NATCOA?

I posted the question and got 6 pages of replies(so far) and I've read every one of the and all are interesting, especially the detour on to forums and moderators and ethical comments.

I learned a lot and at almost 70, I was surprised.

Now I know what NATCOA is. Thanks to everyone...

I belong to a firearms forum and it has to be one of the best I've ever posted on. Very consistent moderation and I've become friends personally with many on the site, including the forum administrator and a couple mods too.

Thanks again for the lengthy explaination and the interesting detours too.

jimh425 wrote:
The problem with a moderator changing my post is that I didn’t say what they changed it to. I’ve yet to see a mod get the point that I was making. Instead, it makes it look like I have a split personality or in some cases just stupid. Also, it’s harder for the mod.

I’d rather my entire post be deleted. When I was a mod that’s what we did. Users learned to follow the rules really quickly.

I agree 100%. Delete my post if it violates forum rules, but don't change what I wrote.

Bradw

The problem with a moderator changing my post is that I didn’t say what they changed it to. I’ve yet to see a mod get the point that I was making. Instead, it makes it look like I have a split personality or in some cases just stupid. Also, it’s harder for the mod.

I’d rather my entire post be deleted. When I was a mod that’s what we did. Users learned to follow the rules really quickly.

monkey44 wrote:
Does anyone on this forum believe this is NOT a commercial forum?? We all know who owns it.

Of course it is, but it's run like a forum should be run. ....

How can you tell that?
Can you see deleted replies and reasons why they have been deleted?

In some of the forums I moderate the word filter can be customized and we replace offensive language with something comical but with a similar meaning. The forums are family friendly, so some sayings have to be removed. Manual edits do take more time than deleting a post but worthwhile if there is good information provided.

We did have a case of a group of adults bullying others. Some were called out and stopped but others continued or increased their behavior. We gave them plenty of chances to make amends but some increased their activities. I would find shadow accounts and impersonations created just for malice. Usually a terse statement exposing them and locking accounts was required. Some of these members had good information to share but just couldn’t follow house rules and had to be exhiled.

Does anyone on this forum believe this is NOT a commercial forum?? We all know who owns it.

Of course it is, but it's run like a forum should be run. That makes a huge difference.

covered wagon wrote:
I am moderator on a diesel forum and learned to respect the good part of a post by only deleting bad words and/or flame portion. I found most often I don't have to delete the entire post, but sometimes rewrite a good portion of it.

This has an effect on cooperation and good will from others as well.

You do it on commercial forum?
All comercial forums do have agendas. Those can be more, or less honest.
So moderators have to make decisions between forum agendas and their personal opinions.
Only once it happens in all those years I frequent forums, where valuable member become moderator and he quit a week later after learning about the agendas.
That was on commercial forum who I prized as most fair on the market at the time. The adm was business owner, who had to be pressed to mention his business, even he was very active in chatting.
Here it did change over the years, but I still occasionally see the number of posts higher than actuall replies that you can read.

I am moderator on a diesel forum and learned to respect the good part of a post by only deleting bad words and/or flame portion. I found most often I don't have to delete the entire post, but sometimes rewrite a good portion of it.

This has an effect on cooperation and good will from others as well.

jplante4 wrote:
I also ran afoul of mods on iRV2.

Being a forum mod is pretty much a thankless job and I'm very appreciative of the folks who freely donate their time to be mods. But, nothing can screw up a forum faster than a nitpicking forum mod and unfortunately, they are way too common on all forums. To me, internet forums are living things and they need to breath. A nitpicking mod who hovers over every post just looking for an excuse to delete or edit it will smother a forum. Luckily for the rv.net TC forum users, we have never had that kind of mod here......... at least in my opinion.

I was the TC forum mod on iRV2 for several years before becoming the rv.net TC forum mod for 10 years. I believe it was Richard running it back in those days; he may still be running it. I had very few bad experiences on iRV2. The members were great and Richard was very supportive and helpful. I think that was partially due to iRV2 TC forum being pretty small with only a few posts each day. I don't know who the iRV2 TC forum mod is now or what their moderation philosophy is.

Having said that; one of the biggest and most common problem for a mod to deal with are people trying to use the forum for financial gain. All mods are on the look out for that, so any post which fits that description will be looked at closely. Its a problem which has been around since forums were created and it ain't going away anytime soon.

bradw

Bedlam wrote:
Searching for information on Facebook is painful. Also there is no way to categorize threads into sections. I just think too much good data will get lost and the only ones that will benefit will be the ones running analytics and A.I. against the database.

I've foubd a way to set up "topics" so that posts can be categorized, but unless people actually add a topic to their post, info still gets lost, and is difficult to find.

People rarely use the "topics" selection when making a post in the FB groups I run.