I know I’m probably going to get on a couple of peoples’ toes with this post - so, I’d like to preface it by saying I’m definitely not attacking anyone, as I know what it’s like to get super busy and for “real life” to get in the way of Internet projects. However, I felt this was a bit of a loose end that perhaps needed referencing…
In terms of which team members moderate what forums, I notice that Matt is the mod for both The Great Void (where all the political/religious debate occurs) and Toys & Memorabilia, whilst Martin is the mod for both General Discussion and Fan Fiction. Now - again I promise I’m not attacking anybody but, neither of these guys are actually on these forums very much. Matt actually logged in to the site about 10 days ago, but his last post on these forums was on 21st August. For Martin, his last log-in to the site was 20th September, and his last post was 18th June! :eek:
Now, whilst our boards are not exactly the hive of activity that someone like www.he-man.org is, nonetheless I wonder whether it might be worth assigning these moderating positions to somebody else until Matt and Martin are less busy and thus able to take a more proactive role in the site?
The reason why I mention this is that, even though I try and peruse all the new posts when I can, I do get quite busy and so some days tend just to check the new posts on the forum I specifically moderate, which is Cartoon & Comics. I must confess, it’s been a long time since I looked over the Toys forum, or The Great Void. So, it’s quite possible that there are times when posts are being overlooked - not a problem at the present time, but if activity on this site picks up, then someone may need to take a more proactive role in modding those forums, which would be more likely to happen IMO if it was someone’s direct responsibility, rather than just a “super mod” keeping an eye open…
Again, hope nobody’s offended by me raising this - your opinions as always are welcomed, guys!
I have only one thought on this really that I’d like to share, and that is that as team members we have so far decided that its important that we participate in discussion on the forums. I think time allowing this would be good for the community and the site.
However… I think it should be secondary to meaningful contribution to your section. If we are to set priorities, I feel we should first prioritize the addition of quality content to the site. If we need to choose between doing that and posting in the public forums, for me the choice has always been pretty easy.
In all realistic appraisal of ThunderCats fandom, there is nothing much worth talking about at the moment. Until some news breaks about the movie, or some revolutionary thinking is shared about ThunderCats I personally will be focussing on getting my 15 cels ready for upload to the site by end of year. I browse the forums but make the team discussion section my first and usually only priority and I check in about three times a day.
I am nominally a moderator in the art section but besides occassionaly encouraging the good work of contributors I don’t really jump in much.
I think we would do best to give people content to keep coming back for and let the discussions emerge amongst the site members themselves.
Apologies for the lateness of replying to this - it slightly slipped my mind! :oops:
Mark, I completely agree with you with regards to where efforts should be channeled - i.e., if it’s a choice between generating activity on the forums or generating material for the site, I for one would always choose the site. And yep, I also (contrary to what forum member optimusprime stated the other week) don’t think it’s necessary for the team on this site to “spoon feed” topics to forum members.
However, why I raised this is because I do think that, where forum members are taking part in discussions on our forums, you do need moderators just keeping an eye on what’s happening - and, given the current inactivity of some of the team members charged with the task of modding specific forums, I’m concerned that this may not always be happening. Don’t get me wrong - we’re probably the most trouble-free ThunderCats forum on the Internet, but a lot of that is because of the quality of the moderators that we have on here!
Anyway, no major problems, but just felt that it was something worth bringing up!
