What About Moderators in the New Forum?

[John T Smith]

Read the spam thread for awhile and you will see that moderation works well in these webx forums

You will also see messages concerning the LACK of moderation over in the cfusion side of things

Will the new forum software/structure allow for "this" moderation to continue, or will it fall away to "that" style of non-moderation?

[Kath-H]

>What I'm interested to hear is how Adobe forum regulars view the moderation (Forum Host) system. What's good about it? What's bad about it?

I think it works very well, in the main. A specific 'report spam' button might also be useful though.

The majority of hosts I've come across use their powers very sparingly, mostly only issuing warnings on the 'negative' side and being immensely helpful besides. A few, however, either get hopelessly trigger-happy or throw around weight they are not generally acknowledged to possess. Respect has to be earned and almost all of them I've seen have done so.

But not all.

[D__McCahill]

> So, do the dissenters normally shut up after the moderator has made his/her point?

Very seldom. But there is one less person feeding the flames, if you see what I mean. Once you have made your point, the reasonable people will understand what you feel, and will accept it. No point in repeating it for them. And the others ... no amount of repetition will get through to them.

Make your point, by all means, but only once ... a second shot occasionally if you need to clarify something. But you'll burn yourself out in no time if you try to reply to every comment made.

[Kath-H]

F'rinstance I've just had a sarky comment deleted. Fair enough ;)

[Chris Cox]

Holy cow this thread has been busy.

My $0.02 :

I'll give it a try with the community experts titles. I think it might help the newcomers a lot better than following up with "why yes, I did write the book on that" posts and mockery by the usual suspects.

Avatars - eh, I'm not sure it's a great idea, but I'll give it a try. On some forums I find them ugly and distracting, while on others they work pretty well. Of course, allowing user uploadable avatars means we'll have to include some kind of constant policing of avatars (which could turn into a major hassle).

If things don't work out, we can change the forum appearance. If other things are needed, they can be added.

We will make the new forums work, one way or another.
(just remember that no one design is ever going to please everyone)

[Guest]

OH MY GAWD!

A SUDDEN OUTBREAK OF COMMON SENSE! :)

thanks chris.

[~graffiti]

>A SUDDEN OUTBREAK OF COMMON SENSE!

This thread is now closed.

[Guest]

yes. in the name of claudio ken. :)

[Jacob Bugge]

>If things don't work out, we can change the forum appearance. If other things are needed, they can be added.

This sounds really nice, but can we?
And if things are not needed, they can be omitted?

All the objections, to what we have actually seen in this forum, have been about things added.

[Guest]

We can change things within the allowances of the software. We (JC and his team) can also ask them to add options that will become part of future upgrades.

What John is not doing is making code changes to our copy of the software that will prohibit upgrades being done to ours when they upgrade all their other customers.

[D__McCahill]

> All the objections ... have been about things added.

And I'm willing to bet that at least 10% of the things being complained about will be embraced down the road. Another 40% will be tolerated or ignored. Perhaps 40% will be disliked but things we can live with. The other 10% will be really bad ideas, which hopefully can be fixed.

I think the big thing about the software, and probably why John is more enthused about it, is that it won't be so hard to make changes to things in the future. I think that was one of the problems with the current software.

[John_Cornicello_Photo]

What I would be looking for is the ability to take advantage of the changes/updates in the Software provided by the vendor. I don't want to have a system designed that customizes everything and leaves us in the position of not being able to upgrade.

As for avatars, each user will be able to upload one custom avatar, and that avatar must be approved before it is available to them for use. So there will be delays between the time the avatar is uploaded and when it will show up in someone's profile.

[Guest]

>avatar must be approved

Gonna make for a busy couple a' first days!!

[John_Cornicello_Photo]

There are some built-in generic ones to be used while waiting for approval. No idea or promises yet on the turn-around time for approval. But I don't think it will be a high priority during the first few days (weeks?) of launch.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

You mean if my mug shot is too ugly, it won't be approved?

[John_Cornicello_Photo]

You've changed a bit since the last photo I've seen of you. Trying to give gorillas a bad name?

[Guest]

> You mean if my mug shot is too ugly, it won't be approved?

Perhaps in due course John will publish some guidelines of what is acceptable.

[Ramón G Castañeda]

It's moot point, Ozpeter.