The beginning.

In the beginning there was Elfwood – and Elfwood was not moderated.

This is old news to anyone who has been a member of Elfwood for more then a year, but for the many hundreds of people who have joined since January 2002 it may come as a surprise. This is the reason that you find many pictures on Elfwood that simply do not belong – they were probably put up before we started moderating the content.

For five and a half years Elfwood worked under a loose set of rules and trusted that people would obey them. Anyone not obeying them came to the attention of the ERB (Elfwood review board) but first they had to be found. Meanwhile the woods were expanding at such a rapid pace that finding rule breaking pictures was like finding an individual leaf on one particular tree in a mighty forest. To add to the confusion, anyone was allowed to join without a test, so there was no guarantee that they had even read the rules. Elfwood, and particularly Lothlorien, was becoming infested with pictures that were not Fantasy based. As this was not the result Thomas wanted, something had to be done.

When discussed with his helpers to start with, the idea of moderation was a bit of a nightmare. So many pictures are uploaded to Elfwood each day (at the moment approximately 900 pictures in a 24 hour period) it was uncertain how the job would be tackled. However, during the Christmas of 2001 Thomas got a surge of creative energy and wrote the program that now allows us to moderate Elfwood. On the 10th of February 2002 we took on 5 test subjects for the new moderation software, and, after some bugs were removed, the new system of moderation was open on the 15th of February 2002. There were still a few hiccups, and both Thomas and Mirar have added new tools for us. One of the most important was the resize tool on the extranet that meant that oversized pictures would be automatically rejected and could be easily fixed.

What did the new system of moderation mean to the members?

To start with it usually did NOT mean a longer update time. Elfwood use to be updated once a week, or maybe once in 5 days. Moderation usually does not take that long, except during some unfortunate periods (usually when a large number of moderators are unavailable all at once). It does mean that pictures might be rejected, but as Elfwood is a Fantasy and Science Fiction gallery, and as we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t fans of Fantasy and Science Fiction, that is something we should all appreciate. One of the main things that it did mean was that we needed MANY more staff!

With 900 new pictures and 200 new join applications each day, we need a minimum of 100 moderators to keep the tickets flowing. Some moderators work full time, some are students, some are parents. Sometimes individual moderators have to take time off for exams or other real life events. (We have even had a few get married!) Moderators come from all around the world, so that there isn’t one hour during any day that tickets aren’t being moderated. As Elfwood grows, the need for more moderators also grows.

Next month – What does it mean to be a moderator, and how do you become one?