Fundraiser Update, Next Steps, & Looking for More Wiki Mods

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First off, I would like to start with both thanking and congratulating everyone with the completion of the fundraiser! I am so grateful for how the community has stepped up and the comments I have received expressing how important this community has been to people!

Some real talk here, my day job still has been very much one step forward and two steps back. My short term situation has started to improve a bit, but the tech sell off has the private equity guys that own where I work panicking, and there is growing concerns they may try to cut their losses if they can’t find a buyer in the next couple of years or so.

Due to all that, I can not express enough how much this has helped take some stress off of me. It has been so nice not having to worry about how I need to balance my paycheck between Weight Gaming, my family, and planning for the worst over the last 3 months. I truly am so grateful for the generosity of this community!

That all being said, I know there is still a ton of work to be done. My first priory atm is making good on my side of the deal and getting the Projects category reopened as fast as is feasible.

@Krodmandoon and I already worked out a list of possible mods and I will be reaching out to them over the next week here to confirm who is still willing to help out or not. The last thing we need to do is rework our rules and how we are going to handle our moderation.

Krod and I have already been chatting on and off as we can. There are a few rules we are thinking about letting up on but a few others we plan on cracking down on. I have been a bit to lax on some things and due to that we have had users take advantage of this to dance in the grey area where they think we would not touch them. Our main goal is to try to provide some clear rules and guidelines for the mods coming in as well as deal with these loop holes.

Currently I am aiming to see if we can have this finished by mid this month but it may take until the end of this month to get everything sorted. I will try to keep you all in the loop the best I can and I thank everyone for their patience with me.

I am also looking for a few more mods to help specifically with the wiki. If anyone is interested I setup a small google form that can be filled out if you want to be considered:

Once again, I would like to thank all of you for your understanding and generous support! It means more to me then I could ever express.

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Don’t know if it’s currently a rule, but if it isn’t, an obvious new one would be, “No bashing a project for using AI.” You’re of course entitled to your own opinions on the matter, but you’re not entitled to just hate on another party for it, especially when you can’t actually prove anything. That screed against Taylor Applebrook in particular cannot be allowed to happen again and should be an immediate ban if it does.

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This 100%. Disliking AI is fine but attacking others for it is silly.

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It’s best to word it as “no bullying or harassing others” rather than no “bashing”. Rules need to be as specific as possible to avoid them becoming easy to abuse for a given agenda.

There should be a general “no bullying and harassment” rule anyways. Preventing the “bashing” of a specific subject can easily lead to someone with moderator powers shifting the definition of the term for their own agenda.

I want people to be able to talk freely about any subject (within reason), both negatively and positively. But I also don’t want harassment or bullying campaigns to happen, regardless of who’s being targeted or the reason they’re being targeted.

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Congrats grot, and looking forward to you and krod getting some extra help.

I do hope part of that loophole closure includes some kind of “We can ban you for I’m-not-touching-you boundary testing” rule. Wanting clear rules is admirable, but the spirit of the law is more important than the letter

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That’s a good point.

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This is absurdly important in the long run and I agree fully. Specific rules are good as guidelines, but you will always have people who want to take advantage and rules-lawyer the rules of prosocial behavior to allow for bad actions under the guise of “it’s not explicitly prohibited.”

Moderators can be removed if they abuse their discretion very easily - it’s a removal of privileges, not a banning from the site. But that discretion needs to exist or you will need to hire lawyers to write up your terms of behavior… and people will still find ways to slip through. A general “no antisocial behavior” rule is a good catch-all for this, and can be pointed to when people ask how they got banned even when “being civil” by the existing rules (because you can be civil and still an antisocial bad-actor!).

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