snowest needs some changes

[christopher]

JROD.
After everything you have said you are still missing the single most fundamental point.

The owners of this site wanted to CHANGE IT. They did not want it to remain as it was.

SnoWest will not be what it was. It will become something different. You might like what it evolves into and you might hate it. I can't say yet. But if you are interested in the destination, then I invite you to sit back and enjoy the ride while we work on getting there.

 

[JROD]

JROD.
After everything you have said you are still missing the single most fundamental point.

The owners of this site wanted to CHANGE IT. They did not want it to remain as it was.

SnoWest will not be what it was. It will become something different. You might like what it evolves into and you might hate it. I can't say yet. But if you are interested in the destination, then I invite you to sit back and enjoy the ride while we work on getting there.

Nice. Thanks for responding... Why did they want to change and what are the wanting to change it to?

Give us something to work with here. I'm very interested in the destination however I'm wondering what is being done to get it there and where "there" is exactly. What's the secret?

 

[christopher]

One of the major goals they had was to clean up the forums.

To get rid of the P O R N, the filth, the trash talking.

To clean up the Crude, Vulgar, Hate and Attacks that had become the trademark of the forums.

They wanted this forum to be MUCH more family friendly.

They asked me to put an end to the never ending bashing of members, of manufacturers, of resellers.

They wanted the incessant infighting and harrassment stopped.

In short, they wanted ACTIVE MODERATION across the entire site.

And as things began moving in that direction they decided that the forums should become 100% self supportive financially and actually contribute to the overall bottom line of the company.

The active moderation greatly offended a couple hundred very active members. They could not or would not tolerate the site owner's rule being enforced for the first time ever. As a result they counter attacked and things got very very ugly for a while. In the end, they either left the site, and choose to abide by the rules. As time goes by the heavy hand of moderation gets lighter and lighter as there is less and less need for it and the members self-police all the posts.

And then the conversion from Free to Fee started it all over again.

These were HUGE changes that came about relatively quickly over the course of just several months, and at the height of the season.

Now, we will spend the next 6 months getting the site ready for next season. You will see many more changes yet to be announced as the months roll by.

 

[JROD]

Fair enough answer. The vulgarity and meaningless "max posts" and what not were definitely not needed so some moderation could've been used however the severity of the strictness level was questionable.

The trash talking and bashing is also being a little vague. Things do happen out there that is less than acceptable to the average member. I, for one, am happy to know about one's experiences with certain members and companies and therefore know who to steer clear from. Some posts may go a little over the edge but that's only human nature to get frustrated over a bad experience. That can still be policed w/o being deleted or banned.

Really, when did active control and moderation ever show any improvements over existing conditions. I suppose that can only be controlled at one own moderators discretion.

The fee subject is tough to tackle. I find it hard to agree that the most highly prized members should have to pay. They ARE SnoWest. That's such a questionable opinion of so many members though. I don't have the greatest answer to that but I'd be honored to help come up with one.

What kinds of changes are we looking for in the next few months? How are you getting the site ready?

 

[Arctic Thunder]

One of the major goals they had was to clean up the forums.

To get rid of the P O R N, the filth, the trash talking.

To clean up the Crude, Vulgar, Hate and Attacks that had become the trademark of the forums.

They wanted this forum to be MUCH more family friendly.

They asked me to put an end to the never ending bashing of members, of manufacturers, of resellers.

They wanted the incessant infighting and harrassment stopped.

In short, they wanted ACTIVE MODERATION across the entire site.

And as things began moving in that direction they decided that the forums should become 100% self supportive financially and actually contribute to the overall bottom line of the company.

The active moderation greatly offended a couple hundred very active members. They could not or would not tolerate the site owner's rule being enforced for the first time ever. As a result they counter attacked and things got very very ugly for a while. In the end, they either left the site, and choose to abide by the rules. As time goes by the heavy hand of moderation gets lighter and lighter as there is less and less need for it and the members self-police all the posts.

And then the conversion from Free to Fee started it all over again.

These were HUGE changes that came about relatively quickly over the course of just several months, and at the height of the season.

Now, we will spend the next 6 months getting the site ready for next season. You will see many more changes yet to be announced as the months roll by.

I appreciate some of this myself.

I can open this site with my kids sitting next to me and not worry about some trashy Avatar, picture or whatever coming up.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't bother me in the least. But with little ones or others around I don't like it. I can see some regulation going on with some of the competition also. If you don't nip it, it will spread like cancer.

I am wondering how many "other" sites are sitting back and waiting to see how the big Snowest "Pay" site turns out. If it turns out and continues to grow. Hold on. Will see how many other sites ask the question. "How do we get on this gravy train now". We have sat back and bashed it from day one and now how do we save face, ask for donations?

It's all good. Good questions and discussion.

Thunder

 

[JHG]

Christopher-
While you're answering questions here, I'll post mine for you to see. It seems you must have missed it a couple weeks ago when I posted it.

http://www.snowestonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=213207

 

[ruffryder]

The reasoning was that all the pissed off people that left started trying to delete everything they have ever posted. The only way to stop that it seems, was to limit the ability to delete posts / threads.

 

[christopher]

Christopher-
While you're answering questions here, I'll post mine for you to see. It seems you must have missed it a couple weeks ago when I posted it.

http://www.snowestonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=213207

Sorry.
I really have answered that exactly question many times now.
I know not everyone sees all the questions that I answer, but I do try to answer them.

In retaliation to the changes made some of the members decided they would delete their accounts and all of their past posts with them.

That would be all well and fine except for how vBulleten works.

When the first post in a thread is deleted, then all subsequent posts in the thread get nuked as well.

So if you started a thread that had a couple hundred replies, and you had a a few thousand posts over the last couple years and decided to delete all of your posts, you have the potential of deleting many thousands of other member's posts.

Bottom line, we thought it was not right to allow one member to delete another member's posts. So we changed the date range on how far back a member could do to delete their posts.

this is a universal forum setting, and can not be adjusted to compensate for things like the SwapMeet.

 

[JHG]

Sorry.
I really have answered that exactly question many times now.
I know not everyone sees all the questions that I answer, but I do try to answer them.

In retaliation to the changes made some of the members decided they would delete their accounts and all of their past posts with them.

That would be all well and fine except for how vBulleten works.

When the first post in a thread is deleted, then all subsequent posts in the thread get nuked as well.

So if you started a thread that had a couple hundred replies, and you had a a few thousand posts over the last couple years and decided to delete all of your posts, you have the potential of deleting many thousands of other member's posts.

Bottom line, we thought it was not right to allow one member to delete another member's posts. So we changed the date range on how far back a member could do to delete their posts.

this is a universal forum setting, and can not be adjusted to compensate for things like the SwapMeet.

Thanks for the answer. Whats the current date range? I tried to delete a swapmeet ad 4 days after I posted it and I couldn't do it.

 

[christopher]

Thanks for the answer. Whats the current date range? I tried to delete a swapmeet ad 4 days after I posted it and I couldn't do it.

Over a month.
Did you use the SWAPMEET or the CLASSIFIEDS?

 

[backcountryislife]

One of the major goals they had was to clean up the forums.

To get rid of the P O R N, the filth, the trash talking.

aside from 2 or 3 avatars, I just don't see this "rampant" filth that you see, I don't understand how we could have such a big difference in perception

To clean up the Crude, Vulgar, Hate and Attacks that had become the trademark of the forums.

again,you say this, but as one who's been on here for a while (longer than my date shows) I can't think of more than a handful of instances aside from a few stupid flame wars that most could really give a crap about.

They wanted this forum to be MUCH more family friendly.

I've got no argument with that, dirty words got filtered anyhow beforehand.

They asked me to put an end to the never ending bashing of members, of manufacturers, of resellers.

So now threads talking about EXACTLY the kinds of things many of us are on here for get deleted. We want to know when a company stinks at customer service, and when a company makes a garbage product (whether they're a sponsor of the site or not) they DESERVE TO GET BASHED (if that's what you want to call it when folks explain the issues they have had with a product or service). This is what a forum is for, so we can all find these kinds of things out. Another one of these threads that was very well behaved got locked just a couple days ago. We're not here to listen to propaganda, we're here to hopefully learn from others' mistakes & not repeat them

They wanted the incessant infighting and harrassment stopped.

In short, they wanted ACTIVE MODERATION across the entire site.

And as things began moving in that direction they decided that the forums should become 100% self supportive financially and actually contribute to the overall bottom line of the company.

The active moderation greatly offended a couple hundred very active members. They could not or would not tolerate the site owner's rule being enforced for the first time ever. As a result they counter attacked and things got very very ugly for a while. In the end, they either left the site, and choose to abide by the rules. As time goes by the heavy hand of moderation gets lighter and lighter as there is less and less need for it and the members self-police all the posts.

And then the conversion from Free to Fee started it all over again.

These were HUGE changes that came about relatively quickly over the course of just several months, and at the height of the season.

Now, we will spend the next 6 months getting the site ready for next season. You will see many more changes yet to be announced as the months roll by.

The season is still here for most of us, and in the cat forum we've got about the amount of traffic that we would normally see in august if not less. I think the whole point of this thread was to say that something needs to be done, some changes need to be made to try to get some folks back. I'm not saying return everyone's money & return to a free forum, I'm just saying that the way things are not so slowly trending is a very bad direction, people are leaving very rapidly.

If I didn't care I wouldn't post on here anymore, but I still feel that this forum has the potential to be a good one, and if nobody wants to stick around, then the 10% or whatever that is willing to pay won't grow or won't renew if everybody else leaves.

 

[JHG]

Over a month.
Did you use the SWAPMEET or the CLASSIFIEDS?

It was the SwapMeet and the bottom of the main page, a for sale post in the Arctic Cat section. Not a huge deal but I wanted to change the ad, I was just going to start over but I couldn't.

 

[Clarke673]

The season is still here for most of us, and in the cat forum we've got about the amount of traffic that we would normally see in august if not less. I think the whole point of this thread was to say that something needs to be done, some changes need to be made to try to get some folks back. I'm not saying return everyone's money & return to a free forum, I'm just saying that the way things are not so slowly trending is a very bad direction, people are leaving very rapidly.

If I didn't care I wouldn't post on here anymore, but I still feel that this forum has the potential to be a good one, and if nobody wants to stick around, then the 10% or whatever that is willing to pay won't grow or won't renew if everybody else leaves.

What he said 100%