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I'd settle for a life less frightening.

So, as weve seen, Gaia is a city with its share of dark alleys and dank sewers. A place where you can find any perceivable fix for your gluttonous urges. Junkies on streetcorners in cold digital moonlight, peddling virtual a** and every half-imagined perversion.

"And no one notices the crumbling difference between wrong and right."

Now, i'm not exactly the poster child for clean living, celibacy, drug free, sober, and law abiding. Of course not. I just happen to see the difference between what's appropriate for Gaia, and what isn't. So do most of you. The difference between having fun, enjoying yourself, making friends, and the squalid perversion, the stupid, pointless crap, and the flaunted, intoxicated bullshit that ruined chatterbox and is slowly turning GD into the second coming of one of the worst shitholes on Gaia.

So, as I've said, where does that leave the mods? Does it leave them cowering in some hidden corner, wishing it all would just go away and never come back? Squealing like frightened children after daddy's drinking binge? Not always, there have been a few times where the mods collectively have been tempted to just stand up and shout "screw this" then ******** off to the pub for an hour or twelve. It's a very tempting proposition. The idea has circulated that Gaia should be modless for one week, so people can see the crap that we have to deal with daily. To watch the forums go right to hell, because they are all that stands between the difference.

Of course, if they were to do that, the public outcry of "power abuse" and "not doing their jobs" would increase to a roar of bloodlust, from the usual dull roar they hear. Because, like it or not, some people think the mods aren't doing anything. They think they sit around on their proverbial thrones, casting down judgement as from on high, and abusing the populace at a whim.

Not saying that some of this isn't earned.

There have been lies told, users abused, rules flagrantly ignored and broken. There are some mods who don't do their jobs. There are mods who are more concerned with dragging their personal problems into everyones lives, making gold, telling everyone else how to do their ******** jobs, then actually doing their jobs. This happens. The bad seeds of corruption drop everywhere. Which is why the mod schedule is so slow. The admins do their best to weed this out. To keep the mod force clean. To keep the protectors of Gaia on the straight and narrow. We've lost mods reletively recently because they didn't do their jobs. We've lost corrupt bastards who didn't care if they ******** over Gaia. I'm not weeping over their loss.

Yes, they managed to get on the team. Mistakes have been made. Does this mean we should generate a massive public outcry to have all the mods scrapped? ******** no. Because, quite frankly, we're talking a one percent ratio here. And burnout is high amongst them. The stress of dealing with thousands upon thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of threads, millions of posts. It eats at your soul. It wears you down. It beats you senseless, and takes your feelings apart. It's a hard ******** job. And it never ends. It just doesn't stop. So, some shellshock may occcur, and some mods may go bad after being pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and pushed. Pushed far enough to make some very bad choices.

Can we blame them? ******** yes, we can. Some people just don't know when to stop and take a breather. Or when to retire. Or when to step back, and let Gaia know exactly how they feel by writing an expose in their journal to show people just how ******** their world is. ninja Sometimes people just give in to weakness and do the worst thing possible. Sometimes, it feels like the only option.

"and my friends are all a mess, they're all a mess just like me."

So, what do we do? What does Gaia do, to keep this s**t from happening? What do we all do to keep GD from turning into crap? What do we do to keep chatterbox under control? What do we do?

Well, without pulling a proverbial cristalnacht on chatterbox and GD.

Do we start a cull, and let the mods have access to the armory of banhammers, and unleash them en masse on chatterbox and GD, enforcing the rules with blood and venom and hate? Do we sweep the forums clean on a regular basis, just wipe all the threads out in a biblical flood? Or do we let it all just burn? Sit back and watch the flames from chatterbox, and Gd, and wherever it all goes from there. Just smile on the happy way to hell.

Or, do we change the rules of the game? Change the way the game is played. Make it enforced that enouragement will get you banned. Up the stakes in GD and chatterbox. Give reason to report, other than helping the site you've joined. Make a reporting a gold giver? Of course, that could lead to report abuse, but that's allright, since report abuse is bannable anyways. ******** em' if they don't do it right. They can get the ******** out. Tell people in GD what DISCUSSION ******** means. Up the mod force, and give them knives. Let spammers, trolls, flamers, and jackasses beware. ******** about in GD or chatterbox is a banning. No warnings, no crap, you ******** around, you're banned. You post in a thread that is blatant trolling, crap, spam, or any other perceivable bullshit.. and you're ******** too.

Sure, it sounds harsh. It is harsh. Why else would I take you all on a walk through the cesspools and gutters of Gaia? To show you just how harsh this system needs to be to keep these bastards in check. To show you how hard the rules need to be, and how tough the enforcers need to be to keep this crap in check. To show you that it's not the mods to blame for every indescretion and rule violation. That it's not the mods fault that parts of Gaia degrade every day. To show you that the users who live in these areas are solely responsible for the state of their homes. To show you that something needs to be done, because it's right outside your forum. It's right outside our door. It lives just down the street. It lives inside the slums. The places you fear to tread.

To show you that it's scary as all hell.

To show you that hiding in your home forums acheives nothing.

To show you that not everything is wonderful and pretty and full of extended discussion.

To show you these slums.

To show you what people buy with their silence.