A Thankless Task

[shanmonster]

I am a moderator on the bellydancing community, and my duties, although not terribly exciting, are useful, nonetheless. I delete spam, categorize posts for posterity, and, when someone makes a post about an upcoming event, make sure the city, state/province, and country is listed in their subject line. The community is huge and international in scope, so this last duty is a matter of convenience and politeness to others in the group.

Most of the people who neglect to include this information do it out of oversight. When someone makes a post to the effect of "Cool event in London" or "Workshop at the Lion's Club," I take it upon myself to get more specific information listed.

Theoretically, such posts are supposed to be deleted right away, but that's too draconian for me. Instead, I follow up with a message saying "Please include city, state/province, and country in the subject line." Typically, the poster rectifies this right away. I give the poster a day or two to fix their post, and have only deleted one post over the past few months.

But today someone took my request very personally.

Her post started with how excited she was that she was going to act as a personal attendant to a well-known dancer. She then included details on the workshop after a cut, but included no subject line. So I dutifully shot off my standard message.

She replied with "Sorry that must be a new rule. Had not noticed it in other entries. Will fix it up pronto. Thanks for sharing my excitement!!!"

I said, "It's been in effect for a couple of months, now. I'm the hard-ass who nails people for infractions! Heh..." I was keeping it light in tone, because really, it's no big deal, right?

But her next responses caught me off-guard. I was accused of sucking the joy out of the occasion and not reading the post. I wrote back, "It was never my intention to suck joy out of anything. I'm glad you're going to be able to go to this event! Really, I am."

And that's when she fired off one last salvo before deleting the whole thing.

Yeah I'm just taking it down. The post was about the fact that I am picking them up and excited to actually meet them and talk to them, not about going to some event. The fact that I have to explain that means you didn't even read it, just assumed it was an event annoucement. Which probably means other people won't read it either.

Enjoy monitoring your community. You are obviously doing a great job of it.

What inspires people to assume such negativity? What makes them so very spiteful? I am so very glad I am not as easily hurt or offended as this poor woman. It must really suck to think the world is out to shit on all your parades.

Edit: Good lord. She has also removed herself from the community.

Comments

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

What makes them so very spiteful?

Probably dealing with such horrible, awful people as yourself.

*eyeroll*

Christ.

As a listmom for a group that's been around since the late 90s, I feel your pain. And I appreciate your efforts. Thank you.

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

A lot of belly dancers have "self-righteous indignant snit" as their default setting. Present company excepted, of course.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Your icon wins.

[tupelo.livejournal.com]

You win for getting the humor! I reserve my sultry harem girl for comments poking at the snitwit belly dancers.

[hayet.livejournal.com]

ME me me!! it's all about MEEE!!!

oh, wait, it isn't?! YOU meanie, I'm deleting myself forever!!! Goodbye crewel world!!!

Good riddance to eternal victims, is all's I gotta say.

[sidruid.livejournal.com]

oy, she took her ball and went home, eh?
I just had a situation like that, too (which i won't get into, i'll just sympathize with you).

Some people have low self esteem and are patiently waiting for any hint from another to re-enforce that perception. They then decide they are better than said hinter, get in huff, hold up their petticoats and march off.

[real-bethy.livejournal.com]

Oy! Sounds like the community is better off without her! So long, whiny little brat! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!:)

[sageincave.livejournal.com]

"Yeah I'm just taking it down. The post was about the fact that I am picking them up and excited to actually meet them and talk to them, not about going to some event. The fact that I have to explain that means you didn't even read it, just assumed it was an event annoucement. Which probably means other people won't read it either."

What an incredibly flawed attempt at logic.

I hope she still has the emotional reserves left to actually enjoy the big event/occasion! Exactly how much of her joy did you suck, Shan?

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Every last bit. I am a joypire, and now my happiness knows no bounds!

[sasha-khan.livejournal.com]

I'b glad I'm not a mod there - then we'd have whinging that I was 'part of the patriarchy keeping the Sisterhood down...', as happened in other dance forums.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Yikes!

That's another of my pet peeves, actually. Sisterhood, schmisterhood.

[silverfae.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your efforts at that. One of my pet peeves is seeing a post with "sooper doooper event/show going on now!" and having no fuggin idea where it is until I have to click past some long ass post or massive pix.

Methinks the real reason someone got pissy is because someone didn't get the point of the post was merely bragging on being close to some Sooopahstah!

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

And yeah, maybe ignored bragging rights was the reason for the snit...

[miami-pony.livejournal.com]

Holy fuck Shan.. you really did it this time. Now her vagina is totally going to attack you. Seriously! Have you ever been attacked by a spiteful vagina? I have, and it is not pleasant. I'd say I have scars from all the times it's happened, but thankfully very few vaginas have teeth and/or wield sharp objects.. Ok, relatively few. I just learned to always show them respect.

I'm all about respect, dontchaknow.