Originally published about a decade ago, but still just as true today, if not moreso. “Living well is the best revenge.”<\/i><\/p>\n
From 1988 until 1994, I was a SysOp (old-fashioned term for \u201cModerator\u201d) on Genie. Most of you are too young, or too new to high tech even to remember Genie, but for a while there it was a hot competitor of CompuServe, back before there was such a thing as Prodigy or AOL or Earthlink, and long before the days of DSL. (I won\u2019t bore you with those old sob stories about how we chatted on an ASCII text based system at 300 baud and thought it was blazingly fast, or how in the early days of \u201cchat\u201d on CompuServe, it was called \u201cCB\u201d to make clear the similarity to Citizen\u2019s Band Radio, which had been all the rage not so very long before that…)<\/p>\n
I was a Senior Assistant in the Writers\u2019 Ink RoundTable. Writing.com is the closest thing I\u2019ve found to such a warm, funny, serious, playful, supportive, argumentative, kind, snide, silly, close-knit community of writers online since Writers\u2019 Ink. It even has the same hierarchy of newbies, old timers, Assistant SysOps, Senior Assistant SysOps, and Head Cheeses (not to be confused with head cheese, most of the time).<\/p>\n
This was an unpaid and thankless job, much like I assume being a moderator anywhere is, and mostly a labor of love and addiction. I had assistants reporting to me, and I assure you they were paid every bit as well as I. For the most part, we had a blast interacting with the members of the RoundTable (or \u201cRT\u201d as I shall call it henceforth, to save typing). We ran writing workshops, held online conferences with famous authors (including Anne McCaffrey, Tom Clancy, and Michael Crichton, just to name a few), and we posted endless messages about writing and not writing and ways to avoid both. For kicks on a boring Saturday night, we\u2019d play the online version of \u201cTruth or Dare.\u201d Dares often involved such things as sending the hapless victim over to a serious conference in the Political Science RoundTable with instructions to impersonate a radical left-winger (or right-winger, depending on the night\u2019s topic) or to wander into the Science Fiction and Fantasy RoundTable (our natural rivals, since they laid claim to the SFWA members) and start a virtual food fight while nibbling on pickled alien eggs. Or smack someone with a trout. <:}}||||{{\u00a0 They think they invented it in the SFRT; I was online the night it all started. I know who smacked who with the first ASCII trout.<\/p>\n
Okay, so you had to be there.<\/p>\n
Point is, most of the time, we didn\u2019t have \u201ctroublemakers.\u201d Troublemakers are rare when they\u2019re paying $6\/hour for the privilege of being online at all. All that changed, however, when Genie introduced the $9.95\/month all-you-can-eat plan, in competition with Prodigy\u2019s ridiculously cheap offerings and flashy GUI interface.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, we had \u201ctroublemakers.\u201d We had people who logged on and couldn\u2019t figure out how to log off again. We soon had people who logged on and wrote scripts to keep them from logging off again. (Unlimited bandwidth is nice; however, someone\u2019s got to pay for it, and at this rate, it wasn\u2019t the members. But I digress…) It was all good, until the day I met R.F. I\u2019d love to tell you his real name, but the lawyers won\u2019t let me.<\/p>\n
R.F. was bored one sunny Saturday afternoon. (It might\u2019ve been a Sunday, but that\u2019s not important to the story.) R.F. began to post, in the Message Board, \u201cIs anybody online? Wanna chat?\u201d Nothing inherently wrong with that, of course. Except that when he didn\u2019t get an answer quickly, he did it again. And again. And again. In just about every topic on the board. Everyone ignored him, of course. I mean, if you see 100 messages that say \u201cI\u2019m bored, anybody online? Anybody? Wanna chat?\u201d from someone who hasn\u2019t even bothered to introduce himself or join in any of the ongoing conversations, are you gonna bite?<\/p>\n
He started posting this in an ongoing, collaborative story that a number of us had been working on for quite some time. And he watched the thread closely; any time a new addition to the story was posted, R.F. would chime in with \u201cAnybody online? Someone talk to me!\u201d<\/p>\n
Several of us emailed and explained how the Real-Time Conference Rooms worked. (Every RoundTable had its own RTC \u201cchat\u201d area, and GEnie itself had a whole area devoted to social chit-chat with many, many rooms \u2013 much like a tiny version of today\u2019s IRC.) For some reason, though, R.F. had fixated on us.<\/p>\n
I was young and stupid then. I dragged R.F. into the RTC chat one afternoon, and spent nearly four straight hours chatting with him, explaining how our little community of writers worked, and giving him hints on how to fit in if he wanted to be a part of it. At that point, I sincerely believed that he was a clueless wonder who genuinely wanted to belong. He even made a little effort at staying on topic and joining in some ongoing conversations in the Message Board. I felt that high that Evangelists must feel upon learning that a sinner has heard their words, seen the light, and converted. Halleluiah!<\/p>\n
The next day, I was chagrined to see more drivel from R.F. \u201cWhy won\u2019t anyone talk to me?\u201d Fed up, I deleted his messages. He\u2019d been welcomed, cajoled, ignored, warned… well, fuck it. Delete, delete, delete.<\/p>\n
Next thing you know, I have mail. R.F. is going to report me to the New York Times, the L.A. Herald, the AP Newswire, CBS, NBC, ABC, the BBC… basically, anyone who\u2019ll listen, and tell them how I\u2019ve single-handedly stomped on, trampled on, mutilated and spindled his First Amendment Right to Freedom of Expression.<\/p>\n
Yeah… whatever.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for me, I was in law school at the time. I was not a government entity, nor was GEnie a public forum. That pretty much solved that worry. I had the absolute right to delete his ass and even lock him out of the RT, if I chose to be snotty about it. The contract holder for the RT, and GEnie itself, might have something to say about it (along the lines of \u201cbe nice to the nasty customer, because he IS a customer\u201d) but basically, R.F. didn\u2019t have a leg to stand on. I wrote back something to the effect of Fine, yeah, you do that \u2013 and next time you write to me, please cc: my boss. I\u2019ve already sent him copies of all our previous correspondence.<\/p>\n
And then I watched the news just to be sure…<\/p>\n
Oh, yes, I did.<\/p>\n
Somehow, and I don\u2019t remember all the details now, R.F. managed to make a sufficient nuisance of himself that I ended up having to lock him out of the Writers\u2019 Ink RT altogether. By then, I didn\u2019t even care if my name was on the evening news. I\u2019d had enough. I was tired. I was tired of trying to bring the lost wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing into the fold, and tired of arguing with him about the First Amendment, and tired of being stalked and hounded in the RT at every turn. So I just slammed and barred the door. Next time he logged on, the electronic bouncer kicked him to the curb.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d never locked anyone out before. Never. I felt bad. My hands shook. But it was quiet, and things quickly settled back down to normal, and a number of people thanked me for taking decisive action.<\/p>\n
Then I got a phone call one morning, on my way to work, from the Boss. Oh, what a softie he was! (This guy had the patience of a saint, I tell you. He\u2019d back his assistants against all comers, but he was always the diplomat.) \u201cI called R.F. on the phone last night. We had a little \u2018man-to-man chat,\u2019 and I think he\u2019s straightened out now. He wanted back in, and I really think he understood what was expected of him. I\u2019m confident he\u2019ll behave himself now, so I let him back in.\u201d<\/p>\n
What? I thought. Oh, shit on a shingle. \u201cWell, you\u2019re the boss. If you\u2019re sure…\u201d I reminded him that I was going out of town, on a family vacation, and would not have a PC with me. He\u2019d have to keep an eye on things and deal with R.F. personally, in my absence, should he start giving other staff members or member members a hard time.<\/p>\n
I called my assistant long distance and explained. I heard a protracted groan on the other end of the line. \u201cYou\u2019re kidding, right? They had a \u2018man-to-man chat\u2019? Is that even possible with R.F.?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook,\u201d I said, \u201cif anything happens while I\u2019m gone, you guys will have to deal with it. I\u2019m betting R.F. does something to get himself locked out, or at least make S. wish he\u2019d never let him back in, before I get back. And I\u2019m dying to know what that is. So here\u2019s the deal. If S. has to lock R.F. out again, I want you to call our hotel and order a bottle of their cheapest champagne sent to me by room service. That\u2019ll be our code. Since there\u2019s nothing I can do about it from there, I might as well drink champagne and get some kick out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
We got to the hotel about three days later, and there was no message. No champagne greeting upon our arrival. All was well. Or was it?<\/p>\n
A couple of hours after checking in, there was a knock on the door. My husband had gone downstairs for a drink with a friend and former coworker, and my daughter and I were getting ready for bed. I pulled a robe around myself and peeked through the peephole. It was about 9:00 PM! Who would be knocking? Ahhhhhh. Yes, room service. A very nicely dressed waiter bearing a silver tray, upon which was a silver ice bucket bearing a bottle of champagne, and \u2013 what the hell? A huge, crystal bowl of strawberries. Fresh, luscious strawberries \u2013 probably forty of them \u2013 each as big as a small plum, and each one utterly perfect and unblemished.<\/p>\n
Oh, dear God, what had R.F. done now? There was even a card, \u201csigned\u201d by R.F.!! \u201cHaving a grand time, glad you\u2019re not here!\u201d I took the tray, and immediately called my assistant, K.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, what\u2019s the scoop?\u201d<\/p>\n
She laughed and asked me to give her a minute to catch her breath. \u201cWell, the minute R.F. got word you\u2019d left town, he started posting messages all over the board with the lyrics to \u2018Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
“Hah! But that surely wasn\u2019t enough to get him locked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it should\u2019ve been, but of course it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, what did it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe posted a message in the main Message Board topic consisting of a thousand blank lines.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t get it at first. \u201c1000 blank lines? So? What was the point of that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThink about it. Most of the members log on at 2400 baud or less. At 2400 baud, it takes about 5 minutes for a blank message that size to scroll across the screen. By that time, most people think their PC has just locked up, so they force a disconnect, reboot, and log on again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, God.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait, it gets better. Because they never finished reading the message, it\u2019s still marked \u2018unread.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it happens again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got it. People have been calling customer support, thinking it\u2019s a system problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo S. locked him out?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much for their little \u2018man-to-man chat.\u2019 S. must be terribly disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, that explains the champagne, but K., what\u2019s with these incredible strawberries??\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh!\u201d K. laughed. \u201cThat\u2019s on the house. Paid for by the hotel. When I got room service, I explained the whole story to them. They agreed that the champagne was good vindication, and threw in the strawberries for free!\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t think I learned my lesson. Oh, no. I went on to run a forum on another network, and later took a real, paying job with them as a Product Marketing Manager.<\/p>\n
That company went bankrupt four months later. My boss assured me that he wasn\u2019t disappointed in me and that \u201cJesus Christ himself couldn\u2019t have saved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As if that weren\u2019t enough, I went on to run another forum on the Internet for just over a year, until they realized they didn\u2019t have to actually pay their Moderators \u2013 they had people lined up begging to do it for free. (I think the word I\u2019m searching for here is \u201cmasochists,\u201d but that would be admitting I was one, wouldn\u2019t it?) There are various reasons for wanting to be a Moderator \u2013 some involving \u201cphenomenal cosmic powers!\u201d but most stemming from a much simpler desire to be active and helpful members of a community they\u2019ve come to love.<\/p>\n
Would I ever do anything like that again?<\/p>\n
Please don\u2019t ask me. I\u2019m weak, and they don\u2019t have a Twelve Step program for online addiction yet.<\/p>\n
Ironically, not long after posting this the first time, I was appointed a Moderator on Writing.com. You just can\u2019t kick some habits.<\/p>\n
Send a note of appreciation to your favorite Moderator(s) today. Sure, it\u2019s a prestigious position and lots of fun, most of the time. But if you\u2019ve never been one, you have no idea the shit they put up with and how very much it means to have a little note saying \u201cGee, you do a great job around here. Keep it up!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Or, Have You Hugged a Forum Moderator Today? Originally published about a decade ago, but still just as true today, if not moreso. “Living well is the best revenge.” From 1988 until 1994, I was a SysOp (old-fashioned term for \u201cModerator\u201d) on Genie. Most of you are too young, or too new to high tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1007560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[],"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2748,641,647,7],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-133499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor","category-relationships","category-social-media","category-writing"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 14:00:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133499"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137990201,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133499\/revisions\/137990201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1007560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133499"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=133499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}