The Forum - the last few days
Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2001 2:57 pm
Some comments on the state of the forum...
As some of you will have noticed, Alec is currently offline and woodgnome is away, so I've been left alone to hold the fort. Please remember that this is basically an amateur site - we run it in our own time and at our own expense purely as a hobby. Between the three of us we can usually cover the forum quite well, normally reading posts within at most a couple of hours of them being made. Despite the fact I can point to a number of sniping remarks and jibes made recently on this forum over our levels of censorship, I think it has benefitted immensely from this, but it does rely on our goodwill - especially on the part of Alec who often works above and beyond the call of duty in spending his time moderating the forum. Contrary to popular belief none of us sit here constantly hitting the refresh button on the offchance we might catch each and every post that might offend any unfortunate soul who happens to see it!
Working on my own for the last few days, the forum has been unattended for longer periods than normal, but I do get round to reading it and anything overly excessive is (and has been) deleted. We're talking well within 24 hours at most. (As an aside here, there's absolutely no need to scream at us to delete a thread the second it is posted - if it should obviously be deleted, but hasn't - as for example the "rape video" thread earlier today - then all it simply means is we haven't got round to looking at it yet.)
Now that the worst of today's posts have been removed, I don't think the situation with the forum is anywhere near as bad as some people here are making out. In fact a fair percentage of the clutter is from people moaning about the standard of the forum! - witness the thread headed "ALEC" below (which incidentally includes a 'contribution' from a poster who in the last few days has used this forum to announce his birthday, and then today to arrange a private meeting with another contributor (that post having being deleted btw) - ever heard of email?).
The one exception here is Willy Wonker's HIV post. I've not deleted it because the follow up threads do a lot to shed light upon this particular individual and his possible motivations. If the consensus of opinion is that it would be better off being deleted though, then I will remove it.
Having got the above off my chest, I should add that I do think the forum is in danger of getting out of control. More to the point it's causing us more and more hassle and work to moderate and it's not fair to keep having to rely on the goodwill of Alec and woodgnome to constantly keep everything in order. So, I'm going to propose we put stricter controls on the posting process... but I've written enough in this message, so I'll kick off this discussion in another thread.
As some of you will have noticed, Alec is currently offline and woodgnome is away, so I've been left alone to hold the fort. Please remember that this is basically an amateur site - we run it in our own time and at our own expense purely as a hobby. Between the three of us we can usually cover the forum quite well, normally reading posts within at most a couple of hours of them being made. Despite the fact I can point to a number of sniping remarks and jibes made recently on this forum over our levels of censorship, I think it has benefitted immensely from this, but it does rely on our goodwill - especially on the part of Alec who often works above and beyond the call of duty in spending his time moderating the forum. Contrary to popular belief none of us sit here constantly hitting the refresh button on the offchance we might catch each and every post that might offend any unfortunate soul who happens to see it!
Working on my own for the last few days, the forum has been unattended for longer periods than normal, but I do get round to reading it and anything overly excessive is (and has been) deleted. We're talking well within 24 hours at most. (As an aside here, there's absolutely no need to scream at us to delete a thread the second it is posted - if it should obviously be deleted, but hasn't - as for example the "rape video" thread earlier today - then all it simply means is we haven't got round to looking at it yet.)
Now that the worst of today's posts have been removed, I don't think the situation with the forum is anywhere near as bad as some people here are making out. In fact a fair percentage of the clutter is from people moaning about the standard of the forum! - witness the thread headed "ALEC" below (which incidentally includes a 'contribution' from a poster who in the last few days has used this forum to announce his birthday, and then today to arrange a private meeting with another contributor (that post having being deleted btw) - ever heard of email?).
The one exception here is Willy Wonker's HIV post. I've not deleted it because the follow up threads do a lot to shed light upon this particular individual and his possible motivations. If the consensus of opinion is that it would be better off being deleted though, then I will remove it.
Having got the above off my chest, I should add that I do think the forum is in danger of getting out of control. More to the point it's causing us more and more hassle and work to moderate and it's not fair to keep having to rely on the goodwill of Alec and woodgnome to constantly keep everything in order. So, I'm going to propose we put stricter controls on the posting process... but I've written enough in this message, so I'll kick off this discussion in another thread.