Oh, I remember him. Why did he leave? People were hating on him and such? :/
Damn, I should visit the forum more often.
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People were hating
banned rule breakers (almost) always do..
some comment sections on steam profiles of mods aren't the most pleasant things to be read
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some comment sections on steam profiles of mods aren't the most pleasant things to be read
This is so true, the insults and foul language used against mods and other SG users on Steam profiles is disgusting and not only rulebreakers do so but also other SG users do so, that didn't get what they wanted concerning mod decisions and moderation. Some have clearly anger management issues and zero manners. You really should see what some posted...
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Pete was terrific. I sometimes felt I was overburdening him/everyone, so I always try to be as chipper as possible when I make requests. I've got only good things to say about the mods, at least in my dealings.
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I miss Pete as well. He was one of the best, if not the best on this site.
I had several long talks with him before he left, and tried to convince him to stay a few times, but I certainly can't blame him for his list of reasons. They go far beyond what people think, though.
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Do you know if he plans on coming back or is he gone for good? :( Pete is one of the kindest people I've ever met on here and the site is definitely lacking without him.
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I'm glad you were there to talk to him, at least. I was totally out of the loop and so now suffer from "survivor's guilt." P
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damn that sucks. PeteOzzy was such a nice guy; hadn't realized he left
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Well - you might say 'it was us' - but frankly I find that to be far to all encompassing - as I have never had an issue with mods, nor do I insult or berate them - nor would I ever post anything on steam (do people really do that !), as that is there private space and nothing to do with SG - so for clarities sake 'it was perhaps some of SG - but not all of US'
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I am not a number, I am a free man :)
but if I were a female number, it would be 42 of course - always one to be part of the pack :P
Dam it, now I have to go and watch i-robot - curse you and my feeeble mind
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I have definitely had an issue with one moderator, long since gone.
But I think it's more of a "Not enough people helped" than a "we all did it" situation.
Personally I wasn't aware of any recent drama though.
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I've had an issue with a moderator previously. A pretty damn big one, but it never influenced my treatment and I certainly didn't attack the moderator either. In the end, we're just users and unless the toxicity is spotted in a thread, we the users simply won' t be aware of it and naturally won't shout it down as a result. It sucks, but there's no reasoning with idiots, and laying down the necessary law makes you a target of the tantrums. I was a moderator on a forum once, and yeah I don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon :P
(much less one for a gaming site!)
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Hatred is inside the human blood - others cover it, others don't. :P
Also, words can't take the place of actions. Mere words can't change anything the way that actions do. Here, the sword is mightier than the pen. :P
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Beautifully written, as usual.
Unfortunately, childish behaviors don't have room for understanding...
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+1.
you guys are doing a good job, i can imagine how hard is it to face immature people here, i wish we could do more to help you guys out!
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You say "us" but you are a mod and so all I can see is "you". You just don't dare to say it openly.
EDIT : before everyone jump on me saying i have a problem with mods, no i don't. One exemple
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He means "us" as users of the site, which he is also. Not every one of us is guilty of treating the support staff poorly, but it's better to talk to the collective "us" than to point fingers.
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I agree pointing out fingers is not the proper solution, especially when you preach "peace".
But opposing the mods vs the community, saying "the poors mods" as trying to act like a member of the community is kind of weird when you are actually a Mod. I really feel like he is trying to get some sympathy. I would have prefer if he was actually complaining for real instead of hiding like that.
I agree with what he say, lots of people are mean to Mods but they don't understand that sometimes they just follow orders, but still, the way to do it in this thread is pathetic.
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If I might respectfully submit this - I think you missed the point. The group of SG members who volunteer and are accepted as Moderators is rather small - but they are still SG members none-the-less. It is not "pathetic" to point out that many of the best Moderators end up quitting the "job" and even SG altogether due to hateful actions by other SG members. It is simply the truth....
Is it pathetic when a crime victim speaks out against violence? Shrugs, if you can't see that he has as much right to post this thread as any other member of SG, then I really can't help you understand. :-(
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You can respectfully post what you want, I prefer to talk and exchange opinions than get shadow blacklist from people not assuming their opinions enough to come and tell me what is wrong with my message.
I think you missed my point actually.Is it pathetic when a crime victim speaks out against violence? No I don't think so, and I never said that. I said that the way Khalaq does this is not the right one (from my opinion).
Speak about how you feel mistreated, as a victim -> yes, ok i feel empathy for you, you dared to say what was bothering you. You are brave and agree with you. it 's not easy to admit that you felt hurt, especially in the current context of speaking of something like that make everyone call you a snowflake and dismiss you.
Speak how everyone on SG is just a casual asshole, stay vague about yourself in this -> i just feel like the people who make sure to show people that "hey i'm going into my corner because i'm ugly" expecting others to come for you and say "of course you're really pretty".
he has as much right to post this thread as any other member of SG as i have the right to express my feeling toward this too, and that you have the right to answer to me that you disagree with me. (I just want to tell you that then I really can't help you understand. :-( can sound a bit offensive, as if you were trying to explain to me an absolute truth, and i was too dumb to understand it, while here we are speaking of feeling.)
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The impression I get from you is that I failed to communicate properly. I was including myself in the "we" and "us," not attempting to shift the narrative. I do not exempt myself from being negative or caustic at times, nor do I feel I am doing all I can to have a positive impact on the site. To the contrary, I believe that improvement starts with improving my own behavior. It would seem I failed to convey that.
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Firstly, I did not blacklist you, though I was and am tempted :-p
Secondly, I disagreed with your non-empathetic commentary "but still, the way to do it in this thread is pathetic". My reply that "I can't help you understand" was no more inflammatory than your implication that Khalaq posting this thread makes him pathetic.
You call him pathetic. I call you out on your lack of empathy. You call me out on being offensive to you... LOL! Sometimes I wonder why what is good for the goose is NOT good for the gander. (In case you don't understand this, it means that it's ok for you to be an asshole but no one else is allowed to be one... just so we're clear about both being asses.) ;-D and have a nice life!
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Wait, what ? Writing is really destroying all nuance.
Firstly, I did not blacklist you, though I was and am tempted :-p
The blacklist was more a general sentence, not an attack because I thought you blacklisted me... (it's not like it take 3 click to know if you are blacklisted by a specific person...). I was trying to say that I was glad that you decided to speak actually.
it's ok for you to be an asshole
It seems that the word "pathetic" has a stronger meaning in English that the translation has in my language... (Just in case I checked quickly, and It doesn't seems so, but whatever).
You call me out on being offensive to you
Also, I didn't wanted to point out that you were flaming me (You first sentence made me understand that you were trying to be polite), I just said you that it could be misinterpreted and that you should be careful. You cannot speak of "understanding" when it come to feeling, that's all.
just so we're clear about both being asses
Actually I'm not clear about this. I never wanted to be an ass, I even talked to Khalaq, because all this was aiming to him, and now we're good about this. You're the one coming after me in your last post. I misunderstood Khalaq, you misunderstood me, it's ok, it can happen to everybody. Now please let's no start a war on a thread dedicated to peace on SG.
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"Now please let's no start a war on a thread dedicated to peace on SG"
Agreed :-)
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He's not talking about himself, he's talking about how the toxic attitude from some people have caused other mods to just up and leave.
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Yeah I understood that part, and as I said, I agree that I often saw people angry at mods for dumb reason.
What I don't like is the way this is phrased. I explained myself a bit more here if you want to read it
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I get what you'e saying, but I don't agree with your stance on it.
Moderators are users too, and this post was made from a user standpoint. Having seen Khalaq's post in this forum for years, it's consistent with the kind of posts he's made before he was promoted to a moderator position. He's speaking up as a concerned user, not as a moderator.
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It's your right to disagree, as I said : all this is about feeling and there isn't an absolute truth. It just the way I felt reading this.
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As only mods see what's happening to mods, it would be weird if a normal user would post what Khalaq did.
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Please, I am not saying that Khalaq should not have say it himself. Of course someone outside cannot speak of something happening inside.
I don't like the way it phrased. Please check my bigger comment here if you want to understand a bit more my opinion and discuss it.
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Let's have a round of applause for Tempete , Jatan, Cjcomplex, Fyantastic, Ronix, delta, khalaq, Sleepy, cg, and everyone else who works on the site regularly... and has stayed. Or not. Let's just complain how Pete isn't here anymore.
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Delta and Sleepy are still active? Haven't seen them in ages.
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"Delta" as in "DeltaBladeX"?Pretty sure I entered some giveways he posted in the discussions a short while ago.
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Why did someone just inform me that I was dead?!
I'm only 33! Too soon to pass on. D:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/T7i2j/last-day-i-was-impatient-so-here-are-my-birthday-giveaways-under-12-hours-left
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Oh Delta, they say that if you pay attention, you can still hear him in your heart.
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Hear! Hear!
Seriously, a huge thanks to each and every moderator for volunteering their time and making SG a functional and usually fun place to be a member.
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Thinking of what happened to Lina still makes me sad. (
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I actually have no idea what happened to her. All I know is that she just stopped visiting the site at some point.
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Something you can share? I have no idea what happened and it was a pleasure to talk with her in the past.
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what we should think about, imo, is something for you, the mods. An idea, an update, something that you could benefit, even in the near future... i'm not talking anything financial, but even cg should think about it :)
btw, it was far from my mind the situation pictured by khalaq.
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Thank you mods! You are all super-helpful and you've all handled requests of mine recently - except I don't think I've met delta and Sleepy. I try never to respond to tickets with thanks, because it's been my understanding that it makes the queues look longer, so I hope I'm properly appreciative along the way.
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:) Be mod on any site or forum is very hard, they all must be appreciated!
Talking from experience
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This is why I try to never complain about the moderation.
They're here for the same reason as the rest of us + they have to deal with all the support tickets.
Considering how many Support Tickets I've had to make since I started doing giveaways, I'm just glad we have mods at all.
We could considerably lesson the amount of support tickets made on this site by listing suspensions on profiles.
99% of my Support Tickets ask if a user has served their suspensions for this or that infraction and are an eligible winner.
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Yes! I always feel guilty about sending those support requests ("my winner has not activated a game or won something more than once - has this been dealt with?") because it seems like the sort of thing that I could see in SGTools, either via a checkbox next to each infraction or by deleting the record of each infraction after the associated suspension is served.
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I always like to read your well thought out posts, Khalaq. I'm sorry for the abuse you & others receive. SG seems to be very pro "free speech" to me, but perhaps there needs to be new guidelines where abuse of others gets a user "muted" where they can't post for a certain time period.
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He who shouts loudest, wins
Buckle up! the site has been growing for the 3 years i've been here, and not all of the new users, are interested in this community.
I don't remember who it was, but there was one or more mods that kept his profile untouched, parading the number of asinine comments from suspended members.
Personally if i didnt enjoy the attention i would block the comment section to friends only.
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There should be harsher punishment for mistreating moderators or any human being. People need to learn that wrong behavior has consequences and they can't willy-nilly attack anyone just because it is online. The sooner they realize the better for them because the time will come when this will be taken very seriously in everyday life and what goes around comes around.
I very much appreciate all the work any person does when doing it for free to help others, huge effort.
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Please. I don't complain about you guys are all -- in fact, the current crop of Mods probably represents the best the site has ever had -- but I think this post is a little self-serving. It's known to be a thankless job. If Mods are quitting, I think it's a little silly to say it's because they felt unappreciated. To be a Mod and be unappreciated is to be expected.
If users are going beyond the line to abuse or harass Mods, then cg needs to step up and ban those people and prevent them from accessing the site with other accounts (to the extent this can be done).
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Just wanted to note one thing, being unappreciated is not and shouldn't be expected. People should value other's efforts and if they can't they need to learn that. It shouldn't be a "perk" of being a mod. And as you say, when people cross the line they should be punished so they can learn the value of other people's work. I know from my experience that being a mod/admin/whatever takes a lot of effort and I much respect anyone in that situation. But that should go for anyone in life in general..respect.
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Glad I am not alone guys. Btw wow I have just noticed you have given so many games that you are hopefully not a bloodthirsty monster as your avatar suggests and that should be appreciated. I would like to welcome you to my wl for what it is worth. #goatlivesmatter
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You got over 1 million users (not all active) all sorts of people, nice ones, angry ones, people of all ages (kids who are impatient), unless all people become 1 and the same, it will never change.
Only real way is to add more staff to take off some of the abuse for the rest.
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I would say not take off abuse but deal with it, show people boundaries and if they want to be part of something they have to follow certain bounds. If not, what is holding them here.
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Then you'd be continously suspending (i assume) thousands of members if such measures would be taken for example, also not every mod is so free of abuse either (or an open civil discussion being perceived as "aggresive" by a mod) although it's somewhat understandable some will lose it with all the abuse they are getting.
But that's all i am gonna say about this anymore.
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Well yes it should definitely work both ways, that is for sure.
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Only real way is to add more staff to take off some of the abuse for the rest.
This is the same thought that crossed my mind. "Share the burden," and all that. What a genius you are! D
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Also, the same as everyone complaining, or reading complaints, about support tickets taking forever. We're all geniuses! ;)
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Maybe I should write a ticket to complain about how long it takes for tickets to get processed. You know, clog the system just a bit more.
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This would probably grant you a place on some kind of list :P
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I wanna say something profound, but this just makes me sad.
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I see a lot of people saying stuff like "Hey! It's wasn't all of us, but SOME of us". Guys, I guess y'all got the drift here: they don't mean every single soul here is 100% guilty. On the other hand, if you find yourself offended, maybe the shoe fits. Talking about shoes, kudos to the moderation, I wouldn't have the guts to be in YOUR shoes. Thank you very much for everything you've done for this community! :D
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I only have to remember what a pain one of the more recent group events here on SG was, to feel nothing but sorry for the SG mods. They make similar/worse experiences every single day.
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I've only complained about one mod, who used their power hunger to suspend me for something that I should not have been suspended for. Well, two mods actually, because one used their power hunger to close my thread and the other one suspended me.
I think some of the mods give a bad name to other mods who are good at their job.
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Nothing but appreciation here for the mods!
please keep up the good work and hope you still see that not all of us take you for granted, insult you or demand impossible things!
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It's easy for people to notice mod actions that they feel are unfair or wrong and complain. They're less likely to notice and comment on good things that mods do, because it's largely behind the scenes or just part of the daily functioning of the site. Like IRL, people notice and comment on what they perceive to be bad work rather than good.
How about a mod group that we can join and make giveaways for every now and then when we want to show our appreciation. :-)
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No time to read the long myriad of replies, but in general I agree with you. I try to always thank the moderators ahead of time when I create a new ticket, and show appreciation for all that they are doing. No, I don't always agree with changes (e.g., not a big fan of the new point system so far, but am trying to give it a chance), but I do always try to express my disagreement in a constructive manner intended for debate, not personal attack.
In general, the moderators all deserve our respect. Sure, I have found one or two to be a little abrasive, but the vast majority of them have been nothing short of awesome. I used to be a super moderator in a PC modding forum, and I both understand the job and know if someone else is doing it well, and the SG mods almost always are.
And so, to the mods: thanks for all that you do. I know that you probably don't hear that enough. I hope that you get a chance to read this and realize that the majority of active members really appreciate what you do for the community every day.
To the whiners making things hard for the mods: maybe SG isn't the right fit for you. I find that a lot of the complainers are leechers who don't give back much. Now, I know that not everyone has the capability to give (because they're young/broke/whatever), but that leaves you with even less reason to complain. Be grateful for a place that is getting you stuff for free and be grateful to the people who are giving the gifts and to the mods who make sure this place continues to run. If you can't do that, then move on to another community. [Side note: I'm sure that I'll get a couple of BLs for saying that, and that's ok...because I know that the people who will BL me over that know that they're being called out, and they won't have access to the tons of GAs that I make and are just shooting themselves in the foot. Remember that a BL is an automatic two-way thing, folks. 😉]
I do still wish that SG had some kind of direct messaging system, though. I think that in a lot of cases, disagreements between members and moderators could probably be resolved with a simple conversation, and right now that's difficult to do unless you friend each other on Steam. This could probably also prevent a lot of unnecessary blacklisting, giving members a chance to work through things and understand a situation rather than just reacting with a BL.
TLDR: mods, thank you. Whiners, take off. 😁😂😉😎
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I used to be a super moderator in a PC modding forum
What forum?
Fellow PC modder and OC enthusiast.
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Cool! It was Xoxideforums.com. It's now sadly defunct...new owners decided they didn't want to keep up the forums. They just went with the usual social media route, which is a bunch of crappy, low-res pictures with no room for proper build logs or how-to stuff. :)
I was a member there for like 10 years, and became a mod after about 3-4. It was lots of fun, and I still stay in touch with several of the people that I got to know from there.
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Ah OK, I know the one. That was a while back but I wasn't ever a regular there - just bought some things from the store. I hung around Modders-Inc and The Mod Zoo primarily (Bill Owens' site). I don't do as much modding as I used to, though - newer cases have most of the features we used to mod into them (and modding can get crazy expensive). I stick to overclocking with some light cosmetic modding these days.
Good to see a fellow modder around. :)
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Hey, I know Bill! Do you remember when he joined forces with Stu King and created The Mod Nation (another .com)? I was in a band then, and he asked us to throw some music their way and we actually wrote their theme song for the site. It was pretty rough (I mean, we wrote it and recorded it live via room mics all in the same night), but it was cool...we used power drills in guitar pickups for part of the sound (which we basically stole from Eddie Van Halen, although he was using it on the strings, and we were just changing up the angle near the pickups and experimenting with the sound).
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Yeah, I remember The Mod Nation. That had to be around 2005-2007 or so, if I recall. Haha that's pretty cool that you guys wrote and performed the theme song (all I remember about it was it was some sort of surf-metal sounding tune).. I've been a huge fan of Bill's since I started modding. In fact, it was one of his earlier YT videos that got me started in modding full-time. I used to follow Bill, Jeremy Birch (aka EEL), and Lee Harrington (PCJunkie) as some of my favorite modders in the scene at the time. I've been out of the loop for a while now, though.
Small world, huh? :P
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I know, kind of crazy. Yeah, Bill has uber skills. I have always been more of a practical modder...in fact, that was kind of my schtick: I'd grab some old, beige, POS case that nobody wanted and then grind it down and hack it up until it became something nice. I used lots of scrap stuff that I had laying around, or throw random auto parts into cases (especially when it came to switches and such, because just like PCs, almost all auto stuff runs on 12V 😎). Basically, I'd try to get creative with inexpensive materials to make something cool. I have a garage full of tools (or I did until the @#$! hurricane), but certainly didn't have access to anything that would allow me to make custom billeted parts or anything like Bill does.
I actually did a case this past Christmas for some friends' kid who is homebound (well, really, I did two, but one was a restoration of the very first fully-modded case that I ever did, which was for my younger brother). If you get bored, you can look through some of the shots here: Kelsey's Cat - OneDrive. I chopped up an old Thermaltake Tsunami case that was about 10 years old and was sitting in my attic. I took out the top ports (and moved them to the front) and replaced them with the custom top window/light effect. What I did to make it show up well in the daylight (since I was working with a photo of a black cat that was mostly highlights) was to do an inverse print of the graphic on overhead projector plastic, back it with 1/4" acrylic, and place a sheet of white paper on the bottom. By having the space between the graphic and the white backdrop, it allows light to pass completely through, and bounce back, creating really nice definition in daylight. I bored holes around the sides of the acrylic and inset white LEDs (all wired by hand) so that you can hit a switch and have the cat illuminated in the dark. There's obviously a lot more there, but that was the biggest draw of that case. And it was mostly made from stuff that I already had laying around. :)
Anyway, it was a fun project, and i hadn't done anything in a while, so it was nice to dust off some skills and smell the solder again. lol
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I'm sure your work and dedication to this site is appreciated by many of us... I like to believe we are the silent majority but maybe that's just wishful thinking from someone that doesn't have to deal with the stuff you deal with on a daily basis.
It is well established that internet interactions are a lot more toxic and polarized than face to face ones and I’m sure the varied population of this community also doesn’t help, not to mention the emotional aspect that is on the root of a giveaway site. Moderators just have no way to avoid all the drama like normal users... I can just close a thread/not read comments and move on, you must deal with it.
Hope you can get through the bumps on the road and... thanks for everything :)
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I really dont think you (as a mod) should be posting praises to yourself... (yes i know you are only posting as an user, but you are more then that)
I would define the best support as invisible (ones), something that SG never had, by not having enough moderators working, BY DESIGN, someone is guilty of that?! (yes being insivible isnt really that humane, but we are talking about machine like systems after all, and SG support never archived that balanced state)
Well if its volunteer work, and i offered myself before mind you, then you wanted it and you had it comming, trust me i know how it stinks (been moderator in some communities/discords)
PS. Im still banned on SG chat, ive appealed the case, it has been closed without touching it, i reopened, and then i was recommended to post in SG chat forums and that was also ignored... (that mod is long gone, a bad apple)
Yes im thankfull by what was done, yet i cant really say im satisfied... (will i be hateful about it? nope, i know the plight!)
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PPS. I will never accept the current culture of (class) blanket guilt that society tries to push down on people and that you seem to try to evoke in this post
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did i say that the ticket mentioned is 2 years old?
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Time for Support to revisit it, then. No promises, however, seeing as it's probably going to be up to CG.
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PPS. I will never accept the current culture of (class) blanket guilt that society tries to push down on people and that you seem to try to evoke in this post
Fair enough. I don't think "blanket guilt" is anything other than oppression, so I can understand that. I was going for the "collective responsibility to improve our society," however. I admit that my first draft is in need of improvement, but considering it was written in the middle of the night when I was half-asleep, it could have been a lot worse. I'll work on it, later, when I've had some rest.
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If it is any consolation, I am also chat banned so we are not being mean for the sake of it.
Happened long before I joined Staff
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I believe there was some crossover during the early days, but I'm not sure.
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I never had problems with mods before and I was always polite to them because I appreciate what they do.
I can also tell you that I am 30 years old, with a long experience in gaming and with gaming communites. The unfortunate reality is that there is always toxicity and that you cannot fix it. It has nothing to do with a certain game or certain community. Its a problem in general. A lot of people believe that anonymity makes them invulnerable, surperior, they just have fun with behaving badly or do not care after all. Because there is no reasoning with them, you just have to ignore or ban them. I know that approach of developing a thick skin is not for everyone, but in my experience it is the only one that works.
Dont take it the wrong way. You can find a lot of nice poeple online. Treat everyone the way you want to be treated as long as they do not start to be douchebags and it will work out.
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Honestly,never had interactions with mods apart from a few tickets,so I can't say much about the topic.
I guess there's one thing that can be said,though-you can't make everyone happy.Even if you end up doing the most noble deed imaginable that helps the entire universe,there will always be someone somewhere thats going to hate you for it.There might not even be a reason for it.Its just going to happen.So the only thing you can do is to tell that someone to piss off and go on with your day.No point in losing sleep over idiots.Especially on the internet.
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The meat grinder which is SteamGifts Moderation continues to take it's toll. Those Mods who have the most experience, the most dedication, the most exemplary work ethic, the most love for this site, they are the ones most likely to burn out and leave. I am not talking about those Mods who have been abrasive and difficult to deal with in the past. I am talking about those who were truly a blessing to this site. Those who served the Community well and sunk so much time and energy into making this site a great place to hang out. With the love these individuals had for all of us, what could possibly drive them away?
It was us.
Quite frankly, we have been toxic and abusive toward our Moderators. We complain about what they're not doing. We complain about what they are doing. We complain about how they should be doing things our way, and then when they actually do things our way, we complain about how it should have been done better. We spam Support with tickets and then complain about a lack of responsiveness. When a Mod requests something of us, we argue endlessly and then complain about delays. We pester the Mods at all hours of the day, posting abuse and demands for attention on their Steam walls. We complain about them, insult them, and libel them in the forum and discussion sections. Some of us even go so far as to gang up on them with friends, perhaps because it is easier to bully someone when you have help. Is it any wonder that such behavior takes it toll on the Support Staff?
Our Moderators are volunteers. A handful of them serve thousands of SG users. They take time out of their day to serve the SG Community in exchange for virtually nothing in return. They do this because they want to help make SG a better place to be. For every person who shows gratitude, however, there are perhaps twenty or thirty telling the Mods what horrible people they are and that they should just leave. There is a long list of Mods and Supports who finally reached the point where they could not handle the hate anymore and did exactly that. They left. Some of SG's most well-known members have also called it quits. These were people who were regular contributors and a positive influence on the site, and now they are gone.
So, I have to ask the question. What have we gained with all the hate? What benefit has been achieved by spreading misery? Instead of sharing the best of ourselves, we have chosen to share the worst. Instead of building people up, we have been busy tearing them down. If we are so concerned about what a miserable world we live in, why have we striven so ardently to make things as bad as possible? That is a question each of us must answer for him or herself.
Life is difficult enough without allowing Hate a home in our hearts.
P.S.(I use "us" and "we" because I am part of the SG Community. While I may not have taken part in some of the things others have done, I bear responsibility for my own failures in being as helpful or as positive as I might have been. It is up to me to improve myself.)
P.P.S.(Thanks to all of you who have expressed support. I have edited the OP's title for clarity should this thread continue to be necro'd.)
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