i have never seen a forum die like this one.....

I think if we get a new host and advertise a little then the boards popularity will grow once again.

Personally I think the board stopped losing some interest when we separated the religion and political board from the non sports part of the board. Sure it was a small hassle to filter through the non sports forum to get to threads not about politics/religion but not something that really was that bad. Once you separate the politics/religious board from non sports posters lose interest because they have to get access to it to look at it. If a post gets moved you have to wait a day or two just to get back to your thread. I'm all for the old timers forum and men's/women's forum bring separate though.

The board could also loosen up on the moderation but that is just my personal opinion. It's a message board not church.

i dont understand all of the "overmodded" comments. ON the S&W forum you can NOT link to any outside sites, no political talk AT ALL, almost no cuss words allowed, no heated arguments, no bumping threads AT ALL unless in a selling post. this is the MOST loosely modded forum I have ever seen.

That's true rocky. But even at that we as users have to understand there are still rules. If something is political or sexual in nature, even the slightest bit, it shouldn't be in the open forums. I've been on forums that would have shut down and removed this thread a long time ago. I've been on forums that would ban users for even the slightest bit of disrespect toward the mods. And on one or two of those I was a mod and had to enforce the rules and ban people and lock threads for reasons I felt were petty but the rules were stated and had to be followed. In the end we just need to live and let live. After all, it's just a web forum. ;)

If anything, this site doesn't have enough moderation.

I've moderated on the nets largest MMA forum. In fact I still have mod powers there but never use them, the place is teeming with mods anyway.

I've referred to this forum (the LPD forum) in the past as "quaint", I didn't mean that really in a negative way, just that compared to what I'm use to it is much tamer. There really isn't too much here that is shocking so to say. In my opinion people here behave very well, again that's compared to what I'm use to.

In fact when I first started posting here it was because of a huge blow-up on the other forum which led to threats by the attorney for a controversial instructor to file suit against myself and three other much better known members of that forum including Joe Rogan. I was basically laying low ;) but still wanted somewhere to waste.....I mean spend some time.

I do understand first hand just how difficult it can be to moderate a forum. I once deleted a thread that resulted in members locating the home phone number of the forum owner and calling him at home, repeatedly. This of course in turn resulted in me getting a frantic email from him wanting to know what the heck was going on.

I tend to agree with the obviously unpopular view that this forum is slightly over moderated, BUT that is just my opinion and it really isn't any of my business either. On top of that it is based on my experience moderating at a truly enormous forum that by design lets poster have a pretty free reign. I guess I've seen things stay fairly within reason there without heavy moderation and that's the reason I feel the way I do. On the other hand no moderation is not an option and somebody has to do it and they have to do it using some sort of guidelines, and there you have it, take it or leave it.

I think in defense of another poster on this thread he may feel that moderation hasn't been applied with a completely even hand. I have no opinion on this case in specific. I can address that from my personal experience though. After the whole issue of the lawsuit blew over I was the most active moderator on a side from there that included many of the students of the instructor who had his lawyer threaten to sue me. Despite that I always tried to be completely even-hand towards their posts and opinions and never to side with those who disagreed with them. This was admittedly hard to do but I think I did a good job of it and now several of his students and supporters defend me when the issue still rises up.

I do hope the place picks back up soon. I don't find myself with too much time anymore is the main reason I'm not around very often.

Lots of times, it's an either/or thing here. Either I over-moderate for some, or I under-moderate for others. To be honest, I cannot wait until we get a new board just for the reason that the rest of the mods can have the tools needed to take action on things as it relates to membership bans/warnings instead of it all being me. That, along with my own opinions that I rarely censor content-wise, has caused my name to become MUD in a lot of people's eyes. Not only do they disagree with what I have to say, but I'm the guy who's got the ban-stick...so even if I've never banned them, I'm the guy who comes across bad.

It sucks. We've lost membership b/c of folks thinking we're over-moderated, and just as many b/c we're under-moderated...both opinions in their eyes. I think Gotch/SBG and others that have modded can speak to this--you try to be as even-handed as possible, but every situation is different and the landscape for each situation is different. You have to look at each one individually and make the best decision you can. And most of those are tough calls...and when you're the one having to make the tough calls, you're going to upset folks. It's inevitable. You CANNOT make everyone happy all the time.

That being said--no matter what anyone's beefs with me are...just know I'm doing the best I can. And as per the sticky thread w/the Facebook group, myself and the rest of the mods are actively looking for a new home for this place that will run faster & better, and ultimately--I plan on having a less hands-on approach and letting the rest of the mods do what they think is best. Now--will that mean the Wild West again like it was when we first came to HostBoard? No. One goal is to have a listed set of rules and put those in from the start so everyone knows where they stand, and also the mod tools so those rules can be enforced.

We've got a good vision here. No matter what you think of me personally or how peeved you are at the way I handle arugments/discussions on here...we're trying to get things fixed up. I want more than anything to get things back to the way it used to be and have a place we can all enjoy. I hope we can share that much in common moving forward.

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Originally Posted by CoeburnCane

Lots of times, it's an either/or thing here. Either I over-moderate for some, or I under-moderate for others. To be honest, I cannot wait until we get a new board just for the reason that the rest of the mods can have the tools needed to take action on things as it relates to membership bans/warnings instead of it all being me. That, along with my own opinions that I rarely censor content-wise, has caused my name to become MUD in a lot of people's eyes. Not only do they disagree with what I have to say, but I'm the guy who's got the ban-stick...so even if I've never banned them, I'm the guy who comes across bad.

It sucks. We've lost membership b/c of folks thinking we're over-moderated, and just as many b/c we're under-moderated...both opinions in their eyes. I think Gotch/SBG and others that have modded can speak to this--you try to be as even-handed as possible, but every situation is different and the landscape for each situation is different. You have to look at each one individually and make the best decision you can. And most of those are tough calls...and when you're the one having to make the tough calls, you're going to upset folks. It's inevitable. You CANNOT make everyone happy all the time.

That being said--no matter what anyone's beefs with me are...just know I'm doing the best I can. And as per the sticky thread w/the Facebook group, myself and the rest of the mods are actively looking for a new home for this place that will run faster & better, and ultimately--I plan on having a less hands-on approach and letting the rest of the mods do what they think is best. Now--will that mean the Wild West again like it was when we first came to HostBoard? No. One goal is to have a listed set of rules and put those in from the start so everyone knows where they stand, and also the mod tools so those rules can be enforced.

We've got a good vision here. No matter what you think of me personally or how peeved you are at the way I handle arugments/discussions on here...we're trying to get things fixed up. I want more than anything to get things back to the way it used to be and have a place we can all enjoy. I hope we can share that much in common moving forward.

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Do you mean that you're the only one who has working moderator tools right now? That would suck! That would really be a tough situation to be in. The best moderating (In my opinion) is done low keyed and with as much anonymity as possible. I had to learn that the hard way.

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Originally Posted by Gotch

Do you mean that you're the only one who has working moderator tools right now? That would suck! That would really be a tough situation to be in. The best moderating (In my opinion) is done low keyed and with as much anonymity as possible. I had to learn that the hard way.

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As far as banning rights, yes. It's been that way for a long while now. And there's been periods here & there where the banning tools did not work. For the longest time, there was no way for the other mods to edit/move/delete other posts or threads. There are some that can do that now, but I end up doing more of it than most. steer and Stripes have done some of that as well, but not a lot at all. And a lot of that is due to a) their tools not working and b) the tools, when available, either are confusing as hades to work with or don't work the way they should.

If people didn't know that and thought I was just ruling things with an iron fist for carps & giggles...well, now ya know.

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Originally Posted by Rocky

when you left i pretty much took off too. Just came back a few weeks ago.

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Hopefully things get better and more enjoyable here. I still wont be posting much but will be reading daily.