Ed, I think your efforts to improve the Dope have been a failure so far.

About This Message Board
81

You now appreciate why I’ve signed up on the Boards Which Must Not Be Named. Creative Loafing has bought a pig in a poke; when they figure that out, I’m afraid it’s going to be bye-bye SDMB. It’s not too difficult to keep a social networking site up and running; it’s nigh impossible to turn it into a real profit source (which is what I think they want out of this place).

(I’ve been though this before with LiveJournal, which is now just a pale shadow of what it was before Brad Fitzpatrick sold it to Six Apart (who then in turn sold it to SUP). And compared to LJ, leaving the Dope is EASY. People care more about their personal blogs’ contents than about old conversations - if all the conversationalists stick together, who cares what virtual coffeeshop they continue their discussions in?)

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Well, according to the doomsayers the asset is already irreparably destroyed and the only thing left to do is toast some marshmallows over the flaming wreckage. :rolleyes: The problem that I am afraid of is that trying to increase board traffic to a profitable degree is more likely to erode board culture than any number of restrictions on which cusswords are permitted in the pit; part of the reason I think the SDMB works so well is that the influx rate of new posters is small enough relative to those already here that we have time to file the rough edges off the newcomers and kick out the ones that don’t fit. I’d rather see the SDMB linked to the sale and promotion of a physical product(s), but since it seems to be irreversibly divorced from the SD and the books, that may not be a likely outcome.

83

That’s how things used to be. And it worked pretty well. But now he’s intervening unnecessarily and it’s starting to cause problems.

84

After mooching through threads of this crap I think I see the fundamental disconnect(s) here.

There’s the Straight Dope Message Board, the name, the server, the software. This is Ed’s and he see fit to run it as he wants. He wants to run a particular type of board, and he’s making it happen. Much like you’d prune a tree to the shape you want.

And then there’s the Straight Dope Message Board, the community, all of us who are here. Ed doesn’t think we as an entity are important. If we don’t want to play by his rules he doesn’t see any value in having us here. He expects to find a new set of people who will play by his new rules.

That’s fair enough, Ed will end up with a different board (by the second definition) and be happy. I don’t know if it’ll be a good board, but time will tell.

Frankly as a mostly-lurker I don’t mind the rules rules. I’d eventually break them while drunk and irate and get banned, but meh. But what will make me leave is the exodus of the posters I like to read on an irregular basis. The difference in the board during P2P was noticable, and I was happy when it ended and a few old people came back.

But returning to my last point, it may or may not be a good board but it’ll never make as much money as it could of done (and personally I doubt it will ever make money). That’s because TPTB have pissed away the goodwill they had in this place over the years and last week they’ve hit the flusher.

The people running this site, by their own admission, aren’t experts in making money out of a site like this and they’ve consistently ignored some excellent suggestions from experts in the field.

I imagine that a handful of simple changes could really boost the profits of this site and pay for the work entailed in weeks.

I’m not sure what point I was making, I see no reason to try and help the board any more. I guess I just don’t like the shape of Ed’s bush.

85

Does anyone know of ANY website, that on it’s own, is a successful business venture? Any website that I know of that can be describes as successful is a marketing tool for a product, or may products. It was huge news when Amazon finally turned a profit, after several years of operating in the red.

The SDMB’s only product is the written content provided for free by its members. It is never going to be a successful business venture unless there are significant changes in the entire marketplace. Or unless it goes back to a fee structure, and we all pony up a whole lot more money than we’ve been asked to so far.

86

Call me crazy but I still care about what happens to this site. So while a diminutive woman was punching me in the back to align my vertebrae, I saw the light. Here is my new idea about the pit rules and all that.

Open a new forum. Call it “Internal Affairs”. All discussions about staff actions and intermember pittings would go here.

This would clear the air in ATMB, which is important since it should be the first impression of the site a new potential member gets of this site. It is hard for a noob to ask about some feature while we are flinging shit at each other behind whatever thin veil is passing for decorum rules at the moment.

The Pit would remain under the old rules to address random malfeasants and congressmen that we care to curse and RO about.

The only change would be that the Pit would now be as the rest of the boards in that no personal insults are allowed towards other members. This way we can curse the arsonist-du-jour in an atmosphere of civility.

The rules of the new forum are still to be determined at the taste of TPTB. The important thing is that the same rules apply for posters and staff. If only for the sake of consistency.

It could go all the way from no insults (in which case, why bother?) to full frontal assaults minus “cunt” and whatever is on the magic list at the time. Whatever is chosen will please some and piss others, so whatever. Ed picks.

The beauty of this system (as I see it) is that at least the rules on each forum would be clear and internally coherent. That posters and staff would be on equal grounds. That all the dirty laundry would be in one place (maybe even make it visible to registered guests and members only). That we can still tell Pelosi “fuck off, cunt” without it being inconsistent with not being able to tell Sapo “fuck off, cunt”.

Anyways, you get my drift. For your consideration.

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If Ed et. al., cared about posters and staff being on equal ground, none of this would even be an issue. In fact, Ed specifically does not want posters and staff on equal ground, and does not want to hold his staff to any rules of civility.

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Since we already have numerous threads about the same issue, and since yours doesn’t differ much from the rest of them, I’ve merged it with this thread, Sapo.

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Potentially relevant statement from Ed in another thread about his intents and purposes.

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I think that is only tangentially relevant. For anyone who does not understand, my complaint really isn’t about the silliness of the dirty words list. It is about how the board is being badly run and how the pronouncements from on high are not a management style good for the cohesiveness of the Doper community. Now if the Dope community does not matter, maybe he should just tell us. If we the paying members are an albatross around the neck of the SDMB, he should have said so and followed through on his original plan to put everyone on ads. Of course that will drive many posters away but maybe he should have just been done with it.

If he does care about the community, it might be time to discuss changes more openly and in advance of the changes and not after they happen. Discussing of course does not mean saying changes are coming, but actually talking about what they will be and why.

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It’s not what he changed, or even what his intentions are so much as HOW he went about doing it.

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I actually think this idea is a decent one. It would effectively compartmentalize two distinct things: 1) The flaming and complaining about the world at large. Trashing ignorant politicians and popular figures and ranting and raving about small and large misdeeds done to us by customer disservice and the assholes that populate our world. In this room there doesn’t seem to be any great need for censorship of anything besides thread titles. 2) The complaining and pitting of posters and members of the Dope. Also complaints about Mods and Administration could be confined here. Stricter limitations on the types of direct abuse could be enforced if that’s the goal of TPTB. If you wanted to allow direct insults here to members but not to Admins and Mods then you contain Mod disputes to ATMB instead.

All in all, I see it as an improvement on the clarity of the rules and a compartmentalization of the two main functions the pit serves. I see little ambiguity between the two. I like it.

93

So Ed, any comments at all? Do you want the community? Are we a valuable part of the Dope? Are we a nuisance? Is there any chance of better communication and transparency?

94

He’s just not that into us.

Actually, what is there to say once the decision has been made? One thing I don’t blame him for is not hanging around to try to respond to all of this. I sure wouldn’t, if I were in his shoes.

There, I’ve defended Ed! :slight_smile:

95

I am very saddened to hear that Ed apparently doesn’t really want us around. Saddened enough to wonder why he doesn’t just pull the plug if he feels that way. If Ed doesn’t want to run a message board anymore, he should let us know, set a date, and then we can all go our separate ways. Probably less painful than what seems to be going on now.

Thanks for the last nine years. I hope there can be more. I have enjoyed the community here.

Making suggestions here is like making suggestions at my workplace. No matter how many years or how much I have emotionally invested in the place, the truth is I don’t call the shots and it turns out my input really doesn’t mean squat and it breaks my heart.

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He wants US around. He doesn’t want YOU around, or ME.

We are a bee hive. Who cares about the individual bees? So long as the honey is made. The only individual bee who counts is Jerry Seinfeld.

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After two days and no comment from Ed, I think I have my answer. Been nice, see you guys out there somewhere, I hope.

98

Read the first page, not the second. With that said, I haven’t really been around to see these changes. I stopped posting here a few months back because of real-life concerns, mostly trying not to get sucked into the internets and wake up five years later homeless…stuff like that. Still though, I miss this place, and hearing about these latest events through the grapevine has made me a sad, sad panda. The desire I have to come back and post is now mixed with a little fear and trepidation.

As for comments on things beyond my personal little bubble, well, I got nothin’ From what I’ve seen I agree with What Exit?, but I really can’t say for sure. Maybe I shouldn’t even say that much lol.

99

For shame, for shame, Spacedog!

100

Hope it’s not presumptuous or a hijack, but I invite one and all to visit the domicile of a certain long-necked ungulate. So far it kinda feels like old times there; and relevant to this thread if only as an illustration of how things could of been done here . . .