Seminole1986 <---Lawyer and newcomer-frustrated into leaving by the format it seems.
Jim,
It's pretty obvious that your court case has given you considerable "Hell, I was there" type of training. Outstanding Sir, I salute you. I'm not being facecious or belittleing you in any manner, this is honest praise. All too often the school of hard knocks is the best teacher. FWIW, I'd give you a B+.( It' would be an A, but,
pisser?
Also, about the ego thing. Well! Hey, at BF, I nominated you for member of the year remember? Only to get the no, cause you were a moderator. I said screw it and wrote ya in anyhow. I'd hate to see the same thing happen here
So far here are my points:
Security. Still a major concern, but if it's likely to happen, then deal with it as it happens, after taking any reasonable measures.
Board(member reaction). Bound to be some, also bound to be some negative. I looked back at the older posts in the General Forum, and tried to put an approx. time frame on when certain changes in the board took place, vs/ Member reaction. Most reactions. positive and negative peter out after 3 weeks or so, with something else diverting attention away. I don't want to reopen any wounds here, so I'm not going to list the incidents. In a number of cases, whole groups of individuals left. In some of those cases, it was addition by subtraction, but still a drain on the overall knowledge base. Member turnover is a given, as people come and go, for whatever reason.
Spill over- Um, no way to prevent it, but to keep an eye on it. This may be the worst of the bunch though since it would mean more moderation of all the forums. My main gripe about more moderation isn't about the cencorship angle. Never has been, never will be. My main complaint about more moderation is that it takes valuable posting time away from a lot of the better people(posters). Looking back at a lot of the forums, the staff contributed an enormous amount, to an enormous variety of topics, goes down in direct proportion to the amount of time spent ministering to the functions/content of the board.Sad fact of life I guess, is that as a board becomes more successful, it needs more attention.
KISS- I'm leary of anything that could violate KISS. The above mentioned newcomer has an interesting (to say the least) profile. Under the format of a month ago, he would have had a much better chance of becoming a great member of TFL. As luck/chance would have it though, he just happened to hit the boards at the wrong time. If you look at his profile, and check out his homepage, you can see this is exactly the type of individual you seek to attract. He had the misfortune (actully the loss is more ours than his). of hitting the forums during 1.) A software transition. 2.) A peak time of staff intervention. 3.) A change in format.(I took the liberty of extending an invitation to give TFL annother chance, via a partial explanation as to the events surrounding what happened. (Sorry Rich, if I overstepped my bounds. You can flog me later
.) This is pretty much an example of overlooking what's in place already, while trying to fine tune something.
At this point, I have little left to add, other than to tread lightly when fixing something that ain't broke is concerned. OTOH, if, as Rich says, I feel THAT strongly about it, there's always
http://www.what-ever-you-want-to-call-it.com to take my objections to. I just feel that I would be remiss in my duty as a long term member of TFL to not speak my piece about changes here.
If however, these changes are put in place, I for one will say no more on the subject.