The most poorly moderated forums on the Internet.

I previously did something called "Internet Forum Reviews" which were my attempt to try to review Internet forums. It's difficult to review a forum if you're not part of the community (although that will also lend to some bias if you try to), so I decided to stop doing them. Instead, I'm doing a one-off of the most poorly moderated forums on the Internet.

I've been on Internet forums longer than some of you have been alive (true story), and back in the day, you had to have some functional level of intelligence to even post on them, let alone access them. Although the sites I frequented were mostly things related to video games, they had some pretty bright folks on it, and as a nine year old kid, it was interesting to meet all sorts of individuals who had similar interests. Now that the Internet is for everybody, we've let all sorts of people in who should be learning proper spelling and grammar rather than posting cat videos and how much they love or hate (insert popular thing here).

With any Internet forum comes moderators, aka the online equivalent to the yard duty people when you go out to have recess and play with your friends. Since they also happen to be human beings, they also happen to make mistakes. Guess who the rules are made by? Human beings, so they also have mistakes in them as well. Since human beings having flaws have always been true, there's nothing we can change about that. But since the Internet can be accessed by just about everyone (including people without intelligence), Internet forums has deteriorated from fairness into police states that would put a smile on Hitler's face.

Without further ado, here are some examples of the most poorly moderated forums on the Internet.

GameFAQs.com

This is probably the king of poorly moderated Internet forums. I've frequented their forums for eight years, contributed to some FAQs, and noticed some of the most blatant and downright bizarre abuses of power. Saying "this game sucks" will get you "modded" (I said that a game that was universally panned as a bad game sucked and got modded for "trolling"). What is being modded? If a moderator doesn't like what you're doing, you get modded. It doesn't even have to break the rules. You can even be modded for a post you deleted, which is also a testament to their bizarre abuses of power.

This guy has come clean about what goes on in the mod circle, and can probably explain things better than I can from the moderator perspective. But from my eight years on the website, I've been modded probably four times, namely because I visited the site at a time when I wasn't a somewhat complete asshole on the Internet (yes, there was a time when I was like that). I still visit GameFAQs but only to read FAQs and not so much post on the forums. I do this because expressing my opinion on something will most likely get me "modded" by people who, for the most part, twist the rules to suit their own viewpoints rather than enforce the rules that are usually available for all to read. The difference between good moderation and shitty moderation? Good moderation entails enforcement of the rules by the letter rather than by the spirit, and some flexibility based on the context (i.e. saying "I think X feature of this game is retarded" shouldn't be actionable, while "You're retarded for thinking what you think" warrants action).

The silver lining: The silver lining in the cloud is that GameFAQs is still largely a forum only kids will visit. The same kids that tell you online that they'll bang your mom and spew 99 million expletives per second as if they just found out how to curse.

Expectations for improvement: Very low. They just rope in more suckers with the promise of being an Internet forum moderator and thus having a position of power, while in reality it ranks somewhere between cleaning toilets and getting a C in remedial math.

World of Warcraft forums

Although the game isn't bad (I still fork over $15 a month to play daily), the forums are poorly moderated. I don't post much in the other forums. However, I like posting on my realm (Kil'jaeden) forum. Despite the large stream of morons on the forum, there are actually really cool people there that I've gotten to know over my three years on the server. I'm currently banned from the forum until February 2 for posting a thread with a joke title about a guild being bad, and talking about Borderlands 2. The reason? Harassment. Even if it was a joke, apparently having a sense of humor is harassment.

Now it's time for my Alex Jones-level conspiracy theory regarding my ban. The guild (which will go unnamed) in question is the largest guild on the server, but it also happens to be the worst. Multiple threads about them go up in the Kil'jaeden realm forums and most of them get deleted within a few hours because they mass report such threads. Bans are thus handed out and everyone goes home happy, right?

Wrong.

Threads about them continue to go up because they really are the worst guild on the server. To be fair, there are some cool people in that guild, but the douchebags hold the power. You might think one would want to repair their reputation as a result, but it's already sunk so far that it can be no longer libeled or slandered. For those who know your media law, you should know that someone or something cannot be libeled/slandered if their reputation in the community is so awful that it can be lowered no further. However, since the "rules" are so badly enforced, these threads go the way of the garbage bin and people get banned.

But do they really deserve the ban? Some would say this guild is abusing the "Report Post" feature, while others think the rules should never, ever be questioned. My personal opinion sways toward the former, because whoever thinks the latter is more of a sheep than they want to let everyone know. Everything that is reported isn't necessarily a violation of the rules, and what you find offensive isn't necessarily what everyone else finds offensive.

On to my theory: This guild and Blizzard have an under-the-table deal where any thread about them is instantly deleted and the people in question warned or banned. It may sound crazy, but there is an element to truth about it: a thread bashing another guild stayed up far longer. Maybe it's because the post wasn't reported as quickly, but also because other guilds don't give a fuck or have the manpower to go to the forums and mass report such posts. Plus, they're the largest guild, so that means more money than Blizzard, which also confirms something that is extremely true in real life: when money is involved, people don't give a fuck about anything else.

The silver lining: There are cool people on the forums. People I'd have a drink with IRL. It's not a bad place to be, but rather a place that suffers from poor and uneven enforcement of the rules.

Expectations for improvement: I'll be generous and say that there's a moderate expectation for improvement, especially if the moderators can see past the smoke and mirrors that people put up in an attempt to squeal on others who are allegedly "breaking the rules" rather than just seeing the obvious "I don't agree with this guy, so I'll just mass report him with my entire guild."

There are a lot of poorly moderated forums out there on the Internet, but these are probably the ones with the most traffic, so if you know any other forums that have poor moderation, let me know.

It seems that we are still confused over the meaning of the word "adult."

I know I've railed on and on about maturity and what not in previous blog posts, but there is still massive confusion over the meaning of the term "adult." Since human beings have been given (well, at least most of us have been given) the ability to reason and to have a conscience and all those extra perks that our fellow mammals simply do not have, we often throw in our own meanings into the word (or any word, for that matter), which has led to this mass confusion of what exactly makes someone an adult.

First, we have to differentiate between biology's concept of an adult and society's concept of an adult, or at least what we (okay, most of us) agree on:

Biology's concept of an adult: Generally marked by the onset of puberty (the appearance of secondary sex characteristics in both men and women)
Society's concept of an adult: Generally marked by the person's ability to live a normal life with minimal to no assistance, aka self-reliance

There are tons of people that don't fit the self-reliance condition of being an adult. I was once asked if I would laugh at the things my peers and I did as a kid since I'm now an adult; I told him that not all of us are adults yet. I had a very good reason to say that: they're not self reliant and they have deluded themselves into thinking going into bars and that buying alcohol/cigarettes is what constitutes adulthood. They're still living off of their parents' dime and claiming to be adults, which really leads to a lot of confusion over the term. I know a guy whose dad foots the bill for practically everything (we're talking rent, utilities, even meals) and he claims to be more mature than everyone else. On that note, if you feel the need to say you're more "X" than everyone else, that is one of the biggest signs that you are not an adult.

The legal age to become an adult in most jurisdictions is 18 years of age. How many of us were self-reliant at 18? Living in mostly upper-middle class neighborhoods really led me to believe that being an adult was no different than being 16, except you could now smoke cigarettes, sign up for credit cards and all those perks that just require you to be 18 and not actually an "adult." There was no emphasis on self-reliance, because, after all, Mom and Dad picked up the bill most (if not all) of the time, and all you had to care about was whether or not you can party on Saturday with your friends or when your iPhone 5 was going to be shipped to your house.

It's time to redefine what an adult really is. I think self-reliance is the biggest (if not the most important) thing that defines an adult. That doesn't mean Mom and Dad can't help every now and then, but when it leads to complete dependence on Mom and Dad, that's still not adulthood. So here's a simple questionnaire that I've whipped up to see if you're an adult or not:

1. Can you do most (if not all) things expected of an adult with little to no assistance? (Having your own place, balancing a checkbook, filing your taxes and making sure you're under your credit limit on your credit cards are just a few of the most important things here)
2. Do you have a job or at least are looking for one?
3. Do you pay your own bills? (I know you can still be on your parents' health insurance until you're 26, if I recall correctly)

If you answered yes to all three, congratulations, you're an adult. If you answered no to all three and are over 18, you're still a child. If you said yes to at least one of those questions, you're on your way. Just because you're 18 doesn't make you an adult; there's a lot more to it than that.

Things that people like less than Congress.

If you want to read the full article on this, you can go here: http://www.politicususa.com/congress-popular-lice-popular-meth-labs-lindsey-lohan.html

My good friend Justin shared this picture with me on Facebook. If there's anything we want to kill each other over, it's politics. We think Democrats are elitist hippie snobs that want to ban everything they deem objectionable (assault rifles, violent video games, SUVs) and Republicans are ass-backwards, knuckle-dragging cavemen who think Jesus is the solution to all things. But in essence, they're both the same party—they both take money from corporations and both suck at what they do.

One of the most popular things to do is blame the President for all the problems that are going on in America, but most people don't realize that Congress is to blame for the mess we're all in. We voted them in, so essentially, we get what we deserve. Yes, the same "we" that thought cutting ourselves because Justin Bieber decided to smoke marijuana was a good idea (not making this up, people have actually gone through with it).

Congress is less popular than things such as Nickelback, Donald Trump, root canals, France, and the brussel sprouts your mom might have made you eat as a kid. But the things that are more popular than Congress don't even need to explain why they're more popular, but the things that are less popular—yes, the things that actually scored below the nine percent approval rating that Congress has at the moment—need to explain themselves as to how they managed to scrape the very bottom of the barrel. Here are some reasons why the following people have the dubious distinction of being less popular than Congress.

Lindsay Lohan

Disney stars tend to fade faster than the jeans you're wearing, and Lindsay Lohan is no exception. After Mean Girls began the slow descent into cocaine and alcohol-fueled madness and multiple stints in rehab, which was pretty much all the tabloid fodder you needed in the late 2000s.

Playground bullies

They took your lunch, gave you wedgies, and beat the shit out of you if you tried to fight back. Yet, they're still better than...

Telemarketers

This is one of the reasons I no longer keep a house phone—despite being on the Do Not Call list, you still get calls from these assholes. I've never gotten any telemarketing BS on my cell phone (aside from some dubious collection agency bullshit).

The Kardashians

Reality TV is too easy to pick on—the Kardashians make it a lot easier because it squarely falls into that category. What exactly have they done? Their father was a high-profile lawyer that represented O.J. Simpson in his murder trial, and that was about it. So they're basically living off of their dead father's money and dating rich black guys such as Kanye West and Lamar Odom.

John Edwards

Ironically, he was also part of Congress as a senator from North Carolina, and was once the running mate of 2004 U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry.

Long story short, he cheated on his wife who was battling cancer and did a bang up job of trying to cover it up with illegally obtained campaign money. He had to eventually admit to the whole thing after people put two and two together and realized that he wasn't such a nice guy. He also fathered a child with his mistress. His wife died in 2010 of breast cancer. One of the biggest dick moves of all time. But wait, there's more!

Lobbyists

These guys are basically the people with money that want politicians to do what they want (as opposed to what the people want) by paying them money. Essentially, it's a subtle way to carry out bribes.

Fidel Castro

Basically ran a communist dictatorship right next door. There was also this whole "Bay of Pigs" thing where we went to DEFCON 3 and almost had nukes launched at us. Anyone who has taken a history class should know this guy.

Gonorrhea

It's an STD. It's also known as the clap, and one of its effects is that there is a burning sensation when you take a leak. Wear protection, kids.

Communism

With all this talk about Obama being a socialist, people in the Socialist Party USA themselves have even said that Obama is just as much of a capitalist as his own predecessor. Communism is basically socialism with authoritarian elements, i.e. if you show dissent towards the regime, you get shot, jailed, or have to do forced labor. This form of government is only present in North Korea and Cuba.

North Korea

They beef up their military while starving their own people using an authoritarian style of government. It's like they hit the jackpot on how not to run a country.

Meth labs

Meth: not even once. 

Things that were left out (but should have been included anyway for obvious reasons)

Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, Comic Sans font, Honey Boo Boo, Teen Mom, Chris Brown, Internet Explorer, crack cocaine, Insane Clown Posse fans/juggalos, Natural Light beer, M. Night Shyamalan and his movies, cancer, piranhas, pickles, Osama bin Laden, pedophiles, rapists, Dragonball: Evolution, One Direction, GameFAQs moderators, YouTube commenters, etc.