clarification.
I simply want everything to be as fair as possible which is why I provide many bonus opportunities. It is ridiculous for me to expect everyone to participate in everything every week because I know and understand this is for fun and of course, as it should be will come second to anything that is happening in your life.
My Integrity and Honesty: As you know, or can now tell, vimh_graphcis raisingrrrl and myself are very close, we often do cross-community challenges and generally help each other out and keep each other informed with what is going on. One thing that was said that was very out of line and unacceptable was the accusation that I share information that is supposed to be anonymous and allow Cara and Rebbeca to see icons and who submitted them before they are posted. That is absolutly ridiculous, I do not play favorites and absolutly would not make special exceptions for neither friends nor anyone. In this specific case, after I posted the voting I had 3 people take their time to cast their votes and I was not going to take down the voting to add a few more icons. However, if no one had voted I most likely would have quickly added the icons that had missed the deadline because it would have been at no inconvenience to anyone but that was not the case.
All I have to offer you is my word, my word that everything I do is done in the most fair way I see possible, there are no special advantages or exceptions for anyone. Honestly, where would that get us? What would we be without your support and trust? I love running this community and coming up with challenges and I would never do anything to compromise that. To accuse me of being so dishonest was a very inappropriate assumption.
Now, to address the banning and disqualifying of lost_cosmos and her icons, she was removed from this community because over the past year or more she has constantly disrespected the mods, not followed rules on more than one occasion and simply given us many problems. She was warned many times and actually removed from toridesktops and tori_stillness before here so I want all of you to know it was not any one offense but many over the span of a year. It was not because she questioned how things were run or my decisions in modding this community but it was the way in which she went about questioning. There are certain ways to go about disagreements or questions and the way she choose to talk to us mods and constantly question our decisions that led to this.
I don't want in any way for anybody to be afraid of asking for clarifications or giving any suggestions to make this a better place. It is when we post a challenge and that challenge is ridiculed - qualifications and requirements argued against - we put a lot of time into running these communities and coming up with the challenges and for our work to be constantly questioned is when we begin to have a problem.
What I am asking of all of you now is to please comment with what is on your mind. Tell me what you think of how this community has been running and what I can do to improve. Also if you have any concerns or are dissatisfied don't be afraid to bring it up. This post is ultimately to help you so I encourage all of you to utilize this opportunity and open up to me.
This is, and always has been, links to the Question Post, and Suggestion Post. They will always be there for you to use or you can always email me at ladybug1219@gmail.com.
First of all, I want everyone hear to know how dedicated I am to this community. As a few of you may have seen, wednesday night there was an altercation between lost_cosmos and myself. I feel it is my obligation to explain the situation, what has been done and what will be done in the future to help avoid any forthcoming drama or confusion.
I think we can all agree that sufficient time was given for this challenge, 2 weeks time and many reminders were given, this entire thing basically started because she was upset that I had posted the voting before midnight and she unfortunately missed the deadline, she was not the only one who had missed the deadline either and you know who you are and I want you to know that I do appreciate the way you handled the situation. Because of this bitterness many issues and accusations against the way I mod this community as well as my relationship with the mod's over at our sister communities - mainly raisingrrrl and vimh_graphics. This post will be to defend my position and more importantly get feedback from everyone else, if there is a problem I have always said please bring it to my attention so if you have a problem with the way something is done or with something I do please let me know! I had planned on doing a post like this complete with a poll and everything at the end of the round but since all of this was brought up I might as well do it now.
A lot of the following should be common sense but for the sake of clearing the air I will in detail explain my decisions, philosophies and how I choose to run things -
Deadlines/Posting: Each week the deadline is set for Tuesdays, if someone asks for a specific time I typically will say by midnight because that lets me know whoever has asked is going to participate and I don't mind waiting if that means they will get their submissions in. When tuesday night comes and I do not have word from anyone wanting to enter last minute I might decide to post the voting a few hours before midnight. In this case, voting was posted at 8pm central time, between waking up early and finals to study for I saw nothing wrong with that decision.
One thing that was brought up was inconsistencies, for instance some weeks the voting/challenge posts may go up a day or so late. This is simply because like everyone else here I do have other things going on in my life. So no, this is not my first priority and livejournal will always come second to what is happening in my life, my baby is due in August and I have not decided what will happen then and I am trying to balance all of that with going to school full time. That is not to say however that I do not dedicate as much time as possible to this community, I spend many hours a week doing as much as I can to keep this community running and as unpredictable as possible.
Extensive Challenges/Bonus/Voting: I usually come up with an idea and run with it, Ch. 08 was meant to be another simple lyric challenge but judging by past lyric challenges they hadn't been too successful so I decided to do something unplanned and a bit different. Different pretty much sums up all of the tori communities here, when toridesktops began, Cara created lims_tori and let me come in and help, and Rebbeca and I began tori_stillness we all decided that we would become sister communities and provide something different and unique as opposed to the plain overdone picture/quote challenges every week. We have apparently been successful because all of you have reacted positively to our decisions. We do this for you, to do something different, to challenge your creativity and in most times are simply in awe of the response we get.
For this challenge in just 2 weeks all of you worked together to submit over 200 icons which is simply astonishing to me, because I could see all of the hard work everyone put into the icons I didn't feel right about simply having one 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner so I decided to go back to previous challenges throughout the tori communities and take different voting categories used in the past and apply them to this challenge. I wanted to acknowledge all of your hard work and effort, show how much I appreciate your devotions. I suppose perhaps some of the categories could have used an explanation and that is my fault but there is never anything wrong with asking for clarification.
I simply want everything to be as fair as possible which is why I provide many bonus opportunities. It is ridiculous for me to expect everyone to participate in everything every week because I know and understand this is for fun and of course, as it should be will come second to anything that is happening in your life.
My Integrity and Honesty: As you know, or can now tell, vimh_graphcis raisingrrrl and myself are very close, we often do cross-community challenges and generally help each other out and keep each other informed with what is going on. One thing that was said that was very out of line and unacceptable was the accusation that I share information that is supposed to be anonymous and allow Cara and Rebbeca to see icons and who submitted them before they are posted. That is absolutly ridiculous, I do not play favorites and absolutly would not make special exceptions for neither friends nor anyone. In this specific case, after I posted the voting I had 3 people take their time to cast their votes and I was not going to take down the voting to add a few more icons. However, if no one had voted I most likely would have quickly added the icons that had missed the deadline because it would have been at no inconvenience to anyone but that was not the case.
All I have to offer you is my word, my word that everything I do is done in the most fair way I see possible, there are no special advantages or exceptions for anyone. Honestly, where would that get us? What would we be without your support and trust? I love running this community and coming up with challenges and I would never do anything to compromise that. To accuse me of being so dishonest was a very inappropriate assumption.
Now, to address the banning and disqualifying of lost_cosmos and her icons, she was removed from this community because over the past year or more she has constantly disrespected the mods, not followed rules on more than one occasion and simply given us many problems. She was warned many times and actually removed from toridesktops and tori_stillness before here so I want all of you to know it was not any one offense but many over the span of a year. It was not because she questioned how things were run or my decisions in modding this community but it was the way in which she went about questioning. There are certain ways to go about disagreements or questions and the way she choose to talk to us mods and constantly question our decisions that led to this.
I don't want in any way for anybody to be afraid of asking for clarifications or giving any suggestions to make this a better place. It is when we post a challenge and that challenge is ridiculed - qualifications and requirements argued against - we put a lot of time into running these communities and coming up with the challenges and for our work to be constantly questioned is when we begin to have a problem.
What I am asking of all of you now is to please comment with what is on your mind. Tell me what you think of how this community has been running and what I can do to improve. Also if you have any concerns or are dissatisfied don't be afraid to bring it up. This post is ultimately to help you so I encourage all of you to utilize this opportunity and open up to me.
This is, and always has been, links to the Question Post, and Suggestion Post. They will always be there for you to use or you can always email me at ladybug1219@gmail.com.