Over moderation.

automantic

automantic

Joined
Oct 29, 1999
Messages
829
Hi y'all,

Seems like whenever a few people don't like something the moderators jump on it.

I for one could care less about the dealers being forced to post in the "Dealers for sale forum". (even though they are going to have to pay for that "privilege" soon) What I don't like is seeing all these threads moved for no good reason. A few people say "Looks like this should be in Community" or "You might get more responses in the Spyderco forum" and the thread is locked down and transferred.I did this a few times myself before I wised up and adopted a "let it be" attitude towards it. Who really cares where a thread is posted? I guess I just don't see what the big deal is. I come here to have fun, and having to deal with following threads from forum to forum isn't any.
frown.gif


JMO

Later,
John

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Absentem qui rodit amicum, qui non defendit alio culpante, solutos qui captat risus homimum famamque dicacis, fingere qui non visa potest, commissa tacere qui nequit: hic niger est, hung tu, lamnia lammina lamna forumites, caveto!
 
Part of my success and my problems are that I am lax in many regards. So what I propose is that I should come up with a policy that is both fair to the dealer and member alike.

Now this will be tough but I think we can do it.

The thing I hate to see is locked threads. Memories of the past
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This forum works so well because we have a friendly atmosphere. Everyone is welcome and yes sometimes this creates problems in and of itself.

The trick is to find the balance. That is what I am looking for.

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Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
 
Irony can be so ironic
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Just read this thread... and right below it was one calling for more moderation of "bad threads".

I go through all the forums anyway, so chances are I'll see all of 'em. Usually a reply in the thread that it belongs somewhere else is as much a "head's up" to the original poster as to the moderators, especially when it's a newbie.

Sometimes it seems like this is a big ol' house with a mess of kids running around it. Once in a while a few will get in one room and start to squabble. It gets loud enough and the adults come in and break it up. As long as we don't make too much noise we can still have our fun
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But get too quiet and that can be dangerous, too
smile.gif


"Polite discourse is decorum's friend." - somebody pompous


Nick




 
I think the amount of moderation has been fine. The moderators are faced with a tough job, they have to decide whats appropiate and whats not, what should be allowed to keeep going and whats should be stopped. And they have to make decisions that are fair to everyone. I think they've been doing that. I hate to see locked threads too, but some should be. There are some threads that just aren't worth the space they take up. And if they need moved they need moved. The ones that aren't knife related shouldn't be left in the knife discussion forum, if they were it would become the mostly knives, but everything else too forum. And if a god discussion gets started, then a few people lose there cool. The thread can be stopped, everyone can calm down and put a little more thought into what they're going to say, and we can start over without anyone pissed off.

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Fix it right the first time, use Baling Wire !
 
Boy, looks like it's going to be my night for being the heavy...

Threads are moved because they are posted in areas where they don't belong or would be better off elsewhere.

It's not like they are getting deleted, after all...

I'm sorry if you feel it's wrong for us making dealers pay for posting their items for sale, but that doesn't solve our needing to pay for the site. Last time I checked, Magazines don't run ads for free either, nor do the Newspaper classifieds.

We need to make sure that the dealer / Forum relationship is symbiotic. For the past 16 months it's been all going one way - the dealer has been able to make money off our site without paying for it. One user posted that he purchased $5000 worth of knives from 1 dealer alone. We didn't get much in return for those sales.

So, it's time to make sure that if dealers make money of our site, we are compensated for it, because we are providing them a service that they are using to support themselves. It's not fair to expect us to foot the bills and not get anything in return, right?

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here
 
Originally posted by Spark:
It's not fair to expect us to foot the bills and not get anything in return, right?
Click to expand...

Hi Spark,

I said I diddn't see a problem with dealers being forced to pay! $499.95 per year for banner ads is very reasonable.I just don't like seeing threads being moved and locked just because a few people complain. (I am not referring to anyone in particular. So I don't want anybody to take this personally.)

I hope a membership fee for regular members is never required on Blade Forums. Though I would gladly pay Mike $30 a month on a voluntary basis if he asked me to.

Later,
John

P.S. The St. Louis Post Dispatch offers free classifieds for things under $200. (Just a thought.)

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Absentem qui rodit amicum, qui non defendit alio culpante, solutos qui captat risus homimum famamque dicacis, fingere qui non visa potest, commissa tacere qui nequit: hic niger est, hung tu, lamnia lammina lamna forumites, caveto!
 
I think the moderation has been moderate and I've been impressed. No complaints here. The mdoerators give us just enough rope to hang ourselves and that's about right I would think.
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Yeah, there are flames that boil up but I've been impressed about how these flames usually are quite mild compared to some of the flames I've seen on usenet newsgroups. Here they usuallly cool down by themselves as people come to some kind of understanding on their own. I think what trips everyone's trigger is rampant namecalling. It seems to be pretty rare here. As long as people stick to the issues, a little heated debate can be a learning experience. So far, the moderators seem willing to tolerate it. Glad to see it.

A little tolerance on the part of the moderators allows members of this forum to be human and I think that's one of the main reasons this board keeps on ticking away.


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Hoodoo

The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone—the light-press’d blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.

Walt Whitman
 
Specifically about moved threads, I'm personally happy to see it because the this particular forum is so active to begin with. It's not hard to lose something in all this traffic. Also, it shows how much the administrators and moderators care. I think that's a good thing.

And yeah, heated debates, sometimes even small flames break out. How about a forum specifically for debates? Where one can expect things to get heated? That way, people who don't want to be involved can just avoid most of it. The uh... Mad Dog thing comes to mind.
 
Heh, that is funny! Threads asking respectively for less and more moderation, right near each other on the same board. Kinda gives you an inkling into the tightrope the moderators in this forum are walking. GUARANTEED they can't make everyone happy all the time. But the fact that there's a good balance of people calling for more or less moderation, and not a big groundswell in either directions, indicates these guys have been doing a really good job!

The particular forum I moderate doesn't need a tenth as much attention as the General Forum. But overall, I've felt the moderators here should be aggressive in moving threads that belong in another forum, and since they've begun doing so, feel like they've done a great job at it. I continue to strongly support moving threads when applicable, and locking threads when they get overheated.

Joe
 
Mike and Spark,

As you know I have been a card carrying banner ad dealer for over 15 months.

I don't have a problem with dealers having to get a banner ad. They will probably find out in the long run that it was well worth the money.

However, some of the fourm memebers who post their knives for sale in the "individual" section, sure do seem to have a lot of posts selling knives. And not just one knife, but several at a time.

Just food for thought!

Les
 
ever since I joined the forum I spent more on knives then I ever did in the past.

dealers should pay - or post as regular members.

moderation has been fine - IMHO - and in the rare occasions when I did not agree with a moderator - the private email solved it.

good place to come to.
 
Personally, I`m glad to see threads moved to the forums in which they belong. This place just ISN`T that difficult to figure out! There are forums for nearly every possible discussion. All you have to do is take the time to find the right one. There are usually a handful of non-knife related posts in the General Blade Discussion forum, which is always overloaded, while the Community Forum will be quiet. Go figure.

Hey, why not just make one big forum and force us all to just sort it all out on our own?
 
Hi ALL
smile.gif
,
I run a pretty loose ship on the forums I moderate. I don't really believe in locking threads or moving them from here to there, but sometimes it has its place. Now sometimes people get really worked up about a thread, and they start posting stuff like "Let's Close This or Move This", and they are entitled to their opinion, but it does get old after a while to here that over and over and over again. What I advocate is people using more Common Sense when they post. I know people get excited about certain things, and they want to share their excitement with their Fellow members, but some posts that I see are, IMHO, frivolous. Back in the day, when this forum was just starting up, this wasn't a problem, but today, it's really difficult to sort through the Good versus the Not so Good posts with respect to content. I try to visit a lot of the topics in the forums here, but it's difficult at times do to the shear volume of posts. Therefore, if people would ask themselves the question as to where a post in question belongs before they make that post, then we'd all save a lot of time.
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Now as far as the Dealer Fees, well, if anything was free before, but now you have to pay for the same service, well, nobody likes that, BUT, this site isn't free to Mike- now is it?
wink.gif
Additionally, James Nowka already did this on KFC. It's not a matter of wanting to charge or not, it's a matter of paying the bills. With all the Giveaways, Spark's salary, Server fees and Bandwidth, etc...., you need to make tough decisions in order to continue.
wink.gif

 
I posted in the "Need Moderation" thread, so I feel obligated to do the same here as I believe John's message very appropriate. Valmet summed it up, Mike owns the site, and Mike decides. He apparently has entrusted some of this to Moderators, I would imagine they weren't picked because of a beauty contest, but rather because they shared the same values for this site as Mike himself. Until Mike opens this up and says "Alright, you guys decide and run BF" then I think we owe Mike and the Moderators (the name of the first BF Band?) the respect to email our procedural concerns to them and let them decide if they want our input on how to run their site. Until then, I will keep my whining about who shouldn't post what where to myself.

Brandon

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"You should never never doubt what nobody is sure about..."
 
Um ... we really don't want to cultivate an atmosphere where anyone who makes a suggestion is accused of the heinous crime of publicly questioning the omniscient moderators and told to take it to private email and keep his yap shut in public. Healthy forums have frequent and public discussions of policy. Start suppressing that and a forum can go to heck real quick.

Need I remind anyone of all the instances when a moderator has gotten emails demanding censorship and thought that was what the members wanted and done it -- and then, only then when the issue became public, found out the vast majority of members are violently opposed to that censorship? They didn't send him any email ... they didn't know there was any question about it....

If you think the moderators are doing a good job by all means say so -- I think so myself -- but don't tell anyone who thinks otherwise they've committed sedition by posting their thoughts publicly. A healthy forum needs public discussion of policy to stay healthy.

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-Cougar Allen :{)
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This post is not merely the author's opinions; it is the trrrrrruth. This post is intended to cause dissension and unrest and upset people, and ultimately drive them mad. Please do not misinterpret my intentions in posting this.

[This message has been edited by Cougar Allen (edited 02-22-2000).]
 
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