How Ridiculous. - Comments

@ newyorks; I agree with Deus. I don't agree with the explanation, and I was told by an admin in my profile comments in December or January that they would not/could not delete stories.

@ newyorks;
I'm aware of this and I don't agree with it.

@ Deus Ex Machina

snow.angel:

(@ ptvjaime and others)

Regarding the staff starting to enforce more rules: I think house of cards. explained it rather well but I'll just add on. There was a point where Audrey was the only admin on Mibba, and I think it's unreasonable to think that she could have possibly enforced all of the (admin-related) rules then. Then Katie and I were promoted to admins and we've been working with Audrey ever since at finding ways to enforce the site rules. With three of us, the work load is spread out, and we can put our heads together to find the best way to do things on the site. Some rules weren't enforced previously because we didn't have the means on New Mibba, and now for some we have a temporary measure in place, such as sending stories that don't meet the basic requirements of spelling, grammar and capitalisation to the betas. Which couldn't have been done earlier because we didn't have betas, but now we've implemented that system on the site to help Mibbians too.

Requiring stories to be edited or deleted is the best system we can come up with, and it's helping to tidy up the site by making stories meet the minimum requirements. By all means, if you (or anyone else) has a serious issue with it, then either PM an admin to discuss it or post a suggestion on how to fix the system, and if it's possible and we agree, then it will be implemented. And that goes for any rule.

This is a continual process. Not too long ago we realised that a lot of blogs had bad capitalisation/spelling/grammar in them, so we did a site announcement to remind people that blogs need to contain proper capitalisation, etc, and then we told the blog mods to enforce it. That one was just a rule that had been forgotten about, but now the blogs section is getting tidied up and hopefully blogs are easier to read. The rules have always been there, it's just a matter of us finding the best (and possible) ways to enforce them.

Pretty good explanation from an Admin.

@ Average Lifesaver;;

I think that's a big problem that a lot of people have on here. They don't really understand and I don't think they care to, either. I think a lot of Mibbian's feed off of stories that they get from others about experiences they've had with staff and the rules, and I can almost guarantee that the story they get isn't one hundred percent true. But they don't try to actually see for themselves, so... Meh. The cycle repeats and thus we have the bashing on staff.

@ ptvjaime
Lol, then they all jump on you pointing madly to the "rules" which, in the five years I've been here, are enforced whenever an admin gets bored. That's what it feels like, at least. I've no sympathy for them and I have yet to meet one I like. I just update and ignore all the nonsense on the forums and the "contests" and feeble attempts to integrate the community. AO3 is pretty awesome, though.

I'll be totally honest, before I was on staff, I had a lot of attitude toward staff when they corrected my stuff. My mantra was, "Why can't they just ask me to change it instead of changing it themselves?"

Now, as a staffer, I can see how that was so impractical. For half the messages I send out, I don't get any response, meaning that the story would continue to sit the way it was forever.

The rules haven't really changed for the year+ I've been on staff, perhaps just how they're enforced. But, like Nicole said, it's a continual process.

To me, if you're a writer - career or hobbyist - you gotta play by the rules.

I can also say, the staff I know are super nice and just want to help and they all work really hard for Mibba.



Does anyone get this reference or am I that old?

@ house of cards.
I got a brief glimpse at it.Sigh. Hopefully this will blow over soon. And I hope you start to feel better when logging onto Mibba 'cause you do a splendid job at being a story editor.

@ snow.angel
Thank you. I really appreciate that! Hopefully it does blow over very soon.

Very well said

I think this is just a phase. Mibba goes through them all the time, of putting down the staff, saying why fan fiction is bad, discussing slash, etc. It'll blow over like it always does.

(@ ptvjaime and others)

Regarding the staff starting to enforce more rules: I think house of cards. explained it rather well but I'll just add on. There was a point where Audrey was the only admin on Mibba, and I think it's unreasonable to think that she could have possibly enforced all of the (admin-related) rules then. Then Katie and I were promoted to admins and we've been working with Audrey ever since at finding ways to enforce the site rules. With three of us, the work load is spread out, and we can put our heads together to find the best way to do things on the site. Some rules weren't enforced previously because we didn't have the means on New Mibba, and now for some we have a temporary measure in place, such as sending stories that don't meet the basic requirements of spelling, grammar and capitalisation to the betas. Which couldn't have been done earlier because we didn't have betas, but now we've implemented that system on the site to help Mibbians too.

Requiring stories to be edited or deleted is the best system we can come up with, and it's helping to tidy up the site by making stories meet the minimum requirements. By all means, if you (or anyone else) has a serious issue with it, then either PM an admin to discuss it or post a suggestion on how to fix the system, and if it's possible and we agree, then it will be implemented. And that goes for any rule.

This is a continual process. Not too long ago we realised that a lot of blogs had bad capitalisation/spelling/grammar in them, so we did a site announcement to remind people that blogs need to contain proper capitalisation, etc, and then we told the blog mods to enforce it. That one was just a rule that had been forgotten about, but now the blogs section is getting tidied up and hopefully blogs are easier to read. The rules have always been there, it's just a matter of us finding the best (and possible) ways to enforce them.

Yeah. I did post a blog (and then removed it because I don't want drama) where I mentioned that I don't like a few of the rules at my university campus, but I respect that they are there for a reason and yeah, I need to follow them. I guess we just have to deal with stuff like that.

It's about the only way I can convince myself logging on is worth it some days, especially when I know that there's been a lot of drama overnight.

@ castiel's vessel
Bless you. Seriously. This is exactly what I was saying.

@ house of cards.
I understand not liking certain rules, but that doesn't mean that people have to react they way they do. Other people on this site don't like some of the rules either. They accept that they are, indeed, the rules and that if they want to be apart of this site, then they have to follow them. They're mature about it.

:/ That's no good... But at least you counter that by remembering the nice people!

Whenever I hear of people complaining that an editor has edited a title of theirs without informing them beforehand, I want to direct them to the Terms of Service because it says:

Quote:

You accept that the administrators, moderators and webmaster reserve the right to edit, move or delete any material posted on the site at any time should they find that appropriate. Additionally, you agree that the webmaster, administrators and moderators of the site have the right to use/edit/delete/openly display any information that was submitted and publicly revealed by the site users, without their consent. This includes editing of message board posts, as well as stories, reviews, comments, profile information and news submissions.

We ALL agreed to this when we signed up, even if we didn't read the rules, ToS or anything like that when we did. Just because it isn't read doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Staff and admin can't make people read the rules so it's not our fault when we enforce the rules only to have people complain because they didn't know they existed. When we signed up to this site, we agreed to follow any new rules that are put in place, so it doesn't matter if someone says "Oh, we're not going to enforce such-and-such rule" one week and then after a discussion that rule is put in place the following month because rules are pretty much collectively agreed upon in order to improve Mibba.

I did get angry at first because it really infuriated me that - in my eyes - people could be so insensitive. I was a kind of...I don't know, I've always been an angry person but then I realised that maybe it isn't insensitive as such, but more of a 'fuck you' to authority at points or just an opinion that someone had expressed that rubbed me the wrong way, neither of which are really the fault of the user or me, just something that happens. I just don't understand why you'd agree to the rules of a site and then express anger when they are reinforced though (which I've had a few times with titles - not so much grammar, no one has really got angry about it, just a few have expressed concern about the way it was done, which I'm cool with as long as it doesn't turn nasty at all). Surely when you join, you expect the rules to be enforced? I don't know, maybe I'm over-thinking everything and being a total jerk about it but that's just my opinion on the subject. I know that we don't enforce certain rules maybe as well as we should but I think any step towards enforcing those is a positive step.

I don't think it's as much as they don't realise that we're there to help than maybe they just don't like certain rules? I mean, I'll admit I don't like certain rules but I do appreciate that they are there for a reason. I know that maybe if you can't see behind-the-scenes, you can't see that reasoning and some of the rules do seem mundane and stupid, so I appreciate that. I just wish people wouldn't take that frustration out on us. I know we're in the right, I just hate feeling like we aren't sometimes. It makes me...I don't know, it kind of makes me loathe Mibba at points. Then I remember how many amazingly talented and lovely people are on here and I feel better instantly.

@ house of cards.
Hearing that you like this blog post makes me so happy! Every time I would see a blog fussing about the staff, I'd think of all the work I do and all the work that people who've been a staff member longer than me have done and just get so damn angry. That is a lot of work that we do because people can't properly read and follow the rules. They're fussing because of something that is their fault. I don't understand the rational thinking behind that and I probably won't, but...

I'm so sorry that people make you sad. I really am. I wish they would realize that we're put in place to help them, not harm them. Maybe that would clear away a lot of animosity people feel towards the staff. But we're doing the right thing and we're not in the wrong here, and don't let people make you feel like you are.

@ ptvjaime
The grammar rule was actually enforced back on old Mibba, when we had the original reporting system up and running - I only know that because one of my stories was reported (we are talking nearly five years ago now though) for having incorrect grammar pertaining to dialogue so from the get-go, it was enforced. Unfortunately, when we moved to New Mibba, we lost the old reporting system - I think it's a shame we did too, it worked so much better than the current setup and it kind of forced me to learn proper grammar which more than likely helped me pass my own English exam at school - and for a period of time, the rule wasn't enforced, I think partly due to not having a way of reinforcing it. Now we've got the betas to help out, maybe it's time to start reinforcing it again. I see so many people complaining about the quality of stories here on Mibba, so this will help alleviate those complaints. Of course, not everyone is going to be happy about the changes and that's okay - I like that Mibba allows for free speech within reason over these things because you get to see differing opinions on slightly delicate topics such as these - but personally, I believe that stuff always changes anyway so to me, it doesn't seem like as big a deal. It isn't that the staff are changing things for the worse anyway, just bringing back a semblance of the rule-enforcing that was there right from when we had the first reporting options on Old Mibba.

---

Bless this blog post though, seriously. It makes me so sad and angry to see all of the blogs slating the staff. I think some people tend to forget that every single staff member is a human being and seeing things written about how bad a job we're doing can be really degrading after a while. I try not to let these things get to me but when we're made out to be the bad guys for catering to a majority, I do let it get to me, and majorly. It just seems that, at the moment, the staff can't do anything right no matter how hard we try

(Apologies for any spelling errors, my iPad has ridiculous autocorrect tendencies)

Bless.This.Post.

@ ptvjaime
I don't know what you're talking about when you say 'from the get-go' (like what time frame), but I don't know if Mibba's rules have always been enforced as well as they are now. But if a staff member said that they weren't going to enforce a rule (which goes against what they are told to do), you should still follow it anyway because it is still a rule. Unless there is an official announcement made by one of the Admins, always follow all of the rules because they are still very relevant to the site.

Also, if I were you and had witnessed a member of staff saying that a certain rule wasn't going to be enforced, then I would've asked an Admin to be safe (and if it was an Admin who said it, then I would've asked another Admin about that rule).

I still stand by what I said, though. I think the Mibba staff do a phenomenal job and if anyone had any idea the bullshit and trouble they had to put up with, then I think Mibbian's would complain less and respect them more.

@ ptvjaime
Where have the staff said that they won't be enforcing some of the rules because I've never seen that anywhere before.

If staff and the admins had actually enforced this rule from the get-go, it would be one thing. That didn't happen. When I complained about a staff member fixing my story titles and yet no one seemed to care about grammar, I was told by staff they were not going to enforce the grammar rules in the story guidelines. I've seen multiple staff members say that multiple times in the forums. Rule or not, when staff tells you directly they are not going to enforce a rule, you believe them. I believed them. I was told they were not going to do it, and I let it go and even changed my way of thinking on the subject. So while everyone can say it's always been a rule, some of us know very well that they refused to enforce it and have now changed their minds for some reason. That's what makes me angriest. I can't trust staff on a website, any website, who say one thing and do another. Because that is exactly what has happened.

@ aubs
I was the same way before I was made a story editor, and I think it's one of those things that you don't know until you try it (if that makes any sense).

Usually I do bite my tongue and just go on about my business, but I saw something today that was just the final straw. The hate for staff has been going on for months and I just decided that I didn't care anymore. I'm going to stand up for myself and the other people, because we do a damn fine job at running this website and I don't give two shits if people get mad (but actually I was terrified that this would turn into even more drama).

@ newyorks;
Ah, so there are more rules than that? Well then... I had no idea.

But yeah, I've noticed people complaining about the staff a lot lately and it's weird and rude...

I used to be so afraid of the staff before I became an editor/ beta reader, and I was so afraid when someone reported me (back when we could see if we were reported or not), but as soon as I became part of the staff, I learned that the staff members are just regular members with a specific job on the website.

I do agree with you and everything that you said in this blog. When someone complains about the staff and the website itself, I just ignore them and just move on with my life. I mean, those users can have an opinion and can complain about whatever they want, but sometimes I just don't want to get involved with giving my own opinion about what they have complained about.