A thread about Moderation of the Forum

[Sam Buchanan]

It's not about me

I've stayed clear of this discussion but here is my $0.02 worth.

A forum cannot be everything for everyone. Since that is an impossibility, it is up to me to decide if this forum fits my needs and provides content that justifies my time spent drinking at the VAF trough. If VAF serves that purpose, all is well.

However, if I find the forum is going in a direction I don't like, or if the forum doesn't provide content I want, the solution is for me to find other sources of info I want, not for the forum to change just to suit my desires and needs.

This forum is directed by the vision of Doug Reeves, and by participating I enter into a contract to follow that vision according to forum guidelines. If that contract doesn't suit my needs or personality, it is time for me to move on to other venues.

I appreciate Doug asking me to be involved in the moderation of VAF. Doug and I go way back to 1997 when both of us starting poking around in the then new WWW and when builder's sites were a daring new concept (the work blog hadn't been invented yet). But, if at some point I decide VAF isn't what I think it should be, it will be time for me to move on, not time for Doug to submit to my vision of what his site should be.

As the prime source of all things RV, VAF is now larger than any one of us....except its owner.

 

[MacNab]

...Here I would love to see a MANDATORY signature box that is required before the registration is accepted. And, anyone that doesn't have one has to re-register. We are all friends here and it is nice to see the posters name, city and state and aircraft building or flying...

You know, Darwin, there is more info about me in my profile than there is about you in your signature...and much of that info is now required to be inputted in the additional information section of the personal profile when you register (although there is no truth detector built into the system).

Want to know more? Click the user profile button, it'll usually tell you what you want to know about a poster, that is, apparently, unless you've been posting here for a while, in that case there is usually little or no info about the poster.

Frankly, I think that if new members are required to volunteer personal profile info for their registration (which can easily be sidetepped anyway by keeping the info cryptic or untruthful) then the old timers should be required in some fashion to update the info in their user profile also.

Given the sometimes nasty nature of the internet, too much volunteered information can sometimes have unintended consequences. Some of us have been severely burned because of this and subsequently try to protect our privacy in some limited fashion on the www. Remember, we may all be buds, but not everyone who has access to this forum is necessarily your friend. In fact, there are people with access to this site who would like to swindle you, sue you, and even kill you rather than look at you. I'm sure you're aware of this and probably press on anyway, but it still is worth repeating.

 

[DeltaRomeo]

From the Captain...

Well, (51) replies into the moderation discussion is historically where I jump in with the bi-yearly ‘bad cop’ speech. Like that scene in the Matrix where Neo finds out his world has done this before, this moderation stuff comes up on the radar every six months or so…like a Swiss watch it is.

Welcome to the never-please-everybody world of moderation .

I can understand where most everybody here who has chimed in is coming from. Some want draconian moderation, some want little, some want none. Some call BS when I ask for the posts to be RV related and then I let a few slide by. You gotta believe me when I say that this place is so hands off it’s sometimes scary – I’d guess that 99% of the ‘moderation’ is moving posts into more appropriate folders, fixing typos and fixing URL links. I don’t have hard stats, but that’s my experience.

My take on it is that if the rules are so sterile and rigidly enforced, then folks won’t feel they can contribute easily, and the knowledge base and the atmosphere will suffer. I ask my kids to clean the kitchen – they forget…I remind them again. If they forget again then I up the ante. Same here. I give almost everyone the benefit of the doubt until they demonstrate a pattern of being something else. Everybody is a case by case deal, though, and I don’t want to apply a strict, rigid clamp on the rules – it takes all the fun out of the experience. It’s supposed to sway and breathe a little…

Jack Sparrow: I thought you were supposed to keep to the code.
Mr. Gibbs: We figured they were more actual guidelines.​

I think about this stuff all day every day, and I’m confident this is the best way to do it.

So, some non-RV stuff gets in (like a ‘congratulations’ on a first flight, or someone has cancer and needs somebody to be there). Some of it needs to be allowed…sometimes the rules shouldn’t be rigid. Life is like that…

It’s set up in a way, by design, that if any of the 30 or so moderators get rubbed the wrong way by your post, they are free to kill it with my blessing. If it was worded in a way that raised one of their eyebrows, then it was probably on the negative side of the grey area to begin with.

Don’t expect an email or private message if your post gets killed – we’re all busy and we have lives to lead, planes to finish, etc. The amount of traffic in here is staggering and the moderators are all volunteers. Be a big boy and accept that your post was in the ‘grey area’ and it rubbed one of thirty people the wrong way.

I can guarantee having a polarizing quote on some topic like religion or politics in your post or auto-signature will put you in my crosshairs. You will not be extended much leeway, if any.

These forums are an escape from all the other crud that we have to deal with on a daily basis, and it’s my belief that it will stay that way, an escape, if we continue to follow this model.

So, recapping (and straight from the horse’s mouth so there is no misunderstanding):
- Try your BEST to keep posts RV-relevant in some way. Try.
- Be nice.
- There isn’t ever going to be a ‘garage sale’ section.
- There isn’t ever going to be an ‘anything goes’ section.
- This is an RV site for RV folks. We’re about RV’s…not about elections or Cessnas.

I get that we’re mostly alpha males in here, and that some have a problem with the way I run things. I even get the occasional email telling me I’m a tool (I save them). Whether you believe me or not, I’ve spent a LOT of time researching this particular dynamic. I’m convinced it’s a net-positive experience for the community, and the fact that it’s grown every day since it went online reinforces that belief.

I back the moderator’s decisions 100%. They didn't apply for the job. They were asked by me because I've learned to respect their opinions over the years.

Sorry if you disagree. My sandbox…my rules. Nobody’s forcing you to play.

Best always,

Doug Reeves
(The guy who started the VAF Forums if you're a newbie and didn't know.)



[bad cop hat OFF - see you in six months ]