On Gaia:
I'm SoundBlast and I'm a former moderator for Gaia Online (2008-2012). For any questions regarding warnings, bans or other details pertaining to how the site works please contact a moderator or admin. Thank you! heart
I joined Gaia in July 2005 and was a dedicated user in the Anime/Manga/Comics forums and the General Discussion, at the end of 2007 I was accepted to become a forum assistant and later on in 2008 I was promoted to a Site Moderator.
I decided to step down from Site Moderation mostly due to university sucking up most of my free time and next to that working a job in IT. I still occassionally log in from time to time to interact with friends or read up on stuff in guilds that I am a part of.
Off Gaia:
I am married to my lovely wife and I have a son that is 3,5 years old.
For the last decade (2012-2024) I have mostly worked in the IT field and electronic retail industry, in October 2024 I decided that I wanted to take a step back and focus more time on my family and my son growing up.
I looked for a job with plenty of personal freedom and responsibilities and landed on a job in the waste and recycling industry. I love advising people on the importance of disposing and recycling their waste and I also actively advise people at local waste depots.
HOLY s**t GD DRAMA!!!
I am mostly known for "SoundBlasting" people in the General Discussion and banning them for no real reason, while I have no issues with explaning the reason(s) behind someone getting banned it is good to know that as a Site Moderator I never had access to the power to ban someone, this always had to be double checked by another moderator that was higher up the command chain before a ban was placed.
Due to the aforementioned reasons it's literally impossible for me to have banned a user. The stage to get banned from Gaia for any meaningful amount of time would be to get a warning, continue with posting similar content that they were warned for and going down the ladder where the inflicted punishment becomes worse the longer you go on. This usually results in a 3-day, 14-day or permanent ban depending on the severity of what you posted.
I realize that with time (we're talking 15/16 years at this point) it has devolved to the point of legend but you have to understand that there was a team of 20 moderators actively enforcing the General Discussion forum after the administrators made a declaration of no-nonsense (which was rolled back later). I was called out a lot because I was one of the few moderators who chose to actively engage with people and explain why people were receiving infractions, something other moderators chose not to do because it wasn't worth the hassle.
It's easy to point a finger to someone if they are the only one that's engaging in conversation with you. Looking back it would have prevented a lot of personal grief if I had chosen not to engage with users, but at the same time it would have gone against the transparancy I personally believe in.
There also seems to be a misconception that I was removed from being a moderator for abusing my powers. You have to keep in mind that as a moderator you are prone to have people appeal a warning or ban, meaning everything you do is highly scrutinized by admins and other moderators. The idea that I was allowed to 'abuse' my power over the course of 4 years without anyone seeing or doing anything about it is highly unlikely if not downright impossible.
I decided to step down from my position as a mod in 2013 because my life changed and I could not justify putting the time and effort into my positon as a moderator, I still hold very warm bonds with my mod and ex-mod collegues and GaiaOnline admins. I still talk to some of them occassionally outside of Gaia or play games with them. 3nodding
What I believe is important is intent, and my personal intent was to make the forum a safe place for people 13 and older. Most likely I made some mistakes along the way, but I personally believe that anyone who got banned in the General Discussion for trolling, posting sexually explicit content or harassing other users fully deserved it.
F/A/Q How can I become a Moderator? For users who would like to help the site we have a Moderator Application you can fill out if you meet all of the requirements. Here is a link to the application: Click Me!
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