How to run a forum into the ground

Harry Palmr

The horse racing forum hasn't always been the easiest of places it seems but right now its impossible and more because of the mods than any one who is posting.

One excellent money making thread was locked as its main man "del roy" felt he was being attacked for no very good reason

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057219072&page=21

and now another thread which many are finding useful has become all about the mods rather than the tips.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057243865&page=8

The primary issue seems to be that the moderator/s are treating the people who make a thread (or a forum) viable as children with tellings off, lots of bold ink, posts deleted which posters then react to, thus setting off more admonishing and a feeling of not being welcome at all.

There is an alternative to all this which is to use another forum, luckily one exists on boards - the Horse Racing and Greyhound Racing subforum in Gambling

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1384

I'm going to suggest that as things stand this would be the place to post tips from now on as it should keep most people happy - tipsters get a place to post and the hard worked Horse Racing mods will have far less to put up with.

Oh and the reason I'm posting this here and not in the HR forum is that I reckon its safer to do this on neutral ground.

LoLth

Hi,

"One excellent money making thread was locked as its main man "del roy" felt he was being attacked for no very good reason"

from the posts I read del Roy was running a tip service where posters were asked to PM him to join and the price was €10 for tips. His post was deleted for advertising. that doesn't seem like "no reason" to me.

"and now another thread which many are finding useful has become all about the mods rather than the tips."

The mods applied a template for horse tips to be posted. this format was, from what I can see, to stop long advertisements like del roy's from being posted. No-one objected and the thread started off fine until a tipster's post was deleted for not following the format. The the complaints started and the discussion of mod decisions on thread as well as demands for mod actions (we deserve an explaination etc etc) along with smart-arse commentary on mod actions and opinions - including one or two from you yourself. Discussion of mod decisions on thread is pretty much a no-no across boards, not just the Horse Racing forum. It being "all about the mods" is posters making it all about the mods and ignoring mod requests to get back on topic and follow the template given. Perhaps a better option would have been to PM and ask for a thread to discuss the template? or options? instead posters took the option of posting off topic and showboating.


"The primary issue seems to be that the moderator/s are treating the people who make a thread (or a forum) viable as children with tellings off, lots of bold ink, posts deleted which posters then react to, thus setting off more admonishing and a feeling of not being welcome at all."

a quick scan of the two threads you have linked shows me a group of posters acting like children that need telling off. Bold ink is used by some moderators to make it easier for users to see mod warnings - nice to see that it works even if you then choose to ignore them - posts are deleted when they break the rules - that's the same all over - posters reacting to such deletions should PM the mod, not start side discussions or post snide remarks.

As for the gambling sub-forum, from what I can see the mods allowed the tips threads as a courtesy to the Horse Racing community. imho the tips should be in the gambling sub-forum. Your behaviour on those threads and the behaviour of some of the other posters shows me that maybe that's for the best overall and its something that will have to be discussed with the mods. But any bookmaking services or tipster services being advertised that require users to pay money to another poster will be dealt with as advertising there too and I wouldn't be surprised if a template for tips gets brought in there should this form of business post start making as appearance.

so, maybe the mods were a bit heavy handed but lets not pile the blame on them. there was more than just mods involved and most, if not all, of the mod behaviour can be explained as reaction to user behaviour.

A quick question: why were you not using the subforum in the first place? If I were a gambling man looking for a tip on a horse that's pretty much the first place I would look and expect to find such information...

heavydemon

My view of this is.
When people post tips/info they're doing the other members a favour. To then be asked to post in a certain way is like having your cake and eating it.

If you're thinking of building a shed in your garden and someone offers you a hundred free blocks i think they would be a little bit pissed off if you said i take
them from you but you need to stack them this way and they have to be in the back not the front of the garden. If the mods wanted to clear the tips forum they could delete peoples posts requesting and commenting on the tips

Beasty

Just to clarify - Horse Racing is a Sports forum, not a gambling forum. Regardless the mods have allowed tips to be posted.

I would also add that the thread in question and its 2 predecessors have caused more hassle than any other topic I have seen on the site since I have joined Boards. Hence the mods laid down some ground rules to try and minimise further disruption

The future of the thread is under continual review by the local mods, and much more of the sort of behaviour we have seen in the (at least 3) threads that there have been in the forum, and in all likelihood it will be closed for good

LoLth

heavydemon wrote: »

My view of this is.
When people post tips/info they're doing the other members a favour. To then be asked to post in a certain way is like having your cake and eating it.

that's a fair enough opinion but I would counter with: posting tips as a favour to other members is a very welcome activity if that's what other users want. Running a pay-for-tips service through boards by asking users to PM their interest in signing up is not fair enough because that's a form of business - we have no way to verify if the user "selling" tips is making a profit on the transaction and boards cannot be held responsible for any user that has a
bad experience.

If you're thinking of building a shed in your garden and someone offers you a hundred free blocks i think they would be a little bit pissed off if you said i take
them from you but you need to stack them this way and they have to be in the back not the front of the garden. If the mods wanted to clear the tips forum they could delete peoples posts requesting and commenting on the tips

If someone came into my garden with 100 concrete blocks I would most definitely tell them where and how they can drop them. Its not their garden and I'm not forcing them to bring blocks. they *want* to bring them. Otherwise I would be happy to pick them up and stack them myself

The mods applied a template that would help then spot the type of pay-for-tips services that had been seen before. If someone wants to post a tip, then by all means do so. Boards.ie does not owe them any favour, we don't ask them to post them, we don't demand that they post them. if they want to, they can. if they don't want to, they don't have to. What they cannot do is try to run a business or start a gambling site.

Ignoring mod instructions just because you don't feel like paying attention is not the way to go about getting things changed. To continue your blocks analogy:

builder turns up with the 100 blocks and drops them on top of your flower bed and then starts selling them to your neighbours and when asked not to do so but instead to stack the blocks to one side thank-you-very-much the response is "well in that case its a big if whether I decide to sell any more blocks from here!" and your neighbours start ignoring your requests not to track mud on the carpets because you are taking away their cheap supply of blocks.

the mods are trying to ensure a forum runs smoothly for all users, not just those that want horse racing tips. To deliberately undermine them because you don't think the forum is going exactly how you want it to go is, imho, very selfish indeed and deserving of chastisement and a bit of bold text.

edit: wtf some Chinese Kanji character crept into my post.....

Overheal

LoLth wrote: »

that's a fair enough opinion but I would counter with: posting tips as a favour to other members is a very welcome activity if that's what other users want. Running a pay-for-tips service through boards by asking users to PM their interest in signing up is not fair enough because that's a form of business - we have no way to verify if the user "selling" tips is making a profit on the transaction and boards cannot be held responsible for any user that has a bad experience

siteban?