# Forum dies slow death



## CH_Peter (May 16, 2002)

I loved this forum. Past tense. It's rapidly becoming a brand bashing, egotistical, irresponsible, immature flame room. But I won't blame the moderators or owners of the forum. Yet.

This forum contains a wealth of information and provides a place for us to get together and enjoy the car we bought. This forum has saved me Â£100s, just by knowing what I was talking about before I went to the dealer. It's now becoming hard to find the information, or simply tiresome to do so, given the amount of stupid posts (from us, from trolls).

As soon as we started 'brand bashing', we became no better than any troll who signed on to answer back. I'll refer to the individual who labelled all Subaru Impreza drivers based on the actions of one. So if one of us drives like an idiot, are we all idiots, since we drive the same make and model of car? Natually not, and as soon as we realise that it isn't about the car, it's about the person who's driving it, the better. Comments bashing other brands are childish and demonstrate only the insecurities of the choice we made when we parted with our cash.

You cannot ask for constraint, when we are even partly to blame: there are people here who will jump to the TT's defence, rational argument against it or not. They are the same people who would reply to the 'troll' posts, and look to start an argument with them.

Our answer is to kill the problem at the source - at least in my opinion. Jae has quoted to me before just how many posts there are on this forum per day. You can't moderate the volume in question, he said. I didn't argue. At the time, we didn't have any such problems. I say you can moderate any volume, as long as you have enough moderation. And I say, it's time to batten down the hatches, and protect the forum. Keep the wealth of information readily accessible and enjoyable. Start closing accounts where people do not follow the agreement they signed up to when they joined to forum. Lou (T7) rightly pointed this out in one of the offending threads. What's the point in having the agreement if you have neither the will nor the time to enforce it?

More moderators, at least on a temporary basis. More sense and maturity. Someone needs to have the power, and I say better the risk of having too tightly a moderated forum in the interim, than a forum which degenerates into a worthless flame board. Give someone the power (by vote, perhaps or people with 5 stars?) and let's take some positive action to sort the problem.

Pete


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## davidg (Sep 14, 2002)

What more can be said ?, i agree .


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## kingcutter (Aug 1, 2003)

maybe km needs a stand in while he is having time out,but i think by now we all now who a genuine members.


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## Silversea (Jun 18, 2002)

Pete,

I agree with your comments 100%, what had been happening here over the last few days was out of order by a few brain dead morons. :-X

I would like to see something being put in place to prevent any re-occurrence in the future, and praise Paul for locking the threads. :-*


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

I've been away over the weekend to come back to loads of IM's and angry posts.

Give us a bit of time to think about the course of action. More moderators will certainly help (and thanks to those that have volumteered) but deleting / locking posts and members is likely to cause it's own issues because of the way this forum is run and has evolved. :-/

Ultimatly, trolls only revisit because they know they will get responses from us - if we ignore them they have no reason to stay. 
But... if we act in the same as them (stereo-typing other drivers etc) then are we any better than them???


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

Can someone send me a list of the Troll visitors please? Obviously Hairdresser - any others?


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## Jac-in-a-Box (Nov 9, 2002)

In response to CH_ Peter's post....

Hmm, not sure that I agree totally on this.
I would suggest the forum has been pretty much "self moderating" and I don't see the need for additional moderators...what would you expect them to do? Block an account because of an "iffy" username? Have a "duty" moderator over the weekend?
I can only recall a few instances over the last year or so where moderators had to step in and take action.

While agree the that majority of the post's over the weekend were designed to inflame and some ended up as being personal attacks (on both sides) there were a small number of posts from the Scooby fraternity that added a liitle value to forum.

The whole event was probably triggered by an ill conceived comment by one our members, it all got out off hand when we responded to the goading and took the bait.
Had we ignored it they would have gone away.

We, as do all the members, find the forum a valuable, entertaining and informative site; to bring in more moderators is not the answer. 
The solution lies with ALL of us in behaving responsibly and maturely.


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

Agreed - it was shocking how some members fell "hook, line and sinker" for the tt-baiting that was going on - it was clear from the outset what the intentions were - and they suceeded.


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

ummmm

Even if we self moderate our own reactions and posts... whenever trolls come around, they leave a nasty smell :

That smell lingers and for those newbies and infrequent visitors, it may well be enough to stop them coming again!

And I know that if you leave the trolls alone they will eventually go away, but then sometime in the future them and other trolls come back again... fact of life!

I was around when the last trolling occurred and personally I would have moved the threads to flame or off-topic immediately. If they had then gone OTT for those boards, I would have locked them!

Blocking their IP also helps ;D It's invisible, but would have slowed them down, probably enough to stop the trolling in it's tracks!

I do agree however that we (this community) should stop slagging off other marques! It happens all too frequently and has no beneficial aspect and often ends up with trolling similar to this weekends seemingly successful attempts... I would also hope that no one here went across to Scooby net and lowered themselves by trolling on there... :-/


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## UK225 (May 12, 2002)

> I would also hope that no one here went across to Scooby net and lowered themselves by trolling on there... :-/


looking at the posts from newbies on Scoobynet in realtion to the weekends events I would say some almost certainley did this :-/

Shell_suit_wearer could be a candidate I reckon ;D


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## Dont I Recognise You (Oct 10, 2003)

> I would also hope that no one here went across to Scooby net and lowered themselves by trolling on there... :-/


I think there were several - or one person with multiple logons (from reading the links that were posted).

some talking sense, some fanning the flames...

Of course - it *could* have been someone from Scoobeynet on the stir over there - or indeed someone from here pretending to be from there, or, or, or.......

I don't think either forum came out of it too well really Â :-/

As ever - the actions of a few reflect badly on the many....

Having said that - it seems to have gone quiet again for the moment, and I'm not convinced any long term damage has been done that we can't bounce back from.

The threads in question will soon disappear down the lists.
Just hoping there were no prospective members browsing on here (or on Scoobeynet for that matter) at the time Â


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## t7 (Nov 2, 2002)

> Just hoping there were no prospective members browsing on here (or on Scoobeynet for that matter) at the time Â


Especially hoping there were no prospective members that happen to be homosexual as we totally failed to moderate the frankly offensive comments that were made. Any thread entitled "My Fist TT" should have been deleted immediately.

I'm sorry but I don't buy the "ignore them and they go away" argument. In practice it just encourages the posting of more outrageous and offensive things to goad a response out of someone. The posts also sit there in perpetuity for prospective members to find. The only answer is to delete posts and or threads that violate forum policy and where these are the vast majority of a new members postings, to delete the i.d..

So more moderators may be the answer...

L


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## scoTTy (May 6, 2002)

Being totally honest, flame me if you like, I was more disappointed in the behaviour of this forum's participants than the trolls. 

Trolls exist on the web and you'll never stop them. I and one or two other posted that the quickest way was to ignore them but everyone wanted to vent their feelings and just fell into the trolls plan so easily.

Locking the threads early would have helped but someone would definately complained about a moderator being over eager.

You can't win. :-/

p.s. We've been round this time and time again and it's the way of the web. The forum gets affected and then recovers. It's certainly not dieing a slow death.


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## nutts (May 8, 2002)

I agree the forum isn't dying and will recover.

The offending threads should have initially been moved very quickly out of themain forum and then moderated if they then exceeded the limits of the new board.

The offending threads should now be found and deleted.

Unfortunately, more moderators on the main board is needed I believe. :-/ :-/

Even the lost forum have 5 moderators!! The main forum only has 3... and we know how busy the 3 tend to be... :-/


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

As I said earlier - more moderators are going to be added soon. 
Just need to talk to Jae before they're added (after all, it's his site). Also got an idea of what to do with all the existing moderators as well.

Once we get the new system working then we will also have the ability to split out individual posts from threads (something that's missing from the current system).


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## t7 (Nov 2, 2002)

Sounds good Kev 

And of course the forum isn't dying - this IS it's self regulation process in action - rational debate and limited, considered follow up action.

L


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## moley (May 14, 2002)

From my point of view, it was damned obvious what was happening - it was a Friday night, so I joined in - politely. Let's face it, this is going to happen on any forum for whatever subject. So let's just be grown ups and be prepared for this sort of thing - I don't want Jae and kevin and all the other moderators to spend all their free time policing something which is, in my mind, a small insignificant bit of flaming and banter from a competitor brand.

Moley


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