A brief history of immoderation: Chapter 1
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 6:07 pmChapter 1: McGill, 2006
At first it was only Lack. Then it was Lack and his friend Twill (added as Community Manager May 7). Twill moved to Seattle at some point, but that won't matter until chapter 3.
May 22, 2006 - Andy Dufresne started as Foundry Foreman.
May 28, 2006 - there was the first "mod callout" here
This was a substantial thread for a few reasons. One of which is the response - 15 potential moderators. People wanted to participate in the life of the site (and they still do). There are two fundamental approaches to volunteer team building. One is top-down, in which you find a need and then look for someone to fill it. That's what they did in this thread. However, the seed was set. Because there was a lot of demand, they started finding jobs for the extra people to do - that's the bottom-up forum building, and usually works a lot better. You can see almost right away that the top down approach didn't work. They took so long trying to get a moderator that the Grievance system was long gone. It's also a fun thread because it has some gloomy foreshadowing of "chapter 3".
For an aside - the site started with an ignore list which was dropped for a grievance system. Then the grievance system was dropped and the ignore was brought back and a Feedback. then Feedback became Ratings and the Ignore List became Foe List.
June 17, 2006 - moz976 becomes a forum mod. He moved a few threads and then wasn't a mod and then was again and then he became the first Suggs & Bugs mod. He also helped write the very first community guidelines (credited as coauthor with Twill, and input from Andy and Lack). Those didn't come out until October though. Here they are:
August 11 Scarus was added and HighBorn became the first Tournament Director. September 28 AK_Iceman became a partner Tournament Director (there was no department head, they were both on equal footing). Well that was the official story although the truth is that Highborn was starting to burn out. His last tournament was abandoned. Highborn joined in February and by September had already posted 3000 times (those were the Bushwackers days too). So most people recognize and remember iceman as the original TD. That isn't entirely true, but it's close enough. By the end of the year Hugh.G.Rection had joined but once again he basically just flaked out without doing anything.
October 22 there was a big shuffle. Twill released the Community Guidelines (see above) then stepped down to a regular moderator. Andy became "Zoo Keeper" instead of Community Manager (but he was still Foundry Foreman too). This was also when moz became the S/B mod.
November 23, 2006 Scarus retired and then there was also the first 3 multi hunters: sully800, Master Bush and Fireside Poet
I didn't really talk about Andy this month. He'll get a big summary in chapter 4. However, almost 30 maps came through the pipe in this first year!
At first it was only Lack. Then it was Lack and his friend Twill (added as Community Manager May 7). Twill moved to Seattle at some point, but that won't matter until chapter 3.
May 22, 2006 - Andy Dufresne started as Foundry Foreman.
May 28, 2006 - there was the first "mod callout" here
This was a substantial thread for a few reasons. One of which is the response - 15 potential moderators. People wanted to participate in the life of the site (and they still do). There are two fundamental approaches to volunteer team building. One is top-down, in which you find a need and then look for someone to fill it. That's what they did in this thread. However, the seed was set. Because there was a lot of demand, they started finding jobs for the extra people to do - that's the bottom-up forum building, and usually works a lot better. You can see almost right away that the top down approach didn't work. They took so long trying to get a moderator that the Grievance system was long gone. It's also a fun thread because it has some gloomy foreshadowing of "chapter 3".
For an aside - the site started with an ignore list which was dropped for a grievance system. Then the grievance system was dropped and the ignore was brought back and a Feedback. then Feedback became Ratings and the Ignore List became Foe List.
June 17, 2006 - moz976 becomes a forum mod. He moved a few threads and then wasn't a mod and then was again and then he became the first Suggs & Bugs mod. He also helped write the very first community guidelines (credited as coauthor with Twill, and input from Andy and Lack). Those didn't come out until October though. Here they are:
August 11 Scarus was added and HighBorn became the first Tournament Director. September 28 AK_Iceman became a partner Tournament Director (there was no department head, they were both on equal footing). Well that was the official story although the truth is that Highborn was starting to burn out. His last tournament was abandoned. Highborn joined in February and by September had already posted 3000 times (those were the Bushwackers days too). So most people recognize and remember iceman as the original TD. That isn't entirely true, but it's close enough. By the end of the year Hugh.G.Rection had joined but once again he basically just flaked out without doing anything.
October 22 there was a big shuffle. Twill released the Community Guidelines (see above) then stepped down to a regular moderator. Andy became "Zoo Keeper" instead of Community Manager (but he was still Foundry Foreman too). This was also when moz became the S/B mod.
November 23, 2006 Scarus retired and then there was also the first 3 multi hunters: sully800, Master Bush and Fireside Poet
I didn't really talk about Andy this month. He'll get a big summary in chapter 4. However, almost 30 maps came through the pipe in this first year!