BOB.T

cheers Simon

I think I've had a genius idea

How's about when you sign up, your account only goes live after X hours/days.... or.... you sign up, pay... say a tenner, then, after 30 days, if you've been good you get a tenner back, however, if sombody clicks the report button re your post you loose a quid...... and so on and so on. Then if you get down to £0 you get banned

it kinda makes sense to me

Bob

Rich Tee

I didnt want to post on this as there are so many other posts already here, but decided i would to give my ideas / opinions.

I am a relative newbie, have probably been using sn for a couple of months being introduced to it by a long standing member.

When i first came on the board i put a couple of posts asking for advice and got some really good responses, and my knowledge of scoobys has increased dramatically becasue of the bbs.

However even over the space of the last couple of weeks i have started to think that the board is not the same as it was, and there are not as many people taking it seriously. This is always apparant in the for sale section especially!!

Yes people should be able to state their opinions, but it is obvious in a lot of threads that people are just posting for the sake of it, and to get their post count up!!. Their posts in turn add no value to the original topic.

I dont know if this has already been suggested or not, but what a bout three strikes and you are out type of approach. People can report posts which are obviously of no value and taking the mick to the moderator / webmaster, and they can make a decision as to whether that person is awarded a strike (black mark, whatever). Three of these and they are banned, by checking their email address they will not be able to re-register under a different user id if they want to cause hassle.

Maybe this would give people the chance to use the board a bit more sensibably because it is an invaluable bbs, and i'm sure a lot of people would miss it if it was to go.

Rich

22BUK

This may be too simple, and someone may have suggested it already, but why not just add some new forums in the same way that the "Was that you" forum was added a couple of years ago.
For example, "I raced a ...", "Sympathy required", "Politics" could all be new forums.
Further, the tolerance of negative posts could be dependant on which particular forum was in use - the "Politics" forum would never have everyone agreeing, for example, just like in real life...

AndrewW

The way I see it, the people that come to this board to cause trouble are not going to change there ways ...

The following measures have been implemented on other boards that I frequent and seem to work quite well.

1. Do not allow anyone to sign up using an anonymous email address (ie hotmail, yahoo etc). Its a pain in the bum, but it does work.
2. Make everyone use their full name as there user id. Most people are far less likely to start hurling rocks when they don't have an alias to hide behind.
3. Have a twenty four hour period between registration and account activation.
4. Activate logging of user id vs ip address each time a post is made and have a script that trolls through the logs looking for occurences where a particular ip address has posts from more than one user id in a short period of time. Deactivate all duplicate accounts without remorse.
5. If you want to go the whole hog, implement a terms and conditions page like that found on www.thedvdforums.com

Terms and Conditions
Registration Restrictions

If you have been banned from The DVD Forums in the past and have not been given permission to re-register you may NOT register to use these forums.

You may only register with ONE identity - You are not allowed to register under multiple identities.
Unfortunately, we no longer allow registrations from Hotmail accounts. This is due to reliability problems with some of the Hotmail servers. Because of this you will not be able to register using a hotmail e-mail address, instead, please register using a different e-mail account. You can be sure that we will keep the e-mail address you provide safely and please note that you have the option to hide this address from other members on the Forums.

Behaviour

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not post any unacceptable material. This includes:

Pornography or links to Pornography
Links to other inappropriate sites
Swearing and offensive words, which includes the gratuitous use of censored swearing using asterisks (for example) or the deliberate miss spelling of bad language
Offensive quoting in signatures
Posting of non-DVD Forums/Times affiliate links
Arguing with moderator/administrator actions
Inciting a flame war within this or any other forum
Spam or advertising
Any sort of pyramid selling or referral schemes
The advertising and sale of DVD and VCD bootlegs
Persistent xenophobia, racism or personal abuse
Commercial advertising (except by Site Sponsors)
Anything invasive of a person's privacy
Anything that violates any law.
You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyrighted material is owned by you.
You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold us harmless with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s).
We reserve the right to reveal your identity (or whatever information we know about you) in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by you.
Although we cannot possibly review all the messages posted and are not responsible for the content of any of these messages, we reserve the right to delete any message for any reason whatsoever.

[b]Anyone found to be breaching the above terms and conditions will be dealt with in a way which we feel is appropriate.[b]

Believe me that as we feel appropriate usually means instant account deletion and works pretty well ...

Just my 2 cents worth.

Andrew.




[Edited by AndrewW - 10/17/2002 1:39:02 AM]

Ricky

Sorry if this has already been suggested, but as I havent had time to read all the posts I shall give my pennies worth anyway.

If somebody replies to an individuals post, what about having a link conected to the post, so the individual who origionally started the post can rate any of the replies he/she gets with a positive or negative rating. This could be displayed alongside their user name and their number of posts. Each individuals rating could determine how Scooby friendly they are. If the negative ratings were to reach a certain limit, the webmaster may then be able to step in and take whatever action he sees necessary.

So basically its something similar to the way you are rated on e-bay. And as things are bought and sold on e-bay, nobody wants any negative feedback against their name, because they then arent taken seriously. Scoobynet could work in a similar way.

Anybody have any opionions regarding my suggestion ?

Cheers !

Ricky !

Stuart J

I quite like the response from andrew w, scoobynet needs not to be to complicated, it just needs to be policed & for that I think we need a set of clearly defined rules & have to trust the moderators.
I was recently on another site & some people started posting mindless & abusive posts (we can all decode ****). After a couple of complaints from members these people were barred & the posts deleted & they did not come back. people can only have so many email addresses & eventually they will be completely barred.

Last suggestion, how about a dustbin forum where moderators can put posts they think are unfit for any existing forum

AndrewW

And one more thing, before anyone gets up on the old freedom of speech soap box...

This is a privately owned BBS, run and paid for by a private individual.

Now I know that Simon is quite lenient in what he lets people get away with, but he is providing a service for free and he has every right to control anything that is posted to this board.

If you don't like it, then you don't have to use the BBS. Nobody is forcing you to be here. Its as simple as that.

Andrew.

MarkO

Blimey - 6 pages of fairly interesting ideas since I left last night. Here's a few responses to some of the points put forward:

Make scoobynet a subscription bbs where to post for say a year you pay a fee like £5.The wind up merchants wont bother paying - This wouldn't work. Firstly, it would kill the BBS overnight - I'd imagine that few people out of the 18,000 people would be prepared to pay even a paltry amount like a fiver. Plus, many of the people who like the odd wind-up or mischievious/funny posts (such as myself) would be perfectly well-prepared to cough up such a trivial amount for a year for the pleaseure.

Putting newbies on probation - great plan, except that in my experience it's not the newbies who are the problem. A large number of long-termers (lifers? ) like myself are involved in the posts that have been complained about...

Take More registration details, force people to use their real names - totally flawed, 'cos a) it's unenforcable, and b) it doesn't stop people like me who use their real names anyway.

Gold star systems, or 3 strikes and you're out - again, these are flawed too, because it assumes that people are totally consistent - either all good, or all bad. I know for a fact that a lot of people enjoy some of my more dubious posts, yet they clearly rub some other people up the wrong way. In fact, a few people (super_si and clarebabes, for example) were initially pissed off with my attitude when I responded to posts they'd made, but they've come forward and defended me recently now they've got to know me and my (slightly dodgy) posting style.

I also know that wherever possible I do try to post useful info (e.g., I took part in the STI Type-R thread yesterday, having owned one for nearly 4 years, and I also try to help people where possible in the computer-related and non-scooby forums).

Sorry to sound negative, but I really don't think that any of the solutions put forward will change SN. Having said that, I think that's a good thing, 'cos IMO it doesn't need changing - the balance is just about right.


[Edited by MarkO - 10/17/2002 7:38:42 AM]

Jerome

The point made by Andrew above about having your full name as a username is fine in theory but has a couple of flaws.

Firstly someone called John Smith isn't going to be too worried about his full name being shown. However, I have a very unique name. I would wager that I am the only person in the world with this name. It would take a person no time at all to trace my address and where my Scoob is parked. Not to mention other security problems that may arise. I use a hotmail account simply to avoid my full name being available.

I'm quite happy to fill out a detailed application form to (re)join Scoobynet, but only if personal information is kept scrictly private. Maybe the electoral role could be used to verify someones identity (although the software for this is not cheap). This would also prevent someone who is banned from re-registering. If you aren't on the electoral role, you would have to provide a ruddy good reason why.

AndrewW

hehehe like living in Australia

Andrew.

Neil Smalley

As Simon DB said.

Facist moderating is'nt really the best way to go about things. There have been many occasions where I wanted to go 'vape postal' and delete every post by certain users anytime they posted a reply; but all this does is create BBS Matyrs and create ill feeling.

Two things are needed,
First of all a 'fun' way of letting people know how well regarded a poster is(for all the reasons stated above)
Secondly Users need to police their own threads. If it's getting muppetised, insulting and not 'living up to the community spirit' of scoobynet, then use the report to moderator function.

Don't sit there hoping one of the mods will notice it and do something about it, RTM it. We'll then take a view on it and if we agree then we'll act on it. If we don't we'll keep an eye on it and then act if appropriate.

It's not difficult, it just requires a more proactive approach from everyone - IMHO

bros2

The problem with so many technoheads on the BBS is that complicated solutions are being invented to solve a problem that isn't really there.

With 18000 members, people try to shout above the noise. Much as at a football match, things are shouted which would ordinarily never be said in the context of a normal conversation. That's a fact, and it won't go away.

Simple, positive things I'd suggest to counter this:
- stop the swearing
- delete posts without explanation
- terminate posters who continually offend
- if they re-register under another name and do the samething, terminate that one too
- have a 24-48 hour wait period. Even if someone plans on posting under a false ID, by the time the account comes into operation, they'll have cooled down and will probably not want to post.

You're trying to police a BBS, and like it or not, the atmosphere on an 18000 member board is entirely different from other forums I've visited which have, perhaps, a few hundred members/active posters.

Understand a little less, moderate a little more.

With regard to the freedom of speech argument
a) this is a private BBS, so there's no 'right'
b) freedom to speak should be allowed right up to the point where it starts to impinge upon the freedom of others. In the context of a BBS, this means that if you are constantly attacked and belittled, so your freedom to speak is undermined. Any reduction in freedom to speak from the exclusion of an individual may actually lead to an increase in overall freedom for the community. Summarising this, I'm trying to say that excluding certain individuals or deleting their posts, far from being anti-freedom, can in fact be seen as a defence of freedom to speak for the majority.

bros



[Edited by bros2 - 10/17/2002 8:46:56 AM]

MarkO

What will that achieve? We're all grown-ups here, and swearing has a valid place in the rich tapestry of language.

If I'm p*ssed off about something, I want to express it (like I just did). It doesn't mean I'm necessarily aiming it at anyone or intentionally trying to offend people.

And where do you draw the line? Is 'b@stard' a swear-word? What about 'damn'? If I refer to somebody who cut me up during a road-rage attack as a 'tosser', should I be moderated?

I swear during conversation as part of my everyday life. I probably do it more than I'd like, but that doesn't mean I should get clipped around the ear by my manager when I say "oh, f*ck" because my hard-drive's just died and I've lost the last 4 hours' work. The same goes for the BBS - swearing is as much a part of the emotiveness of written language as smilies are.

tony1979

I was thinking along the lines of a rating system, but without the unfairness. Because someone isn't as knowledgeable in certain areas means that they are unlikely to get stars, and this definitely could start to look elitest.

What about a rating that automatically rises from the date you register? If there are no complaints against you, the rating slowly continues to rise. If the moderator agrees with a complaint, the rating could be put down a little. This means that anybody who continues to troll, will have a nill "behaviour" rating or something.

(Sorry if this has already been mentioned...I just thought about it last night )

bros2

MarkO

I'm sure you know what I mean

******* hell, f@ck me, **** this...... it's not big, clever, or even gramatically correct. If there's a filter to prevent certain words being used, then to try to circumvent those by misspelling or introducing numerics rather than alpha characters is surely a breach?

bros

MarkO

True.

One thing I've noticed is that many people on the BBS don't bother to structure their sentences, capitalise, spell correctly and punctuate. It sounds picky and pedantic, but the fact is that a correctly-written post will always come across as more reasoned, more lucid and less aggressive/offensive than one written with kindergarten SMS-style illiteracy.

A classic case of this is super_si's posts to the computing forum (sorry mate, but you're the best example). The number of times his queries have descended into a flame war through sheer frustration at his inability to communicate his problems is probably in the thousands by now.

Perhaps. But it depends on the context and the content. For example, the use of the word 'c**t' (you know what I mean) is usually pretty offensive regardless of the context.

However, when having a rant about bad service in a shop (or whatever), I would not regard the liberal use of the word "sh*te" as extraordinarily offensive....

carl

TBH, out of the solutions proposed here, my preferred option would be to do nothing. What's happening is natural evolution: not something to be stopped. Sure, it's not perfect on SN but IMHO the solutions proposed will make SN a worse place to be than it is now.

Compare and contrast some of the other car-related BBSs and you will see how good SN really is. Fine, there's hardly any banter, "I raced this", etc. threads on 22b.com but that's because there's only half a dozen people who post on it

Other BBSs degenerate with far less users than 18,000 so I think for SN to get this far and still be usable is something to be applauded.

I like to post similes to point out to people other ways of thinking about the problem -- trouble is after SDB stamped on the "Tesco's" simile to the 3k WRX price reduction (which I thought was valid), I feel a bit out of place doing so
Anwyay, some would say the English language has degenerated but in reality it's evolved. It always has done and it always will do. Same as SN

Dream Weaver

Agree with MarkO on the swearing, however on his other idea:

The beauty of it, is that the "lifers" would also be sent back down to newbie level if they cause trouble, and have to spend a week or 2 calming down with the newbies.

Or even have a sin bin forum, where all the bad uns are sent for a week to calm down - it could even be moderated by MarkO

[Edited by Dream Weaver - 10/17/2002 9:57:55 AM]

Dream Weaver

I think we need to get away from this 18,000 community thing as well. IMHO most people will have 2 or 3 user names, and then there are people that registered years ago (one of my Impreza owning ex workmates included), who have since never used the board.

I would guess at most there are 5000 active users of the forums, at most.

dsmith

I have just one account - DW what others do you have ? Presumably its simple enough to query the databse for the number of different accounts used in the last month ?

Jon1T

I think a spell check facility is a must, because reading poorly spelt and grammatically incorrect posts is fustrating - not just a few misspellings or typos, but misspelling to to the point where you can't read or understand the post.

As for the ratings, yes good, but I was originally thinking along the ideas of having 'advisors' and this could be related to ppls jobs - maybe professions should be required on the reg form and posted on the sidebar. So Saxo boy's a planning officer, I work in PR - it instantly points to usefulness on non-scooby threads - indicating car(s) owned helps on the more specific hreads, and gaining 'advisor' status (a combination of knowledge and helpfulness) can be on any topic eg financial, medical, as well as wheels, ICE, tech etc.

As far as saying well having advisors/ratings won't stop the muppets, well no it won't, but aside from everyone on this board being more active and either ignoring their posts or telling them their opinion is not wanted etc nothing will - it's up to everyone on this board to take ownership and not just leave to the mods to regulate.

MarkO

I've got two accounts, but the 2nd one became necessary after some meanie locked my main one.

I'm not really up on this idea of having a 'trolling' account. Frankly, I think people who want to troll (beastman666, STI, stoopid_si, etc) should have the ***** to do it under their own name (if they so wish) and take the consequences. Using an alias is fairly cowardly.

As for the comment about SN 'only' having 5,000 active members - that's probably still about 5 times as many as most BBSes have!

Molds

What a can of worms webby has opened here!

I have followed this thread thus far. As yet I can't think of a worth while suggestion for helping to improve the SN spirit/community. Easy (as with many things) to find problems, but hard to offer a viable solution.

Thought it was worth posting this link from yesterday though http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/threa...hreadid=139611 as it shows exactly the sort of community sprirt that should be our ideal. Far cry from the recent slagging and personal email threats.

If you don't want to bother looking at it. In a nut shell I kinda hijacked Fuzz' post to ask him a question. Not only did he answer my questions but went and took his own car apart and took pics to show me what he was talking about.

Cheers

Matt

darms

iTrader: (5)

Why dont we have a "report to moderator" link on each reply.
Just like on www.i-club.com forum

But 3 hits and your out!!!

carl

Agreed. If you've got the ***** to say something then you should have the ***** to admit to it. Can't stand people who fill in the 'feedback' form at the end of work events (presentations, etc.) and refuse to put their name to it for fear of repercussions

Dream Weaver

Deano - I had another username at one point for a joke thread, but then lost the password and haven't used it since. I know certain members that have 6 or 7 different usernames on SN.

LG John

A few people have raised the point that scoobynet isn't that bad at all and come to think of it they are right.

I joined at the start of this year and owned a Saxo VTS with only surface knowledge of the Impreza. I attended a few meetings and runs - even when I just had the Saxo - and have made a number of friends and even one or two regular friends.

Now I've got a tuned MY99 and have some pretty good surface tuning knowledge and I'm fully aware of a lot of the regular problems and issues relating to the car and scooby ownership. I probably spend more time on scoobynet than I should but very often its because there is a lot of valueable information and here, interesting and funny people to talk to and its a medium through which to meet new people and learn new things. Whilst I seldom use the muppet forum I don't think it should be removed, just recently TomM put a posting in one of my muppetised threads that had me laughing my *** off - normally I'd pay for that kind of humour but its free through scoobynet

In fact, without scoobynet I'd have never met sipie and therefore I'd probably never have sold the VTS to a friend of his for decent money and thus wouldn't have a scooby now.

The bottom line is......it ain't bad at all

Alpine

I think the fact this thread exists is quite sad really.. I've not been around for ages but I still recognise the 'Usual Suspects' and see the names as sort of 'Characters'. MarkO speaks his mind and seems happy for others to do the same. I don't always agree with what he has to say but that's life. Claudius also speaks his mind but is far more controversial and 'PROBABLY' more of a wind-up merchant. The point to the example is most people on here 'know' the other regulars and so should ignore aggrovation from other users.

If you post something in 'For Sale' and ppl say 'too much' maybe this too is a service. It informs other users that better deals maybe exist and informs the seller that he may not sell at that price. I would appreciate 'You may be a little steep on the price' rather than 'Kn0b head you'll never get that'!

Anyways....
Ratings - Don't like them... maybe I'm a technical guru.. maybe I'm not.. If I post an answer to a query that is helpful I don't necessarily know any more than I posted and I wouldn't necessarily want to be perceived as being a guru because of this. I would also NOT want my opinion rated higher than anyone else's.. maybe the rating would make a newbie act on my advice to his detriment. If I offer an opinion and I know it to be fact not conjecture I can state my accreditation as part of the post. ie fit this exhaust I'm an exhaust fitter of 20 years standing...

Expertise - For the same reasons I would NOT use this rating. Why would I want to put, for instance PLUMBER? Wouldn't this mean that all plumbing questions would be directed to me when I come on here for recreation? If I see and want to answer a plumbing query I can already do that...and I can put in the post 'been a plumber for X years'


Ok that's my opinion on other ideas.. Here's mine..

We all start off with say 100 posting credits and we all have one negative vote per day. If you receive no negative votes the next day you are awarded another 100 postings. If you receive a negative vote this reduces your available posting count by 2 per vote. So if 4 people vote for you on a day the next day you have 92 posts. When you are in this 'negative' position you earn 10 extra posts per day to a maximum of the original 100. When you reach zero you are banned for a period. This should make everyone think about the tone they take.

To vote for someone you have to be a poster in that particular thread and you press the new 'vote for this poster' button in the top of their mail.

No visual clue should be given to the group at large what your count is for any particular day. It rewards good posters by allowing them to continue. It harms bad posters by removing that privilege from them. The number of votes required to exclude someone means they have to upset quite a number of people.

Perhaps there should also be some sort of negative effect on the voter if they try and vote for the same poster on more than X consecutive days. It would need tweaking but I reckon it would work..

PS . I don't think we need to do anything other than have respect for other ppl's views and ignore the minority.. Too Adult for some?

Might work for newbies also as you could start them on 5 posts per day... and build from there

[Edited by Alpine - 10/17/2002 11:22:24 AM]

Phil Harrison

Simon (and all of you)

I really do suggest you read Andew W's post on Page 10 and consider it very carefully. It lays out what's tolerable and what's not and thereby empowers Moderators to pull bad bahaviour. It's based on actual experience, which makes it doubly valuable - tho' I'd like us to hear whether Andrew has identified any consequent problems. It seems to me to address the core problem - behaviour - in a way that's readily understood and is proportionate to the problem. In respect of full name registration, I understand the problem of the unique name.... but you're not obliged to put a location in the "from" field..... but hard cases make bad law. "P Harrison from Kent" doesn't leave me feeling vulnerable.... but a truly unique combination could be concealed by intial authorisation at first registration.

My solution therefore would be:-
Substantially as Andrew W +
Post number discontinued after (say) 100 +
Moderator disapproval of Language/aggression (NOT of views)made public +
Extra Forums - Keep Muppets - it's often funny, a place to let off steam, and no-one has to read it. To include Newbie forum (for newbie questions NOT as a probation) with white knight moderators; a "how to" list; and a group buy (in hand I gather) + whatever...

And leave it at that, otherwise we get into over-reaction IMHO.

Thanks for listening

Phil

MarkO

All these ideas about rating people and voting for people just won't work, unfortunately. For a start, I could create several different ideas, and vote for myself. Secondly, you'll get gangs of people voting for each other. And thirdly, it assumes that people can really be arsed to vote for fellow members - which frankly I wouldn't be bothered enough to do.

And in the end, all it would do is give a guide as to how popular/interesting/controversial that person might or might not be. It won't actually prevent them from spouting bollocks or attacking other members.