'I guess she figured the single twentysomething who dresses up like cartoon characters was the most stable member of her family.' by Kara
Monday, February 2, 2009 at 9:31 AM

I would love to tell you about work some ... rather, not work per se, but something your lovely editor and forum moderator is having to deal with during work hours. Because it counts as work.

The site I work for has a set of galleries where readers can upload photos of like their babies, pets, vacation snape, etc. Other readers vote on their favourites, and the 'winners' as the month goes on get displayed on the front page. Now, let me explain first that there are no prizes for this contest. It's just (meant to be) a fun little community-type thing. People vote and comment, there are more page views, ad revenue goes up, Kara-chan gets paycheque. Some are of the opinion that, as even angry comments mean there are page views. It just annoys the fsck outta me.

Especially since accusations have been flying about cheating because people are getting votes too quickly. So I'm having to moderate the reader comments for profanity (boy, those grandmas have mouths on 'em), any actual abuse, etc.

We also have a form where people can report 'abuse,' i.e. if someone's uploading dirty pictures, using the space for advertising, etc. Well, these angry mothers (I use that in every sense of the phrase) have started using the abuse forms to report pictures they believe are cheating. So now I have to go in and restore all these photos. I'm getting rather sick of this, as I'm covering extra work for the foreseeable future while one of our other three editors (that includes me) is in hospital.

I am working on something to replace all abusive comments with. I dunno if I oughta do this, or if it'll even matter. Ideally, I would put a note under each picture and above each comment thread. Here's what I've got so far. Tell me what you think.

To our readers:

Over the past few weeks, our forum moderators have watched fights breaking out in the user comments, as well as misuse of the abuse forms to report alleged cheating. Please cease this faggotry at once. Until such time as this ceases, or until the editors can put a better filter in place, all comments will be vetted and monitored. You're giving me too much work to do and I fucking hate you all. As this is causing more work for our editors, if this does not change soon, user comments for all photos WILL BE DISABLED. Thank you for your cooperation.

The second thing on my list will be asking the web guy if he can lock down comments on the pictures. Not bloody likely.

I can dream.

If you have been, you wouldn't like me when I'm ... hungry.