Neelabh Krishnan is one of the most respected and popular person known for his helping nature, friendliness and dedication. Serving as a moderator for more than 50 communities of orkut, Social networking site, Neelabh is also known as “Super Mod”. Some of the most prestigious and highly active communities of orkut like Cricket and Team India would be thankful for Neelabh’s contribution in keeping their community lively and well maintained.

This is also the first interview on Hall of Fame of a person who feels more proud and happy to be a moderator of the communities then being an owner.

Let me welcome Neelabh on Orkut’s Hall of Fame which is dedicated to some outstanding orkut personalities who in many ways promoted the positive and safe social networking.

Welcome Neelabh; Wish you all the best for this exclusive interview.

Wow! Thank you so much Zazo for this recognition. Being a fan of yours and orkutheroes.com never before have I thought such a moment would come. I feel really honored to be one among the “Orkut heroes”. And congrats to you too, for this awesome concept. You’ve been doing a great job till now and I hope you carry on with it in full swing.

Thanks a lot Neelabh for such warm words of appreciation, but I am more thankful to you for accepting this invitation. Well, here I go. Would you like to tell us something about your own self? I am sure most of your friends and fans want to know, what this Neelabh do and where he is from? Your educational and family background too.

Well originally I’m from Cochin and at present I’m residing in Panaji, the capital city of Goa. I’ve been here for nearly 4-5 years now and it’s been real fun.
I’m currently doing my class 12th.

My educational career has been quite a long one.
Long I say because I’ve never been in any particular place as such at a stretch. Due to my Dad’s periodic official transfers the family (obviously) had to keep moving along. But a positive thing about this is that I’ve got to meet so many different kinds of people of different cultures, lifestyles and behavior across wherever we’ve been to. I made lot of friends, and in a way it’s been kind of an advantage because I can say I have lots of friends in many different parts of the country. This is one reason why you see my friend list with nearly 900 people that includes relatives, cousins and my past and present friend circle. But thanks to Orkut I never imagined I could meet my best friends of almost 7-8 years back. Of course I’ve made lots of good, caring friends in orkut too but this is one of the reasons.

Neelabh, you are too much involved in orkut and orkut communities, since how long you are on orkut and what is that particular reason you became so attached to it? Is it because social networking is still a new thing to play on net?

Yes Zazo I can admit that at one point of time I was so addicted to orkut that I was literally worried about my future and career. It all started back in May 2007 when I joined orkut just because a few relatives of mine persuaded me to join and said it’s a lot more interesting and active other social networking sites (which at that time was certainly new to me as I’d never tried something like this before). You can say I was active somewhat in Facebook at that time when it was just launched but it was so boring that I decided to shift to something else, and especially when a few ex-classmates of mine also insisted me to do the same.

But once I started getting involved in orkut with some of my close cousins it started becoming a habit to login regularly and check my scraps. And especially I was really amazed to find some of my very old friends when I tried searching their name in the box, as I said before some even my classmates of class 3rd and 4th. And I was even more excited when I searched the name of some of my schools and found their respective communities on orkut. When I went through its members list and their photo albums it was almost like a journey down the memory lane. This is when I loved and thanked orkut so much that I felt I’ll never even think of leaving or stop being active in it because who knows there may be more surprises awaiting me.

But it was at the start of the T20 cricket world cup that I slowly started visiting and taking part in communities, especially the cricket related ones. It was so fun to have debates and arguments on cricket related topics with people of many different views and opinions. Especially in the community “Cricket” Indians and Pakistanis used to argue and fight on silly matters just because they’re Indians and Pakistanis. I’d never met Pakistanis before and I was really surprised to find them having discussions just like us. From then on I started visiting these communities regularly to see what’s happening in and around them. Frankly speaking if it wasn’t for orkut I’ve never thought I could speak or communicate with Pakistani people. LOL. Now I have lots of Pakistani and Brazilian (and a few from other countries) friends too, thanks once again to orkut.

Orkut started its service in 2004, as you said you joined orkut in somewhere 2007. How you managed to become moderator of such big communities like Cricket etc. in a year? Also your friends and fans (on orkut) are touching the limit. How many hours you usually sit surfing orkut?

Yes orkut was launched way back in Jan 2004 and I regret that I couldn’t be a part of it at least in a year or 2. But being moderator in communities surprisingly didn’t take much time because once I started being active in some of those communities there was no turning behind. Whenever a mod requirement arise I was always one of the candidates. I’m talking only about certain communities in which this was the case. In a few others like Cricket it was me approaching the owner and asking him to keep the community clean and disciplined or hand over the responsibility to someone who could do it best. I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity in most cases and since then I’ve been quite successful in achieving my targets and getting them on the right track.
I’m a member of almost 700+ communities but I can tell you each and every single community represents my feelings. I just don’t join them in bulk for the sake of it.
And I’m extremely happy to have got the chance of managing my favorite and dear ones out of those 700. Cricket, Team India, New Delhi, I Love Music, etc. are some of the prime examples.

LOL well as I told you I was a total orkut addict till a few months back. I used to sit on orkut and surf through communities for most of my free time. If it wasn’t for school or studies or extra classes, it would be orkut
this started becoming a major cause of concern to everyone and especially being in 12th I knew I had to avoid it somehow. I somehow managed to make it look ‘less than’ an addiction later on and now I can manage it. Since my Diwali holidays are in progress at the moment I have a lot of free time to spend on orkut for about 25 days.
But after that I’ll certainly reduce it to a bare minimum and since about a month or so I stopped being active in communities and now I pay very little attention to moderation and stuff because if I start getting involved in it again I know how it’ll end up.
So these days I just login to check and reply to scraps to maintain a balance.

Not everyone is like you, there are many young students who get addicted to social networking sites these days ignoring their studies, please tell how did you succeed in making a balance between orkut and studies? Any tips you would like to share?

Yes orkut addiction is a really dangerous thing especially for students doing their 10th and 12th classes. Orkut communities, friends and scraps can be real fun but at the same time if a proper balance is not maintained it can ultimately ruin your life and career apart. Believe me, this has happened to me once for a mid-term test last year and that’s when I realized it. If you’re really addicted to it there won’t be anything else you’ll have to think of besides orkut in your free time. It’s not only about your career, but there’s a lot more to virtual life than just orkut when it comes to recreation and other activities. Its worst part is that it destroys your thinking capacity and hence you won’t be able to concentrate in studies and other important matters. I’m saying this from personal experience and I believe that the best way to avoid addiction is to just forget about it completely for 2-3 days. Though it’ll be extremely difficult than it sounds, there’s no other way. If you’re a person with a good will power it should certainly help

Besides all negative aspects of orkut addiction, what are those positive things, one could take from social networking?

Well as I said orkut has helped me and millions of users to communicate, interact and make new friends through the community system. In a site with such high frequency of users it’s absolutely amazing to have discussion and debates in forums and meet people with different opinions. Though I first had the “I’m always right” attitude and thinking (because I’d never been on an internet forum before) I changed a lot when I learnt that in Team India community itself there were people with different viewpoints about the strategy of the Indian cricket team, its players, board and administration, etc and so discussing and debating to win an argument certainly helped me a lot in improving my knowledge and attitude towards the game and more importantly my thinking power while having an open discussion. And making friends through such communities after knowing them, their nature and approach towards people is absolutely a great feeling and I think whoever started the concept of social networking deserves a pat on the back.

Myspace and Facebook are also amazing sites but personally I prefer orkut. Myspace is much larger and a lot more advanced than Orkut but I believe the Asian circle in it is a lot lesser than orkut and so it’s not that popular over here. And since Facebook is not as open as orkut or myspace the chance of meeting new people is much lesser. And so personally I’d prefer orkut any day to other social networking sites.

Managing communities is not so easy when the member’s stats reach till a million. Though it’s a team work, what are your roles as a moderator? Why you enjoy being a mod more then being an owner of the communities?

Yes actually I’m more into moderating communities because managing something is a passion for me. Ever since I joined orkut I had this zeal to be a good moderator and liked by everyone especially after seeing incidents of Cricket community. It was the time when India won the T20 World Cup by a small margin and Indians and Pakistanis were fighting and verbally abusing each others’ religion and families like immature people on an internet forum. It continued for some days and I was literally shocked to see such comments because I’d never witnessed a ‘cyber war’ like that before. Though it was all sorted out and the abusers banned for good due to some exceptional work by one of the mods there I was really sort of ‘inspired’ to take up a challenge like this myself. And when an occasion arose when the owner announced requirement of new mods in that community I tried desperately to convince him by supporting myself as much as I can by convincing everyone that I’m not biased, etc. But apparently the appointment of mods was on an election basis and since I wasn’t active there due to the fights, nobody knew who I was and so naturally I didn’t get any vote. And I and a lot of others who suggested themselves weren’t considered (obviously) and the ones who deserved won. Though I was fortunate enough to get a chance to moderate the very same Cricket community after many months this Indo-Pak incidence was when I really started having a deep desire to moderate and mange discussion forums and people on orkut. Since then I started getting chances little by little in cricket related communities (and other ones too later on) and I can tell you I was very successful in both keeping the communities clean and disciplined AND in getting appreciation from people. Being the moderator of Team India (Men in Blue) community in Jan 2008 is the biggest challenge I’ve faced till now but frankly speaking I’m really very proud to be a moderator there even today.

Well of course being the owner of big communities is a great thing too but as I said probably it’s my deep desire and interest in management that I’ve always shown and will always show interest in moderating them to the best of my ability.
And something which makes me really happy and proud even now is the fact that I moderate communities which interests me the most.

Neelabh, what are your hobbies other than being on Orkut and moderation?

Other than orkut I enjoy playing cricket with friends (not much in this year though, but in general) and watching almost all kinds of sports on TV. Mostly I like serials in Z-Cafe channel (I even created a community for its fans), AXN and Star World and I love watching informative channels like the Discovery, Nat Geo, History channel and almost all kinds of Hollywood movies (especially horror and comedy). News channels (like NDTV) are also something I enjoy watching.

I’m not a bookworm because I don’t have the patience to read novels. But whenever I give it a start I’ll be involved in it more than anything else. Though I’ve read only about less than 15 novels till now I’ve enjoyed almost all of them. Specially the Harry Potter series. I’d advice those who have the mindset that the movies are better because they have sound/graphical effects or because they don’t have the habit of reading –> think again and start reading the books 1 by 1. They are a ZILLION times better, more interesting, more fun and more addictive. I’m saying this because even I preferred the movies to the books at first just because they’re long and I thought I wouldn’t have the patience. But when I did start reading I found myself in totally different world altogether, and I tell you - the movies are and will never BE anywhere near them.
Apart from novels I love and have read lots and lots of short stories (especially horror).

Besides that I really love surfing on the net to learn new things. Some day I’d love to learn programming and be a good programmer. Web designing is also something I like because I believe I’m talented in it. I also spend a lot of time on the net reading articles in Cricinfo and Wikipedia sites.

Neelabh, do you have a role model? Someone who inspired you the most?

No I don’t have any role models as such. In life I’ve met many different people of different attitude, personality and character and I’ve really admired some too but I don’t want to follow anyone’s footsteps in particular. I try and choose my own way that I think suits me best, but if I do get inspired with someone in general I catch a glimpse of their style in handling things and mix them with my own, often looking for improvement.

Suppose, you become the administrator of Orkut for 1 day, what are the five important and basic things you would like to change?

Good question. This is something I’d love to answer.

I guess there’ll be more than 5 things but the most important ones are as follows:

1) I’ll firstly delete all communities that relates to hatred of some religion, culture, community, country, race or individuals on orkut itself. There are hundreds existing already and although orkut admins are efficient in dealing with them these days to the best of their ability, it’s not easy for them to delete each and every single one as they arise - if I do get a chance for even 1 day I really WILL hand pick and delete each and every of them. The owner profiles of these communities will be deleted as well.

2) I’ll delete profiles that spread hatred of any religion or community or ones that impersonate and harass innocent orkut users. Fake profiles will be filtered from all communities and those which spam excessively will be deleted as well (which orkut is doing as well but not very often).

3) Most importantly - I’ll make it a point to ban the IP address of those whose profiles have got deleted from orkut due to violation of Terms of Service for more than 3 times so that they can never rejoin orkut.
This is something orkut should strictly implement too because if it’s not done then there’s no point in deleting profiles or communities as otherwise they may keep coming and it’ll be a waste of time deleting them over and over again (like it’s happening even now in some cases).

4) I’ve suggested many new features for communities in the past and some with 100% support from members of the Help Group, but none have been implemented. I’ll implement such features that can be really useful and especially ones that got positive responses. Orkut is known for being the most user friendly social networking site on the internet and the more efficiently we work towards its success, the better it will get day by day.

5) Orkut has a system of awarding medals to those who work hard in helping users of the Help Group. Though it’s a good initiative in motivating them and appreciating their efforts, I’d rather give them equal administrator rights as myself. This is because they’ll know very well about the way orkut functions in profiles and communities and each and every of its feature and also how to tackle problems as and when they arise after having helped users over a long period of time, there’ll be a lot more efficiency in the way things are maintained in orkut and reactions to suggestions and complaints from users will be much faster.

Thanks for giving your time on Orkut’s Hall Of Fame. It was Pleasure talking to you.

Thank you so much Zazo for interviewing me. Frankly speaking it’s really been a great honor for me more than anything else.
Your site is simply amazing and you’re doing an exceptional job. Hope orkutheroes.com lives on forever in full swing like it is right now. God bless you. Take care, all the best and have a great future ahead
With regards,
Neelabh.