HCA: Hermit Crab Association

ok, so ive been on hear alot lately, and ive been wondering when the elections hear start up again. ive noticed that alot of mods, site staff, archive control team ,ect, are hardly ever on hear. also, what possition are there. like, is there only 1 jr rep, or regional one as well. thanks


brad

Mods & ACT are not elected by the general public. They are appointed by the BOD. The ACT is sort of an only-when-needed type group. As for the moderators. We have quite a bunch of people listed as moderators so that they all do not have to be here all of the time. People have real lives. On the other hand, a few of our mods a lot. There is almost always an admin or mod online.
A tip though... we don't usually pick the people who ask to be selected as mods.

Not sure what you mean by site staff? There is no staff. No headquarters, no paid positions, no slurpee machine, nothing.

Elections are staggered throughout the year. I believe the elections process for the East Midwest, North Atlantic, West Midwest positions & one Jr. Rep. position will be starting soon.

No slurpee machine?!?!?! Bummer!!

I see plenty of staff on pretty often. I tend to see most of you guys at night (especially on the weekends).

I'm on more often than I post, a lot of the other mods/reps are the same. We don't have a required amount of time to log in, and a lot of the time we're here but behind the scenes. If you feel your rep isnt' around often enough, then nominate someone else when the time comes.

Yea...no slurpee machine..sad but true.

I too am browsing more than I post...I usually read and see that there are tons of other people that have given answers and the one I would have given is mixed in there...so Idont post. No sense in adding more of whats already been said to informational posts.

But we are here...even if you dont see our names plastered all over the forums

You guys, and quite a few other mods are always on here. It is just some of the other peeps.

Each mod/rep always has times when something comes up in their lives and they can't get on as much. The majority of us can be on though, so we sort of cover for those of us who can't. I've been a little less active, because finals are coming up very soon so I have less free time.

But elections should be coming up soon, we are talking about them now, behind the slurpee machine that we don't have.

Hey, where's this slurpee machine I keep hearing being mentioned?
Mmmmmmm, just love those red Fanta slurpees from Macca's right now. [smilie=faint.gif]

Same with me. I check the forums every day. Sometimes three times a day (except for a couples months when we moved, sometimes i only checked once a week). But usually all the new posts already have 5 replies that gave good answers. So I usually just post if I have some new research or experiment or whatnot. Like the guide to moving with crabs, or the latest lessons learned from a deep clean, or new saltwater ratios. Or if I don't agree with the responses I see.

I also tend to skip threads that have generic or vague titles, like "help", "what's wrong", "is this ok". But I usually check out threads that reference controversial or non-definitive crab topics.

And like was mentioned before, the real majority of the work of the directors and moderators is behind the scenes work. We discuss things a lot in the moderators forums, make all the decisions about what the HCA supports and doesn't, keep the forums clean and safe for members, etc.

The fact that the HCA is a sprawling community of crab enthusiasts, and that there is virtually no spam/problems/flaming/trolling/innappropriate behavoir/etc on the forums is proof that everyone is doing their job marvelously.

Christa alone probably blocks about 100 spammers a day from creating new accounts, and tweaks to the software block another 1000 a day on top of that.

Being a good member is about helping out other members and sharing info and advice. Being a good mod is about keeping the forums clean and functioning and drinking slurpees. Sometimes due to time constraints, it's hard to be both at the same time.

^ What a great touch to an informative post.

Yep, they don't pick people that ask to be picked.. heck, they dont don't pick people on any kind of mainstream merit at all.. Course, I know they'd never pick em. I'm rude, jerkish, uncouth, loudmouthed, have no problems yelling at people, do whatever I can to belittle people.. An all around, very unnice and not appreciated guy..... Wait a minute, thats the perfect qualities to be a mod person.. Darnit, PICK ME!! PICK ME!!!

Don't know why so many people wish to be mods or reps for. It's not as though we log in and start thinking of who we can tell off, it's not about power-trips but just helping out and continuing to be a good member for this site.
Thing is, being a rep or a mod is not about taking any joy in being in a position of authority.
Those who see it that way, most likely won't be asked.

I haven't yelled at or belittled anyone when having to pm them, even when the issue has been serious. I just try to be nice, but firm to get the point across, don't think that anyone who wishes to be a dictator or dictator-tot would last 2 seconds as a mod/rep.

mogymog wrote:I'm rude, jerkish, uncouth, loudmouthed, have no problems yelling at people, do whatever I can to belittle people.. An all around, very unnice and not appreciated guy..... Wait a minute, thats the perfect qualities to be a mod person.

Ah, so someone finally figured out the secret to how I became a mod.

WHAT?!?! no slurpee machine? thats it I quit and I'm not the only one who is disappointed, me and Narnar's kitty both...we're going on slurpee strike!

brad873 wrote:ok, so ive been on hear alot lately, and ive been wondering when the elections hear start up again. ive noticed that alot of mods, site staff, archive control team ,ect, are hardly ever on hear. also, what possition are there. like, is there only 1 jr rep, or regional one as well. thanks

Just as an aside, the current group of Admins is the most pro-active group the HCA has EVER had in its entire nearly seven year history. It is a shame everyone can't see all the work they do behind the scenes, all the modding, editing, moving topics (which takes up most of their time because folks are getting lazy about it) and other things. Which reminds me, this post itself should have been posted in the Business section of the HCA.

One thing that makes the HCA move more slowly than some other online communities is its unique forum of government. The HCA is governed by 11 Representatives, and it takes time for each Rep to read each item and weigh in on it. Then after that there is usually another thread to vote on the action to be taken, and those things take time.

As for Moderators, I have expressed my own views as to who deserves moderatorship or not elsewhere, You can find them HERE. Here is a quote from that thread:

As many of you know, I have administered both the HCA and landhermitcrabs.com for a number of years. Over those years I have seen administrators and moderators come and go so I have a bit of experience in gauging who will be a good one and who might not be. It has been my experience that unfortunately the people who actually ask to become a moderator or administrator do not do a very good job. We had one mod who campaigned very hard for the position, and won election, but he ended up being too aggressive for the position. So for me personally, when a person asks to be made a moderator, of anything, I immediately put them on the list of people to not nominate for moderatorship. By doing this I may have hurt some people's feelings and for that I'm sorry. However I have also probably have thwarted the ambitions of a few would-be tyrants, people who would have abused our members just because they were feeling "off" or had a bad day or whatever.

P.S. If you don't think the Mods and Admins are doing anything, then who moved all those mis-posted threads in the General forum??