Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Get over it, get on with it

I sit here and read all the venom and am amazed. You'd think we'd kicked your dog. This place has become a circus and it was high time to hose it down. In this board's first incarnation, there was no mechanism to meter posts so some went too far until others got upset, angry, and hurt. This iteration has those mechanisms; the mods have seen fit to leave it alone until now. I truly wish you all could see the long and agonizing road that culminated at this point. You have no idea....
I also wish we had implemented this last year. Perhaps by now the furor would have died down. I doubt it because some like to pick at it like a scab until it bleeds.

This board must get back to its initial concepts or die. Mods are tired and there are some days when we just don't think it's even worth it. There are days when we'd rather just walk away from the whole thing and never return. There's so much good here that we could not let that happen, even if our only payment is member vitriol.

So we banned the crap. All of a sudden, we are restricting free speech, we are completely corrupt/silly/immature/communistic (that's real nice), we should scrap sections of the site, etc. Doom and friggin gloom, the sky is falling. People are walking away, past slights are being dredged up as cudgels, and thread sniping is their raison d'être.

Well, guess what? We are not banning free speech. If you came into my house and started talking smack, I'd ask you to stop or leave. There is NO difference here and that is exactly what we are asking of you. Unbelievably, some are leaving. So who's immature?

Name calling, cudgel wielding, doom and gloom, there won’t be anything to talk about, sack the other forums, time to go, etc. Give me a friggin break. Did I just log onto bigbaby.com? Right now there are hundreds of topics in the Lounge and other forums. Pick one and post. Start a new thread.

So with that said, here’s a fact for you. The only thing that is changing on this site is the moderator’s ability to delete stupid threads without having to deal with reprisal . Every one of you knows EXACTLY which threads I am talking about so there’s no need to play coy.

For the majority that sees this as a positive, thank you. For those who are spewing the venom, hate, gloom, and negativity, you have a choice. I sincerely hope you stay.

Hear, hear!

Thanks Phil (and you other mods)and keep up the good work.

Amazingly enough, there actually IS such a site as 'bigbaby.com!'

www.bigbaby.com

Enjoy...

I've been involved with a very popular enthusiate site before and watched as their forums degraded into nothing more than naming calling and ego boosting. Then, when you would exercise your moderator capablities, you would get the same old arguments from people. Some people just don't understand that they're a GUEST and have no say in how the forum is operated. If the owner of the site decided that the word "THE" can no longer be used in a post, that's the rule, as rediclulous as it may be.

You won't get any complaints from me on the new rules (not that I've been around long enough to really get used to the "old" rules).

The forum I used to moderate is still going strong with over 150,000 registered members. One thing they eventually had to do is split their forums into niche topics not related to the "overall" website. The site is an automotive enthusiate site, but they have forums for Political, sports, home theater, etc. Of course, they have advertising on their site, so it's in their best interest to keep people at their site as much as possible.

This site will probably never reach member numbers like that, but maybe an additional "Off-Topic" forum would be a good idea for conversations that have nothing to do with Triumph or motorcycles. I realize that the Lounge kind of fills this, but maybe a off-topic forum could be a place to discuss politics, religion, and other personal opinions as long as it doesn't cross the line into radical personal views.

beer...will fix everything..it will.. we must all drink now!

Well Said Phil, I dont see why people are complaing everything that has to do with motorcycles is still completly useable, isnt that why we all joined the site in the first place?

It is a shame .....it has to do largely with the thin skins and intolerance of a few. Its always the few who take the fun in life from the majority it seems in this increasingly PC non tolerant world.

(shrugs and sips more coffee)

Just an idea- If the Mods are tired why not rotate them out, so they could take a break. This site has plenty of active users that could be called to moderate. You could have guys cycle in and out in 3 or 6 month cycles.

Phil, don't look back and don't be concerned about objections to your policy. Most of all, don't worry about people leaving because you're trying to hold the forum to it's intented purpose. Keep it to what they came here for in the first place. The web is full of forums that have been expanded to the point of becoming useless.

There is no better forum where people can enthusiastically share information about our common interest - Americas/Speedmasters. I was thrilled when I found this site and more will find it every day. Keep up the good work.