UESP Forums

This thread is for the purpose of forum members asking moderators specific questions about the forums and how it's moderated, as well as themselves and how they make decisions etc.. Please stick on-topic, this thread isn't about asking mods personal questions, do this via PMs.

For the members: Keep the questions on the topic of this site, its rules, and how the moderators handle them and view them, this is not meant to be a discussion thread, let's keep this neat; so if you want to know more about a moderators answer or discuss it, PM them! Alternatively if you feel it will be constructive post a new question that requires a more in-depth answer.
--Remember to note the Mod or Mods you are asking the question to

For the moderators: For the sake of keeping the thread neat und tidy, put the answers in a spoiler tag under the questioner's name and use a nice basic format, example below:

Jane Doe:

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These are my basic questions, which I'm sure would be of interest to the community you duly serve. None are specific to anyone, I'd like it if you each answered the questions for yourselves. So, here they are:

Who are you? Argonanza, forum member, tea party mod, and father of 34,000.

Why did you become a moderator? Avron asked me and I said yes without blinking. I guess I thought it would be cool to have powers. I also like to be helpful.

Do you enjoy what you're doing here? Yes. Sometimes I feel like a big [censored], but mostly I'm just happy to help.

What do you hope to do for UESP? To steer her (yes, the forum is a she) past hard times such as Skyrim's release and to make sure that we don't make a turn for the worse.

What is your take on how the forums should be treated? Whip and carrot. Spam? Whip it away! Intelligent discussion? Nurture it with a carrot. Bad attitude? Whip it away! Fun and friendship? Carrot.

Where do you see UESP going in the future? Only God knows what'll happen when Skyrim comes out. Hopefully, after the member-boom, we'll end up better than ever.

What do you like most about UESP? All the nice members and the great atmosphere.


Sorry if it's a bit concise, but I am a crude simpleton.

Who are you? --- No one ever told me. Like Aldous Huxley, I mostly feel like an observer - photographer by profession.
Why did you become a moderator? --- Leilah asked me, Caz kicked me, and Ratwar made me.
Do you enjoy what you're doing here? --- Mostly yes. Not always. But I've never liked anything all the time.
What do you hope to do for UESP? --- What a question. Good - is that an answer? It does mean good for members, ok? I guess...
What is your take on how the forums should be treated? --- In no way, actually. Forums are treated by members, and they usually treat the forums well. There's no "from above" directing here, moderators are merely trying to reduce the negative, and support the positive. Negative is something going against other members, positive is something going for them. Bots and trolls are another matter, I simply suggest we nuke them.
Where do you see UESP going in the future? --- Hopefully, with the release of Skyrim, it will go towards the games, where it was with the release of Oblivion. I think there's too much general nonsense right now.
What do you like most about UESP? --- The same as there was when I joined: A sense of warmth I haven't experienced elsewhere - and I have participated in three mod projects, about to go for the fourth, and not exactly being a kid, I have taken part in other groups too. But there's just "something" UESP has, one gets this tingling in the toes...

Who are you? Generalno1, Guy who did not start posting proper till a year after he joined, Forumite, and General nice guy.

Why did you become a moderator? To help people out, Feels good to make a change.
Do you enjoy what you're doing here? I enjoy when i do a good job.

What do you hope to do for UESP? Make it a better place, Make it a place people can just talk about Es and General things.

What is your take on how the forums should be treated? Helped along, till everyone's satisfied.mostly me

Where do you see UESP going in the future? hopefully, a better place, but who am i to foresee all variables?

What do you like most about UESP? People, what's a forum other than the people anyway?

Who are you? - I am Avron, of course. Off the forums I am a geek with a degree in linguistics, who reads far too many books and says too many silly things.

Why did you become a moderator? - I was asked very nicely by Andere, but I said "Yes!" because I thought it was a great chance to give back to the forums that I came to really enjoy. The moderators were always very nice and helpful to me, and I wanted to give back and serve UESP!

Do you enjoy what you're doing here? - Oh, absolutely. Sometimes it is hard, and some days - a lot of days - I worry that I am not a good moderator and that no one is happy with what I try to do. But at the end of the day I put a smile on my face and like what I am doing...challenges and all!

What do you hope to do for UESP? - I am not entirely sure yet, to be honest. I only know that I am here to do the best for UESP and what members want. As for the rest, I must figure it out.

What is your take on how the forums should be treated? - My policy for moderating, as I've told some of you, is, "My patience is infinite, but my tolerance is not." The hard part about moderating is knowing when to be kind and when to be firm. I try to keep an open head and an open heart, and hopefully that is good...even though sometimes I must be stern.

Where do you see UESP going in the future? - To great, great places...and to Skyrim, of course.

What do you like most about UESP? - The members, of course. This is one of the friendliest places on the net. Now that I've been able to get to know many of you better and have made several real, dear friends, I know I can never leave. It is not moderators or rules who make a community: it is the members. I hope that when you are all feeling down and that the forums are falling apart, you never forget that.

Who are you? I am many things. If I were to try to explain myself here, it would become a long textwall. I'll just sum it up with"writer"
Why did you become a moderator?
I was asked by Leilah and Caz to become a moderator after a few posts during the old crisis and some comments from members suggesting that I should be one. I had originally only agreed to become a TPM but the others seem to think I was better as a greenie. Imagine how different things would be if I were a TPM as originally planned.
Do you enjoy what you're doing here?
Of course I do. This is the best volunteer job I've ever done. That's saying a lot considering that I have over 200 hours of feeding homeless people. >.>
What do you hope to do for UESP?
I hope to keep this place as clean as possible and to perhaps create a small and organized niche of writers that discuss things with other and give each other advice without fear of flaming or anything else. So far, so good.
What is your take on how the forums should be treated?
We must adapt to every new change of this era. The forums are not the way they used to be in 2006-8. Things go by much more rapidly now and we have to be on the edge of our seat ready to grab the hammer whenever necessary. We must also be just and fair.
Where do you see UESP going in the future?
I see the UESP surviving as long TES survives. This site is immortal so long as its energy and reason for being never die.
What do you like most about UESP?
The people. That is all I need to say.

Who are you? Well, I'm Tom. 17, Male, UK. Been away for a while under some, let's say, unpleasant circumstances, but I've put that behind me now and I hope above all hopes that everyone else has too. Also been avoiding this post for a while because I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but I've decided that I might as well make my views known. Keeping them to myself isn't going to do my health any good, and you'll see why.

Why did you become a moderator? Because I was asked to become one. January of this year, I think it was.

Do you enjoy what you're doing here? At times. It's great cleaning out the trash, making people feel safer, but that's really the only part that's different from being a normal member. I find it difficult to be stern at times, so when I do warn people please know that it's because I have to in order to keep this place flowing. It isn't personal. I go by the mantra 'member first, mod second', which means that most of the enjoyment comes out of simply being able to be among this community, while the moderator side of it gives me some sense of being able to give something back. Sort of like volunteer work at an organisation you respect.

What do you hope to do for UESP? To be honest, I haven't thought that far ahead. I'd like to change some of the emphasis on the general banter forum back into the games and arts forums, and I'm sort of hoping that Skyrim will take some of the load off the place. Other than that I'm going to try and keep this place as tidy as I can without treading on more toes that I have to.

What is your take on how the forums should be treated? While my viewpoint on this is oft disagreed with, I still feel that the majority of the community does moderate themselves, in a sense. We're lucky enough to have a group of people who mostly think before they post and don't deliberately try to insult anyone else. That said, there needs to be more of a crackdown on the General Discussion thread. It used to be called the Offtopic thread for a reason, because it was where you'd go to have a conversation about a subject that you were aching to have in another topic but couldn't. Call me an oldfag all you want, but that's the vision I've always had and it's the vision I want to return to.

Where do you see UESP going in the future? Um, Australia? That's where I'm going, and it's sure as hell coming with me. For the forums, well, my own long-term goal is to see a bit more dialogue and action in terms of how decisions are made. I'm going to start now by always taking action whenever immediate concerns are raised. We often won't have time to discuss everything and someone needs to get it done. If that means going against some opinions because it's taking too long for them to be voiced, then I say that's an excusable sacrifice and a very different method to that which we have now.

What do you like most about UESP? I came for the games and I stayed for the people.

I don't know how the other moderators feel, but I, having the LOOT in my backyard, am going to say no, mostly because I have said a dozen times what Tom has said above:


Again, that thread isn't your chat room, but where off topic conversations are supposed to be taken. The problem isn't that it's "abused," because I like that everyone is being so friendly and even I need a place to go to be silly; it's that I do not think people really listen to what I - or the other moderators say - about that thread, or threads in general. It is tiresome to be ignored, isn't it, and why would I want to make more work for myself?

But UESP has a long future ahead of itself. Who knows what it holds!

OP/Topic updated as per request, this is now a thread for general questions to moderators from members. (Read the OP before posting your questions!)

Who are you? - I'm Matt. Just a person who was chosen to be a moderator, and trying to be as useful as possible. I'm also a writer in my spare time, but most of my writings don't go online.

Why did you become a moderator? - In about the last three seconds before Ratwar made everyone else moderators, Andere, Cam and General shouted "Wait" and chose my name out of a hat. Or something very close to that.

Do you enjoy what you're doing here? - Of course. Not only do I help keep the forums nice, but it's a great community and I enjoy posting wherever I do.

What do you hope to do for UESP? - I hope to stay here a while, and make the UESP forums seem like a safe haven compared to those other forums.

What is your take on how the forums should be treated? - Anything that is not acceptable should be removed. That's my policy, but everything else is to be treated with respect.

Where do you see UESP going in the future? - Chaos, with Skyrim. But after that, it will be the same place, but bigger!

What do you like most about UESP? - What's not to like?