I'll have a coke and a Hershey bar.....thank you very much.
haulingthescoreup wrote: We greet people at the door, get them a drink and a nibble,
@haulingthescoreup wrote:
@TheCreditKid wrote:How does one become a moderator and what are the benefits of being one?
Just to add to MVV's great list, I'd say:
- You have to know a reasonable amount about consumer credit scoring.
- You have to be curious and always want to learn more.
- You have to be able to cheerfully admit when you don't know.
- You have to be willing to go back and correct all the wrong stuff you posted when you find out that it was wrong. (This happens a lot.)
- You have to be able to get along with all kinds of people, including people who are really different from you in terms of personality, who may rub you the wrong way, but who are still great contributors to the forums.
- You have to have a certain skepticism or downright cynicism about some of the stuff that you read, but reply with a straight face anyway.
- You have to be kind and gentle much of the time, especially with terrified noobies, and be willing to deal out the tough love when necessary.
- You have to be able to park your ego outside the door (mostly, anyway.)
- It helps to be independently wealthy, retired, or working at a job where you have, umm, some discretion in the use of your time.
As for the benefits, we all joke about the health benefits and paid vacations, but of course, there isn't any of that. We're all just volunteers. My benefit package has included learning a lot about a weird little field of knowledge, having an entertaining alternative to my daily job, and making some wonderful friends. It has been downright life-changing, in fact.
I've described being a forums moderator as being like a hostess (or host) at a ridiculously large cocktail party. We greet people at the door, get them a drink and a nibble, introduce them to someone that we think they might like to know, keep everything moving, introduce new topics of conversation, break up the occasional fight, and every now and then wrestle someone out the door.
That's right up there with Groundhog Day. 
Phil: What are you looking for? Who is your perfect guy?
Rita: First of all, he's too humble to know he's perfect.
Phil: That's me.
Rita: He's intelligent, supportive, funny.
Phil: Me, me, me.
Rita: He's romantic and courageous.
Phil: Me also.
Rita: He's got a good body, but doesn't look in the mirror every two minutes.
Phil: I have a great body, and sometimes I go months without looking.
Rita: He's kind, sensitive and gentle. He's not afraid to cry in front of me.
Phil: This is a man, right?
Rita: He likes animals and children, and he'll change poopy diapers.
Phil: Does he have to use the word "poopy"?
Rita: And he plays an instrument, and he loves his mother.
Phil: I am really close on this one.
Congratulations BeamMEup!
Starting Score: 648Yay! Yay! YAY!!!
Congrats, beamMeup!
For those who believe mods don't really do a whole lot of work except look for posts to edit/remove here is a candid photo of me hard at work doing my modly duties late into the night.
@MarineVietVet wrote:For those who believe mods don't really do a whole lot of work except look for posts to edit/remove here is a candid photo of me hard at work doing my modly duties late into the night.
Thanks modly! Hmmmmm. I always pictured you with a little less facial hair 
Your pic has clarified something I should have already figured out. At least now I understand why my tush is so sore. 
And because I'm a newbie mod, I can publicly state that I am amazed at how much our mods do and how much time they volunteer for folks they'll never meet. They are really a golden group of, um, modly people.