How long have you been a moderator?

[Maxxwell Tomorrow]

How long have you been working as a moderator? How did you get your start?

My memory is horrible! Susie will have to tell me when I started, I have been a moderator for going on 5 years now. I actually was a regular member on a message board and was invited to become a moderator. It was the first time that they had invited members to join the moderator ranks and all very hush hush. (Amy and I got invited at the same time)

The rest is history!

[Brenda Freedman]

Many years ago in a far off land they called the Internet, I got my start as a Moderator. I remember being excited about getting on this road they called the Information Highway with stops anyplace on the Planet and then some. To venture a guess, I started moderating before unlimited access was all the rage; my chat group would ponder and hash over advertising online and when modems went to 28.8 we were ecstatic; when they went to 56K we thought we died and had officially arrived. That was 1996 and a year later I found Talk City and was a volunteer for a year doing topical conferences as well as working with the teen community. I continued my path since that time gaining more knowledge and experience along the way. Technology has always been a hobby and being able to work and make a living at something I love is incredible to me.

I do think we are on the tip if the iceberg and are being taken seriously. I have my own thoughts about that and will write more later.

Onward and upward I say to top of the heap!!

[Laura J. Sperber]

Let's see...I started moderating with CNN's chat room..around 1999? Did that for a few years...helped launch Nascar's first chat room (right around the time Dale Earnhardt died..holy crap was that crazy!), a few other chats and program related chats. After that I got involved with the WB's Message board and eventually the CW as well...and just last fall I started with MMS on Second Life.

In all these jobs I've worked with Susie. I need a badge or something.

[Amy Pritchard]

I believe they invited me five minutes before you. So technically I was the first. :)

[Bill Pfleging]

Hmmm....well, I was using a form of online messaging when I was a computer operator at IBM in 1973-76, but no moderating. My involvement in online moderating goes back pre-Internet days, to my moderating discussions on systems like GEnie, BiX, BitNet, Delphi, and others in the mid-1980's on a Kaypro II (two 5.25 floppies, no hard drive) and a 300 baud modem. Late 1980's I was moderating on something called Q-Link (Quantum Computer Services, later to become AOL) with my trusty Commodore 64 and a whizz-bang fast 1200 baud (Text came in faster than I could read it! Wow!). Also was sysop on a few BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems), mostly FidoNet BBS and others.

Spent some years as an AOL Guide (Guide BOT and Guide WEB here) and a short spit as an AOL Roadie for the long defunct RoadTrips thingie. Helped in Guide training, and was also a moderator on some AOL areas (Writers Den, SF Forum, others). I loved the AOL community, and at the same time hated the company - sort of an approach-avoidance problem, you might say.

Moved into the dotcom realm when I went to Tripod.com as
Community Manager, then sucked into the parent company, Lycos, and ended up Director of Network Community there, in charge of all their various communities (Wired.com, WebMonkey, HotBot, Tripod, 4 or 5 others).

Weirdly, in 2001 I was inducted as one of the "council" members of the short-lived CommunityGods.com site, created by ChatSpace (now Akiva), BlueBarn and Basex. Bizarre name. I'll try to keep my god-like powers under control. ;-) (Quite, Kev.)

OK, so yeah, been-there, done-that, bought-the-Tshirt.

[Amy Pritchard]

My T-shirt says "Game Over - Bill Wins". haha

[Saxophone Fall]

OK I am the noob moderator here, started in hmmmm November 07....very noob.

[Deborah Oakes]

I actually started back in 1994 when AOL asked me (much to my astonishment) to volunteer for them as an online technical support rep. I'd just gotten my first computer in the summer of 1994 and spent almost all my time learning everything possible about it - right down to how to do hardware installations and troubleshooting as well as Visual Basic programming. Having an overly curious mind, computers were (and are) like heaven to me.. constantly giving me something new to learn. As an AOL technical support volunteer, I had to sit in a chat room for 9 hours a day helping a constant flow of customers with not only technical issues they had with the software but also with finding their way around AOL and learning how to do different things there. It was extremely fast paced and often exhausting but I totally enjoyed myself and was very proud that I'd accomplished so much on my own, without any formal education after high school. What made my day though was having customers come to me totally stressed out or upset over whatever problem they had and leaving our session thrilled that they'd spoken with me. The knowledge that I'd turned their day around to that extreme totally blew me away and kept me hooked on helping others.

[Susie]

Wow, I had forgotten about Q-Link until Bill mentioned it!

I started moderating for CNN when they were still on CompuServe, in the early '90s. At first, my only payment was that I was "free-flagged." In other words, while everyone else had to pay $2.95 an hour (I think that was the going rate), I could stay in that forum as long as I wanted without paying. I think that's where I met Laura... God help me. The OJ trial was in full swing, and the forum was "TalkBack Live." They'd have a live chat every weekday during the show, and pull comments we made and put them on the air every time they bumped to a commercial, or back from one. It was so cool, seeing our names and "brilliant" messages on the air.

CNN decided to move to the "world wide web" in the mid-nineties or so, so off we went. I moderated for them on their message boards (hated that part) and their very-busy chat site (loved that part). We continued doing the daily TBL show chat, and also 24/7 news chat. The first HUGE story that happened during that time was the death of Princess Diana. I fell in love with the quick exchange of information and opinions, and learned to make quick and fair decisions in a moderating context.

Later CNN expanded to doing "event chats," and since I'm a freakishly fast typist, I started being the "voice" for our celebrity guests. That meant that I'd be on the telephone with our interviewee, and would transcribe what they were saying, word for word, into the chat room. I participated in this way on interviews with people like Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Larry King, Jesse Jackson, and my two favorites: Christiane Amanpour and Miles O'Brien.

Other big stories were Dale Earnhardt's death, the 2000 Election That Would Not End, Bill Clinton's impeachment, and, oddly enough, the death of Chris Farley. The biggest "chat day" ever was of course September 11, 2001. Hmmm, I think I'll write a separate blog about that day's events.

Anyway... that's where I got my start.

[Michelle Ramage]

I have only been a moderator since last fall. I, too, was part of a message board, maybe even could have trolled it. ( I am playing catch up, can I do it all in this one post??) I met some great people there who conned me into working with them. Now they can't get rid of me, who's the winner now?

[Tera Tilden]

I just started moderating in October 2007. Such a Newb. I was never really the message board type. Always loved computers. and have had one since the begining of AOL. and to this day still run the AOL desktop as my workspace. people think I am nuts!

[Maxxwell Tomorrow]

Susie! Please do blog about 9/11. I want to hear again how you guided the World through that event! heheheh

Seriously, it's an amazing story and the numbers you were dealing with are totally mind blowing.

[Crystal Litzau]

Well, at least I'm not the noobest of the noobs :P I been running rabid on the boards since August of 2007

. . . It feels like soooo much longer LOL