Two tiered membership

[Willallison]

The extent to which the fools amongst us have ruined this wonderful site leads me to suggest that we (ok...Jeff!:p ) introduces a new form of membership.
What I propose is that when people join up initially they become an open member. They are restricted to reading posts in all the various forums, but can only post them in the open forum.
Once they have demonstrated that they are likely to be a sensible contibuter, they are upgraded to full membership - giving the right to post in all of the other forums as well.

[Robert Gainer]

This may not be the best answer but at this point I would like to see anything tried instead of what’s in place now.

[Jeff]

That is an interesting idea.

The obvious downside is that new members might get a very bad impression of the forum if their posts could only be posted in the free-for-all-zone, and the answers to those questions being uncategorized would create a less useful archive. But it would definitely be an immediate way to keep the main forums on-topic. I'm greatly saddened to have received several emails and PM's from valued forum members who have contributed a lot to the forums over the past years but who have left in recent weeks because of a few newer members.

Another thought I had was to use the forum software's built in reputation feature. I'll admit - I'm not a very good moderator in the sense that I always look at the good and ignore the bad, and I have trouble being a dictator and simply kicking a forum member out. With the software's built-in (but currently unused) reputation feature it could run as a democracy where everyone had the ability to either up-vote or down-vote a poster based on specific posts. If a member got 10 down-votes in a row they could be restricted until they redeemed themselves. (the system also assigns more weight to those who have a positive reputation and to longstanding forum members.) This could backfire and end up dividing the forum further, but at the same time it could be a way for the majority to quickly yet anonymously keep the forum clean, making restriction a quick and democratic process rather than my lone decision.

[Figgy]

The reputation feature sounds good, or maby poll us about troublesome members. I do like Willallisons idea. I'm sure you guys dont care what I think, being a Jr. member, but I was visiting this forum for a long time before I joined.

[Ari]

This is your web site Jeff. It's up to you.In fact I had quit from so many forums for various reasons. If you had like to, you can have a group of expert on various discipline in one panel board to answer question put up by readers. Sort of corporate company web site. That will keep in only the one that have questions and in need of an answer.It might drive out a lot of present members but the expert I believe will remain.:)

[Willallison]

Figgy - being a Jr member doesn't make your views any less valuable.

Jeff - good point about archived threads. Without wanting to add to your workload..... maybe members could nominate worthy threads to be moved into their appropriate division (once they're 'finished' of course)....
Then again, if your searching for info about a particular subject it would show up regardless of which part of the forum it was in...

[Wellydeckhand]

I think the forum member can be jelous of title member. Why not extend it to 1000 post before Senior member? We are quite comfy being the Jr member and third world member..............:)

[Figgy]

I think the forum should be regulated by the users, maby by adding more moderators, but some people tend to get drunk with power. How about one moderator per forum, limit the permissions, see how it works for awhile.

[RHough]

Another thought I had was to use the forum software's built in reputation feature. I'll admit - I'm not a very good moderator in the sense that I always look at the good and ignore the bad, and I have trouble being a dictator and simply kicking a forum member out. With the software's built-in (but currently unused) reputation feature it could run as a democracy where everyone had the ability to either up-vote or down-vote a poster based on specific posts. If a member got 10 down-votes in a row they could be restricted until they redeemed themselves. (the system also assigns more weight to those who have a positive reputation and to longstanding forum members.) This could backfire and end up dividing the forum further, but at the same time it could be a way for the majority to quickly yet anonymously keep the forum clean, making restriction a quick and democratic process rather than my lone decision.

When I've seen this feature used, it leads to gangs voting out people. It divides forums.

I think that most members here are adults. A simple statement from you requesting no personal attacks and off topic posts in the design forums should do the trick.

In my experience most posters that try to disrupt threads or forums are looking for a reaction. If they don't get a reaction, they either escalate until they do or they go away. IMO Ignoring the post is the best bet.

As moderator, don't try to please everyone, it can't be done. Its your forum, spell out the goals you have for the forum and let us know what you expect. If we cannot respect the request of our host, we should be put out with no questions asked.

As soon as you have a policy where members are judged worthy or not you start a war.

[Wellydeckhand]

I think RHough just hit the spot....... sound solid and workable to me...... hope this resolve fast, feel jumpy while reading post wonder what are best to be written for reply so it will fictionly face good reaction..... I do believe in polite and stick to fact things if i can, you can joke provided u really have an answer...........to the thread. One more suggestion...... people think when people over use smilely mean their not serious............ should we bane it?

[yipster]

keeping it on boat design i wondered if somehow its possible to get a better grip on all the good info under the search button
a quik search for something specific often results in too many threads
and many new posts are doubling that without adding anything new

[kach22i]

I'm not a big fan of CLIQUE GROUPs, unless I'm the leader of course.:D

Anything which smells of elitism or snobbery is a big turn off for most.

I warn against any such structure.

[Wellydeckhand]

Elite guy now aday buy 2nd boats.............. if not broker would file chp 11. Some design they put for govt. big buck viewing pleasure and our drooling session. However, I found people design boat n ship that is a reality and does the job and work ( mean float and stay float because of their outdated design ) not mean i dont like new design yes.............

Elite account for how many percent of the forum? Defind elite......... is it high born? I dont think highborn would knife pick anyone they dont know over internet.

Sorry just the way people consider previledge and mistaken it for elite.

[kach22i]

Maybe I can expand on my statements though links/articles.

What is a forum clique?
http://www.dnlodge.com/dnl-resource-collection/655-dealing-forum-cliques.html
Everybody will have their own definition of a clique, but the general concept is an exclusive group of members in your forums who are slow to welcome new members.

http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/archive/index.php/groups-or-cliques-t350p1.html
Most online communities have members who make that messageboard their "home" on the net. And after a while certain members become friends with each other, while others form friendships with other members. And that is fine.

But do you have problems when some members see one group of friends as a clique?
Or do you even have groups who gang up and you end up with having to deal with 2 or more groups going at each other?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clique
A clique ('klik) is an informal and restricted social group formed by a number of people who share common interests - formal social groups are referred to as societies or organizations.

[yipster]

you make clique sound fair enouch
havent voted but i'm for polls :P

[stevel]

I have been slow to come around to admitting that this is a problem. For a while, I found the few "entertainment threads" amusing and easy to ignore when I wasn't in that mood. More recently, it has been much more difficult to tell which threads are still on topic, and which are "entertainment".

I'm also saddened by the departure of several members who were the primary contributors to this forum when I started following it in August of 2004. In that time, about 15% of my meager 50ish posts have been in the "wiseguy" category, but always in "entertainment threads". About 5% were either scolding or apologizing within an "entertainment thread" because one member always seemed to rub me the wrong way. The remaining 80ish% were serious inquiries or answers. Now that the "wiseguy" clutter is getting out of hand, I see that it is not so benign because it spills over to serious threads so easily, especially it someone is using the "new posts" view.

I'd quite happily give up the "wiseguy" portion of my experience in this forum if that's what it takes to save the other portion. I know that it is impossible for a large number of people to agree when they independently draw thier own conclusions about where the line is between acceptable and excessive humorous postings. If we have rules, I'd follow them.

I haven't voted yet, as I am quite conflicted about the solution to this growing problem. What I would like to point out is that the number of posts is a horrible measure of the value of one's posts. let's look at a few examples.

#1. If an experienced and sincere person responds to every question that he has a valid answer to, he would have a lot of posts quickly, and I agree that his are posts not ones that we would want to regulate.

#2 If a somewhat less experienced member only responds to the questions that he is sure that he has the correct answer for, and usually waits to see if the more experienced person will answer first, it would take a long time to accumulate many posts. I would think that we would still want to hear from this person (especially if it is me ;) ).

#3. If an overly chatty, or blow-hard type responds to every post just to hear the clicking sound come from his keyboard, he will have the most posts of all, and he's the one that most of us don't want to hear from.

I think Mackid got that point when he changed his "senior member" line to read "semi-newbie posts often".

Let's hear some more ideas on how to solve the problem before we resort to something that slows down the process for sincere postings or creates more work for Jeff. I'll cast my vote for tiered membership if we can't come up with a better solution.

[nero]

Perhaps a black list function that each user can program. When I surf the unread posts, I do not look at any new posts that have the last response by certain members.

Also if there was a way to subscribe to only certain forums. For example only boat building and sailboats. So that when I click the new posts, I am not looking at employment adds.

Thank you Jeff for your efforts.

[Wellydeckhand]

I must have mistaken clique for chic.............. but i still have respect who take this forum as a home and shrine for their thought.....................cheer, peace for all man.

[Figgy]

Why do people care about the post number? I don't, and didn't think anyone else did either. Does it make you more of a member, the bigger the number? Does it make you smarter? Does it really mean anything other than you spend alot of time here? Lets just not respond to the idiot posts. Don't feed the animals.

[duluthboats]

There was a time that I was a member of many forums, some of which I was actually an experienced pro. I even took a stab at moderator on one forum; I found the task too time consuming to keep up. I spend time here because I love boats and I found a few pros that would respond to my often times dumb questions. When I’m not asking questions I try to keep my responses to things that I have experience in. I will admit that I occasionally respond to unanswered posts, which usually attracts a correction to my feeble attempt. Some great threads have started this way, :D

A few things that may help:
Ignore the mischief makers, they will get bored and leave. I would remove the post count and the titles. As this forum grows it will change, I liked it the way it was when it was a small group. I still love boats and will continue to visit here because it is the greatest boat forum on the net. Thanks Jeff.

Gary :D

[antonfourie]

Amazing 197 views and only 12 votes !

[Wellydeckhand]

The rest 185 are proffesional...........

[trouty]

Amazing 197 views and only 12 votes !

Answer is web spiders!

You see when you make a post little scripts (software programs) crawl all around inside the internet all the time - replicating themselves and spreadi9ng everywhere and anywhere. osme are malicious little blighters that try to search and find email addresses, by searching for the @ symbol and then recording x number of keystrokes before and after then send that info back to home base to add your details to some mutilist marketing CD solds to company who want to harrass you with unsolicited advertising in your email box!

Heck I've made a new post - that as I download it to some web boards has it's first appreance as "6 views" and thats before I've viewed it for the fiorst time!:rolleyes:

These things (web spiders) are all over this web board posting like flies to horseshyte!

I have likewise been a mooderator on a couple web forums and find no enjoyment in it at all (coz theres people even weirder than me out there) and I've also been oone one or two web development teams in my time - i happen to KNOW what makes a web sites stats tick over!

I can even deliberately increase or decrease them by what how and when I post - heck people who know me and have done for years actually ring me after I get banned for being 'outrageous' to ask where I will be posting now - so they can keep being entertained! :rolleyes:

Mooderators like jeff - have made the mistake before today of banning me - and yes -most of those websites fell by the wayside!

Heck i think i got banned from 3 US websites in just 1 nite at the outbreak of Iraqnam for posting pics of dead wimmin and kids from Al Jazeera coz I was against an illegal war of aggression on innocent women and kids over oil for the oil oligarchy like Bush & Cheney!

You know what - 2000 + dead soldiers later plus 100,000 dead innocent Iraqi women and kids later.... 83% of US folks agree that the war is / was wrong!
Bush's popularity is at an all time low!

I wear my bannings like a badge of honor!

At least I have been consistently 'against the war' from the get go! (When it was unpopular to so be!).

Anyway - the point is a little controversey can be a good thing for web stats IMHO - it keeps people comming back every day!

And forthe same reason mooderators are not too keen on obliterating it altogether for the same reason they don't want to get rid of web spiders - because when they come to sell advertising - it's web stats that determine what they can charge so - lots of stats (controversial posts and web spiders etc) are actally good for bidness!;)

Sometimes I wonder...about what goes on inside peoples heads!

The very fact they are b!tching is good for bidness, there goes the stats again..;) :p

A two tiered system is elitist IMHO and discriminatory!

My sugestion to Jeff is that anyone who complains to him 3 times about another poster whos never complained about anyone ever - should be banned for good!;)

I think the poll results speak for themselves!

Simple really!

Cheers!

[MikeJohns]

Another thought I had was to use the forum software's built in reputation feature.

The problem raised by Mr Hough is that internal politics will drive the polling with this feature. It would become a conflict between two disperate groups, for example you may have enough of the junk posters to vote down the real contributors and take over the forum. Then I see real problems for the Moderator to try and re-shape things.

I think a well advertised code of conduct that we all have to agree to is the correct way foreward. This should be hashed out by all of us and finalised by the Moderator (Jeff).

We canot just ignore the 'Junk' posters because the behaviour escalates and more similar people are attracted, before long the forum sinks into a sea of their posts and all the Boat Designers go away.

[Corpus Skipper]

I think a well advertised code of conduct that we all have to agree to is the correct way foreward. This should be hashed out by all of us and finalised by the Moderator (Jeff).

This seems the best route to me. I agree that "cliques" may tend to form and gang up on certain individuals. Personally, I don't have a real BIG problem with people getting off topic, but some threads were totally hijacked. It would be nice if folks would keep their rantings and off topic chatter to the open forum (not to mention any troutwalruses:D :D :D ). Seriously, I value everyone's input here, but let's all keep threads on topic, and we can do our Yanklimeyoz bashing and general hot air dispersion to the open forum. And don't loose the smileys:D ! They help convey that some of that hot air is all in good fun! Keep up the great work Jeff!

[Willallison]

Personally, I don't have a real BIG problem with people getting off topic

...good, just briefly I want to!:p Welcome back Gary!!

Now - back to business - when I originally put forth this idea, it wasn't so much because I knew it would be the answer. It was born out of anger and frustration at the loss of some terrific members. We seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time complaining about the 'less constructive' amongst us - I think it's time we all agreed on a way to ensure that we arrest the slide before the value of this forum is lost to us all.

I like Mike's idea of a code of conduct - but who would police it? I guess if one felt that someone was stepping outside the boundaries too often, then you could put it to Jeff. If it continued, he could expell that member after a while. The problem is that this is all more work for Jeff. And of course, that person can simply come back as a newly named newbie....

[Jeff]

When I've seen this feature used, it leads to gangs voting out people. It divides forums.
Warning noted, and I can definitely see this danger. However, in a best case scenario, it could be used very positively to anonymously say "thank you" to the best posters and also to anonymously give the "on the edge" troublemakers a hint to adjust their course. With that said, I've enabled the "forum reputation" feature for a two-week trial. Hopefully it will be a useful tool to help set the tone. If it proves otherwise, we can always pull it back into the shop :P and try something more drastic.

And forthe same reason mooderators are not too keen on obliterating it altogether for the same reason they don't want to get rid of web spiders - because when they come to sell advertising - it's web stats that determine what they can charge so - lots of stats (controversial posts and web spiders etc) are actally good for bidness!;)
99% of the web spiders that are on the forum are google, inktomisearch which powers a number of the big engines, msn, yahoo, etc. While I'm very happy about the number of people who are members of the forum, there are many other interested and interesting people that have never seen this site before, so it's important for them to be able to find discussions here when they do a search on the search engine of their choice. Ban search engine spiders, and the pages of the site disappear from search engines... thus no new members finding this site to join in the discussion or sometimes even contribute an answer based on a web search.

I do ban email harvesters and other bad bots at the firewall as best I can (of course, their aim is not to make it easy for the webmaster to lock out the bad bots ;))

keeping it on boat design i wondered if somehow its possible to get a better grip on all the good info under the search button
a quik search for something specific often results in too many threads
and many new posts are doubling that without adding anything new
It's actually amazing how well search engines like google have managed to improve the quality of search results in recent years. Native mysql searching was a baby-step in the right direction for the forum's built-in search engine, but I would definitely like to improve things further and will be keeping an eye out on any opportunities to do so.

[Willallison]

I've enabled the "forum reputation" feature for a two-week trial.

Definitely worth a go.... where do we find it & how do we use it?

[Jeff]

Sorry - just posted an explanation: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11086

There is an inconspicuous "reputation" icon http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/images/buttons/reputation.gif on the top right of every post now - for exceptionally good or exceptionally bad posts, you can click the icon, either "approve" or "disapprove" and leave a quick anonymous comment which appears in the user's control panel. It's not perfect, but it may help give a general indication to people how well their posts have been received by the community.

Also sorry for taking your thread off-topic myself here - what you've suggested would definitely work and I think could be workable, but I also forsee it as a heck of a lot more work even for a team of moderators to maintain it over time so I'm hoping some easier to maintain solutions might bring us close enough to the old commmunity tone that we all enjoyed.

[Willallison]

Jeff - if you see it as a lot of work, then as far as I'm concerned that's the end of the discussion - and the idea. As I've said before - we are all very lucky to have what you've created here, so we should do our best to make it as pain free for you as possible!

BTW - you didn't take us off topic. This has done exactly what I'd hoped it would - promote discussion as to how we can resolve the "problem" before it gets completely out of hand....

[JonathanCole]

Why not have the person who starts a thread be a co-moderator with Jeff. This person can state the rules of the thread. They can privately message offenders. If people don't respond positively, then they can be referred to Jeff for possible loss of membership or other sanction.

I have noticed that there are a lot of guys who like to argue even if they can't make a very good case. These people are insecure and often engage in browbeating and intimidation. Sometimes it seems that they have completely closed minds. Although forums thrive on freedom, it has been scientifically demonstrated that societies without rules disintigrate because they lose members.

Another possible idea is to have threads that invite participation by specific individuals. These threads could be by invitation only. The opening post could be available to all and then people could request to participate.
It would make possible much more project oriented postings, where people of like mind really collaborate on developing designs/projects/etc. Of course I don't know if its technically achievable.

[DanishBagger]

I have noticed that there are a lot of guys who like to argue even if they can't make a very good case. These people are insecure and often engage in browbeating and intimidation. Sometimes it seems that they have completely closed minds.


Although not strictly on topic, but I can't help but laugh at the above, coming from the same guy that tried to argue that saying elitist behaviour and opinions is elitism, was name-calling. Good grief.

The problem with words like elitist, is that it is ascribing motive to people you don't even know. The reason that people say things that you INTERPRET as elitism may be wholly different than you think. You may be wrong about their motive. Yet you are setting yourself up as the arbiter of what is elitist. You might consider whether that is fair.



hypocrisy

[JonathanCole]

Danish Bagger,

Are you calling me a hypocrite or an elitist? You better look in the mirror, my friend ,if you want to see the problem.

[DanishBagger]

Danish Bagger,

Are you calling me a hypocrite or an elitist? You better look in the mirror, my friend ,if you want to see the problem.

I am not your friend, nor have I any intention of being one to you.

What am saying? I am saying, as you can see in the above post, that I have shown that the two opposing views in your two posts are indeed hypocrisy. It seems you somehow think that elitism and hypocrisy doesn't go well together? I never said that one of them exclude the other, nor will I.

I know it must be hard when outed like that, but do you really expect people to ignore you when you claim one thing one moment, and the next the opposite, while accusing other for being the problem?

What's your next trick?

[Figgy]

Easy now fellas. Isnt this the behaviour we're trying to do away with? Dang, next thing you know people are going to be givin' each othor bad reps out of anger. Why is this thread active anyways? Jeff went with the Rep feature and not the two-tiered membership, lets kill it.

[DanishBagger]

Yup, let's kill it.

Btw, I don't think one can receive -minus reps, can you do that?

Anyway, I still think it's a bad idea :(

[Jeff]

DanishBagger: Yes after 100 posts you should have the option to either "approve" of (+rep points) or "disapprove" of (-rep points) a post.

Figgy: thanks and well said. I'll go ahead and close this thread for now, but we may revisit if the easier and less drastic options don't have the desired effect to bring us back to the friendly and idea-driven community we want the forums to be.