Notice Of New Moderating Approach

I have now removed the thread and member and am changing how I moderate.

From this point on I am taking the easy approach to moderating; I am simply going to cancel, remove and/or silence anyone and any thread or person that becomes problematic (just like the 'down under forum' does). Please do not publicly push back or make yourself a problem, everyone now has notice that my tolerance is now zero for difficult threads or people.
Don

I hope you do not plan to become the dictator that the person running that forum is. No one can even politely disagree with him.

Don - Good news! It is the only way to NOT burn out as a moderator. If a post, or individual, give you heartache, kill the weed at the source.

Revcollector,
My approach will be whatever consumes the least amount of time and effort; this means removing problematic threads/posts/people. I tried being 'fair' over the last few years and people whined and complained and it made a ton more work. I tried doing what I thought was best for the community and the hobby and people whined and complained and it made a ton more work. And I assume that people will whine and complain about the new approach too but at least I will not now be wasting a lot of time having to monitor problematic threads and people. I cannot change the whining and complaining but I can change the amount of time that I spend on it.
Don

Good idea, it seems pointless wasting time and energy on those who refuse to abide by the rules.

Although, please do not take 'down under' as a role model.
My last post there was in disagreement with a post made by the owner/moderator. If he didn't like my post, he was free to delete it, instead, however, he edited my post to make it look as if I was in agreement with his point of view.
When I complained, he gave me a two week ban.
I have not been back since.
Clive

Oof - that's editorial malpractice right there.

I have never belonged to the board down under and after hearing everyone's comments about it over the years I would never want to be involved. Why are there still members if the treatment is so bad? Have a lot of members voted with their feet?

If you collect British Empire/Commonwealth stamps, there's a range of information there that you're probably unlikely to find elsewhere. You don't have to join up and engage in the wrangling to read it.

Well I seemed to have missed this train wreck, being blissfully ignorant of both the topic and member removed. While I can tolerate a fair amount of BS and even some heated BS, such is not necessary in these forums. So I must say thanks Don for your work and willingness to be a decision maker determining when the fertilizer pile enriches the soil and when to call hazmat for a raw sewage spill.

Geoff - That makes perfect sense. Why pay for the milk when you can get the cow for free.

Except it is not 'free', he gets paid for any traffic the site gets, so you are supporting him.
Don

I missed what precipitated this particular instance, but can appreciate the thankless job that moderating a forum/message board can be. I've owned a music forum since 2003 (not as high traffic as this board) and have been a moderator at numerous other boards, including the fustercluck that Delphi became.

In short: As a moderator you can't win. No matter what you do or how you try to adjudicate issues, SOMEONE is going to get cheesed off and be unhappy with your decision.

Add to this the ever-increasing entitlement mentality pervasive in society ("I don't care that I'm not paying anything at all for any of this, my opinion is THE most important one!"), and it's a recipe ripe for frustration.

I know several forum owners that have just thrown up their hands and said "Eff it! Let people use Facebook"... which is sad, as I'm personally not a fan of modern social media, and it isn't conducive to long-running threads, research, or collaboration in the same way that message boards are.

I know I'm not very vocal about it, and Don and I have had our disagreements on certain issues over the years, but I do appreciate his time and effort here and elsewhere.

A sports blog that I've been on for over a decade has the owner/administrator and 10 moderators. How many mods does this site have? Maybe it needs more.

I'm going to plead a bit of ignorance. What is the "down under forum"? There's a forum where I've experienced problems, but I don't know that it's based "down under".

The Sheriff rules the roos and the bunnies.

ClimberSteve, I believe there are two, KirkS and 51Studebaker, now renamed 2021Honda :-)


Peter