Hello. This is a subject in Speedrunning that I take seriously that I want to address to as many people as I possibly can.
Mod farming is the collection of moderator roles for games that either doesn’t need it or are requested by a user who hasn’t done anything for the community at all. These are not to be confused with people who just have a lot of mod roles because of either series moderation or community interaction. This is an issue that has been prevalent recently on the site. A lot people may dismiss this as not a major problem, but I beg to differ. I was one of these mod farmers, most likely the biggest one on the site. Let me explain what happened to me and why you should not do this.
It was around February to March of this year. Another mod farmer who I won’t state their name went inactive. Me and a couple other people who also will remain nameless started to mass request moderator for games just for mod roles. One of my friends at the time found out I was doing this. I would constantly just request mod for any game I could, any game I wanted. When they found this out, we had a falling out. It ended up me being blocked by them on everything and ruining our friendship. I kept doing this though. I would request anything I found and would ask tons of people, trade mod roles, do anything for more. One of my friends left moderation and I went in full force demanding mod roles. I would request any game I found in any series I could. My social life was starting to fall apart around this time. I would barely interact with people at school, I wouldn’t do school work, I would ditch class constantly to check if I got any more mod roles, I even failed a class last semester because of this. Today was my breaking point. I got banned from moderation because of farming mod roles. I took this out harshly on my friends, then later they all blocked contact with me. Also I was ineligible to do any in real life activities that I did with my school do to farming. I realized that this was an addiction, and that it needed to stop right that instant. I caused so much drama over a meaningless statistic. I ended up leaving around 60% of the games I moderated. The games and series I moderate now I am heavily involved with their communities, but I might even leave some of them aswell. I have made up with one of the friends I had drama with but the other 2 are still blocking me and don’t have signs of ever unblocking.
If you are currently mod farming PLEASE stop doing it. It doesn’t make you look cool or make you seem popular, it makes you look like a bafoon, a hog who has nothing but power on their mind. You don’t want be like this, it’s awful, and I wish I knew earlier. I lost most of my friends and things I cared about because of this. It’s a meaningless statistic at the end of the day, and because of this statistic, I lost tons of stuff I cared about. You are wasting your life on something that doesn’t matter and no one cares about.
Please take this seriously, you shouldn’t do this.
As brash as this sounds: it is the story of an addict. I hope this doesn't sound too judgemental, it is just as it is. I think it is cool that you can come forth and write about it. I hope it helps you deal with the situation in a better way.
I am happy for you that you found an exit of your addiction (actually it sounds like you were kicked out of it). Also I'm happy for you that your addiction just manifested in this form and not on drugs or other dangerous forms which could not only ruin your social surrounding but also your health. What I want to advice you: Don't feel too bad for this experience, accept what happened and learn from it. I hope you don't fall back in a different kind of addiction, as often addiction can be a way to escape something. I wish you the best that your social relations recover and that you can be happy. :)
[QUOTE=Reni] The games and series I moderate now I am heavily involved with their communities [/QUOTE] Not to be that guy, but according to your profile you still mod 102 games.
It's good to see that you've recognised your behaviour though. While it was never to the extent that you did it, I remember I did similar things when I first joined this site, frequently requesting random mobile games from the App Store just so I could look cool or important or something. I have since left moderating all of them (except Timberman because I actually play that game). I think this kind of behaviour is relatively normal in new younger (as in age) speedrunners.
Social media and the internet is a cancer if not properly contained. Don't let it affect your personal life. People on the internet are in most cases just text on a screen and you shouldn't hesitate to just block us all out and focus on the real world.
Edit: Fixed typo
I’m glad that you came to this realization, mod farming is bad. However, I can’t imagine how much effort you put into verifying runs. I have 50 pending right now, and it is hard to keep up. Somehow I always do, but I cant imagine how you felt.
Well, I'm glad this behaviour has come to an end, especially that the situation is not coming to another down spiral abyss of addiction, well thank you for sharing this as you are brave enough to post about it and we as fellow users can take note for ourselves and be a more civil community as a whole. Thank you :>
@Jumpyluff you should do those things if somebody doesnt come clean. doing it after it is like kicking somebody on the ground. shit move seriosly.
@survivalmichi i dont think that's a shit move in the slightest. reni said it's a bad thing to do and advises to not follow in their footsteps. jumpyluff just shows what they did when they were just looking for mod status so that type behavior is slightly more obvious/transparent. they're both in agreement and that's totally fine.
I'm not sure how you'd be okay with me showing it if they don't come clean. I said thanks in advance because I didn't plan on following up on it and thanking him later. I'm not this dude's babysitter. You don't see it in the screenshots, but I had messages from him dating back to October. It was outrageously frustrating to interact with a person who I called out to his face what he was doing in private only to be met with a lie (even only about a week ago, mind you!). I don't want to go into a new conversation with a new person in the future and have some doubt in the back of my head or feeling like I shouldn't default to trusting them automatically. That's a new perspective I already carry into some situations. Probably not fully due to this guy specifically, but people like him. Being a bad person is harmful to yourself and to others.
Also there's way more in here than there needs to be for a sticky