Partly this was because I was so swamped with work, partly it was due to worries over there being little-to-no good way to help get these folks up and running, partly it was just laziness/oversight on my part. The mod team has been asking nicely that I finish this up, and finally today I at least made one step in the right direction, by adding Mars23 on as a mod in several of the highest-traffic forums. He’s been on the org for years, and has been a considerate and helpful member of the community, and I’m excited to have him now help out as a mod — joining the ranks of the few, the proud, the underappreciated prince.org moderators

Anyhow, there’s a “congrats” thread over here if you’d like to say something there, too!

Moderation is a process. We need to balance many things when we consider any action taken on a member’s account. Questions we ask ourselves… like, is this being done maliciously? Is it a joke? Can people tell it’s a joke? Have they done this with full knowledge of the rules? Etc.

Some things tend to tread the line of what’s allowed and what’s not. In this case… Alternate Accounts. As stated by Ben, no person may have more than one account active at any one time on the Org. Some people feel the need to create two, three or even more Alternate Accounts than that. We know that most are harmless and most likely utilize this ability to do so to get around the posting limits. Some use them as different personalities. Occasionally we get someone who uses them to harass or post things that shouldn’t be posted. Some are used to troll or bait. Others create Alt Accts to get around being temp banned or permabanned. Some are used to create a “celebrity account” so that they can partake in discussions as that famous person. We know if (for example) Morris Day were going to create an account here, it most likely would not be created as “MorrisDay” with his picture used as an avatar.

Rest assured, we know this is happening and know who the Orgers are. So, why do we allow this to continue when it’s clearly against Ben’s wishes? Most “Alt Accts” are harmless. We take that into consideration and moderate them accordingly.

We, as Moderators, reserve the right to ban any Alt Acct at our discretion – simply for existing. Again, it is against Ben’s wishes.

Not too long ago we had a crop of politically minded Alt Accts pop up to make fun of, or bait/slam the candidates and/or the people who supported them. We discussed their existence amongst ourselves and came up with the decision to delete them all, as it wasn’t worth the effort to continually have to moderate them. We knew they were Alt Accts, and we knew they weren’t the primary accounts of the Orgers who used them. So we took them out of the equation.

So what does all this mean? Here’s a quick break down:

* Alt Accts are not allowed.
* We can/will delete them if/when we’re alerted to wrong-doings from an Alt Acct.
* We could let them continue until other more serious rules are broken under the guise of the Alt Acct.
* This includes Alt Accts in the ChatRoom as well.
* Alt Accts created to get around a temp ban or permaban will be deleted immediately.
* As always, Moderators have final say on any deletions of Alternative Accounts without expectation of an explanation.

Thank you,

June7 on behalf of TheModSquad

Just a quick note to say that we’ve got some additions and upgrades planned. First, more moderators should be coming online soon… just working out some final logistics, and then we should have some much-needed additional support. Secondly, I’ve secured a much faster server to replace the creaky old one we’re currently using… so, that should make the site a bit zippier when it’s rolled out, probably in 2-3 weeks (depends how long it takes me to get everything migrated over and working.)

That’s it! Just thought everyone would like to know (and thanks for your patience with the understaffed moderator situation…)

With prince.org at its highest membership levels ever, activity here has increased excessively.  Threads and posts need more moderation presence than ever before.  Prince is doing his share too, keeping us in the news and creating and/or doing what he does best: staying controversial!  

prince.org members are the best on the web, and we consistently have our message boards filled with conversation that would make your mama proud.  However, we still get our share of those who feel the need to share something, anything, with others that should have been left on their hard drive – regardless of the posted rules.  We moderators have our hands full.  (Especially poor Mach in P&R!)  This being an election year, the P&R forum has stayed especially busy. 

It has become evident that we need to look into appointing more moderators to this site.  Not because of a lack of involvement by the mods that are already donating hour after hour here, but because there’s just so much more activity going on around here!  It’d be nice to have some moderators here in the time zones when most of us Americans are sleeping.

If you ar-e interested in applying to become a moderator at prince.org, please state so here, and/or email Ben directly at ben@prince.org. Give us your reasons, which forums you wish to moderate and why. Special attention will be given to those applying from non-US time zones (all foreign nations)!

Thank you for surfing prince.org international… next time you surf, surf prince.org international…   

-June7