Thank you to all for your kind thoughts and caring. Have to admit that even though it has been a tough time, I unfortunately like you, have seen others who seem to have it alot tougher. And it never fails to hit me to thank the man upstairs for his blessings, " WHILE THINKING THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I "!!!!!!!!!
Again THANK YOU for your kind thoughts!!
Regards
Ethan
Concern For Missing Members
There are 399 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 124,516 times. The latest Post () was by MichaelHarrison.
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Just doing some browsing, boredom I guess, out of our 887 members, about 350 have been inactive for over 2 years, at least none of those are moderators. If we were to purge those members, is it possible to get a shoutbox on the main page or could that be done without purging? I use them elsewhere and thought it might be nice if a few people are online at the same time they could say HI in a shoutbox. Just an idea...
This could be more of a suggestion so move if necessary. What do you all think?
350 members inactive out of a possible 887 does not bode good for the board. It seems very strange that when members of the board are contacted they do return with a few brief posts and then disappear again, is there a reason for this?
I still believe that inactive moderators is an issue that needs to be dealt with. It looks very bad for the board when 2 out of its 6 moderators have all but left the board with out ever making much of a contribution particulary Liberty V who has a whopping 30 posts and has not been on the messageboard for some years. I know if I was an onlooker and realised that one third of the moderators have not partisicpated on the board for several years, I would be of the opinion that the board was dead in the water. I have never heard any explanation either as to why these two moderators have left the board, if there is a valid reason that could be classified as extenuating circumstances otherwise I believe their positions as moderators has run its course.
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350 members inactive out of a possible 887 does not bode good for the board. It seems very strange that when members of the board are contacted they do return with a few brief posts and then disappear again, is there a reason for this?
Robbie,Just from general observation over the past couple of years, I would have to say that less than half of the members inactive is not necessarily reason for concern. Some people join in order to access the search feature, which I believe is not available to unregistered guests. Some have one question, and when that is answered, they have no reason to return. Some folks realize that as much as they love hanging out here, they may not have the time to do that and take care of the rest of their lives, especially if they work full time or are full time students, or have families that need time and attention. If you see us drifting off at times, it's not lack of interest, but the demands of life outside the computer.
As to your thoughts on the moderators who seem inactive, I think it best for Kevin to respond to that, as he is the owner/administrator of the message board. Personally, I don't see what difference it makes, as long as the board is being moderated sufficiently, that some are less active. BTW, has anyone heard from Keith? He's been gone for awhile recently - we hope everything is OK.
Dakota Surfer, can you tell us more about a "shout box"? I haven't heard of that before, but it sounds interesting.
Chester
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I'm on a lot of different boards and most of them need moderators... this one seems to run along pretty well by itself. We don't have a bunch of young unruly teenagers getting nasty so except for the occasional wrong post placement this board seems to be fairly disciplined. Although if you do have Mods that have been gone that long they should be retired.
I used to moderate a board for some 28,000 members where 5% of them were active. That's pretty normal for BT site boards. Maybe we need a purging and a membership drive?
In answer to your question chester... a shoutbox is sort of a real time messaging area. You can post and it will simultaniously be shown in the shout box. People use them to chat, ask questions or just say Hi...
It's like going to a chat room like IRC or MSN without leaving the forum. Pretty decent tool and is used on a lot of sites.
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Robbie,
Just from general observation over the past couple of years, I would have to say that less than half of the members inactive is not necessarily reason for concern. Some people join in order to access the search feature, which I believe is not available to unregistered guests. Some have one question, and when that is answered, they have no reason to return. Some folks realize that as much as they love hanging out here, they may not have the time to do that and take care of the rest of their lives, especially if they work full time or are full time students, or have families that need time and attention. If you see us drifting off at times, it's not lack of interest, but the demands of life outside the computer.
As to your thoughts on the moderators who seem inactive, I think it best for Kevin to respond to that, as he is the owner/administrator of the message board. Personally, I don't see what difference it makes, as long as the board is being moderated sufficiently, that some are less active. BTW, has anyone heard from Keith? He's been gone for awhile recently - we hope everything is OK.
Dakota Surfer, can you tell us more about a "shout box"? I haven't heard of that before, but it sounds interesting.
ChesterChester
[FONT="]I feel to an extent that you have missed the point that I was trying to make.
Beyond argument the board is well moderated and this is not in dispute. However moderators are supposed to set some sort of an example and when there is a situation when one third of the moderators on a messageboard who have made minimal contributions to the board as a whole and have all but left the board over the past number of years, I believe that this sets a poor example. I am particularly bewildered as to why these two were ever made moderators as they have certainly never (at least to my knowledge) carried out any moderating duties.
In addition to this I feel that another cull would be in order to erase all members of the board who have been registered for two months or more and have not made any posts, this would free up user names and give a truer reflection as to how many members actually exist on this board.
Above are some of the simple things on this board that need to be sorted out before future suggestions are considered and implemented.
Regarding Keith I think he's probably taking a well-deserved break from the board as setting up a page for each of John Wayne’s movies must have been an exhausting task.[/FONT]
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Chester
[FONT="]I feel to an extent that you have missed the point that I was trying to make.
Beyond argument the board is well moderated and this is not in dispute. However moderators are supposed to set some sort of an example and when there is a situation when one third of the moderators on a messageboard who have made minimal contributions to the board as a whole and have all but left the board over the past number of years, I believe that this sets a poor example. I am particularly bewildered as to why these two were ever made moderators as they have certainly never (at least to my knowledge) carried out any moderating duties.
In addition to this I feel that another cull would be in order to erase all members of the board who have been registered for two months or more and have not made any posts, this would free up user names and give a truer reflection as to how many members actually exist on this board.
Above are some of the simple things on this board that need to be sorted out before future suggestions are considered and implemented.
Regarding Keith I think he's probably taking a well-deserved break from the board as setting up a page for each of John Wayne’s movies must have been an exhausting task.[/FONT]
The moderators in question have thier reasons for not posting or visiting. LibertyV semi-retired so to speak, and has had reasons for not spending time here. REASR has been involved in the JW community almost forever and has run a Yahoogroup community for almost 10 years. REASR helped here early on to help establish this site.
As for the pruning of members here I see no reason to prune members and certainly not for not being active in 2 months. We have pruned members that haven't visited in 2 or more years and that should be the cut off. A girl name jen was gone almost 2 years, and I'm glad we didn't remove her account.
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I only brought up the purging in case there was interest in a shoutbox and space was needed on the server to implement it. I never see anyone in the chat room and a shoutbox is more easily accessible and viewable. Just a thought...
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Hi All
Not much to say here as it has been pretty much covered.
Also, all sites once established tend to have 5% to 10% active membership at any time. The only thing as members that we can do is make this web site interesting and inviting with a wide range of threads and posts.
Moderators, I have found come in three kinds micro manage, do nothing and macro manage.
The 1st category are everywhere all the time and tend to cause the most conflict , The second category set a site up then get bored or find they havent the time so you can guess what happens. The third category tend to
develop the site and move it in the direction of the interest of members.They are there but not there if you get my gist. A bit like a navigator who takes the wheel when required or a builder who sees a development need.
In regards to moderation of this site I think it is pretty well managed and I havent had any experiences that cause concerns or gripes. Trust me you don't want to be a moderator I have been there and its a treat to be a member. Mind you on this forum the members are very well behaved!!
I know of a forum which is a bit like Bates Motel once you join you never leave although a number of members have definitely passed on and will have great trouble posting.
In regard, to members death, expulsion or a determined period of inactivity should be the factors for culling members. I know a lot of members of forums who rarely post for a variety of reasons but are frequent vistors to those sites to cancel their membership would send out the wrong signals.
Mike
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By reading the last page or so of posts, I don't believe I can add much to the ground that has already been covered. However I don't think a member should be dismissed solely because of time not posting. If you take my situation, I was inactive for almost 2 1/2 years, but that was attributed to circumstances beyond my control.
I think it could be entirely possible that some members do visit WITHOUT logging in. For reasons that are their own, they could be as simple as just not having enough time to post and merely wish to see what is going on with the board. It doesn't make them any less of a fan, solely because of not logging in.
As Duke said in Eldorado "THINK ABOUT THAT" ! ! ! !
Just a thought.
Regards
Ethan -
Like others mentioned about being a moderator on other sites. I am on two militaria collecting sites (quit two others) and also on two history sites now only as a participant instead of a moderator. For me, simply not enough time in the day to keep active on all of them. This site is one I try to get on daily--can't on Sundays though.
I don't think its a lack of interest on some peoples part--just taking a break of sorts. I did so from two history sites for 18 months. Site owner asked me back as a moderator but I said only as a participant. Now if I did own a computer, I might go back to moderating on the sites I used to do it on.
I doubt i'll ever be asked to become a Mod here, which is OK as I would rather be just "a little Indian."
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Moderating on a forum of this caliber is not as tasking as moderating on a BT site of 40,000 - 50,000 members, believe me. About 5% of our members are active in the forums and are always asking about problems with BT software, router/modem problems, firewalls, rar'd files and so many other things. I've love moderating on a forum like this, I'd probably be able to sleep easier at night.
Right now I'm a forum moderator supervisor so it's not that bad, my title is an Administrator and all I have to do is keep the other Mods happy and make sure they know what to tell the members. But I'm about to give up that job with everything I have planned this summer I just don't have the time.
Moderating here would be fun but I do feel a Moderator should be active, informative and help as much as possible. Kevin has to have a reason for keeping inactive moderators, he owns the site, the option is his. Personally I do feel though that to look good to new members the less inactive members we have the better. Especially if we're trying to gain any kind of status with certain people or companies that may be prospective sponsors.
I am glad to be a member and will be here for a long time no matter what.
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Moderating on a forum of this caliber is not as tasking as moderating on a BT site of 40,000 - 50,000 members, believe me. About 5% of our members are active in the forums and are always asking about problems with BT software, router/modem problems, firewalls, rar'd files and so many other things. I've love moderating on a forum like this, I'd probably be able to sleep easier at night.
Right now I'm a forum moderator supervisor so it's not that bad, my title is an Administrator and all I have to do is keep the other Mods happy and make sure they know what to tell the members. But I'm about to give up that job with everything I have planned this summer I just don't have the time.
Moderating here would be fun but I do feel a Moderator should be active, informative and help as much as possible. Kevin has to have a reason for keeping inactive moderators, he owns the site, the option is his. Personally I do feel though that to look good to new members the less inactive members we have the better. Especially if we're trying to gain any kind of status with certain people or companies that may be prospective sponsors.
I am glad to be a member and will be here for a long time no matter what.
What BT site do you mod on? I must say that my time is abit tight at times with family activities and all. I also, run a U2 BT site, so I know where your coming from DakotaSurfer
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For the uninitiated, when you are talking BT you are talking Bit torrent, right?
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I only brought up the purging in case there was interest in a shoutbox and space was needed on the server to implement it. I never see anyone in the chat room and a shoutbox is more easily accessible and viewable. Just a thought...
I have been thinking of going to a shoutbox and dumping the chat room, and putting on the home page. Now that I have the vB going that can be looked into.
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A shoutbox would be awesome... as far as the BT site, don't mean to sound all CIA but it's a closed private invite only site and it's against our rules to even mention it's name in another forum of any kind. Even our url is private. Others that I can mention that I am active on are BitMeTV (Uploader) and TL (VIP). Plus a couple others that are also closed & private. BitMeTV is the one that I have created several category icons for.
I do most of my supervising late night. If you check you'll see me on here real late. I''m usually elsewhere checking PM's, answering questions and so on. Back when I was just a Mod I was too busy to do anything else but now that I just supervise I have more time. But with my disability, things I have planned, I have trained my successor and am stepping down next month. These late nights are too much anymore. I've been doing BT for more than 3 years. Enough is enough... now I just have fun!
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Though I'm coming a bit late to the discussion, I'd like to share a couple of thoughts regarding the topic.
First of all Ethan, I'm sorry to hear of the crosses you have been carrying of late and I'm glad to see you back with us. I think Ethan's situation serves to help us realize that as much as we all enjoy this board, there are times when life situations prevent our participation. I appreciate the general approach towards inactive members the moderators have taken in allowing them to still stay on. We are about honoring the Duke here and I think one of his greatest qualities was the ability to reach people where ever they happened to be in life. We need to foster that virtue on the board and not be snooty about participation being the deciding point of whether a member can stay on or not.
Second, the moderators on this board do the best job of any I've ever seen. They walk a fine line between ensuring an environment of open discourse and respectful tone and they do a great job of it overall. It's a thankless job and I appreciate their efforts!
That said, we need to retain the ability to have open, frank and respectful discussions. This was a hallmark of John Wayne and needs to continue to be a hallmark of this board.
We also need to remember that although the Duke didn't agree with many, perhaps most, of the political and ideological views of those he had to work with, he was still a gentleman towards them, unless they were just genuine horses asses in which case all bets were off.
Honest candor tempored with civility served the Duke well in his life and will get us far as a board that continues to honor his memory.
Just my thoughts...
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Well said, T-Bone -
Cheers - Jay
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Hi
Honest candor tempored with civility
What a fantastic way to sum up what this board should be about. T Bone's sentence should be inscribed in latin and used as a guiding star for this board
regards
arthur -
I was reading over the last two pages, and I have to say that I whole heartedly agree with Robbie. And this too
QuoteDisplay Morearthurarnell
Hi
Honest candor tempored with civility
What a fantastic way to sum up what this board should be about. T Bone's sentence should be inscribed in latin and used as a guiding star for this board
regards
arthur -
