Electing Moderators

[EricL]

I think a couple of firm moderators would be a great addition.  There are way too many users here who think they can walk on the forum and use it any way they see fit.  The focus of this forum should be Festool discussions, not all the BS that has cropped up recently.

 

[Matthew Schenker]

I think a couple of firm moderators would be a great addition.  There are way too many users here who think they can walk on the forum and use it any way they see fit.  The focus of this forum should be Festool discussions, not all the BS that has cropped up recently.

Eric,
Thank you for your statement on the matter!
Like I said, I'm ready to focus more on the administrative aspects, and get a couple of moderators who can help deal with the issues you mention.
We're working on it.
Matthew

 

[b_m_hart]

Honestly, I'm surprised that Matthew hasn't dropped the hammer on some of the idiocy that's been going on lately.  He's definitely more patient than I would be with that.  I don't know that additional moderators are necessary.  Additionally, there may be legal implications to changing the manner in which (and by whom) this forum is moderated, given the recent agreement between Matthew and Festool.

edit: well, Matthew's post finger was faster than mine - and look at how wrong I am (again, hah!)...

 

[Matthew Schenker]

b_m_hart,
No problem!  There are no legal issues.  Festool does not have, nor do they want, control over day-today decisions here.  That's totally up to us.

However, as a courtesy, I have written to Christian to let him know that this discussion is going on.  Christian and I are in regular contact about various forum matters, and we have excellent communication.

Thanks for your input!

Stay in touch,
Matthew

 

[graphex]

Matthew, I think Moderation is best done in moderation. I think based upon the Festool Junkie/TalkFestool/Walko Compact Portable Work Bench thread, you're taking things too personally. It is also difficult to trust an omniscient administrator when folks are bluntly accusing him of lying. I've got about as much trust of the moderator as I do of the members in the "Festool Junkie/TalkFestool/Walko Compact Portable Work Bench" thread, who apparently were just banned (Qwas, Mercado and Kellough). In fact I've spoken to Chris Mercado on the phone before (he was interested in having me do some website work for him) and have a bit more reason to trust Chris than Matthew.

If there were a moderator who was more neutral to help assess the situation, maybe I could figure out who to trust or distrust. Some system of checks and balances or at least failsafes would be nice.

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Graphex,
I understand your perspective.  But it's also difficult to be an administrator when a couple of individuals constantly refer to you as a liar, and make constant, false accusations.
Moderators may be able to help, but I doubt anyone would put up with that.
Matthew

 

[graphex]

It is nonetheless very important to maintain transparency. I think whenever you delete a message, you should fess up to it and put in a placeholder in the thread. I don't want to call you a liar, but I think there are certainly situations where differing understandings of a sequence of events leads to people thinking you're being something less than truthful. When you delete or move messages, it results in a thread which doesn't match up with the thread as it is delivered to our email inbox (when we're subscribed through email). When I see discrepancies with the messages as delivered in realtime to my email account versus what is actually on the forum, I tend to feel a little upset and view things on this forum a bit more skeptically. If you state your actions in the thread upon which you are acting, that prevents members from thinking you're trying to be a revisionist historian with the flow of the discussion.

 

[Jesse Cloud]

The forum familywoodworking.com does a pretty good job of this.  The moderators are elected once every 6 months (or whatever) by the registered members.  If a moderator finds a questionable post, he puts it in a holding place and asks other mods to look at it.  If the mods agree (I think even just two mods would be enough), the poster is sent a pm explaining the problem and asking him to fix or delete the post.  If no action is taken by the poster, the mods delete the post.  A deleted post is always tagged as to why it was deleted (e.g., bad language, trashing another board, personal attack, etc.)  The criteria are public.  I think the members, while they don't always agree with mods' decisions, feel that it works pretty well.

Might work here, too.

 

[Matthew Schenker]

It is nonetheless very important to maintain transparency. I think whenever you delete a message, you should fess up to it and put in a placeholder in the thread. I don't want to call you a liar, but I think there are certainly situations where differing understandings of a sequence of events leads to people thinking you're being something less than truthful. When you delete or move messages, it results in a thread which doesn't match up with the thread as it is delivered to our email inbox (when we're subscribed through email). When I see discrepancies with the messages as delivered in realtime to my email account versus what is actually on the forum, I tend to feel a little upset and view things on this forum a bit more skeptically. If you state your actions in the thread upon which you are acting, that prevents members from thinking you're trying to be a revisionist historian with the flow of the discussion.

Thank you for expressing your view in a professional manner.  Honestly, I appreciate it after all the trouble lately.  I'd like to say that, until the last couple of days, I could almost count on one hand the number of posts I deleted in this forum.  There have been far too many angry and insulting posts lately.  In the past, I chose to engage publicly and debate the person.  No more.  That only seemed to make matters worse.  I am determined to stop the flaming that's been going on, and from now on I will delete posts that deliberately insult or attack.

I don't expect to be deleting many posts, because, as always, I trust that members all want to get this forum away from negative stuff and back on a positive track!

However, from now on, when I delete a post, I will indicate that I have done it.

Please help me by showing your best effort here.

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[Bill Wyko]

Good Job Mathew.  If someone doesn't have something good to say, don't say it. This is a very positive forum. Thanks for keeping it that way.

 

[Mac]

I'd like to second Bill's comment. Great job, Matthew. I think what you do is probably more widely appreciated than you sometimes realise.