Three World Wars

[mbh66]

This (reluctant) message is meant for the following audience:
- those who post regularly;
- those who used to visit regularly but are now disappointed by the standard of posts.

I’m slowly discovering how difficult it is to influence the dynamics of an online forum.

Forum Objectives
When I first launched the ThreeWorldWars forum, I had lofty intentions of creating a meeting place for intellectuals concerned about the inevitable fast-approaching war that will in some way affect each of us, where we could all contribute to a mutual learning experience. My long-term plan was to build an international community of caring individuals who could offer support to each other as and when required. Before launching, I’d spent many on-line hours looking at other forums to see what didn’t work, in an attempt to set this forum apart.

Sadly the opposite has happened, and many recent posts epitomize hatred, conflict, poorly constructed thoughts, lack of original thinking, shocking grammar and a standard generally far lower than I’d anticipated. This is obviously a huge generalization, and there are a few exceptions.

In short, it takes a fair amount of time and energy to keep the forum going, and since it's no longer meeting the original objectives, I’m questioning whether it’s worth continuing.

What Next?
I now have a number of options:

1. Shut down the forum completely, now;
2. Leave the forum to continue it’s downward spiral until no-one visits any more;
3. Invite moderators to assist in monitoring and deleting posts which don’t meet the objectives required;
4. Offer two versions: the existing forum, and a members (by invitation-only) more exclusive forum, with higher standards required for posting, and possibly a small fee to ensure exclusivity.

I still believe this forum has potential, but am becoming despondent about the effort required to attain that potential.

What do you think we should do next?
Your thoughts, input, comments and other suggestions in reply to this post, whether good or bad, will tell me what this collective group wants from the forum.

I look forward to hearing from you.

[SMILEY_K]

I have seen successful free forums.

The trade off that you have to decide whether you are willing to endure is the use of aggressive moderation. You would need to appoint several moderators, and give them the authority, and even the encouragement, to aggressively delete and/or censor posts that violate the Terms of Service.

Another approach I have seen is the use of multiple levels of membership. Users that have demonstrated they can play nicely for 3 months and/or 250 posts are promoted are granted write access to higher level forums that guests and jr members are only able to read. The higher level forums tend to have more mature discussions because the time investment required to post on them discourage spammers and hotheads. Flamers starve to death in a matter of days when they are unable to attract response posts. All senior members are given delete authority for the public forums so that aggressive moderation is ensured.

I am afraid I am too cheap (and not nearly interested enough in this effort) to pay for access to an exclusive forum. I will gladly suffer advertising, including a reasonable number of popups, to cover the costs of any free service on the internet. Most people I am afraid, are both too cheap, and too easily annoyed to accept advertising, which is really a shame.

So regarding your explicitly stated options:

1. Shut down the forum completely, now;

That would be a shame. If it comes to this, please consider leaving the more mature discussions available in a read only format.

2. Leave the forum to continue it’s downward spiral until no-one visits any more;

Not acceptable. Even option 1 is better.

3. Invite moderators to assist in monitoring and deleting posts which don’t meet the objectives required;

This is the standard approach. It is not without cost however. You must give up some control of your own forum. You must be able to accept the judgement of other people as to what constitutes the difference between provocative and hateful. I personally prefer a 'zero tolerance' approach that leaves the majority of posters grousing about the 'nazi mods.' It is much easier to deal with a handful of anal moderators, than a sea of anal members. At least you know who the enemy is that way.

4. Offer two versions: the existing forum, and a members (by invitation-only) more exclusive forum, with higher standards required for posting, and possibly a small fee to ensure exclusivity.

There are many ways to go with a split forum. The difficultly is in getting started. You will not likely have the critical mass for regular, productive discussions with only a few dozen registered members. Without good discussions, you will never attract that critical mass. Providing read access only to restricted forums keeps the restricted forums civil, but results in much copying and pasting into the public forums to open up flaming. The two forum approach still requires the use of aggressive moderation, at least in the public forum. This is why most split forums offer public forum moderation privledges too all senior members. When the moderators outnumber the posters on the public forums, the trash gets taken out quickly.


A fifth option is to scale the discussion back to a 'mailbag.' While this gives you a high level of control over content, it requires you to be involved in every discussion. The time commitment could become excessive. The time lag often becomes long.
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Support the troops - BRING THEM HOME

[Milton]

Looks like I may have gotten here too late.

I am a regular on a couple of other forums and we use monitors to ride herd. The monitors can be removed if they are discovered to be breaking with the faith.

I hope you will keep your forum going.

[ATC Supporter]

How about this, return everything as it was and see what will happen. You may be surprised but Stalfos has also a forum http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AntiTerrorismCoalition/ and take a look at how he is managing it.

[mbh66]

Smiley_K,

Thank you once again for your valuable input and support - you will never know how much I appreciate it. May God bless you richly.

I agree that charging for access is not the best way to go. Besides, the hassle of administering it is hardly worth what I could reasonably charge. It also goes against my desire to provide a professional yet free resource, without advertising.

So, I've implemented your ideas in terms of restricting access and will soon be calling for volunteers to moderate.

Thank you once again. I hope these few changes will result in a forum experience which is enjoyable for all. Contrary to recent visitors who boast about the membership size of their forum, I would rather concentrate on building a small group of thinkers, capable of intellectual discussion and debate about any topic they may wish to raise.

[Dev1state]

This is a good cause, Im glad it isnt going to go down. Thank you for your effort and hard work. These new developments look promising. Ill try to do my part by watching my Spelling and Grammar. Ive seen the new layout of the whole site and it looks brilliant.

[SMILEY_K]

I don't quite qualify since I often disappear for weeks at a time.

I would like to nominate Dev and Nab as moderators. They disagree often enough to provide a good balance of moderation.
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Support the troops - BRING THEM HOME

[Dev1state]

Smiley_K, I think you do qualify. You are a great contributer, and you are greatly deserving. Your posts are very well structured, and you have lots of knowledge.

[Clopin]

Moderaters don't harm a forum. Au contraire, there are moderators on EVERY forum. I can follow the suggestions above, those ppl are indd most qualified. But I think it is best you sit down with them and discuss a kind of policy that will be used on this forum so every moderator knows when take action. That way ppl are warned and have no right to disagree. Just a buffer for yourself webmaster
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"What's past, is prologue"

[Stalfos]

SMILEY_K:

[Clopin]

I think it's going to be very difficult to find ppl who are completely objective. Dev and Nab have their own beliefs and that is fine, they are reasonable and that's what count. Don't you agree? As long as they stick to policy... And by what I've seen posted by them I conclude they are up to it and therefor I support them.
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"What's past, is prologue"

[Stalfos]

[Dev1state]

I do not hate people who support the Establishment of the state of Isreal. I do not hate people who want it to stay. There are two sides to Zionism. The innocent side, and the corrupt side. I do not like hatred and attacks. If I were admin I would let you post whatever you want to post so long as it is not outright hatred, or spam, or attacking other members. I would like to be open minded about things, you do make good points, although in your earlier posts the tone was a bit hateful. Although now it is ok. Now please stop accusing me of being Intolerant and Racist and Liberal or whatever.

I might not make a good admin, but not because of the things you accuse me of. But hey, Clopin do you think you would be up to the Job? I nominate Clopin!

[Clopin]

I have seen far more extreme opinions then Dev's Stalfos, If you browse around the forum you come across many posts by Dev where he/she (he or she actually Dev?) is open for many opinions. That's an ability not everyone has here so, yes, I nominate her.
As for my nomination, thank you Dev, I'm always ready to help but I think I first have to catch up a lot
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"What's past, is prologue"

[Stalfos]

Dev:

[Dev1state]

[Clopin]

And he hid in shame...
Sorry Dev, won't make that mistake again
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"What's past, is prologue"

[lucy mac]

We should be adult enough to have the ability to provide caution to one another. I personally do not like to see foul language. But believe me I can't throw stones. Sometimes it is difficult to hold back anger. I really like this forum. It feels right. Maybe there could be a "clean it up reminder", a warning, content editing, and lastly "you're taking up my time" goodbye!

[CarFight]

I do what I can.. I apoligize for random post's and all that such but this place is important to me.

[Dev1state]