Is this Site Declining and losing Members?
In just the past week I have read probably 10 comments among different threads all claiming that this site is going downhill, is losing members (or chasing them away)and generally ailing by reason of ...
Forum Discussion
Fulltimedanial. Novel goals, but mostly unachievable, based on my 17 years of running my own forum and experience I've seen.
Updated software, better search capabilities etc.. all doable.
Management by consensus.. will never happen, and can't work. Someone has to be 'in charge', and make the decisions. In my forum's case, it was me and my best friend. That was it.
I do agree that some clarification of rules could help, but my experience, you can never get rid of the grey areas. There will always be grey areas and things that are left up to the interpretation of the moderators. On another forum that I was a moderator on, there was a separate, private, moderator forum where we mods could discuss and get feedback before deleting a thread, or not. But even on that forum, we deliberately did not get into discussion on why a moderated action was taken.
It's nice to say, as visitors, we deserve a seat at the table, but you're kidding yourself if you think that could ever work. You can't moderate by majority vote.. it just will never work. You may not believe me, but again, a fact, based on multiple years of direct, relevant experience doing just this.
Mike
Updated software, better search capabilities etc.. all doable.
Management by consensus.. will never happen, and can't work. Someone has to be 'in charge', and make the decisions. In my forum's case, it was me and my best friend. That was it.
I do agree that some clarification of rules could help, but my experience, you can never get rid of the grey areas. There will always be grey areas and things that are left up to the interpretation of the moderators. On another forum that I was a moderator on, there was a separate, private, moderator forum where we mods could discuss and get feedback before deleting a thread, or not. But even on that forum, we deliberately did not get into discussion on why a moderated action was taken.
It's nice to say, as visitors, we deserve a seat at the table, but you're kidding yourself if you think that could ever work. You can't moderate by majority vote.. it just will never work. You may not believe me, but again, a fact, based on multiple years of direct, relevant experience doing just this.
Mike
