Statistics anyone ?

[marcus]

Perhaps there is already a closed forum here, that we haven't been invited to join...

Sometimes I post here often, sometimes not at all for months. On new forums I come across I usually lurk a bit before deciding whether to join in.

Participating is better and more useful but

Long live lurking.

[Giddy Goat]

Perhaps there is already a closed forum here, that we haven't been invited to join...

You cannot be serious??!! If so, I wonder who the privileged few are? Not this goat, anyway!

Long live lurking - like it! I have nothing against lurkers, and hope my previous posts didn't give the impression I do. It's the members who lurked for a bit and left (unannounced of course) who I was suggesting could be identified by the simple process of an email to request confirmation of their wish to remain on the membership list. No reply within a certain time frame - deleted. Nothing to stop someone re-joining subsequently if they had a change of heart, surely?

Anyway, the defunct ones don't spoil our fun or impact on the benefits of membership that we all enjoy, so I'll shut up now.

[vrooje]

Yes, I'm all for lurking.

Sometimes I look at the member list and I'm almost sure that some new user has signed up with an automatic program, but there is no URL posted, so I have no grounds for deleting them as a spammer. But I'm almost certain that they are automatic forum spammers who simply didn't configure their auto-registration correctly. That's the sort of detritus I'm talking about.

But as I said, I don't know how to tell them apart from anyone else who has never posted. Perhaps I'm missing it, but I can't even see a way to tell how many times a person has logged on, or the last time they did so.

So what I posted above is essentially a moot point, and in retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have said anything!

[enid]

I am very happy with the way this forum is managed but am I being a bit slow? - do we have moderators other than paulo? I was a little confused recently by a thread with edited posts and apologies flying hither and thither - this could create a feeling of an inner circle which would ruin this forum for me at least.

[la vache!]

Enid is right, it would be nice to know who the moderators are, can't they add the title to their profile as per other forums?

[Hells Bells]

If you look at 'Who's online at the bottom of the front page, the 'mods' are in black.

[la vache!]

I know that, but you aren't always on line are you? And you could also be hidden users. I don't see why you shouldn't be identified in the profile.

[Hells Bells]

OK Sue, sorry. I mod on another forum,and the mods are a usergroup, but Paolo would have to do that.

[gh]

If you look at 'Who's online at the bottom of the front page, the 'mods' are in black.

Thanks for that, I didn't know we had mods other than Paolo.

[vrooje]

this could create a feeling of an inner circle which would ruin this forum for me at least.

Enid has put her finger on why, for my part, I try not to talk about administrating the forum. I don't ever want to give the impression that because of some extra permission to edit posts, I am in any way ranked more highly than anyone else, or at least in any way that matters. I completely agree that I would like this forum to avoid any hint of an "inner circle."

I've also noticed that many other forums apply titles to each member based on the number of posts they have made. I was a "junior member" on a France expats forum until I had made 10 posts (or 20, I don't recall). That made me feel as though what I posted was assumed to be not as valuable as a "senior member" who had tons and tons of posts. I really, really did not like that. And some forums also provide users with the opportunity to rate their fellow members, as in: JaneSmith always gives great advice and is a really nice person, so she gets five stars. It's supposed to be positive, but I just see it as unnecessary, and divisive, stratification.

Thus, any time the idea of doing something like that here has come up, I have been against it. A new member's first post should be read with equal weight and considered with equal deliberation as a post of Paolo's or Alan's (our top two posters) might be -- at least, that's my opinion.

I promise that there is no "inner circle," i.e., I don't even know who all the other mods are, though I'm grateful that the load is shared. There is no holier-than-thou PM circuit we all participate in, there is absolutely no closed moderator-only forum section.

So... I'll step off my soapbox now. I guess what I'm saying is that I personally would prefer not to have a title attached to every post I make. But I am happy to disclose to anyone that as part of my daily routine on the forum, I check the memberlist for new spammers, and delete spam posts (like the Turkish property management ad that Jenny noticed today, and the celebrity porn ad I saw the other day, which hopefully no one noticed).

[Mountain Goat]

celebrity porn ad I saw the other day

True, I missed that. Which celebrity? Anyone interesting?

I have noticed that after everyone's safely tucked up in your beds Stateside, and before the early risers get their scissors out over here, there're some quite interesting new, albeit shortlived, members. Maybe they could have their own section?

MG

[vrooje]

It may be paranoid of me, but I've avoided mentioning the name because I don't want it to become a keyword on this page for Google.

It was a female latin singer who is known for having truth-telling hips. Apparently she has a new home-made videotape.

[Mountain Goat]

truth-telling hips

Good grief - what are they?

It's almost as odd as Tesco's family pole-dancing kit in their Christmas selection. There might well be some grannys who think this is something to do with traditional English folk-dancing.

I'm getting too old to understand this sort of thing.

MG

[paolo]

Just to close the book on deleting members - I have gone through most of the memberlist not long ago to delete the ones Brooke mentions above. These are automated spammers whose bit of script did not properly fill in the www field. But you can sometimes see from the email or username they used that they are not really rental owners. So in that sense, I agree with cleaning things up. But not with asking registered users if they want to remain - they are not a drain on us in any way, so there is no point in bothering them.

About mods - there are some people here who help moderate. A few months ago the forum was being attacked by dozens of mainly Russian spammers, and as I was not often on the forum I couldn't keep up with them. So I asked some members who are often online and trusted regulars if they wouldn't mind deleting their posts. These are the people with moderator status (from memory and hopefully I haven’t missed any): Joanna, Crystal, CatherineS, HelenB, Ktee.

In addition, soon after the start of the forum I asked Soodyer and Brooke if they would moderate when I wasn't around or on holiday, which they generously agreed to. I deliberately have not made moderators' identities visible because of the reasons Brooke stated above. Moderators' opinions have no greater value than anyone else's, and I find there is a bit of a them and us mentality on most forums with mods.

But I think you are correct that you have the right to know who does have moderator status, which simply means they can delete spammers and intervene on the very rare occasions when things turn ugly, like Joanna did the other day.

And a very good job they do too, any spam here has a very short lifespan. This is important not just to protect members from moral corruption (although I am intrigued by the notion of celebrity porn), but also because Google doesn't like it.

[Hells Bells]

Definitely no inner circle. I only knew that a couple of other people were doing the job too, as I think Sue mentioned the jokes to me.I agree with the occasional 'them and us' feelings as I mod on the SnowHeads forum, and have been subject to some really bad feeling regarding advertising recently.