About the current state of the forum (a personal OPINION)
 

Good day Ruy and others!

I thought that the reason to change to the current (vastly inferior, IMO) format was to avoid continuos fighting etc. by giving tools to moderate and editing.

What we do have now? Endless arguing which I read because of old habit, but what makes me more and more sick and tired. In the old days such monster threads were pushed away in a day. Now they hang on the top all the time.

I always thought that 12 O'clock was a lively place and we had a large membership. Having now some numbers I see for example LEMB and Air Warfare Forum have larger membership (at the moment) and the discussed topics are fresher there. My impression is that this was not the case during the old 12 O'clock community. To my astonishment I see that many "small" forums do have more message traffic than this forum at the moment.

I don't know if it is me that is the problem here or factually the current state of affairs on this forum, but I don't feel this place nice any more. I really hope things are going to take other - better - direction.


Would love to hear comments from other forum readers too.


With Best Regards,
Kari Lumppio

PS (added 3.3.2005)
Reading the following comments it seems people are misinterpreting my message. It is not the forum format I am complaining (though I think it's inferior). It is the mudwrestling in threads which seem only multiply and not die away.

Tools for moderating do exist now - as I understood that was THE reason for the format change. Ruy explained his Laissez-faire (spelling) attitude towards moderating. That is OK with me - I am not that much different - and now I know that the moderating threshold is high.

Thank you Kari for sharing your insight, I mean it.

I'll throw in my 2c.

First I appreciate ALL feedback, positive AND negative.

IMHO the foremost reason I could give is that its hard to find this forum if you don't know where to look. Currently there is practically no linkage and there are no meta tags facilitating search engines.

Those are some technical reason.

Secondly, there are indeed a lot of different places to go to, this forum is not unique...

Currently we have roughly 3000 posts in little more than two months, if we reach 4000 its break even with the old forum in terms of total available posts. The forum is on avarage visisted some 700 times a day.

Personally I do not seek to top the numbers of some other boards, I simply try to keep a number of people happy with the means to communicate their questions, answers and advice. If the majority of this community is happy the plan has succeeded.

Development has been slow, but bhind the scenes I had to solve a couple of issues before daring to continue. Those issues have been solved, so I must now go on. YOU can influence this development by telling me your wishes.

IMHO the old forum had three things going for it:

1. well known
2. easy access (fool proof almost)
3. illusion of activity (subject shifting)

Average hits 1200+ a day.

For those who wish for the old forum - sorry, these days are over (for me anyway).

To be honest I think that if you drew an objective list of pros and cons of the two types of forum, you'd be hard pressed to proof the old board superior, but that's IMHO.

But those who would like to stick around, participate with feedback, explain or better show examples, of what you'd like to see done with this community tool.

Personally I want to add a more interactive site, including (if there is any interest) posting of dedicated articles and even chatting.

I'll be frank to all of you.

Although the idea of leaving the old server.com forum had been around for a long time (in part based on community wishes), it was only in the middle of december that I found an acceptable sollution (out of my hobby pocket). As you remember the forum (as part one of the plan) went live only a week or so later around Christmas and we are now only two months further down the road!

One of the issues I must weigh is the pace of change, too fast and some are scared away, to slow and some are impatient. Either way I choose, some will undoubtedly be disappointed...

Also I must consider my time and accept the fact that I can never compete with some of these dedicated sites run by people who've made it into a business or with sufficient funds to let other handle the technical issues. This site is a hobby, that's my excuse.

Its not a show of support I am after here and the above is not an attempt to get your sympathy, PLEASE participate in this important disccusion and be as frank possible, its the only way I can learn from possible mistakes or improve upon certain (future) aspects of this forum/community/site.

I'm very happy with the site as it is. There are always individuals here who are willing to share their knowledge. This site has more published authors posting regularly than any other site I'm aware off, that must say something about the quality of information that can be found here.

As for the number of members, this site has only been in operation a couple of months and already has 500+, some of the other sites mentioned have been operating much longer so should have high membership (if they are any good).

Keep up the good work Ruy

Andy Fletcher

I am happy with the site. It's the same names time and again who won't stop argueing over such trivial things as 'where did you get your info' and 'I know more than you so there' :evil:

Funnily enough they're authors and should know better! :D

I have been coming here since 1998 and have had SO MUCH help from guys just like me. This site of Ruy's fills all the gaps in all the books and it is entertaining.

. . .wouldn't mind seeing a Spit at the top of the page though :wink:

Later.

Andy Mac.

I must say that I prefer the new format, albeit that my opionion will be biased as the LEMB format is a fairly similar if bloated format. I try and shy away from the notion that more members mean a better forum. For me, quality of the answers is more of a barometer of how a board performs rather than how many people subscribe or visit.

I would imagine that some would feel that the new TOCH! would pose a threat to the LEMB and other like-minded forums. Some would also be surprised to see me post here and also offer my support as to the direction Ruy has taken. I however do not see the TOCH! as a threat, but as another quality resource all of its own, with its own focus and direction. It's true that many will visit both and some even cross-post. At the end of the day, we are all here to try and learn more about a subject that can create such diverse and at times passionate debate. This is healthy and must be applauded. To use a much over used adage (which I know Ruy has used before) you will never please all of the people all of the time...

Well, that’s the my tuppence worth from a cold and snowy London…

cheers,

Peter D Evans
LEMB moderator

Changes
 

I must agree with Peter - keep it up, Ruy - you cannot please everyone. The change of format has not lessened the number of interesting threads posted here as far as I am concerned. Some folks will resist any change!

I agree with Andy.

Stop the anarchy. Where are the moderators?

Christer Bergström

I agree with Andy, Peter et al. Keep it as it is!

Kind regards to all,

David

Anarchy...
 

As a Moderator, I think I should use a good deal of common sense. This includes not removing posts or a thread simply because I find it boring or overdone. Common sense also includes, however, removing such threads when they do start personal attacks and get way out of hand or off-topic. Thus far, I've not seen one that bad. But, rest assured, I will react if things get out of hand.

Moderation is one of the hardest things to do with any message board. Drawing a line between passionate debate and personal attacks or rudeness is difficult enough when two people speak the same language. It becomes even harder when a poster with a poor knowledge of English try to use their limited vocabulary to put a point across. This can often be confused with rudeness when in fact this could not be further from the truth. All in all, from the posts I read on the old TOCH! and here on the reincarnation, moderation is not really ever needed as a gentle word in the ear of those getting hot under the collar will suffice in most cases...

cheers,

Peter D Evans
LEMB moderator

Let me repeat that all feedback is important, also when its negative. The reason I put so much emphasis on Kari's post was to see if others might share his views, or have objections of their own, and that I might learn from that.

Of course all positive feedback is much appreciated :D

My personal opinion.
 

I spend less time on TOCH than before, because I find it harder to browse. I found the old flat format very conducive to quick scanning. To each his own, however; this is Ruy's baby, we're not going back, and I can live with it.

I have promised myself that I will never again read any but the first page of a long thread; the odds are too great that I will eventually conclude that I have just been wasting my time. I do blame the moderator(s) for not cutting off long, crappy threads, and suggest a guideline: any thread that has degenerated into mud-slinging by two or three participants, with little or no attempt to present new data other than "gotchas", should be deleted by the moderator, even if it is not blatantly obscene or libelous.

I hope that this is constuctive enough for the membership.

Don Caldwell

What you moderators could do is to intervene - as moderators - in debates and ask people who fail to provide source references to do so. Too often, discussions degenerate because some people take advantage of how easy it is to get away with totally unsupported assertions. I can understand Don Caldwell's feelings toward long threads - sooner or later many of them degenerate into loose assertions, and those who contribute with supported facts withdraw, leaving the scene to the babblers who have no reliable sources for their assertions.

You could intervene in threads with written warnings: "Show your sources in your next post, or it will be deleted. Such unsupported assertions lead us nowhere."

If you force people to shape up in that way, I'm sure we will be saved from much unnecessary mudslinging, and it will create a much better culture on this board. There is a Swedish saying - the first to raise his voice is the one who feels that his position is weak. (Maybe typical of us calm and boring Swedes :wink: )

All best from an ice cold Sweden,

Christer Bergström

I think the site is very good at the moment as far as format goes. Though LEMB has its good moments, its registration is real pain and the overall I think it is abit too fragmented (i.e. almost down to separate forums for left handed Luftwaffe personnel and right handed ones:).

Contentwise the TOCH´s greatest shortcoming is that deeply techincal discussion is often lacking. See for example the La-7 thread I initiated. My intention was to have serious technical/engineering discussion. Now it is politics, strategy and tactics argumentation. As odd as it sounds, AH simulator forum has far better threads for gearheads.

Well, the thread development is influenced by the participants themselves.

I saw too little hard data and a lot of opinion, if you want to conduct a discussion based on hard data, there is no better way than to supply hard facts - that is upload documents and ignore any drift from the subject.

Personally I'd like to include a tech forum, but last time I tried any additional category it wasn''t much appreciated.

As a test, I'll inlcude a new forum which will be TECH only, lets see if it catches on. I'll even split the La 7 thread and place it there as a first post.

Hi Ruy !

Viewed topic turn from dark red to black...

Unfortunately the contrast between those two colors is so small that i m pretty sure many even dont notice about it...

So is it possible to make the color change more visible ?