Recently I have turned away some people trying to become Moderators. They seemed rather distraught and I gave them a true answer about the Game of Admins. Now them most of you out there probably have no clue what I mean about this Game, but I assure you that you are playing it if you are registered and post regularly at forums. It is a primary result of human nature.

To begin, I can explain the Game of Admins and it is a relatively simple concept that forms quite a few intricate plots. The root of the Game comes from two opposing statements:

Members want to be Admins.
Admins want to stay Admins.

Depending on the level of skill a member has with playing the Game is how fast he or she will become an Admin and how long he or she will stay one. Another large factor contributing to the speed or lack of speed in a member reaching Adminship is the skill of the current Admins in this game.

You could say that playing the Game is what an Admin's true job is because he or she has to know when or how to deny people extra power that might lead to their own eventual loss of it or the forums as a whole. A good Admin must also know how to prevent people from taking power by force or by scheming. While a member who is good at the Game must know how to counter these moves so he or she can rise to power in the forums.

An Admin like myself knows the perfect Mod/Admin to member relation ship as to contain his or her own power while keeping the forums running smoothly which contributes to their power. Picture a company that makes toys. If the output of the toys exceeds the capacity of workers to produce those toys, the profit of the company decreases and thus the CEO loses money. For each new worker the CEO hires there is a risk that the worker will one day rse to CEO level and begin to take capital away from the original CEO. Conversely, if the company gets too big for one CEO to handle, then that CEO will HAVE to find another CEO. Such is the way forums behave as well. There must always be the least number of those in power to balance the Admin's movement toward consolidation, but at the same time there need to be the highest amount of those in power to satisfy the goals of the members.

A good forum should satisfy both somewhere in the middle so as to keep the members from thinking that they have no way to power but at the same time keeping the Admins happy with the prospect of keeping their power.