I’ll start.

I worked at an adult toy store for several years. Ask me anything.

Unlike my examples, this one actually did happen in real life.

@Haleth Was there a toy at the store that you did not know the use of?

adult toy store
Crap, I should have added a NSFW tag to this question, and now it’s too late to edit.

@Hawaii_Jake There was literally only one thing, and I’m not even sure that it was for people to use or it was meant to be there. In the display case there was a length of suede cord with a clippy thing on the end that let you adjust the length. That was it. Just a cord, and a clip. All the other stuff in there, you could imaging fitting onto/into the human body somehow, but that one left me thinking, ”???” When people asked me about it, I just made up random stories, like “it’s for your nose,” or “you tie it in a bow around the end of the (NSFW.)” My boss didn’t know, either.

You need to make your plot more opaque, Mr. NSA spy man.

@Haleth What do you say to regular customers when you run into them outside of the store?

I have 30 years of veterinary experience.

I spent 7 years as curator of a non-profit conservation organization working with big cats and other carnivores.

So wadaya want to know?

@syz re:Veterinary experience

My dog has hyp dysplasia. What kind of exercise is good for her and why? I get a lot of contradicting information. I’ve asked my vet, but he is not the type to explain anything.

@syz What are your thoughts on Rimadyl? (let me check the spelling)

@longgone
Depending on the severity of the dysplasia, exercise can be important for minimizing the effects of her condition. You want to keep the muscles surrounding the affected joint strong. Low impact exercise like swimming is a good choice, as well as walks and even some running. Start slow and easy, and if you see increased stiffness and pain afterword, then you need to back off a bit. Avoid jarring motions like jumping and leaping.

Some dogs can’t tolerate much in the way of exercise, and you may need to look at more drastic actions (like a surgical FHO). Severe dysplasia can be a quality of life issue, so knowing your options is important.

Other things that you can do to keep her comfortable include things like avoiding slippery floor surfaces, providing an orthopedic bed, and drugs for pain control.

@Adirondackwannabe In general, or in relation to @longgone ‘s question?

@syz Both. My Golden Retrievers had bad hip problems and were on it for years. It made a big difference in how mobile they were. But my vet was really concerned about the side affects. It was almost like he expected health problems from it. But nothing ever happened and they lived to be 14 or 15 years old.

@Adirondackwannabe Rimadyl works very well for many, many dogs. But just like humans and ibuprofen, some don’t tolerate it as well as others. It can cause severe and even life threatening liver problems, so it’s important to regularly test for issues – how pissed would you be if your dogs did go into liver failure and died without your vet ever letting you know that it was a possibility? (Way too many vets prescribe it like candy.) It’s a tool, that when used correctly, is a very effective tool.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it often gets misconstrued on this site – I am not a veterinarian, I have worked as a veterinary technician for many years and now manage a 24 hour emergency hospital. I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking that I am a vet, and I realized that I did not make that crystal clear in my post above.

I live in Florida, USA. I worked over 20 years in retail. My husband races with club racing, we go to the big tracks, Sebring, Daytona, Road America, Virginia International Raceway, and more.

@syz I guess I got lucky and found a really good vet. It worked with my dogs.

I’ve been collecting and selling antique and vintage glassware for 40 years.
I co-own a local auction house.

@syz: Any new state-of-the-art tricks for cutting a cat’s nails?

@syz No you’ve always made that clear. But you do have some great expertise.

@gailcalled Lol, not for your tiger.

Have you talked to your vet about Soft Paws? They may be able to clip his nails and then apply them for you. Of my 3 cats, 2 tolerate them very well and they last about 3 months. The 3rd cat promptly sits down and peels them off immediately after application, but she’s not my worst furniture-destroying offender, anyway.

@syz: See PM for more info (not very interesting to the collective).

I was a professional chocolatier for 25 years. I’ll take a swing at your chocolate questions.

@thorninmud Have you ever had Bissinger’s chocolates? Made in St. Louis, Mo. They are able to make a sugar-free that is better than most regular chocolates.

Have you made sugar-free chocolate? Did you tire of chocolate after a time?

@thorninmud Do the chocolate companies make a fortune? Chocolate is so expensive these days at retail.

@ibstubro

Have you ever had Bissinger’s chocolates?
I tasted some Bissinger’s ages ago, too long to remember, I’m afraid.

Have you made sugar-free chocolate?
Back at the start of my career, the company I worked for was asked to develop some sugar-free chocolate. The problem is that sugar provides not only sweetness, but also bulk. Most artificial sweeteners are way sweeter than sugar, so they’ll sweeten the chocolate just fine, but the strength of the cocoa flavor isn’t sufficiently diluted, so it’s aggressively bitter at the same time. Nowadays, there are sweeteners like maltodextrin that have a good flavor and can be engineered to have the same volume as sugar, but those weren’t available back when we were trying. Sugar-free chocolate doesn’t behave the same when used in many recipes either.

Did you tire of chocolate after a time?
I guess I’d say that my appreciation for chocolate now is more a professional one than a hedonic one. I’m unlikely to order a chocolate dessert for my own enjoyment. I still recognize that it’s an amazing product, but I won’t swoon over it.

@thorninmud – Chocolate (like coffee, tea, beer, and wine) seems to have a strange quality for me. If I love a chocolate today, there is a good chance that I will try it next month and it will taste awful.

I will go through a love of a particular chocolate, then suddenly find that it doesn’t do anything for me, but I might return to it someday. Some of it could be seasonal, like beer, however. I’m not sure.

Do you find that certain flavors sell more during certain times of the year? Do you also find that for many people, chocolate doesn’t play the same way on the tongue throughout the year, or could it simply be flavor exhaustion?

@JLeslie Most chocolate companies that I’m familiar with don’t make a ton of money. Cocoa, like oil, is traded as a bulk commodity on the world markets and fluctuates according to political perturbations in the growing regions, crop pathogens, etc. The vast majority of the world’s cocoa comes from western Africa, and political unrest recently shut down most of the cocoa exports in prime regions. Add to that ongoing problems with fungal outbreaks in Latin American plantations (cocoa, especially varieties grown in Latin America, is very susceptible to diseases). Cocoa prices rose quite high a couple of years back, and chocolate prices now are still reflecting that.

I’m the resident waterfowl expert and fancier, with a passion for geese want to get a gaggle of your own, ask mother goose. lol

@tom_g Interesting question. I never noticed a seasonal variance in my own tastes, but I can relate to what you say about loving a chocolate at a given tasting and then, at the next go-‘round, wondering why.

When I visited the Valrhona plant and talked to the tasters there, they said that each of their many blends has as many as a dozen different cocoas from around the world, each contributing certain constituents of the desired flavor profile. But every shipment of, say, Nacional from Equador will be slightly different, so they have to make a test batch of chocolate from each new shipment, see how it compares to what they consider a standard Nacional profile, and tweak the composition of the blends accordingly. Think for a second about how complex that process must be when your warehouse stocks cocoas from 30 or so countries.

Now, that’s Valrhona, and that’s how they roll. But not many chocolate makers are going to put themselves through that. That may account for a lot of the variance in our subjective experience of a given chocolate, right along with our own physiological and psychological factors. And hell, why not seasonal to boot.

I can say categorically that chocolate simply doesn’t sell in the summer.

I have studied the behavior of Canis lupus arctos. Ask away.

I have been reading Marvel Comics non-stop for 30+ years and have a ton of knowledge about them and their universe. If you’re digging the recent Marvel movies, but feel a bit lost (for example) — ask me anything!

I have been a professor in Marketing, a Marketing Manager and in recent life I’m reponsible for the global key account portfolio of a big, internationally operating company.

I work in a sensitive area in the Middle East and I know a lot about asset intensive infrastructural services. More specific about operating a cargo airline.

I have implemented quality systems on a company level and an ethical code on an industry level. I have been working as a business banker at the beginning of my career. I have a degree in human resource managent. In short: ask me about management and business ethics.

I have a beautiful family with two kids ask me about dumb luck and hapiness.

I know how to make my own wine and spirits, but don’t ask me about that.

@thorninmud: “I can say categorically that chocolate simply doesn’t sell in the summer.”

Really? Is this a practical matter due to chocolate not dealing well with heat, or is it a vanity thing because chocolate might = more weight during beach season?

Interesting about Valrhona and that whole process. So, there are legitimate changes possible within chocolates. Combine that with my crazy mind, and I’m sure that is enough to explain how a chocolate can taste completely different.

Beer is a definitely seasonal for me. In general, lighter pale ales during the summer, IPA extra hoppy during the spring and fall and winter, with stouts being almost exclusively a winter thing.

I’m a software engineer/developer/programmer at a fairly-large company that creates software for the public sector. Yawn. Ask…yawn…me…zzzz….anything.

@tom_g I suspect that it’s a combination of factors. Before widespread climate control, chocolate would have only been widely available during cooler months, so that may have created a psychological association that has persisted beyond its justification. But I also think there’s a greater appeal for intense, highly caloric foods in cold weather (even your beer preferences reflect that).

@Coloma – What’s up with swans? There are two swans at a pond in town, and they seem to disappear occasionally. Do people move these beasts, or do they migrate somewhere? Also, they are mean, and look like that they could kill me. Could they?

@Neodarwinian In a wolf pack, do the sub-dominant males ever manage to get some..um…action? If a female were to bear a litter from a sub-dominant male, would the dominant male be able to detect their paternity and kill them?

@ibstubro – When you watch Antiques Roadshow on PBS, does it seem reasonable or are there some things that just seem off?

@tom_g Are you the one who fucked up healthcare.gov?

^ If we had been given the opportunity to build this site, we would likely be in the same situation.

@tom_g Swans are strong flyers, unlike most domestic ducks and geese, especially. Most likely they have an alternate water source, food source or roosting place they “migrate” to from time to time.
No, they cannot kill you but.. they are very territorial and they can deliver a painful left hook and a nice twisting bite with their serrated beaks. Feb. through June is breeding season and they will be extra aggressive during that time as are geese.

The plight of dumped domestic breeds is that they cannot fly away when their food supply dries up or likewise their water source. This is why dumping domestics is extremely cruel.
They are often trapped in very inadequate environments and living on wonder bread and potato chips is a death diet for these creatures that need lots of grazing habitat and healthy seeds and grains to flourish. :-)

@thorninmud

A wolf pack is, for the most part, a family. The breeding male is the father and the breeding female is the mother. The alpha pair designation is no longer used so sub dominant would not be a correct designation for a non breeding male of the pack; the son of the breeding pair.

That is why wolves break from the pack and start their own packs in unclaimed/abandoned territory. Sometimes brothers and sisters do this and sometimes packs accept strange wolves into the pack. Still, the out breeding is maintained by the emigration of wolves from the pack. This is the general rule but there are exceptions of course that have been defined by genetic sequencing.

Infanticide in wolves is usually practiced by the females under stressful conditions, captivity for instance. Wolf packs are not invaded such as lion prides are, so no male infanticide there and if an unauthorized breeding of the breeding female took place the male is in place and would probably not even be aware that the progeny are not his. Lions, for instance, invade the resident pride and preform infanticide generally, this being statistically correct, not from recognition of progeny.

I used to be a werewolf but i’m alright nowwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

@Neodarwinian What do you think about people keeping wolf hybrids? I disagree, what’s your take?

@ibstubro: I have a few pieces of what I believe is American Brilliant cut glass, inherited from my mother five years ago. They look very much like the following items (patterns may not be exactly the same): [ 1   2   3   4 ] They were all wedding presents to my parents in the early 1940s. There were half a dozen other items as well, gone to other members of my family.

The oval bowl has a small chip along the zigzag edge, pretty much invisible until you touch it. The others, as far as I can tell, are intact, no chips, no cracks, no other damage.

My mother used all of them, except the carafe, which she (and probably the giver, in their teetotaling family) thought was a vase.

They’ve all gone a bit cloudy with time, especially the carafe. My mother kept that item on top of an old cabinet, dusty and exposed, and seldom used or cleaned it from one year to the next.

What is the best way to restore them to their original sparkle and shine? I have them enclosed in a small glass-fronted curio cabinet; I don’t have any interest in selling them, although I imagine they’re worth a little something.

Thank you.

@Coloma

” I disagree ”

And so do many states.

My take is that keeping a hybrid is risky at the least. Here in New Mexico you see ads selling these hybrids in the paper! Still, dogs are not wolves and a wolf-dog hybrid can be human aggressive easily enough. Not having a wariness to humans, the dog half, and the powerful/ predatory wolf half to consider.

Yet comparing the dog attack wolf hybrid attack numbers show no more one than the other. Still, scientific studies of hybrid behavior are almost nonexistent and anecdote is what we have here.

All in all I would advise against the hybrid just on the paucity of behavioral studies here.

@tom_g Antiques Roadshow is staged. They go through 1,000’s if not 10,000 interview to get those few you actually get to see. I’ve noticed too, that if you watch closely, many of those people with grammys $5,000 vase are old money, likely living in million dollar mansions. Still it IS entertaining.

@Jeruba It’s a good thing that you’re enjoying the pieces now, as ABC glass has (along with most glassware) fallen on hard times. It makes me sad, as I remember the time that even damaged pieces were worth a decent amount. Right now I’m buying ABC glass, particularly if it’s signed. The signatures often appear to be water spots until you get them in just the right light. Hawkes, Libby and Sinclair are popular makers.
As to cleaning, warm soapy water can’t be beat. Something with ammonia helps, and a pre-wet of Glass Plus can loosen most grime. For the carafe, I’s add warm water to about 2–3 inches from the top, and drop in 3–4-5 denture cleaning tablets. I’ll likely boil over as it works. They tell me when it stops foaming, it’s stopped working. my opinion is that “If denture cleaner won’t remove it, it can’t be removed.” Water standing in a glass vessel can cause a chemical reaction with the surface of the glass resulting in permanently cloudy (or ’sick’) glass. Only an expensive professional process can fix it. (Although I believe I cured a ‘sick’ carafe once using vinegar and uncooked rice, swirled for hours and days.)

Okay, now I’ll shut up…I should have known not the participate here! lol

Cut glass

Many thanks, @ibstubro. Clarifying question: by “fallen on hard times” do you mean it’s lost resale value? If so, I honestly don’t care about that, apart from the romantic notion of a valuable heirloom, of which my family has very few.

I like the pieces because they’re pretty to look at and they have memories for me. Every Thanksgiving in my young days, for instance, my mother used to give me the assignment of arranging a quantity of fruit (polished and beautiful, in as many colors as possible) in the oval bowl as a centerpiece. I’ve begun doing that again now that the bowl resides with me.

With respect to soaking the carafe with denture cleaner, are you speaking of submerging it? If so, do I have to worry about a temperature differential between inside and out, and/or water that’s too warm? It seems to me that the dullness is on the outside. Is there any special technique, such as fill it first and then submerge it rather than submerging it empty and then filling it? The glass is very thick. I would hate to be the one to crack this thing.

@Jeruba Yes, the resale value of cut glass has dropped dramatically. There was an influx of (pretty!) new cut glass just prior to eBay and the Baby Boomer’s ’big dump on the market. I’m with you, I still love it, and it doesn’t go begging around me! I have shelves of signed cut glass.

No, you don’t have to submerse the carafe. You can clean the outside (later) perfectly well with standard cleaning and an old toothbrush. Fill the carafe within 2–3” from the top with warm water, set it in a bowl, and drop in the tablets. (Denture tablets are now available at The Dollar Tree, FYI.) If the cruet has any thing in it, you can use the same method. Sometimes with something as small as a cruet, I will submerse the whole piece. Break the tablets, put them in the cruet, set the cruet in as tight a (plastic) container as possible and fill the container (cruet first) with warm water. I’d put 2–3 in the cruet, then another 2–3 in the water around it. the tablets are cheap :-)

I once used the tablets boil a mouse carcass out of a vase 3’ tall and as narrow as 3 inches across. They work GREAT on old oil lamps, too, if the oil has thickened or discolored.

Thanks for the additional detail, @ibstubro. It’s wonderful to be able to consult an expert.

“Baby Boomers’ big dump”—meaning that my generation’s household treasures are now saturating the market by way of estate sales? Cheery thought.

Ugh for the mouse carcass.

@Jeruba It’s not just estate sales. The Boomers are downsizing, and finding that the ‘heirs’ simply don’t have the interest or space for the ‘heirlooms’. We’re increasingly a mobile society and ‘stuff’ and ‘clutter’ are increasingly unpopular. My father had one job in my lifetime, and lived his entire life (from teen to death) in one house. That’s increasingly rarer, and it works against family treasures. Sad, but understandable.

I am a wee bit obsessed with Muppets. I emphasized in English Renaissance Drama and Modern American Literature for my MA. I intend to pursue a PhD in the former.

Re: Curator
@syz What was your most memorable experience working with the animals at the conservation organization?

Re: Chocolate!
@thorninmud To borrow a different reddit meme, Explain Like I’m Five: any tips or tricks for someone who has never tempered chocolate before? I always wanted to attempt making chocolate sweets as gifts for the holidays, but I have been too intimidated to take a stab at it.

re: auction house
@ibstubro What is the most unusual item that you witnessed at auction?

@muppetish It’s hard to say, but the last auction we had what appeared to be a pint sized butter churn. Who would go to the trouble of churning a pint of cream? It also had this odd little funnel attachment on the side to dribble something in while beating the liquid. No one had seen anything like it before. Just as I went to hold it up for sale, I realized what it was. A mayonnaise beater…put the raw eggs in the beater jar and dribble oil through the funnel. In any case, it brought $160. Wow.

Here’s the little booger.

@ibstubro Cool! I want one.

@ibstubro I had a hand forged slave coin/token dating from 1752 forged from a plantation in Virginia It brought a pretty penny some years ago. :-)

@glacial It was sooooo cool. If we were not known locally as ”the honest auctioneers”, that baby would be sitting on MY shelf. It was a living estate, and if I’d offered the woman $20 for it, she undoubtedly would have jumped at the money.

Ah, well, she let me pick up a sack of butternuts from the yard! lol

@Coloma I BET! Probably just as well you sold it then…the buyer probably sent it to China, who returned 100,000 copies at 2 cents each. The copies don’t have to be good, they just have to confuse the market.

@muppetish Re tempering chocolate

There many ways to temper chocolate, but by far the easiest is to use the microwave:

Start with solid chocolate, chopped to grape-sized chunks and placed in a ceramic bowl.

Enter several minutes on the microwave (you’ll be frequently interrupting the cycle to stir and check).

Begin heating. Stop occasionally to see if there’s any evidence that melting has begun. This can take awhile, but be vigilant.

When you see signs that the chocolate is beginning to melt, give the chunks a quick stir with a spatula and continue heating. Things will progress much more quickly now. Stop at frequent intervals (every 10 seconds or so) and stir again.

You’re shooting for a condition of mostly melted chocolate containing several soft lumps (soft enough to be mashed with the spatula against the side of the bowl). Do not heat beyond this point. If you heat to the point where the lumps are gone, or nearly so, then you’ve gone too far and recovery will be difficult.

At this point, give the chocolate a very thorough stirring, mashing the lumps as you go. If you have persistent lumps that just won’t melt, you can give very brief shots in the microwave, followed by more stirring.

If you haven’t applied too much heat, it’s tempered at this point. Touch the surface of the chocolate with the back of your index finger. You should barely be able to feel any sensation of warmth at all. If it feels cool, you can give it another tiny shot. If it feels warm, that’s bad news.

Tempered chocolate will be constantly trying to thicken and solidify in the bowl as you work with it. You can give it little microwave shots as needed to loosen it back up, but be aware that if you ever go over that critical temperature, the temper will be lost and cooling the chocolate back down won’t restore it.

@thorninmud Wow, I’ve never heard of tempering chocolate in a microwave, particularly since so much of it is about careful temperature control. Do you not use any shortening in your method?

@Adirondackwannabe Adult toy store Oddly enough, I don’t think that ever actually happened? It was in a big shopping/nightlife neighborhood, so not too many people actually lived or worked there. Or maybe if they did, they were really furtive about getting in and out.

The only regulars we had were a bunch of local strippers who bought shoes there, and male crossdressers who also bought shoes, because we carried high heels in mens’ sizes. And this one guy who kept trying to shoplift.

@syz re:Veterinary experience

Thank you, that’s more than my vet has ever told me on the matter.
I figured swimming would be good, but I’m reluctant to try that because Nerina seems to be in pain whenever she gets wet. Maybe I can figure out some way to get her dry fast enough…
Everyone I’ve talked to has said that, because she’s nine already, surgery is not a good idea. We tried inserting gold pins, but that didn’t work. Her hip dysplasia is not very severe yet, but she does get pain medication (meloxicam) daily.
I’ve been wondering whether it might be better to only give her drugs when she actually is in pain…what’s your take on that? On the one hand, the meds can’t be good for her liver, etc. On the other hand, could she develop any kinds of relieving postures if I don’t realize she’s in pain?
Funnily, I’ve avoided slippery surfaces for a while now – because she seemed unstable and scared. I never realized this is connected to her HD.

Two more questions:
– Are tug-of-war games safe to play, or would they put too much pressure on the hip?
– Recently, Nerina has been reluctant to sit when I ask her too. It obviously hurts her, so I’ve avoided it. Is that going the wrong way?

Sorry this got so long.

@glacial No, nothing added. Microwave tempering actually yields a better result (in terms of appearance) than most other methods, and it’s faster since you start from solid chocolate rather than melted.

The temperature is very important, but the back-of-the-index-finger test is, with a little practice, about as accurate as a thermometer. The microwave is a great instrument for introducing heat to chocolate, since it doesn’t just act on the surface of the mass. The classic double-boiler is a fine way to melt chocolate, but a terrible way to do the subtle tempering tweaks.

@muppetish The most memorable aspect of my time at CPT was my relationship with Isabella (that’s her in my profile pic). Izzy was an accidental breeding between a brother and sister tiger (she arrived at our facility pregnant), and mom immediately rejected the cubs. Two died within days of cleft palate and other genetic abnormalities, and I was a newbie given Iz to raise (because she was expected to die). She had her first seizure at 7 days old, but I got those under control and she did very well, entered a bratty pre-teen type period at about 5 months, and was on track to growing up to be a pretty normal tiger. Then she got very ill from swallowing 32 river rocks (her meat had been lying on them) at about 8 months, had surgery to remove them, and we spent a very long recovery time together.

I don’t know if it was the inordinate amount of time we spent together or her health issues, but Izzy was a ridiculously sweet tiger (so sweet, she couldn’t be housed with other tigers). She would lay across my lap and suck on my finger until she was nearly 2. I could pull a blood sample from her front leg while she ate chicken soup for phenobarbital level checks. We would lay down together in the sun. (Let me very strongly state that tigers ARE NOT PETS and of 40+ tigers that I’ve worked with, her temperament and behavior was an exceptional exception.)

And then when Iz was 7, the founder of our organization died, politics ripped the place apart, and because of some of the things that were going on, I walked away in disgust, never to return. It ripped my heart from my chest to never see Isabella again. She died of an untreated pyometra at 16.

@longgone There’s a couple ways to think about the pain medication question. Is it healthier overall to not be on them? Yes. The problem is that pain medications (opioids) are less effective after pain is present (so it takes more drug to be effective). If you use NSAIDs, they work as anti-inflammatories and help to prevent swelling and pain, so you balance the risks with the benefits.

The best plan is to work with your veterinarian to find a plan that works for your dog. There’s no easy answer, it’s going to be a little different for everyone.

(Nine is not too old for surgery, btw.)

I’ve been in the Navy for 8 years.

It sucks lol. Just kidding it’s ok.

I am an expert in scientific and sociological approaches to sex/gender/sexuality/race and know a lot about feminist/gender-critical parenting and polyamory – ask me anything.

Simone_De_Beauvoir

Really?

What is the greatest difference between men and women?

the tenderness of the meat

@Neodarwinian According to what approach? Biological, psychological, sociological, mainstream? It matters since with each approach, the difference changes.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir

There is only one approach. The approach that is best supported by the evidence.

” psychological, sociological, mainstream? ”

These three have serious incoherence problems and weak methodology. The latter two ” approaches seem to think evidence is a dirty word.

It is a simple question with a very simple answer.

@ragingloli

Which one is tenderer?

@Neodarwinian If you know the answer you want, why on earth did you ask the question?

I traveled to East Berlin before the wall came down. Ask me anything.

@mattbrowne: goofy premise aside, how realistic is the movie Good-Bye, Lenin! in depicting East German life before and after the transition, including the presumed reluctance of some to adjust to the change and their nostalgia for life before it?

I know the answer could fill books (and probably has), but how about a short take?

@syz Thanks!

This thread is fascinating! I am an expert on nothing, with the possible exception of Fluther. I’ll just lurk.

@augustlan being an expert on Fluther

Being the community manager here, are things any different behind the scenes?

@Haleth Things are different, for sure. It’s almost like there’s an invisible Fluther riding alongside the public one. Every time a new moderator comes on board, they’re always pretty amazed to realize all of the work the mod team does that the community never really sees.

Just as a for instance, we’ve been under a massive spam attack for about a week now (I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of spam accounts per day!), but nearly all of it gets zapped before members are ever aware of its existence. GO MODS! There’s also a fair amount of behind the scenes drama – between members, between members and mods, and sometimes even between mods. Dealing with that is probably the toughest part of being a mod/manager.

Maybe the most interesting difference is that mods can still see all the posts that are removed. The CIA thread takes on a whole new (but actually less entertaining) meaning, when you’re a mod. ;)

@augustlan Well…I think I deserve an award for no drama, I can only imagine what you deal with. Maybe a new award in the making ” No jelly drama.” haha

@Jeruba – Realistic up to a point. For some East Germans brainwashing really worked and they still regret the demise of the GDR.

not so much brainwashing, but the constitutionally guaranteed job.