You think I'm nicer than the average GMC mod?

Damn, I'm losing my touch…

gell really is lazy you know, it just sits there all day long….. not even bothering to move.

and a long long blog

Well, it seems like you are all saying to the staff "DON'T KEEP MODERATING AND DOING YOUR JOBS! WE HATE YOU FOR IT!"

Let's look at how 64digits would looks with your demands met.

On average, I delete or otherwise incapacitate 90-ish spam or flaming comments a day. I usually take down one site abuser a month, and take down maybe ten people per day for otherwise doing stupid things (e.g. deleting non-10/10s on their games).

So that's 100 rule-breaking things which you guys probably wouldn't like to see everywhere I take out PER DAY. That means that in a month, I take out roughly 3001 different things.

Multiply that by 9 active staffers.

We take out 27009 things a month, roughly. 27009 spammy comments, site exploiters, multiple accounts, flamewars, and other unpleasant things.

And we accept about 4 games a day, maybe 8 some times. 120 games a month, roughly.

So let's take a look at 64digits without staff doing their oh-so-evil jobs.

Every day, you'd see flamewars and spam in every blog, every game, every forum topic. Flamewars that would just spread and accelerate and join into one huge, site-wide flamewar. A flamewar that was self-renewing. That would cause many respectable members to, in all likelihood, leave. Down goes the intelligent, level-headed user count, up goes the noob, spammer, and flamer count. Every single blog posted would almost instantly turn to a big, flaming mass of comments - because even if the blog was uncontroversial, someone would bring an old flamewar in by saying "Shut up [ insert user here ], you flamed me in [ insert blog/topic/game here ], you don't get a voice here", and BAM! MORE flamewar! And don't get me started about the spam. You'd have people posting "UR A LLAMA" in every discussion, people posting links to screamers, to viruses, etc.

How're you liking your perfect, staff-free 64digits?

Every other game on the site would be rated 10/10. Not because it was good, but because if ANYONE rated below a 10/10, the game's creator would delete the comment. You see a decent game, say, and post with "I like your game, you could improve in a few areas, such as [ insert useful commentary here ], I'll give you an 8/10. Keep up the good work!". You come back a few hours later and *gasp* but where did your comment go? You provided useful insight into how to improve the game, but the game creator ARBITRARILY DECIDED that their creation deserved a 10/10, and anything less, even if it was a 9/10, would "bring them down". Sure, it's a bit annoying that even one non-10/10 takes your score down to a 9 - but do you really have the idea that YOU can decide that your game is worth a perfect score? Certainly, this would solve downraters… but it would also solve rating, period. It's their vote on how good your game is, not yours. So you get no vote in rating any more on games, in your perfect modless 64digits, unless you acquiesce and vote only 10/10s for everything.

Assuming that the game, example, and affiliate approval system was removed, so that there would actually be new games without staff, almost a quarter of you would now be infected with viruses or spyware of some kind. We weed out games, examples, and affiliates with trojans, worms, and other viruses ALL THE TIME. Heck, I had to go find an extension for firefox to scan affiliate links before clicking on them because we've had so many people just submitting virus-launching pages. So now, in your perfect staffless world, you have a very high chance of infecting your computer with something whenever you download a game - whenever you download an example - whenever you click on an affiliate.

And if we assume that we kept the approval system, you wouldn't get any new examples, games, or affiliates ever again.

Finally, let's look at exploiters. These were people that, as soon as you visit their page, something happens. Now, this in and of itself might not be too bad - there are members here with a decent sense of humour who might have funny or minor things happen. But add this to our flamewar de la monde - and you've got a huge, HUGE weapon. Someone flames Exploiter A? Exploiter A warns the hell out of them, makes them post retarded, flame-inviting comments everywhere, makes all their friends disappear, etcetera. You go to an angry user's page, and instead of just having them added to your friends list… you're suddenly banned.

Please read that, then think before you decide to start flaming the mods for doing their jobs, and doing them well. We have to be heavy-handed to make sure stuff like what happens DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN.