whats the difference between the these? theres also a 3rd kind of moderator that i cannot remember, also whats a forum enforcer?

Site moderators are moderators of the encyclopedia, global moderators are moderators of both the encyclopedia and the board.

ok so site moderators just moderate the site then, whats a forum enforcer then?

Well actually site moderators do have some power on the board, just not as much as the global moderators. A forum enforcer is a moderator that moderates the board but not the site.

then whats the difference between a forum enforcer and a forum moderator? are they people who are going to become moderators? do forum enforcers have as much power as forum moderators?

A forum moderator (just like the global moderator) is a moderator on both the site and forum, but global moderators are higher up on the site than forum moderators. I think the difference between forum moderators and forum enforcers is that the "forum moderators" moderate the site but the "forum enforcers" don't. I think the moderators and enforcers do have equal power on the forums, but don't quote me on that.

The mods that have their username colored red are able to lock topics/forums (never saw the latter done) and I think ban users from the forums, not the site.

You can ask any of them if you would like.

Nah, I don't think mods with this colour can ban people from the forums, I think they can only lock/unlock/post in locked topics. I remember Alhadis being surprised a user hadn't been banned from the forums, so if he'd have been able to ban users he'd have probably done it. I think it's only this colour that can, maybe a mod will clarify this.

We may look into the way we manage moderators, especially on the forums. I can see in this thread it's already a headache.

But for the time being, this is the most relevant information:

On The Site

Metal Gods
These folks are the chief administrators on the site; they have all the abilities of a "Metal Lord" + the ability to change rank/ban on the site/etc. They tend to be the chief policy-makers/decision-makers on MA.
Azmodes, Derigin, Evenfiel, HellBlazer*, Morrigan*, Napero, Nightgaunt.
* Morrigan and HellBlazer are the owners. They handle all finances and site programming, and have final say on everything, but as a user always differ to another mod before them!

Metal Lords
These folks are the standard moderators on the site; they have the ability to edit all the band info on the site + the ability to make individual decisions on any factor related to the site.
Abominatrix, Alhadis, Argus Monitor, BastardHead, Caliginosity, Corimngul, Crick, Demeneken, Dexter, Doomsday, emperor_zola, failsafeman, Fulgurius, GuntherTheUndying, Gutterscream, GVOLTT, Helvede, MacMoney, Metantoine, MMisantropo, ORTAB, OpsiusCato, PiotrB, Porman, Radagast, Sciera, Stormrider, The_Internet, Uncolored, UndeadIdiot.

On The Forum

Administrators
These folks are the ones able to access (nearly) all features of the forum's "Admin Panel." They are the forum's programmers and designers; that's all this position signifies.
HellBlazer, Morrigan, Derigin.

Global Moderators
These folks are moderators of ALL forums + they have some "Admin Panel," abilities, namely to change rank, set titles, and edit user permissions. They can also ban.
HellBlazer, Morrigan, Nightgaunt, Napero, Derigin, Azmodes.

Forum Moderators
In addition to "Global Moderators," these folks are moderators of ALL forums without "Admin Panel" access. They can also ban.
MMisantropo, failsafeman, ORTAB, Metantoine.

Forum Enforcers
These folks are moderators for specific, individual forums.
invocator2k (Trading Board), Zodijackyl (Musician's Board)

Site Moderators
These folks are staff on the site that are not forum moderators; this category is used mainly to give them recognition here. Site Moderators can do minor moderator activities (closing threads, etc.) in this forum only.
Abominatrix, Alhadis, Argus Monitor, BastardHead, Caliginosity, Corimngul, Crick, Demeneken, Dexter, Doomsday, emperor_zola, Evenfiel, Fulgurius, GuntherTheUndying, Gutterscream, GVOLTT, Helvede, MacMoney, OpsiusCato, PiotrB, Porman, Radagast, Sciera, Stormrider, The_Internet, Uncolored, UndeadIdiot.

Some Important Notes:
Esoteric's name will occasionally pop up in the forum moderator list. This is done out of respect. He was instrumental in the site's early history, but has long since retired.
Evenfiel is not a moderator on the forums, but is an administrator on the site. He is the only "Metal God" who chose this.
Forum Enforcers are not site mods. They are strictly forum moderators. The rest of the staff have the ability to work on the site as moderators or administrators.

I think you forgot Azmodes in the "on the forum"-section.

And you put failsafeman in the list of site moderators...

Errors corrected.

I think I'll talk to Morri/HB about a forum rank revamp.

Housespiders for mod.

He is a site moderator as well (handling the reviews), maybe you should start talking about stuff you know, eh?

If you guys wanna know who's the mods in the chat, let us know

Okay. I would like to say thanks to Derigin for putting that amount of work into that list, it was great. Keep up the good work you've been doing on the site.


Nah. This might (or might not) happen in a few years, but certainly not for now. I want to reach the rank of Metal Demon first and I'd also like to get to understand the site a bit better before I do become one. But hey, thanks for making that suggestion!

Yes he is, but the ones on the site moderators list Derigin made were the mods that aren't in any other usergroups on the forum (eg. forum enforcers, global moderators etc) and failsafeman is one of the forum moderators.


I wanna know!!

Failsafeman has the same job I have, site + forum mod, this is a bit confusing like derigin said

Operators on the chat: Hellblazer, Morrigan, Napero, Nightgaunt, Ortab, Failsafeman, Me, + Iggnsthe and DeathFog

And DERIGIN!!!

Derigin: You should add those descriptions as the "Group descriptions" so they are displayed when anyone clicks on the group link. They're quite helpful and should be more visible

You forgot about me again, Tony. You're terrible.

Because you know you're deep down in my heart and I already give you enough lovin'

Excuses! Stop waking up at 2pm

well, thanks for all the info; it gets confusing trying to figure out "Who did what." And of course, thanks to everyone who helps run this site- I spend a lot of time browsing it (both the forum and the main site) and I appreciate all the work people do!

But with that said, what happened to Witcher and the Phantom OTO? I remember Witcher used to be in charge of judging whether a band qualified for the site or not (kinda like what Azmodes does now), and the Phantom used to have the job policing the forums that Tony took over. If that is a sore subject, then I apologize for touching a nerve. Just wondering- again, thanks to ALL of them for the hard work they put into it.

Witcher didn't die, did he? I never met him, but it's kinda weird that he just abruptly stopped approving bands (from his modification history).

Well, first a few things about moderation on the site/forums.

No moderator ever has a single "duty" on the site; so there's no such thing as being "in-charge" of the band queue, or being the "policeman" of the forums. All moderators who have the ability to moderate the site can work on the band queue if they like, ditto with the reports queue and the review queue. Nothing stops them from doing that. The same is true for all those mods listed as being able to moderate all the forums; they're all able to do that. Truthfully, there are some mods who choose to do certain activities more than others, and it's also true that such individuals (when they dominate their activity of choice) can be seen as the person "in charge" of that duty, even though in reality he or she is no different than any other moderator.

The latter was the case of Witcher. Witcher worked almost exclusively on the band queue. He was also one of our users/mods who would spend an almost incomprehensible time working on the band queue on a daily basis. He dominated the band queue in large part because it became nearly impossible for any other mod to work on it; by the time they would check the queue the band queue would be practically empty. It still happens that some moderators do spend most of their time focusing on one activity as their main activity of moderation, but it is rare nowadays for that to be the case where a single mod dominates a queue. The band queue seems to be purview of a team of mods; the reports queue is much the same; and the review queue while formerly dominated by Napero and I has moved onto other mods, particularly BastardHead and Tony. There are still dozens of mods who will work on the queues at any given time. The same is true to some extent with forum moderation, though there's actually plenty of mods who moderate the forums. Perhaps Tony is just the most apparent of them all, at present.

Now, going back to Witcher... why did he go absent? We don't know. His absence roughly coincides with the release of V2, so it may just be that he never became accustomed to the way V2 operated (it was a significant change to the way we would moderate in V1), or might have felt that it was a good time as any to go absent. It's also entirely possible that his offline life caught up with him, and he has opted to focus more time on that for whatever reason. And then there's the possibility he might have simply gotten so frustrated with users that he slowly lost interest and hasn't been back. For whatever reason, we wish him well in his current endeavors.

As far as deaths among staff, there's none that we know of, at least at present. No indication has been given to us one way or another on that. That said, there have been users here who have passed, and some who were rather close to current staff. The most notable in my mind being this fellow, who passed tragically a number of years ago. With a community as large as this is, I wouldn't doubt he is not alone.

About PhantomOTO, he left the site and the chat and he was demodded for this reason, I think he lost the interest.

I'm surprised the mods didn't lock this thread yet.

...so you decided to use thread necromancy and make us do it? Brilliant. Also, moronic.