eclectica
2004-10-31, 07:37
Mistakes made as an administrator fall into two types: mistakes of judgement, and technical mistakes. Mistakes are not to be seen in a black and white view, but instead there are shades of grey when you consider that mistakes you ended up regretting were also liberating. So here are the mistakes I've made on the board.
I'll start with the technical ones. One time more than a year ago I left the bulletin board turned off after doing a routine backup, and the forum was offline for about nine hours. Fortunately for me when I woke up the next morning I immediately remembered, and turned it back on. The newer version of vBulletin, version 3, gives you a visible warning when you turn off the board so it's harder to accidentally leave it off. Often after I turn on the board I worry later if I had forgotten to turn it back on because I don't remember doing so. It's like leaving your house or your car and wondering if you forgot to lock your door.
I made most technical mistakes as the new admin of The Real Underground in April 2003. At first I had problem with the links and people couldn't register to the board because the email validation wasn't working. Also I didn't run the old script used with vBulletin 2 called repair.php properly. I had a shitty webhoster that dropped the site after a month so I had to move the forum to another webhoster, and had trouble doing that. But that mistake was also liberating because I dropped The Real Underground and built The Inferno instead.
The two biggest mistakes I made in judgement were as follows on this board:
1. The removal of slx from being Super Moderator 2004-08-09. This to me was the biggest mistake I ever made here. Afterwards I hated myself and was angry at myself for doing that and felt like I was treating slx like a toy of mine that I discarded. I'm fortunate he came back on August 13 and accepted the position again. You can see this thread here for the details on that:
http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=655
2. Deleting approximately 1700 of tim's posts on 2004-09-10. This one I have mixed feelings on. If given the choice now I wouldn't delete those posts, but it was also liberating to do so. You can read this thread for the details on that:
http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=575
I'll start with the technical ones. One time more than a year ago I left the bulletin board turned off after doing a routine backup, and the forum was offline for about nine hours. Fortunately for me when I woke up the next morning I immediately remembered, and turned it back on. The newer version of vBulletin, version 3, gives you a visible warning when you turn off the board so it's harder to accidentally leave it off. Often after I turn on the board I worry later if I had forgotten to turn it back on because I don't remember doing so. It's like leaving your house or your car and wondering if you forgot to lock your door.
I made most technical mistakes as the new admin of The Real Underground in April 2003. At first I had problem with the links and people couldn't register to the board because the email validation wasn't working. Also I didn't run the old script used with vBulletin 2 called repair.php properly. I had a shitty webhoster that dropped the site after a month so I had to move the forum to another webhoster, and had trouble doing that. But that mistake was also liberating because I dropped The Real Underground and built The Inferno instead.
The two biggest mistakes I made in judgement were as follows on this board:
1. The removal of slx from being Super Moderator 2004-08-09. This to me was the biggest mistake I ever made here. Afterwards I hated myself and was angry at myself for doing that and felt like I was treating slx like a toy of mine that I discarded. I'm fortunate he came back on August 13 and accepted the position again. You can see this thread here for the details on that:
http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=655
2. Deleting approximately 1700 of tim's posts on 2004-09-10. This one I have mixed feelings on. If given the choice now I wouldn't delete those posts, but it was also liberating to do so. You can read this thread for the details on that:
http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=575