The following is reply I originally wrote for this thread. It's being reproduced here because what I have to say is really applicable to a lot of things in general on Giant Bomb, so without further ado, here's a copy-and-paste job.

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Okay, guys, I don't want a fight to break out over proofreading of all things as much as I would hope any of you do. I'm not asking any of you to give me respect as one of your wiki mods because I haven't earned that respect and I'm not going to demand it. Maybe you guys have had issues with psychotically egotistic mods at other sites or something, but I'm going to try and avoid that archetype. Having said that, Dietlama, however, asked for a civil answer and I'm going to give one. Whether anybody chooses to read it or not is not an issue about which I care. Ironically enough, it's late enough at night where I myself won't proofread this, so somebody else is free to do so with a great sense of irony if they really, really wish to do so. With that, let's get a move on.

First and foremost, let's reiterate a point which is already established: We mods aren't remotely given any sort of power whatsoever to dole out points. It's an entirely automatic thing that takes place on the back-end of the side and I would therefore recommend that if you want it changed that you go directly talk to one of the staff members since they're even more busy than we are at times.

That, however, is something which has already been established and I'm almost certain nobody wanted a reiteration of that, so let's put some new thoughts on the table. This is in no way any official stuff from the editorial team or anybody who engineers the site. We may have more direct contact with some of them, but that doesn't mean we have enough time to discuss the fundamentals of Giant Bomb's points engine. It is must therefore be mentioned that what I'm about to say is purely hypothetical and comes from my own speculation. If you're fine with that, you're free to read on.

I imagine that the points system on Giant Bomb is designed in such a way that the amount you get is supposed to be proportional. As Dietlama points out in his post, this system isn't perfect and the site is still in beta, after all. There will naturally be quirks in the system which need addressing. It's how it is with anything that's a work in progress, whether it's a site's server-side software or a novel or anything else. It's naturally going to be inherently flawed and I'm pretty sure we can't get beyond that. As something which is man-made, there will always be things which can use corrections.

I'm pretty sure we know this, too, though, so let's go even further.

Let's pretend that I'm a part of Giant Bomb's servers and my particular task is to dole out points for all the submissions which Pepsiman and crew approve. Because I'm part of a machine, I therefore rely on formulas which are designed to help designate a certain amount of points which is dependent on how much is given to me as input. I'm a machine, so I can't think too terribly deeply about the more subtle things about a person's submissions. There's nothing in particular I can do about that, beings as I'm not exactly self-aware or anything. As such, let's run though two different approved submissions scenarios and see how I'm going to treat them.

Scenario 1: Some user has submitted an extremely lengthy article on Pepsi Invaders, of all things. It discusses every bit of minutiae possible and, to me, its size looks like a college-level thesis paper. This user even spent five pages discussing how this game was only given to a handful of Coke employees! Amazing! I don't have to worry about plagiarism issues since the human moderator who sent this to me is supposed to have checked for all that for me (and, beings as I'm a machine, I'd do a mediocre job at it anyway). Therefore, my only worry is how many points I'm going to give this user. It's clear that this person has done an extensive amount of research on the Pepsi vs. Coke rivalry, as well as how Space Invader's major pop culture influence came into play. It must have taken this person a lot of work and I was designed to therefore be fair, but generous with the reward. I opt to give the lad or lass a pretty nice return on their time and energy, since, as far as I can tell, it took them a very long time to write an article of that length for Giant Bomb when they could have easily gotten it published as a book or something.

For me, this scenario is pretty common with users who submit large, original articles and I therefore don't know any better. Remember, I'm a machine after all.

Now let's go after the second scenario.

Scenario 2:  It turns out that somebody notices that the Pepsi Invaders article had a lot of grammatical errors. They might be minor or pretty significant, but it's not my problem to figure out how such an error-ridden article came through. Again, I don't have the capacity to really notice that sort of stuff. So in place of the old article, somebody has gone through and made some corrections. A good portion of the original article is intact and the only real changes have been some wording alterations here and punctuation additions there. Since this submission is using the old version as a template, though, it must be noted, according to my programming, that credit must still be acknowledged for the original author. After all, they did go through a lot of trouble to write a dissertation about a game almost nobody knows about. This new submission which has made a lot of English corrections may have taken the submitter a lot of time and work, but there's no way I can actually gauge that.

What do I actually see instead?

Because I'm a machine, the only thing I can notice is what superficial changes took place during the change. I thusly only see things in terms of altered characters, deleted words, and retrofitted punctuation marks. Since whole paragraphs haven't been replaced, it seems to me that  only a little work was done in the big scope of things. Again, the core of the article has been preserved; it's just that a lot of smaller things have been improved to spice things up. Because I make this presumption, I only give out a modest amount of points this time because, as far as I can tell, the amount of time and work which went into that isn't nearly as much as what it took to compose the original article. I can only see things in terms of alterations and because none of them were of a large scale (and on top of that, were spread throughout the article), I don't have a reason to give out more points because my very limited amount of processing power prevents me from thinking beyond that.

Am I wrong? Probably. But what am I supposed to do? I'm not designed to have a human component which can better assess things such as time and effort. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just doing my duty and moving on to the next submission.

So what's my point? Chances are that Dietlama isn't necessarily getting the points he deserves simply because the system hasn't been designed for people like him in mind. Is that right? Probably not.  I proofread some articles I stumble upon in the moderation queue from time to time when they have rather blatant errors, so I can understand the sort of dedication which is necessary to make that be a big part of your experience on Giant Bomb. It is really admirable to go out and do that and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that. The less emphasized aspects of writing are just important as the major ones such as drafts and as such deserve their due recognition. Unfortunately, there's not much else in the way of direct comfort I can offer. Like I pointed out, the system is flawed because it was designed by humans. I may not like that and Dietlama may not like that, either, but the only thing I can say about that is that everything has room for improvement, Giant Bomb's point system included. I say anybody who really wants to see this changed should be talking to the staff members in a more direct manner. Believe or not, they do actually listen to the people.

Please don't burn me to the stake! I love the really good freeware stuff as much as the next guy!

*ahem*

Turns out I was a bit behind the times when discussing that particular topic. I wasn't aware that things had changed and had simply assumed the policy was the same as it had previously been. As such, freeware is indeed allowed as long as it meets these conditions:

-It doesn't mock existing commercial games.
-It isn't a blatant rip-off of those same games, either.

Should the freeware game qualify under those conditions, it's fair game.

The readers' particularly passionate responses (Ax gets a couple thousand brownies for bringing up very, very valid arguments) to that point made me go talk to some people and investigate whether I was a loony who simply invented the rules or if I had simply been behind the times. CITIZEN JOURNALISM FOR THE WIN!

Bullet points are fun and because I'm tired, that's what the majority of this post is going to be relying on. The majority of your submissions to Giant Bomb have been great and incredibly varied. You users know a ton of stuff that put even the most encyclopedic fanatics of the medium such as myself to much, much shame. Having said that, some minor things have cropped up that might as well be addressed now since we're still very early into the site's life and not everyone necessarily knows how things work here. With that said, here's a laundry list of things I want to bring up and clear up, with most being less discussed on here, yet nevertheless just as important as the more noticeable things. Let's get to it.

• To get it out of the way right now, it's always very blatant when plagiarism crops up in an article. Most of us check Google on more than one section just to be safe, but do know that when it appears, there's no way that stuff is going to be on Giant Bomb. Wikipedia may give us a license to essentially use their content as we please, but that doesn't mean Giant Bomb has to take advantage of it. Besides, original writing tends to appear to be more organic than anything an encyclopedic entry could ever produce.
• We don't do freeware, Flash, or other such games on the site; only commercial and/or retail things are accepted. Why? There's a number of reasons, but chief among them is probably the fact that we want the database to be workable for both the users and us moderators. It's a lot easier to verify information for commercial and retail games for pretty obvious reasons than it is for the freeware and Flash stuff. Bear with us if we therefore don't choose to include Fishy or the infinite number of Tetris clones floating around online.
• However, pinball machines are fine with us. There was a lot of confusion about that (including some of my own), but if you submit a proposal for a new pinball game, we'll accept it.
• Oh, imports are fair game, as well. I've submitted some and had them accepted, so I can speak from experience there.
  
• The turnaround time for pending submissions is getting much, much better. We only want you guys to have to wait for the least amount of time possible and thanks to some new stuff incorporated into the site on the technical end, as well as an initiative amongst us moderators, we're getting pretty close to finally achieving that 24-hour mark. We have a bit of a ways to go, but it's a much shorter wait than it was before just a few days ago.
  
• Don't be afraid to PM one of the wiki mods if you see something funky about an entry. We may be busy, but we'll always take the time to address the concerns of you, the users. You're free to submit an edit instead, but just understand that it might take longer than just having one of us work directly on it.
• We know that there are things going on with wrong images being assigned to the wrong pages, galleries, and whatnot. The wiki mods, as of this writing, can't do too much about it due to technical issues, but this should be resolved in the future. You're still free to send one of us a PM so we at least know and see what we can nevertheless do about it.

It's 4:12 AM. Maybe I should be asleep. Maybe I should go take a shower in a little bit like I always should. Maybe I should stop writing sentences which begin with the phrase "Maybe I should." Essentially, I could be up to any number of different things at this hour. Instead of posting something sane about life as a Giant Bomb moderator, though, I think it's time that I go back to my ways of old and just start composing good old pure insanity. You know, only the best stuff. It is with that I mind that I present tonight to you, the readers, something very special that I did not invent at all for the sake of humor or for fulfilling some fan fiction fetish and actually managed to find through my vast network of contacts: an excerpt from Luchadeer's unauthorized and still unpublished biography. It's set to be released into stores a couple of months from now, but I know that the demand for any and all snippets for it has been extremely high for quite some time. It is therefore my pleasure to present page 51 of what is very likely the most epic book ever conceived. Brace yourselves for what could be one of the most dramatic stories in non-human history.

"...although the exact origins of Luchadeer as he is now and how he came to be bodiless are shrouded much more in obscure facts than his very impressive career statistics as a luchador. To find answers related to those particular questions, we must consult a time many years after his now very infamous retirement in which he managed to insult his entire wrestling federation 'because I could. Do I honestly need an actual reason for anything in this day and age?'

"Despite his retirement, Luchadeer still wanted to have some sort of work in order to remain active in the Mexican public eye. He had attempted to do a similar thing during his wrestling career by moonlighting as charity-endorsing superstar, but the ticks which often accompanied him on his fur typically prevented him from accomplishing anything in that particular sector whatsoever. Remembering that time, though, he was relatively unoptimistic about his prospects, and for good reason. Public prejudice towards tick-carrying animals was extremely high at the time and he had only become famous because he timed his entrance into the spotlight to occur right before such times of outrage. Nevertheless, the opportunity to start anew came when former Mexican president Vicente Fox proposed that Luchadeer should be an honorary delegate to France for Mexico. The reasoning, while not readily apparent, was rather simple when Fox was prompted about it in his home.

"'The decision to send Luchadeer to Paris in order to help represent my country at the embassy there was largely due to the American sentiments about the French at the time. This was during the height of the anti-French trend with regards to their decision to stay out of Iraq and it was my belief that Luchadeer, being a deer and all, could possibly mend some of these wounds and enable the Americans to feel better about their historically important red, white, and blue comrades. After all, Americans like to hunt any and all things which are under the legal spectrum, so I hypothesized that they would listen to Luchadeer more intently because of his species instead of just another human. Between a human and a deer, you can shoot one of those much more easily and avoid prosecution from the local District Attorney's office.

"Luchadeer, incredibly hungry for entirely fresh opportunities, eagerly accepted the opportunity to become one of Mexico's delegates to the French and quickly moved overseas. This attracted a moderate amount of attention from the press, but since the people were already accustomed to the concept of animal delegates (see Marty McFly's Speedy Gonzalez and His Venezuelan Antics for more information), the idea wasn't considered entirely original. Nevertheless, he was extremely pleased to have a new lot in life, as he had been unsure at the point of his retirement whether he would still be able to find some sort of purpose in his life. The fact that he was able to represent his entire country was thusly an honor in which he took great pride.

"It should be noted that at this point in time, Luchadeer's head was still very firmly attached to his body, a fact which he found to be highly amazing when considering his age and the status of human-deer attacks during that period, which were especially vicious. This state of being would dramatically shift soon after the move to Paris, however, thanks to a drunken conversation he had over the phone. The most important thing to remember, though, is that the entire call was between himself and only himself, as he simply used a pay phone to call his cell phone and started talking under the assumption that somebody else was present on the other line. What follows is the most pertinent information regarding his then-upcoming fate.

"'Well, that makes sense, Luchadeer.... Hey, have you ever heard of a, um, guillotine? I hear they used to be all the rage here in France back in the day. I think I read somewhere that they were even used for birthdays parties and stuff.... I'm not entirely sure whether it's true that they're capable of chopping off one's own head, though. I know MythBusters covered it in an episode one time, but I had to attend a match the day it aired, so I never learned whether it was confirmed, plausible, or busted. I'd say busted since that makes the most sense, but just to make sure, I'm going to go test that theory. I think there's one in the center of town here.... Let's just go ahead and see what happens right now. Worst comes to worst, I bet my neck gets a bit bruised. Yeah... a bruise...."

That concludes the excerpt thus far. 51 is the only page which I managed to acquire from my sources, so I'm as much in the dark regarding what happens after that phone call as you all are. Having said that, though, I think I can put on the pressure to acquire additional pages if anyone has a demand for it. Those of you who want me to look into it should post a comment indicating so. Otherwise, none of us will know the remaining details until the book's actual publishing. Going into a Barnes and Noble and picking up a copy just to learn this stuff would be rather lame, no?

As I discussed with WizzyKid earlier tonight, being a moderator for Giant Bomb is a much different gig than moderating for a lot of other sites on the Internet. Speaking from personal experience, the average moderating job simply consists of patrolling the local forums for any trouble and then putting out any verbal fires before they can actually be started. However, because of the general attitude of Giant Bomb's community thus far, as well as the actual purpose of this site as a whole, being a moderator here typically entails a whole slew of different things to do. Chief among them are looking over submitted user submissions from those who don't have permissions to do live edits yet. Although a lot of the submissions can be somewhat bland in nature (however necessary it all is for the purpose of completeness), there are always a good number of amusing ones. The members of the Giant Bomb community have a much larger opportunity on here to flex their intellectual muscles and show off the knowledge which they have for the games they love than they do on other sites and the submissions I've been seeing on here are very indicative of that.

Let's use a very extreme example which also happens to be my favorite. In the midst of a bunch of ordinary submissions I had been taking care of in the wiki submissions queue, there was one for an edit to Fire Pro Wrestling Returns on the PlayStation 2. The blurb associated with it was rather modest, noting simply that the writer was an expert of sorts when it came to the series. Judging by the article which I approved, that was a very, very grave understatement. The sheer amount of detail absolutely floored me and made me wonder how somebody could know so much about a relatively obscure wrestling series here in the States. I take pride in knowing plenty of stuff about unusual and underloved video games, but this guy put it into perspective quite a bit.

The potential for even more brilliance like that to show up is why I've been enjoying this site so much. We all have our own areas of expertise and Giant Bomb is meant to foster that and allow for all of its articles to have the ability to become fully-fledged centers of knowledge and then some. To know that I'll be able to see this place blossom in such a way throughout the weeks and months makes me rather happy as a moderator, as I'll get to witness it all directly from the comfort of my home.

In short, keep it up, denizens of Giant Bomb. You're making this place into one hell of a site already.

What's my greatest accomplishment as number 36 on this site thus far, you're asking?

It's not me successfully suggesting articles for games such as Persona 4 and Rakugaki Showtime, as well as for obscure things like the Satellaview.

It's not being able to give the evoker a chance at life.

It's not even posting a decent number of screenshots for the game upon which my user name is based.

What is it really?

It's going to be when those Barney Hide and Seek screenshots on my profile officially become a part of that game's page.

That's got to be the undisputed winner. By far.