Came across this while reading news today. 

*********
Subject: [ADMIN] MegaZone Resigns as moderator
From: megazone@world.std.com (MegaZone)
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 05:56:25 GMT

I understand that word has already started to spread after my announcement
at Anime Expo.

Yes, it is true, after a lot of thinking I've deciced to step down as 
moderator of rec.arts.anime.creative.  I don't want to go into all of my
reasons - the short form is I started doing it because it was fun and because
I wanted to provide a service to the fans.  But in recent months, with the
changing attitudes of the general net populice, it has grown distinctly *not*
fun, but rather seems more a chore.  That in itself wasn't enough, but my
life is no longer like it was several years ago when I started moderating.
I no longer have the time I once had, and the volume on RAAC is far higher
than it was just a few months back.  After nearly suffering a breakdown from
stress last month I decided I really needed to look at my life and drop some
of the load.  After a lot of thinking I concluded that my leaving RAAC would
be beneficial to both my health and the fans.


I have yet to find a replacement, but in the meantime I ask that all posting
to RAAC cease.  I will not be posting new posts and don't really have room
to sit on them until the new moderators take over.  I have a large number of
posts in the queue currently, I'm unsure what will happen with them at this
point.  I may find time to send them out before the next moderator takes 
over, or I may hand them over as is to my replacement.


A few people have come forward to take over as moderator already, or in
the past when things were obviously rough.  But at this time I want to make
an open call.  A few points:

I do *not* want to hand the group over to one person.  It is really now a job
for a moderating team.  The group is growing at a seemingly exponential rate,
and even if one person could managed to keep up with it now, in a few months
I doubt it would be possible without sacrificing your life.  In the interests
of the fans, and the well being of my replacements, I strongly prefer finding
a moderating team to replace me - or at least someone who is committed to
building a team ASAP.

Along with RAAC goes the archives.  Currently you'll need around 38Megs of
FTP space to keep them, and it is growing fast.  This is a package deal, the
moderator of RAAC gets the archives - if you can't run the archives please 
don't bother volunteering.  RAAC means a great deal to me, but that is 
nothing compared to the archive.  That's my baby - I started building it
when Ryan Mathews posted the first fanfic and I've proactively built it into
the most comprehensive anime fanfic archive online.  I've put a *lot* of time,
effort, and emotion into building the archive.  This is what made the 
decision to step down so hard - and why I'm really wary about handing the
reins over to someone I don't know.


What I'm hoping for in a moderator/moderating team:

Experience with USEnet news on the systems level.  Many times I have helped
to troubleshoot a news problem for people trying to post to RAAC or read it.
This requires a solid understanding of how USEnet works, and how servers
are configured - at least in a broad sense.

And understanding of the commonly used newsreaders like rn, trn, strn, nn,
tin, Mozilla, etc.  You'll get a number of questions along these lines.

A solid network connection - you don't want to moderate a newsgroup and
run an archive from a site that goes offline regularly.  (Personally I hope
my replacement is on a UNIX system with a solid link.)

Someone with a real interest in fanfic and maybe an idea of its history 
online, it helps keep things in perspective.

It would be very nice if you already have some experience moderating so you
understand the mechanics.


Most of the jobs done by the moderator are not seen by the public:
Helping people get postings through them they have problems.
Answering questions on where to find authors/stories/etc.
Weeding out spam and contacting admins about it.
Maintaining and organizing the archive.


My method in maintaining the archive was:
If a show gets 3 or more stories, it got its own directory.  (Also if a new,
original universe had 3 or more eg Undocumented Features.)
If a story has 3 or more episodes, then it got its own subdirectory.
If a story arc had 3 or more... get the picture?

I was also in the process of making 'Lemon' subdirectories to move such works
off on their own to be easy to find as well as remove them from the higher
levels.

I have a C program that makes mass renaming files a snap.

Anyone who leaps at the chance to be a moderator is either naive or a damned
fool - being a moderator is not easy, it is not neat, and you get more abuse
than praise.  If you want to be a moderator think it over, it is a tough job
that you do out of love and the desire to give something to other fans.  If
you think you really want to do it, then write to me with a SUBJECT line of
'VOLUNTEER'.  I figure that's a simple test, people who don't change the 
subject line are disqualified...

-MZ
-- <SIG>       megazone@world.std.com      510-527-0944
 <A HREF="http://world.std.com/~megazone/"> MegaZone's Waste Of Time </A>
Moderator:  anime fanfic archive, ftp.std.com /archives/anime-fan-works; 
rec.arts.anime.creative - Maintainer: Ani Difranco Mailing List - Mail to
majordomo@world.std.com with 'subscribe ani-difranco' in the body. </SIG>
*********
 
It's a pity to see him go, but if the job has become the hell he describes, then
I guess it's for the best for him and everyone else.

         Rui D. Madeira  =-=  sirlock@io.org  =-=  IRC/Mud: Hoki    
     ====================================================================
"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we
 call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke."
				- Herman Melville, _Moby_Dick_ chpt XCIII