OK, everybody needs to take a timeout, me included.
I’ve revoked the posting privileges of a few people. In the first case I concede I did so precipitously. A couple of subsequent cases occurred after I specifically said I didn’t want to hear any more kvetching. Be that as it may, I was ticked off when I did it and that’s not a good way to make decisions. So we’ll consider all of these suspensions through the weekend rather than permanent bans.
Since the question has come up a few times, let me explain where the board is headed. I’ll begin by saying where it’s NOT headed. It’s not meant to be a promotional vehicle for my book or me personally. As I intimated at the time, we had planned (and still plan) to start a related site with its own message board - it’ll be called Straight Dope Chicago. If it succeeds it’ll be the first of a series of city-focused Straight Dope sites. Since my book has a lot to do with Chicago, the SDC MB seemed like a logical place to put a discussion forum devoted to it - in fact I hoped the forum would broaden into a general discussion of city issues in Chicago. Unfortunately, as so often happens with these things, the SDC launch was delayed. Since publication of the book was imminent, I figured I’d open a forum on the SDMB temporarily. That wasn’t well received, to say the least, so I reorganized the forums as you see them now, with the book forum under “Side Conversations.” That seemed like a reasonable solution and I venture to say everyone was happy with it. I think I’m still going to move the book forum to the SDC eventually, where I expect it to morph into a general home repair/restoration forum, as has largely happened already.
The larger problem, which has persisted and led to today’s controversy, is the constant criticism of the board staff. I come in for a fair share of this and usually I don’t let it bother me. What got my goat today was people dumping on Jerry, our tech guy, and suggesting that he didn’t know what he was doing, was lazy, a smartass, or what have you. That was totally uncalled for. I’ve worked with Jerry a long time. He’s a smart guy, a hard worker, and notwithstanding his occasionally cynical exterior has a heart of gold. He’s been trying to get the Straight Dope site upgraded all summer, a job made way tougher by the fact that these are dismal times in the newspaper business and virtually his entire staff has been let go. He’s been working late nights and weekends to get the upgrade working smoothly and it’s not done yet. A lot of custom code has to get ported and there appear to be design limitations in the latest bulletin board software version that we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with. For people to suggest that Jerry is a slacker or incompetent … all I’m saying is, don’t ever, ever do this. I just see red, and that’s not a good thing.
My feelings about the mods and admins are much the same. I remind you yet again that they’re volunteers. I couldn’t run the board without them. I vet all of them personally before signing them up and on the whole I think they do a terrific job handling trying situations with wit and grace. Nonetheless they’re human and they make mistakes. We handle most disciplinary-type decisions collegially; this generally avoids the worst problems. Occasionally we change our minds after the fact, as I’ve done just now. Nonetheless it inevitably happens that some users think they’ve been treated unfairly, and over time we’ve accumulated a small but vocal group that is quick to pile on and complain whenever things aren’t to their liking.
So we need to come to an understanding. I fully recognize the strength and loyalty of the SDMB community, and how important it is to many of you. The quality of discussion on the board generally speaking is far above what you typically find on the net, and we hope that will continue. Nonetheless everyone needs to recognize that this is a commercial enterprise, not a commune or a coop. We make the rules and we expect people to abide by them. We appreciate your comments and suggestions and try to accommodate reasonable requests, but this is not a democracy and administration of the board is not subject to vote. Above all we expect you to remain civil, both to each other and to us. For the most part we think we’re easygoing and not easy to rile, but when we think things have gotten out of hand and tell you to knock it off, we expect you to comply. In particular, please don’t badger or abuse the staff - this will get you thrown out pretty quick.
That brings me to a final point. We don’t expect or want the SDMB per se to change all that much - in fact, a lot of our plans involve expanding the SDMB concept to other venues. However, one thing that probably WILL change now that we’ve gone to free posting is that the board will get busier - Jerry tells me this is already occurring. That means we’ll have less time to spend on small matters, and we may be less tolerant of over-the-top behavior than we have been in the past. We’ll try to give you fair warning whenever we decide to rein things in; nonetheless, once those warnings have been made, take heed.
So that’s it. I’m sorry I behaved rashly earlier. I’ll leave this thread open for a while for comments, but as always the discussion should remain civil.
