For a forum with a couple hundred thousand members to have a single moderator who has many other full time duties to attend to doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. There are a lot of topics on this forum that have degraded into p!ssing matches between members that need to be locked down or edited.
I call for Trains to entrust a couple more people with moderator duties. Bergie obviously can’t spend all his time on these forums picking up after us. I’m afraid it’ll get to the point where they’ll just shut the whole darn thing down.
Another forum I belong to has only a few hundred members but half a dozen moderators. Trolls and personal attacks, though few, are shut down instantly. Things around here shouldn’t be allowed to go on for so long. Bergie will end up having a coronary like a few weeks ago.
Again, Trains.com, if you’re listening, please bring in some more moderators. I am a moderator at another, non-train-related, forum and would be happy to take up the duties if asked. The key is, unless you use Kalbach employees, to find people who won’t use the moderator powers to simply further their own agenda and exact their own personal revenges.
I moderate a few on line forums, also…certains topics(the 3 G’s, as we call them) are verboten, as are personal attacks and are deleted immediately.
So, Bergie , if ya need a hand cleaning up this board, shoot me an e-mail.[:D]
I’m a moderator on another train-related forum with about 1200 members, with maybe 20-25 posts on an average day.
All postings must be approved by one of five or six moderators before they go up, which prevents flaming and posts about politics and religion and the like. Works pretty good, and keeps adreneline levels safe.
That type of “delayed appearance” format may be necessary here someday, just to keep things civil. It will, though, hurt those who like to use these forums to carry on conversations.
How many of these topics actually get out of hand? I don’t read each and every topic, only the ones which subject line catches my eye, or the ones that say THIS FORUM!, currently going on, which content I barely understand, because I don’t see it as being a topic, it’s a ranting by a juvenile. Some postings on here are juvenile but there really aren’t that many. I’ve seen far worse forums.
All things considered, this place looks pretty good. And even with a half dozen moderators, unless you do the kind of post review Poppa mentioned, there will be times when none of the moderators are on line. Kinda like that little tiff that went on overnight a while back. I think it ran to four pages of sniping, mostly due to one participant’s baiting. Once discovered, it was nipped.
Individual post review would, of course, get rid of most of the immature stuff that happens, but what happens when a moderator is part of the problem? (Rhetorical question - don’t answer it!) A couple of off-line emails to Bergie usually take care of most issues. You’d be surprised at how close a pulse he keeps on the forums…
And even though a lot of us stick by one or two of the forums, some of the troublemakers over time have found it necessary to run amok around the entire place, causing all sorts of trouble.
As a group, we’ve gotten a lot smarter about trolls and their sort, and are less likely to take the bait.
I am not sure having one moderator is a problem. I think most of us respect Bergie for the job he’s doing, and those who don’t probably should be living in fear of being booted.
It’s Kalmbach’s forum; Kalmbach employees should wield the sword when necessary. If I remember correctly, Mark Hemphill, when he was the editor, also had the power to delete threads (I got an e-mail from him once, apologizing for deleting my post when a bad thread was removed).
Bergie is a reasonable person, there has been at least one instance of a forum contributor being allowed back, and he’s stayed on the strait and narrow since.
I don’t think I’d like to see moderators second-guessing other moderators. I wouldn’t wi***o be a moderator on any forum–heck, I can’t stay on an even keel from one day to the next, and today I don’t feel like reading much of anything (so be nice to me, or you may find yourself on your ear! Could you live with that?).
Even though Bergie isn’t in here all the time there are several responsable members of this forum that will alert him if things get out of line. I have had to contact him a couple times myself. For the most part though the intelegent members of this forum can spot trolls and ignore them. Though I must admit sometimes I cant resist the temptation to toy with them. I really got to stop feeding the trolls though.[(-D]
From personal experience I will say if there is content or attitude that is inappropriate, email Bergie about it, give him the name of the thread and the member in question, and he will take care of it immediately. I did this on the modeling forum once with a member who was randonmly and relentlessly singling out members and harassing them. I emailed Bergie and that member was gone that day.
Aww - No one is going to believe that kind and gentle Carl is going to suddenly go bad! You will feel much better tomorrow. Trust me!
And besides - the forum only has one Mookie and why would you want a whole group of them cluttering up the forum. One of anything is enough! Bergie does just fine.