YYG Moderator NAL quit

This may not be the most expected happening, and it may not be at the perfect time, but I would like to tender my resignation from the YoYo Games moderation team. It's been a weird year and a half, but I'll give some details as to why.

At the moment, I'm without a job, and finished school in May 2009. I'm currently jobseeking - this isn't taking up a huge amount of time. When I find one, though, it's going to, and I'm sure for a while I'll be too physically exhausted (having spent seven months and counting doing next to nothing) to want to help out with this site.

I also need to be in the right mindset for it. Having spent the last couple of days in a tussle with some fairly troublesome members, I find myself in a state of stress. When I personally am stressed, I completely lose track of everything. A related reason for resignation is that, in a state of stress, my sense of judgment tends to stray and I'm more liable to make mistakes, be they major or minor.

While jobseeking (and eventually jobdoing) I would like to be improving my game development skills, in particular, my attention span. I often finding myself dropping productivity in favour of checking up a few reports or members-to-watch. I would like, by the end of 2010, to have at least one commercial game released, which will require a lot of time and effort to successfully accomplish. On top of these, I would like more time to pay attention to writing reviews on Game Maker Blog, as I enjoy doing this.

And finally, one which may sound a little stupid - I want to be seen on this site as a developer, not a moderator. In trying to enforce the rules I've made a lot of (undeserved?) enemies. It is also likely to bias reviews, ratings and comments on my work (from people that think if they criticise my games I'll ban them. It's happened). I don't mind answering PMs about GML/Game Maker issues in general, but when they're flooded by requests for features, friendships, to stop being so harsh, and to accuse me of featuring my own games despite clear comments from other people, I lose the will to live a little.

As for removal of my moderator abilities, one thing I want to be gone is the silver star by my name, to make it clear I'm no longer part of the moderation team. Apart from that, remove my powers at will. You can comment in this topic if you so wish, I'm sure NT will be able to fill me in on any replies I get.

So, thanks to you all. Thanks to the absent Nailog for recommending me to YoYoJim on the grounds of maturity. Thanks to Trollsplatterer for the support he's given me and the passive use of his banhammer. Thanks to the admins for making YoYo Games what it is today, and thanks to all the new moderators and ZekeGames for making sure stuff will still get cleared up. I'll still be active on both the site and forums, being the game developer version of me.

~Andrew