Thanks, folks, for letting me in on the history of the Garden Railways forum. I have spent some time on it and if it was ever a vital community, little evidence remains. To this newbie’s eyes, most posts consist of simple queries to which replies are made by a staff moderator.
I also find the entire GR web site difficult and frustrating to navigate, and the selling of individual articles is presented in a surprisingly non-evident way, causing me to click inks which then disappoint me when a fee is requested. As someone new to the site, it took me a while to understand that the cryptic marking GR+ means, “you will be expected to pay.” Without a sample of what i am being expected to pay for (two paragraphs and one photo would be sufficient), i have opted away from the site in frustration three times now.
The question of deletion of forum posts is one that does arouse antipathy and anxiety among many, myself included, especially when the deletions of simple news announcements and speculative thoughts on new events seem to be motivated by a desire to please one’s advertisers.
Luckily for us all, there are middle-way forums, however – in other words, a forum need not be either so heavily moderated in favour of advertisers that it becomes meaningless and essentially vacant, as at GR, or so filled with contention, insults, bullying, and off-topic, thread hijacking repetition that newcomers feel uncomfortable or confused by seeming to have wandered into a minefield.
As a forum owner myself, i feel that there are good reasons to protect a forum’s civility-level and topic-relevance.
I allow my team of moderators to split apart threads that are fragmenting or have been hijacked and to merge the off-topic posts into a new “train of thought.” (For instance, at my forum, the Kadee coupler portion of this thread would have been split out and merged into an ongoing Kadee coupler thread)
I also allow my mod team to delete posts that are purposely argumentative, deliberately insulting, or defamatory to any person, nation, political party, public figure, or religion.
At my forum, we have a clearly-stated rule-set that is sent via email to every new member and is also available from a topic-level link on every forum page.
From that rule-set we impose a three-warnings rule. There are no warnings issued for off-topc posts that get split out and merged into extant threads, but warnings are issued for defamatory posts. The warnings are private and polite, the offensive posts are deleted with the exact causes(s) for deletion explained to the offender, and most folks never step over the line again. Those who violate the rules for the 4th time are summarily banned by user name and are sent a private email message in which they are told why the ban was put into effect (quoting all three warnings and restating which forum courtesy rules were broken). In the private email, they are offered the opportunity to sign up again under a new name and start over. After three user-name flame-outs (a total of clearly stated 9 warnings to three usernames), we ban them by both email address and by IP address, and send them an email telling them goodbye. In all our years, only one person has gone to the trouble of getting a new isp, and hence a new IP address, and come back to test our moderation policies again after an IP ban. We consider that person to be seriously mentally ill and disruptive and now ban the individual every time he reappears.
Regarding flaming people for spelling errors. I think that if folks thought about it, they would realize that many reasons for spelling errors exist --the poster may have English as a second (or third) language; the poster may suffer from low vision, reduced hand mobility, or lack of education, may be attempting to post from a small mobile device, or may have to hit the send button before checking spelling becuse of a family emergency phone call – and none of these difficulties should preclude a person from participation in friendly forum centered on a charming hobby. In my case, a combination of low vision, posting from a mobile device, and having to deal with sudden interruptions can result in many spelling errors. If i see them on rereading, and if i have time, i correct them. But i do have to question the mental clarity and focus of anyone who would flame a fellow enthusiast or hobbyist for spelling errors.
Joe and Ray, to return to the subject of online magazines, forums, and monetization: I think that the GR method of selling articles is not admirable. I believe that old material should be offered for free, to draw in more readers. For me, the real problem with the GR magazine site is its relative lack of accessible value-rich content.
Mylargescale.com has no bells or whistles – but lots and lots of words and it ranks fairly high at google. It took me longer – and a few more tightly keyword-targeted searches – to find largescalecentral.com and this is probably because the layout of the top page is less keyword-intensive. In other words, all the content in the world is not going to draw visitors to a site if the site is not keyword rich.
I use alexa.com to rank search popularity of sites. Here are some comparisons of global (world-wide) rankings, and keep in mind that, as in the game of golf, at alexa, a LOW number wins and a high number loses:
trains.com - 115, 853 (base-domain of grw.trains.com)
bachmanntrains.com - 408,075
mylargescale.com - 66i,661
usatrains.com - 2,587,648
piko-america.com - 6,521,735
largescalecentral.com - 16,038,747
gardenrailways.com - 17, 509, 797 (a roll-over sub-set of trains.com)
By comparison, my forum, which deals with a very specialized topic (African American folk magic) ranks under 1000,000 at alexa – better than any of the large scale train sites tested above. The reason for my higher ranking is that i have engaged in selective, targeted keywording on the top page of my site and my forum.
I hope this gives folks some food for thought.
