You may rest assured that I will make up my own mind about how the new forum will be moderated, but I am interested in your input. What makes a good forum moderator? What makes a bad one? What level of moderation do you think is appropriate for a group of intelligent, contentious people (who are always accompanied by a few idiots and trolls, this being the net and all)? Feel free to share experiences about online communities that worked, ones that didn't work, and what you think is good or bad about this one.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Answers

One thing that's probably important to remember -- I'm human. I lose my temper, and that's not going to change (unless you want to start paying me a salary, in which case I'll do whatever it takes to be sweetness and light all the time). I'll try to be as fair as I can be, but once in a while people are going to annoy me, and since I haven't had a personality transplant in the last ten months, you probably already know what to expect when that happens.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Well, I think you've nailed exactly the thing which has tended to cause problems in the past--situations where someone or some idea has pushed the forum moderator's buttons and therefore prevented them from acting judiciously.

I don't know what the solution is--maybe appoint a deputy or two? People who are pretty cool-headed and can tell you if they think you're being reasonable or not?

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I'd like a moderator who acts like the little redheaded nazi on The Weakest Link. In fact, I'd like a girlfriend that acts like that too. Strong, boisterous women who speak demeaningly can give me a hard-on like nothing else. Often, when a forum moderator chastises me for inappropriate behavior, I imagine her in black leather pants that still smell new, tall, black stilletto heels and wearing nothing up top except a pair of studded black leather suspenders that cover her nipples, but leave just enough of the outer edges of the areola exposed to cause you to lick your lips and make involuntary puckering faces.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I'm not sure how well that works, because the other folks are human, too. I've actually seen that approach work just as badly as or worse than solo moderation. (See: my miserable life as a 3WA moderator.)

Mostly I just promise to follow my own rules, and take my temper tantrums to the war room. Where you are all free to tell me to fuck off.

I've decided I don't like that rule most forums use, the "don't bitch at me in my own house" rule. I mean, sometimes the moderator gets to pull rank, just because you've reached a point where if you have to take any more shit from someone, you're going to stop running the forum altogether. But I think it's a lot healthier to let people gripe if you're being unreasonable.

The one thing I ask you all to respect is the fact that if you do that, I'm likely to bitch right back. There's my pet peeve -- someone wants to gripe about something on the board, and when I gripe back, they accuse me of censoring other opinions. I'm not interested in a board where there's free speech for everyone *but* the moderator.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Um, I was responding to Jen. I have nothing to add to Rudeboy's post. Whatever works for you.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I think people need to remember a few things, not the least of which is that anyone can go to Yahoogroups or whatever and start their own forum/email list if they want. It's not like physical space where private property denies the liberty of others because EVERYWHERE is private property and there's nowhere left to speak freely but your own living room. On the net, it's real easy for anyone to create their own public space, their own forum.

Personally I want to work on building a forum that uses a self- moderating methond with rating systems and thresholds... sort of like Slashdot but where the ratings are entered by the users and averaged, not entered by moderators. However, I don't know of a system like that currently existing.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I'll be serious for a minute and act like a good web citizen - I think you're right on track with you moderating thoughts. Here's something that may fly in the face of free expression but one way to cut down on anonymous trolling is forcing everyone to accept cookies before they can post. This may stop people from using surfola.com or other anonymizers - or it may not. You'll never be totally free of proxy using trolls no matter what you do.

VT uses a database that matches a user's ip with an alias name. The alias name (instead of the ip add) is visible to other users, thereby maintaining some semblence of privacy but also alerting posters to the identity of a troll or anonymous user. This worked in cutting down on some trolling, however, the 'anonymizer' sites have put a chink in its usefullness.

The only real way to eliminate anonymous trolling would be to keep a table of ip addresses where a username would be mapped to an ip address or a list of ip addresses. Nevermind, that won't work either. You could always ban posting (not reading) from the 'anonymizer' sites. Still, the more people use the web, the savvier they'll get, and eventually everyone will be able to pull up a list of proxies to use for anonymity. I remember the good ol' days, when anonymous proxies were used for more noble purposes like hacking.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I think the level of intervention you used in the past was just fine, Beth. Most trolls seem to inhabit 3WA's sex threads and vodkatea. I think Gus leaves them alone because he views it as an experiment. I find there are just so many that the threads are unreadable -- I can't take the time to count the "o"s in Matt Roooogers or figure out which "sara astruc" characters are real. It's probably a lot of fun if you have the time, but I prefer my tea with Jamison's.

The xeney forum's trolls tend to be (1) short lived or (2) Dave Van. As a longtime Dave Van fan (I decline to explain or defend this until the French explain their fascination with Jerry Lewis -- I just like the guy), it's no problem for me. Or maybe you've just done a good job cleaning them up. Whichever, I don't see a reason to change your moderator style.

As for the 3WA forum, I agree that there's nothing wrong with the higher level of censorship they impose over there. I was not one of those who protested (except tongue in cheek) the lockdown of the political threads -- everyone there has known from almost the beginning that Sara would rather not even have poli. threads. I didn't mean to take sides against the moderators when I answered someone's question about the 3WA lockdown on the "Do you guys even want a new forum?" thread.

But I certainly do want a place to debate politics, because it's my only hobby. It's no criticism of 3WA to suggest that the participants and the moderator have handled touchy political issues well here on the xeney forum, and I'd like to renew that.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Yeah, I miss politics, too. I need someone to remind me what's going on in the world. I heard something about a new president, and something about China, and there was something about an energy crisis, too. I'm all confused.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I think (and maybe I'm showing my all-too-idealistic roots here) that the reason this forum, much more than others, has been successful is that trolling here just can't be all that fun. Most of the regular visitors here are very good at either ignoring trolls or taking them so tongue-in-cheek-seriously by posting deep, insightful questioning responses that said trolls are rendered speechless. Like they say, you really can't have a battle of the wits with an unarmed person.

Overall, even the fairly hot disgreements have been handled with intelligence and maturity - sure, Jen Wade and Tom Dean will probably never agree on quite a few things, but they're both intelligent and well-spoken adults and know when to agree to disagree. (Or so it seems from here, at any rate.)

Besides, if all else fails, Beth can just take her toys and go home, and everyone knows that would be a fate worse than death. Or something.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Here, then, my story: I very rarely posted in the Politics & Work forum, I mostly cruised through to see if people were posting unique and compelling arguments. I popped by one day and saw that a thread about some fellow who made anti-semitic remarks had been locked, so I read through and found the reason why - Sara couldn't handle it. That disturbed me. A few days go by and I come back to the forum to find many topics locked, including one by Michael Hardy who wished to publicly protest the locking. I don't understand why the threads were locked, there was nothing egregious in tone or vibe about them.

So, after hearing and reading various grumblings about all of this at various sites, I thought - well, good god, there's a bloody forum provided to discuss issues concerning 3WA, so I went and started a topic about the whole things, commenting that level headed discourse would be good. It was then locked very soon afterward with the comment that neither Sara nor Stee wanted to talk about it.

And this is what my thoughts were: "Jesus - who asked you? Did you not consider that if you allow a space for the blowing off of steam that the behavior you dislike might work itself out or just go away? Maybe if you removed the iron fist and allowed things to flow their own way, you wouldn't have to stress over moderating the boards. The more you try to control, the less you can control."

Things, however, only got weirder (Dreama's sister being banned, for starters) and so I decided that 3WA was no longer for me.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Now see, all this time I assumed Eniale (or whatever her name is) was just Dreama's alter ego, since she was created shortly after Dreama told me she was leaving ThreeWay because of my "passive aggressive" moderating techniques. I thought that long before she announced her relationship to Dreama. But since everyone else seems ready to accept that she's an actual human, distinct and separate from Dreama, I guess I'm the deluded one.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

If you keep it just as it has been, it'll suit me just fine (that most especially includes your wading into the discussions yourself as someone with opinions!)

Looking back at forums and other methods of moderated discussion, these are my preferences:

I prefer forums that are mostly self-regulating.

I can accept any level of moderation a particular forum decides to set up (although too much or too little will reduce my inclination to post), but I do like consistancy - I kinda like knowing that an act of moderation is based on planned out guidelines, not on whether or not the spoon broke while they were eating their yogurt that day (ehem), or whether or not they find a certain user personally likeable (granting that being fair regarding both those you dislike strongly and those you like very much is probably one of the trickiest things about moderating). That's for purely personal reasons - while I've been known to deliberately push buttons in a discussion, I don't like accidentally stepping onto landmines, and I can't possibly know what is going on in the moderator's life that they're going to feel I 'should' take into account. Be consistant and (as much as possible, understanding sometimes it just isn't) moderate according to forum 'rules' rather than feelings. Even users who get chastised are going to be much less likely to feel unfairly treated that way.

In discussions, I like knowing whether or not I'm speaking to the moderator as poster, or as moderator - and I don't love it when a moderator/poster suddenly turns into the moderator/moderator, not because of anything that needs moderating, but because they don't like the direction in which a discussion is heading.

I like a moderator who is confident enough in themselves to be able to handle a little criticism - not saying that all the blather directed at them is something anyone 'should have to deal with, but they should be able to handle as much as they offer to their users, with the same level of grace that they expect from their users.

I'm fine with a moderator ending discussions that have run their course - I'm not real fine with them ending them without reading them, though. And I'm really, really not fine with them ending them and then engaging in public namecalling of their users after declaring every possible method of responding to those insults as being out of bounds. (At that point, the moderator is in grave need of some moderation)

By the same token though, I'm fine with moderators who aren't perfect and can admit it, and who understand that their users aren't perfect either - and that neither of these are end-of-the-world situations - in fact, those imperfections are what keep the discussions interesting.

I like a moderator who enjoys discussion - not just narrow, carefully orchestrated bits of it, but the whole messy, surprising act of communication. I like a moderator who seems to like their users - at least most of the time.

I like a moderator whose main purpose is to bring interesting people together to discuss interesting things rather than to gather some sort of market audience, or a moderator who is there because they like to be the one in charge of any discussion (and is more likely to finesse a topic direction as a good host might than they are to slam their fist on the table and demand their users perform for them the way they want them to).

I like a moderator who is open about the level of work it takes (and it takes a lot!) but doesn't try to make people feel bad for using their forum and taking up so much of their time. I like a moderator who regards it as a labor of love, not a burden.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

What Lynda said, underlined, with stars around it and some arrows and exclamation points.

Especially the 'burden,' part. Feeling that your posts are nothing but a time-suck and a pain in the ass, and that your feedback isn't particularly interesting or useful makes you not much want to post.

Though, of course, running a board really is an enormous amount of work and those who pull it off deserve a great deal of respect.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I think moderating a forum is a shitty, thankless job, and no matter how many hundreds of wonderful, fun, insightful, amusing, educational, and thought-provoking threads your forum has, what people want to bitch about are the 0.001% of them that are shut down.

There are tremendously tedious discussions on MeFi all the time about this very subject - myself, I like a happy medium, where the moderator understands that sometimes the regulars just have a bad day, and where the regulars understand the same thing about the moderator.

I do think, though, that it is entirely the party of the one footing the bill. And that nobody has a gun to their head, forcing them to participate.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Eniale is persona non grata on 3WA? Since when? I swear I saw her posts very recently and Sara said she liked her being there (Eniale was very active, contributed a lot to discussions, etc., and managed to stay cool in the face of flaming, most notably from Nick Scratch) though she openly despised Dreama.

Whether Eniale is Dreama or not is still open to debate, of course. Eniale promised to post a picture to prove she wasn't, and was going to come to a get-together where there were people who actually knew Dreama, but neither of those things panned out. It would be remarkable foresight on Dreama's part, though, because Eniale seems to have registered way back, a couple months before Dreama left 3WA (and recently returned, btw).

As to Beth's question, I'll concur with a lot of posters here and say a hands-off style of moderation seems to work best when the crowd is mostly composed of reasonably intelligent people. That way the moderator would have more energy to deal with a few trolls who are bound to appear. Chasing after every little barb is pointless.

It might be a good idea to establish a compact where people are requested to refrain from gratuitous name-calling, but even that is a little too close to censorship for my comfort. (This could be a good time to remember I once wrote something on 3WA about Rudeboy's head being up his ass and say I'm sorry, btw.)

The thing that left a bad taste in my mouth about the recent 3WA affair was how the moderators insisted on having the last word, even unlocking threads repeatedly just to throw more insults in. There's a reason why a lot of good publications don't follow letters of criticism from readers with "the editor responds..." It's just not in good taste to leverage your position like that. I was also disappointed when I read Sara didn't give a shit about having a robust political forum. 3WA for me is about politics, books, and movies, and if you take some of that away, alienate smart people and perhaps end up with, for the most part, the "Hee, someone said pee!" and "You rock my world" crowd, does that not reduce the appeal of the board?

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

When the moderator tires of a thread that a poster wants to continue, she can demand the poster write a 500 word essay on a subject of her choice, before she allows the thread to continue.

If the poster complies (and the moderator approves the essay), the thread continues for 24 hours whereby the moderator can demand another 500 word essay from any participants who wish to continue. (that is if the moderator still wants to close down the thread).

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Many years on the internet have convinced me that this kind of chat- space will inevitably descend into incredibly stupid and predictable nudge-nudge wink-wink flirtation unless directed otherwise. If a moderator is fairly consistent in responding to people who say interesting things, and ignoring or discouraging people when they get infantile, then the community tends to follow suit and moderate itself. And even the people who'd otherwise just babble about sex will say interesting things when they realise they're in a place that calls for them to use their brains.

I don't mean to sound like a prude here and god knows I don't mind the occasional goofy babbling about sex. But, man. It gets really old really fast to see thread after thread go off onto that sidetrack and never return.

For the record, I think Sara and Stee deserve huge kudos for building and maintaining a community where so many people feel comfortable and at home. I think that would not have happened if they didn't take a hands-on approach to keeping things pleasant and friendly, even if that meant nipping nastiness in the bud at the cost of some serious debate. It hasn't created the kind of forum I like personally but I respect what they've done with 3WA.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

maybe I read this wrong, but did Beth just say on the front page that TWA only costs forty dollars a month? then how come stee and sara are soliciting all those ten dollar donations and telling everyone to buy their mugs? sounds like their making money, not footing the bills.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Anon posting, eh? So what's new?

3WA probably costs a lot more than $40/month because of excessive bandwith usage, not to mention lost wages because of moderating duties. It's not my kind of forum, but I wouldn't mind if Sara and Stee made a few thousand dollars running that thing (and I don't think they do; online contributions never amount to much). It sounds like a full-time job, especially since they run it so hands-on.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

To be fair on both counts: as of the last time I was the one paying the bills, in late December, ThreeWay Action had unlimited bandwidth, no extra charges. I use the same host, and at least their stated policy is no bandwidth charges. I recently asked again because I'm setting up my new forum on the same host, and I got the same answer. ThreeWay may have a bigger account now, if they were able to talk the host into it, but last I knew (and I asked within the last month or so), the host maxes out at 250 mgs, with no bandwidth charges, for $39.99 a month (or something along those lines).

But my understanding is that ThreeWay keeps using up that 250 mgs (that was the case when I was there, anyway), and so they may be saving up for a dedicated server, which is pretty expensive.

I don't have a problem with a forum moderator getting paid for doing the job, although I think that at that point you probably have a greater responsibility to be nice to your regulars ... the customer always being right, and all that. But I do think the best forums are the ones where the moderators actually like the other people who post there, or at least like the majority of them.

I kind of learned the hard way that it's no fun to moderate a forum where you wouldn't want to participate if you weren't a moderator.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I don't mean to sound like a prude here and god knows I don't mind the occasional goofy babbling about sex. But, man. It gets really old really fast to see thread after thread go off onto that sidetrack and never return.

I hate that too. It does get really old and fast. I am so tired of that kind of stuff. By the way, what are you wearing?

And even the people who'd otherwise just babble about sex will say interesting things when they realise they're in a place that calls for them to use their brains.

But what about the folk that like to have brain sex?

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Thanks for your thoughtful response to my snippy little post, Rudeboy. You are, of course, the epitome of what I'm describing. But somehow I do like you anyway. I'm wearing only a bra and undies as I type that.

The phrase "brain sex" however is offensive and disgusting. Brain sex was what killed my fluffy kitten (it was a horrible accident involving a can of shaving cream and a hardcover copy of Freud's _Civilization and Its Discontents_). I hope Beth locks down this topic and bans you from ever posting again, for using such a term.

Apologies to the rest of the forum for illustrating my own point.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

You know, upon further pondering, I think my deputy idea is dumb, because even when Beth is pissed off, I've never seen her moderate in an unfair or unreasonable way.

In fact, I don't know why she's even asking this question, because Beth moderates forums better than anyone I've ever seen, and other people obviously agree with me given the responses in the "do you guys even want a new forum" topic!

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

You're all banned. And your little fluffy kitten, too.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Okay, Jen is unbanned. Flattery will get you anywhere.

I was just curious, really, to see if there was anything in particular you guys wanted to see change. I think the new board will work out just fine, but I also think that since the users are what make or break a board, it's appropriate to let you have some input into how things are run.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Jen Wade, are you out there? Do you know what Liss is talking about when she says we will likely never agree on most things? Liss, care to expand? I thought I was Jen Wade's "amen" corner -- or was that only on vodkatea, in my "Eileen Dover" personna?

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Not that it is really anyone's business, I have never made one cent off 3WA. Though I would very much like to.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Yeah, Tom, I didn't know were forum nemeses, either. I think maybe we disagreed about something once, but I think I've differed with everyone in this community at least once.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Tom, I was typing too fast and left out a clause. What I meant to say was:

Jen Wade and Tom Dean will probably never agree with hard-core conservatives (see also: Jim Howard) on quite a few things, but they're both intelligent and well-spoken adults and know when to agree to disagree.

See also: how you know it's Monday.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I think there are a few things that make Beth's board great.

1. Beth is smart and funny. Her writing is smart and funny. The people who post on her forum (generally) tend to do so because they dig her writing. I'm not saying we're all the sexiest and most brilliant people on the planet, but we have some sort of basic cohesion even when we disagree. I think that's lacking on a lot of broader boards. (I'm making no commenct about 3WA because I haven't been there in forever, but it seems to me that 3WA is like the forum for the entire journaling community, and I could see where that cohesion would not be there.)

2. The forum topics are usually connected to an entry, and Beth has a knack for asking the right kinds of questions. The fact that she deliberatly asks questions to get us talking about ourselves rather than talking about her life spares her sanity and makes the boards more interesting. It gives us all something to talk about when we are procrastinating from working. Without those questions I think the discussion would become very cyclical. I know most freeform mailing lists I have been on end up revisiting the same subjects every few months. I dunno about 3WA cuz I have not been there in a long time.

More dog stories please.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Thanks for the best laugh I had all day Karen. However, now you've gone and done it. All I can think about is boobs and cooter all dressed in lace sitting in front of a computer somewhere.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

... I'm not saying we're all the sexiest and most brilliant people on the planet...

Well, I'm saying it.

Dog stories: this morning I was playing fetch with the Doc, and I was struck once again by how smart Crash is and how, um, not smart poor old Doc is. Doc loves to fetch, but he never wants to bring back the ball. I mean, he brings it, but then he wants you to chase him. He won't give it to you. We've never encouraged this, ever, but it doesn't matter. As much as he wants to fetch, he'll keep trying to play keep-away even though it means he's just standing there holding the damn ball instead of fetching. And then when you get sick of it and go in the house, he just looks sad and forlorn, and he doesn't understand why you're so mean.

Crash also likes to fetch, but he gets tired of it pretty quickly. But when Doc is playing his keep-away game and making me mad, even if Crash is already tired of chasing the ball, he'll start taking it away from Doc and giving it back to me. And he looks completely irritated when he does it. "Are you stupid? Do you not get the point of this game? You give her the ball, and then she throws it again. You don't give her the ball, and there's no more throwing. See how that works? What kind of dog are you again --- a Labrador Retarded? Jesus."

Crash will keep doing that for a while, but eventually he'll start biting Doc to drive his point home. And Doc still doesn't get it.

Anyway. There's your off-topic dog story. As you were.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Try two balls.

It's possible when you wave the other one in front of Doc he will forget about the importance of the one in his mouth and drop it.

Then you can alternate them.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Since it worked so well for David G., more cooter and boob stories please.

(i sowwy)

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Xeney.com, it's almost like having your own dog.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Mostly, I say scroll way up and read what Lynda wrote, and then add "me too" to it on my behalf.

I think the most important thing is to estabish some guidelines so that everyone understands from the outset what is and isn't acceptable, and then enforce them as consistently as you can. (They can evolve ... as you encounter situations that you didn't think of at the start, or if you realize a particular guideline is too stifling or too lenient ... but they should be clear.)

I also prefer self-regulation as much as possible, but I don't find much of interest in boards that degenerate into trolls and name- calling. I find VodkaTea boring for just that reason. (And I like to know who's who ... as someone else here said, I have no interest in bothering to try to figure out if a post on VT is really from the person who's name is attached to it.)

For the most part, I prefer a moderator with a light touch, who will keep topics on-topic and head off a thread that's about to degenerate into either name-calling or inane banter, but otherwise not interfere much. Set some general principles that you can enforce, and then let people have fun within them.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I think David Grenier made some good observations about the strengths of Xeney's forum, but for me what brought me here was not an interest in her journal (no offense, Beth). What interests me is the forum itself: the people who populate it, the way it tends to stay smart and funny, with provocative questions and restrained moderating.

Just wanted to make the point that it's Beth's genuine skills at running a forum, rather than any cult of personality around her, that's at work here.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

For what it's worth, I thought I'd share how my other favorite message board, the Straight Dope Message Board, handles moderation. (On Beth's front page she mentions that she's going to do something very similar, but I'm going to share anyway, just to be redundant.)

They have a forum called the "BBQ Pit". All flames go there. If you want to flame somebody, you post it in the BBQ pit. For example: You're reading along in a politics thread, and somebody says something that you feel is clearly anti-Semitic, and rather than discussing it in a rational and logical fashion, you want to flame the HOLY SHIT out of this person and point out to the world exactly what a freaking moron he/she is for being anti-Semitic. Instead of posting your response in the politics thread, you go to the BBQ Pit and post a thread with a title like, "UserX, you anti-Semitic son of a whore!" and rant away. And it's perfectly OK.

If, however, you post your flame-filled post, or in fact, use personal insults/attacks at all, in any non-BBQ Pit thread, you get warned by the moderators. And if you keep doing it, you will probably be banned by the moderators.

The net result of this is that the BBQ Pit is a great way for people to vent their issues and flame the crap out of other people when they want, but the rest of the forums are, for the most part, a wealth of interesting and rational discussion.

Anyway, I like the system a lot, and it seems to work out really well for them.

As far as 3WA goes, or any message board/chat site for that matter, there's some saying that I can't remember exactly that says something to the effect of, "You can be the nicest guy in the entire world, but the minute you take a position of authority to other people, you immediately become the world's biggest bastard." As in, no matter what you do, you can't satisfy everyone, and the people you don't satisfy are usually going to be extremely vocal about their dissatisfaction. If somebody weren't pissed off that the Politics thread got closed, then somebody would be pissed off that the Politics thread *didn't* get closed. You can debate until you're blue in the face whether it was or was not right for the thread to be closed, but the fact is that either way, no matter what happens, Sara and Stee are going to take shit from at least a small percentage of the 3WA users, and they're willing to moderate the board anyway, and I think that's pretty cool. Whether you think they're good moderators or not.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

"If somebody weren't pissed off that the Politics thread got closed, then somebody would be pissed off that the Politics thread *didn't* get closed."

Perhaps, but my feeling is this ... no one has to read threads they don't like or aren't interested in. If you leave them open, people who find them interesting can take part and people who don't, or are for some reason offended, don't have to. If you close them down, then people who found them intersting no longer have that option. I found the political threads to consistently be the most interesting. The sex threads got boring fast, and everything else was only sporadically interesting to me. So I didn't disparage people who found those more interesting than I did, and I spent most of my time there in politics and current events. (And I'm speaking in past tense not because I've fully chosen to stop taking part, but my interest and comfort level there has waned considerably since the dust-up.)

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

"no one has to read threads they don't like or aren't interested in"

OK, that's true, but what happens when all the threads start to suck because every single one of them degenerates into flaming and name- calling? I am not talking about 3WA specifically, because to be quite honest, I never read the Politics forum there because it pissed me off too much. So I don't know whether or not all the threads there degenerated into that sort of thing. I do know, from other boards I've been to, that it can and will happen when the moderators don't particularly care whether or not people are insulting each other and calling names.

But speaking generally, this is why I think it's a good idea to tell people to take personal insults and ad hominem attacks to a separate forum. It keeps the rest of the fora clean and makes it possible to actually have debates, rather than just venomous arguments that go nowhere.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

"As far as 3WA goes, or any message board/chat site for that matter, there's some saying that I can't remember exactly that says something to the effect of, "You can be the nicest guy in the entire world, but the minute you take a position of authority to other people, you immediately become the world's biggest bastard." As in, no matter what you do, you can't satisfy everyone, and the people you don't satisfy are usually going to be extremely vocal about their dissatisfaction. If somebody weren't pissed off that the Politics thread got closed, then somebody would be pissed off that the Politics thread *didn't* get closed."

I agree with Jan here. Moderating is a bloody tough job to do. While I may not agree with all of the decisions made, I'm also not having to deal with tons of shit being thrown at me 24/7 for months on end, and thus don't have the same frustration level Sara and Stee have going on right now. So I cut them some slack. They also don't want to discuss some stuff going on right now on the boards because it's uncertain as yet, which is something that most people don't know. For them, now isn't the right time to discuss what's going on.

Anyway, back to the point of this: In general, I'm for the moderator doing what they have to do. If they're being driven insane by bickering in a thread, I don't blame them for shutting it down. They have to deal with this shit more than I do, so whatever they can take. The only thing that bugs me is threads being shut down for purely arbitrary/mod's taste stuff, as I've seen on Hissyfit (i.e. "I don't like that subject, so I'm closing this." No, that's not the same as Sara's shutting down stuff, see the frustration remarks above). In general, if the mod's reasonable for as long as they can stand it, it's all good with me.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Yeah, another forum I know of has "the pit," a single thread where anything goes. It's great -- if somebody insults you, you invite them to meet you over in the pit, where it's "flame on." Heh.

I'm not sure you need to be moving threads to the pit, just the posters with a bone to pick. On the other hand, moving a contentious thread over to an unmoderated section would certainly be better than closing it.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Beth, I liked how you moderated and participated in your previous forum. I particularly like how you jump in with your own thoughts and arguments, instead of hovering around like the babysitter. I'm sure you did a lot of work behind the scenes, but it all seemed to go well. The only topics that I like to see closed are the ones where one or two people have monopolized the discussion with endlessly long postings referencing each other. They may have really good points, but that gets really boring to read.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Can we open up a pit here? A rasslin' pit? Where we rassle, and also set people on fire? That would be cool.

Susan - you nailed it. That's exactly what makes Beth's forums run so well. Her participation. She enjoys running a forum, enjoys participating, and it shows.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

I haven't been reading any boards for a few weeks because of a work crunch, so this is all news to me. Amen to what Lynda said, and I would be very glad to see a good politics board running, especially if it includes Beth and DavidG and Lynda and JenW and the rest of you, conservatives and all. The last time I read 3WA thoroughly, it seemed to me that the politics boards were actually more interesting than they'd been for a while - wider range of threads, less gratuitous flamage - so I'm a bit surprised to hear they've been locked.

Also, it would be good to have some kind of guidelines for thread drift. In alt.society.generation-x and the Ceej board, for instance, threads drift wildly and you can't tell what the discussion is about from the subject line, while 3WA went the other way, too much in my opinion. Sometimes I think thread drift may have been used as an excuse for locking a thread when the real reason was actually something else, and people were scared to continue the discussion under a different title (which would be my preferred solution to extreme drift, slight drift I'd leave alone because someone usually pushes it back on topic eventually). If you don't allow any drift, you get cakemix surveys rather than real conversations.

Too nice for alt.society.generation-x, not nice enough for Squishy, looking forward to the new thing...

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Diana, that's what I like about the software I chose -- unlike UBB, this software allows me to move just part of a thread, so if something goes off topic but is still interesting, I can move the off- topic stuff to its own space. I really like that idea, because I don't like locking threads.

Unfortunately, server space is going to be an issue for us just as it is with ThreeWay, so I may lock some threads if they've become repetitive. I really don't want to do that, though. I'm hoping I can do some archiving or something. Also, I think keeping the general chat areas in rotation, so that threads in those areas are just automatically deleted after a week or so, will help.

As for the "oh moderating is such a hard job so anything moderators do is excusable" idea, I'd just like to call bullshit on that one. I've been moderating a pretty busy forum since July of 1999. With the exception of my time at ThreeWay, it hasn't been what I would call "hard." Due to some limitations with Greenspun, it's occasionally a pain in the ass. Due to a few not-so-nice people, there have been days that weren't that much fun. But overall the experience has been more fun than not, and if that weren't the case, I fail to see how it would have been anyone's fault but my own if I kept doing it anyway.

If you come up with a set of very restrictive rules for your forum, and ten months down the road you're still having hysterics because no one is following your very restrictive rules, and you aren't making any money and you're having to shut down threads because everyone is doing things that make you unhappy, and it's costing you money and taking time away from your job and you aren't having any fun, then fucking quit already. Don't make people feel guilty for taking up so much of your valuable time with their horrible arguments and inability to get along.

I am willing to bet that no currently active forum moderator has had a gun held to his or her head to force them to do the job. This is one of the reasons that I don't post very often on some of the MightyBigTV boards, because a few of the moderators act like the users are a terrible burden instead of the people paying the bills (albeit indirectly). It's one of the reasons why I'm very glad that I left ThreeWay when I did, because I was starting to look at all of you as potential advertising money and general pains in the ass, instead of as people I like and want to hear from.

And this is why I'm going to do everything I can to keep the new forum on a cheap server and accept from the get-go that I'm not going to make any money from this. Moderating a forum because you want to is a joy almost all of the time. Moderating a forum because you think there might be some money at the end of the road, when you really don't like a lot of your users and you aren't having any fun, sucks ass. If some forum moderators haven't figured that basic concept out, I don't see any reason for all of you to waste your pity on them.

Unless, of course, you really ARE holding a gun to their head.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Man. That was some bad grammar in that there post. I didn't know I had it in me.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

you suck.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Is that no way or three way?

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

I'm thinking Mr. No Way is either a little bit schizophrenic, or else we have more than one Mr. or Ms. No Way.

It will be nice to have the new board, eh?

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

250 MB of server space is... a LOT of space.

Do you know how it gets filled up so darned fast? I mean, we're talking about saving text here, which doesn't take up that much room. I know 3WA has a high volume but I didn't think it had THAT high a volume.

Or is it saving in some different kind of format or bloating stuff somehow?

Of course, I am asking this question to the woman who believes in battery faries.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Perhaps UBB's HTML formatting is bulky: each page of posts takes up about 100K.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

I don't know, Dave. Jeremy was always pretty mystified by the amount of space ThreeWay took up. One thing is that the threads are saved as HTML; unlike some other boards, UBB doesn't generate them each time someone requests one. That's why you can still access specific threads even if the cgi scripts aren't working. I'm not sure, but I think the software I'm using dynamically generates threads. (Is that the right way to say that? My brain battery fairies are running low today.) That means more server load, but less space. Since the host only charges for space, I guess that's a good thing.

I plan to store all the graphics here on xeney.com to save as much space as possible for the board itself.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Damn. Is that true, Aziz? I didn't realize that. Well, if you ever view source you'll see that UBB generates some really ugly HTML. Maybe that's the problem.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

I don't have DSL, so I have time to notice. I just tried the first page of the referrers logs thread over there to make sure, and sure enough, it's 95K -- and there are no images other than little icons, and in any case, I think those show separate percentages when loading.

I've had to dig through 3WA source code before (to see why an image was broken, for example), and UBB does spit out enough HTML to flood a town square.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

I like the pit idea where a couple of combatants can get it on. However, I prefer melted chocolate and butterscotch pudding to charcoal and lighter fluid.

On the other hand, kickin' all of your pansy liberal asses from time to time with no holds barred would be kind of nice. Ya buncha flamers.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Okay, it looks like the forum I've chosen will take up less space. Cool. I just went to a sample forum and looked at a thread that had about 35 replies; it was 24K. That's not great, but it's better. Edited because I'm dumb.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Just out of curiousity, what software will you be using?

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

I'm not telling until it launches. ;-) I already paid for it and I don't want any pre-launch bitching, which is likely because of one particularly well-known example of someone using this same software really, really badly. I don't want you all to run away screaming before you see how *I* implement it.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Beth, you made a winky thing. Up there. Little face. Winking. I'm not sure I want to be a part of your fancy forum any more.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

"As for the "oh moderating is such a hard job so anything moderators do is excusable" idea, I'd just like to call bullshit on that one."

Putting up with trolls as often as 3WA has been having them in the last month does seem like a hard job to me. But then again, other boards I've been on have had even worse troll problems than 3WA ever had, to the point where the mods were tracking these guys down and reporting them, etc.

And normally I wouldn't have agreed at all with some stuff going on there regarding shutdowns, but heck, some people were starting to piss ME off and I started snapping at people to cool it. And since I never ever reveal my anger at people whatsoever on pain of death, this was shocking to me that I of all people would get so irritated that I'd reveal it in public. If I could end up snappy and bitchy like that, it's probably a lot worse for them putting up with that crap for months straight.

I'll shut my trap now, I think I've said enough flamebait already.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Again, if it's so bad that it makes you miserable, don't do it. I guess that's just the only answer I have to anything involving an online forum, whether it's moderating or participating. Go outside. Get some fresh air. Read a book. Come back when you feel better, you know?

Oh, wait. I just read the post above yours, and I'm sorry to tell you that as a result of bad behavior by SOME Jennifers I could mention, all Jens, Jennies, and Jennifers are henceforth banned, prohibited, and banished. Some Jens just have to spoil it for the rest of you.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

God! Yeah! You can't let those Jennifers just run buck wild like that, Beth. Good call.

Anyway. Jennifer elgonquin, that is an excellent point. But the only thing is is that when a moderator signs on, he or she has got to know that it's going to suck, at times, and be difficult, and horrible, and tear-your-hair-out frustrating.

In most cases, they'll be familiar with forums, have dealt with trolls as a poster, and have seen to what lengths moderators have gone to deal with them mucking up their board. They'll know what they're in for, when they start to moderate. They should expect it to be hard, and frustrating.

That's not to take away from what they do deal with - all that awful nonsense is why I briefly considered running a board, and then ran away screaming. But a new moderator knows what it's going to be like, and should know that they need to handle it or get out of the biz, and please don't take it out on the posters, who, generally, are only doing that thing the board is there for.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Hi Beth

I always liked the way you ran the forum before. You often asked questions that started good discussions, and you didn't have a lot of rules. I don't mind if the moderator acts human (ie, gets mad at people) sometimes - it's just part of the discusssion. I seem to recall that you used moderator privileges to scribble some posts and so on, but you didn't over do it.

I used to be on 3WA but eventually left for two reasons: too much control by the hosts, and too many people. I felt the hosts ended discussions & did that kind of stuff too much, just because they as individuals didn't like certain things.

And because people were coming from various places, it seemed like there were new people all the time. That's not bad in itself but the result seemed to be that people came in, made a few posts, and never came back. What I want from a forum like this is discussion, not just polls. That is, someone asks a question and people answer it and then everybody reads each other's posts and they ask each other why they think that and maybe agree or disagree with each other. You feel like it's a two way thing, not just people coming by once to tell about their first orgasm or something.

The other reason I didn't warm up to 3WA was that I always liked how Beth would ask a question connected with that day's entry, and it would go on from there. 3WA wasn't connected that way to any of the journals and this made it less interesting somehow.

Another online community I belong to has designated places where peopel go to blow off steam, but I don't know if this forum needs that. I don't mind watching people argue, anyway.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

You know, I'm not surprised to hear that!

I'd change my name if I only thought people would call me by the new one.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Well, just because you asked...

In the past couple of years, I've been part of a number of journal-related mailing lists and forums. Of them, Diary-L is the only one I haven't left in disgust. Granting that part of this is because Diary-L is supposed to be a train wreck, I suspect another large factor is that its owner leaves it the heck alone. I like that.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Then again, on further reflection, it occurs to me that I haven't actually participated in Diary-L for ages, and that I delete most of its digests unread, so perhaps this isn't the best of examples to choose. Hmm. Never mind, then...

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Re: the amount of disk space that a bulletin board uses

I have no idea how UBB works, but if (like Greenspun's system) it uses a relational database to store comments, then database-related overhead will suck up a lot of disk space. For example thi s PostgreSQL FAQ warns that "A PostgreSQL database may need six-and-a-half times the disk space required to store the data in a flat file.... Indexes do not require as much overhead, but do contain the data that is being indexed, so they can be large also."

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Nope, I'm pretty sure UBB does not use a relational database -- one of the reasons Jeremy didn't want me to use UBB this time is that he was really annoyed by the fact that the way it stores and indexes files is very primitive and, according to him, stupid and needlessly bloated. I do not know a thing about databases, but I do know that the base installation of UBB isn't that big; it's the files that take up so much space.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Well, I happen to be a database expert. ;-) A properly set up database for a bulletin board would require minimum overhead. The database size should only be about 10% more than the size of the posts themselves.

I'm shocked to hear UBB uses HTML files to store the posts. Talk about dumb! I can't believe UBB is so popular, given that info. No wonder you folks on 3WA were having problems with corruption, that's just asking for trouble. And of course it could use 10x the disk space.

I'd be happy to write you some custom forum software, by the way. ;-)

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

One other thought I just had is that it might be better to have a limited number of forum topics. It seems like the more you branch out and try to specialize, the more people feel like they can only talk about one certain thing. Maybe just having five or six main forum topics would be nice.

Just a thought.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

I agree with Jan on the not-too-many-topics-at-once-thing.

My personal request for the forum is for you to have not too many graphics, please, and nothing too noticable. I work in an open workspace with no walls around our "cubicle" areas. Everyone can see what's on my monitor all the time. No one really cares, but I always feel a bit worried when I pull up something vivid. The Greenspun forum just looks like plain old text and that's great. I hate to use 3WA as a negative example, especially since I actually like the design, but I wince every time I pull up the front page for 3WA because it's so obviously something non-work-related. And then when I go to the discussion topic pages I have to scroll down a bit past the graphics at the top.

I know you'll want a lovely design, Beth -- who wouldn't? -- but I'd be so pleased if it were plain rather than fancy. And I bet I'm not the only one who's browsing from the office and worrying about what people might see.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Yes. ThreeWayAction was an adorable idea and I still can't believe they got that domain name, and the graphics are very nice, but I really can't look at it at work. I'm not supposed to be doing a bunch of personal surfing anyway, so it's not like I can just say, "Hey guys, I know it looks like I'm constantly surfing porn, but really it's just this discussion board I go to!"

Especially when the Sex forum is right at the top, and underneath everyone's name it says Slut or Swinger or Virgin or whatever.

This is not dissing the design! I love the design. It's just not very work-friendly, is all.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Hmm. Okay. So you guys want no big logo on the forum itself, huh? I think I can do that. I was going to put in a logo, but I'll see how it looks with or without one. I'm really not concerned about branding or any of that jazz, so I'll try it both ways.

I'm probably going to make the front page of xeney.net a starting zone for the journal, the forum, and a webloggy thing. The reason it needs to be there is so I can use server includes to put the most recent forum posts on the front page (has to be the same domain to do that). I'll link to journal entries and what not from there, so xeney.net will be the new start page, I guess. I'll probably have a logo of some kind, but I'll make it low key, and you can bookmark the front page of the forum if you're really concerned about not having graphics displayed.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Am I still banned? Just wondering.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

I guess that depends. If you want to come here and talk about something other than how much I suck, you're welcome to do so. You can talk about how much I suck, too, but you have to talk about something else first.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

Sounds reasonable to me. Thanks Beth.

-- Anonymous, May 18, 2001

This thread has 80 posts and takes up less than 66K of space. That means with 250M of space you should be able to store 3800 similarly sized threads. It's completely ridiculous to run out of space with 250M available. If 3WA or anyone else is running out of space with 250M they should be looking at new forum software, not a bigger hosting package.

So have you considered my offer to write you custom forum software yet? Just think of how cool it could be. Any feature you can think of could be implemented. I'm itching to develop some forum software with somebody. (Anyone else?)

I mean, you're now half way through your second quarter and still no forum.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

Just tell me where to send the refund check, Dave, any time this stops being fun for you.

Jeremy installed the forum last weekend, actually. I've just been too busy to deal with the nine million little installation things that need to be done before it goes live. The new forum is not, you will be shocked to learn, the number one priority in my life.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

Beth: You took that last line completely out of context. It was given as an impetus towards your accepting my offer, nothing more. I wasn't complaining about the delay at all. I like greenspun just fine.

But since you have raised the issue of this being fun for me...

Why do you have to be so mean and unfair towards me? I happen to enjoy this forum. It has interesting topics and, more importantly, people with interesting points of view.

What is not fun, however, is the way people are allowed to insult me with impunity and if I dare to respond I'm the one who gets a smackdown. That really sucks, but it is just the tip of the iceberg.

In this thread, I get taken to task for using the word moron even though it wasn't directed at anybody. Earlier on in the same thread Jen used the word moronic with no comment. You yourself said, "then I think they're idiots and they get no sympathy for me," in the Sen. Jeffords thread. Why the disparity?

And which thread was it where we had the "drop it and move on" debate? It's a typical example of how I get singled out for taking a thread off topic, even if the original topic was dead. Practically nobody else does. And then a few posts later you yourself took the thread way off topic!

On and on it goes.

What is the point of all this? If you're trying to get the message across that you don't like me, your point is taken. Long ago! It should also be amply clear by now that I don't care.

If your goal is a more noble one, like behavior modification, I can tell you there are far more effective methods of modifying my behavior. Chief among them would be an email stating what aspect of my behavior you find objectionable and what you want me to do about it. I'm always amenable to such requests.

I like this forum. Overall it must still be fun or I wouldn't be here. But your continued maltreatment definitely diminishes that fun. And what's more, it's counterproductive. It only serves to tend to bring out the worst in me.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

Well, he *did* talk about other stuff too . . .

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

Dave, if we all chipped in and bought you another sandbox, would you stay in it?

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

You'll all be delighted to know that the new forum has an "ignore" feature.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

Beth, I'm in the 'I like the way you've always done it' camp regarding you and moderating. I expect you to express your opinions strongly ... or else I wouldn't want to read your stuff.

ThreeWayAction doesn't bother me when the moderators choose to shut down threads or whatever. I tend it ignore stuff that doesn't suit me.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

Beth, I like the way you moderate the forum and don't think you should change your style. Ditto what's said above about reading & posting because both your entries and the ensuing discussions are smart and interesting. I do also agree with those who prefer a plainer look, for work-time perusing.

Being somewhat of a forum "virgin" though - this is the only one I read/participate in - I have a burning question: (my hotmail address notwithstanding) Am I a troll?

That's not a rhetorical question. I can tell that some of you know each other off-line, and I've always felt like a bit of a gate-crasher. Are there rules about this? Do I (did I) have to be invited??

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

No, you're definitely not a troll. This forum is absolutely not invitation-only. A few people know each other offline, but those are scattered relationships. There's no cohesive group of real-life acquaintances here. I've met a few of the people on the board -- maybe a dozen, and very few of the regulars. Most of those I've only met one time, though.

So you are absolutely welcome, you are not a troll, and please don't feel like you aren't welcome. Trolling often has little to do with how long you've been here; there are trolls who have been around since the beginning of time, and who will probably still be here when the server dies and we all dissolve into the aether.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

An ignore feature? How cool. The forum I was starting to build for my site (another in a long list of unfinished projects) had a self- moderating feature sort of like slashdot but on a scale of 1-100 rather than 1-5, and where anyone can mark a post as good or bad.

An ignore feature is much, much simpler (though you do still get the wierd thing of reading a reply to a post without having read the initial post, but I guess there is nothing to be done about that). Leave it to me to totally overengineer something.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

Yep, that was a major draw. Another self-moderating feature I like is that I can set some forums to automatically expire messages after a certain point, which will save a lot of server space. For instance, instead of having "padding" threads that take up tons of space, we'll have a general chitchat area, where messages will be automatically deleted after a week or so.

I'm not 100 percent sure about this yet, but I think I'm going to make the default option that threads expire after 120 days unless I choose to archive them. That will really save our server space, but I know there are always threads you want to keep.

We're also not going to have multiple user levels. I know everyone loves those, but they lead to posting for the sake of posting, and I'd rather keep the board trimmed down and therefore CHEAP. We'll have three levels, one for new users, one for old-timers, and one secret one that I'll tell you about later after I figure out if it's really going to work.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

I don't love the user levels. I'm not crazy about the "snob factor" they create, and I'm driven crazy by the way they interfere with the usual rule, "If you don't have anything to say . . ."

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

I tend to agree, Alleline. The new forum clearly displays the number of posts each user has made, anyway, if you really want to know how long people have been around.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

there are trolls who have been around since the beginning of time, and who will probably still be here when the server dies and we all dissolve into the aether.

Thanks for making me look up another word. And, for the other ignoramous here, aether is the "poetic personification of the clear upper air breathed by the Olympians". (see: ether)

I'm not sure that I like the ignore feature. I can see myself placing you all on my ignore list at one time or another. If that happens, what am I supposed to read all day long?

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

I don't like the user levels either -and I love the idea of the autodelete function for threads after 120 days. Love it! Because I have never said anything worth keeping more than 120 days in my life.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

Rudeboy: thanks for looking up the word for me, since I wasn't sure I had the right one. And even if you ignore the rest of us, I don't think you can ignore yourself, and you're plenty entertaining all by your lonesome.

The admin, tragically, cannot use the ignore feature. Or should not, anyway.

One of my concerns about using a php-based forum is that search engines don't pick them up as easily. But given the incredibly annoying questions I get from people who have googled my site or this forum, I've decided that's not a bad thing. (Jesus. I write an entry about trading sex for a breadmaker, which I never even got, by the way, and so people think I know where they can buy bread mixes for the Panasonic breadmaker. Go. Away.)

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

At least they're not offering you sex.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

I'm assuming that the search problem you are referring to is related to the fact that variables are passed through the quesrystring.

For example, a URL of a thread or message might look like this: http://www.xeney.com/forum.php?msg=217

That part after the question mark says that there is a variable named "msg" with the value "217". The forum.php page would then take this variable and use it in some way, probably to pull message #217 out of a database.

The question mark is what tells the server "ok, we're ending the part where we request a file, everything after this is variables to be sent to that file."

Many search engines ignore question marks, and anything after them. Therefore database driven websites rarely get indexed properly by certain search services. All that would get indexed would be the default text of forum.php.

Google, however, is not one of those. Google will index anything. Even your mom.

So, long story short, if the problem you mention is the one I just described, Google will still index all of the forum postings.

(Sorry for the long explanation, I just hate to use technical jargon without explaining it. I feel it makes one sound like an asshole)

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

Sigh. I was afraid of that. I really hate Google. I don't use my last name anywhere on this site, but search my full name on Google, and what do you get? Bad Hair Days.

By the way, if any of you do follow that link of Dave's and you get a message telling you to "contact the server administrator, webmaster@xeney.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error," please don't. Webmaster@xeney.com is having a very crabby day AND she's getting another sinus infection.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

Whoa. I'm wrong. I'm no longer Googled under my real name! That makes me happy.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

Beth,

If you want you can always set your site not to be searched at all with a robots.txt file. Email me if you want to discuss it, I'm spending far too much time posting here today.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

Another geeky note: If you're going to build your forum software on top of PHP, whoever writes the software should read this essay on how security holes can sneak into PGP scripts.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001

Beth wrote:
You'll all be delighted to know that the new forum has an "ignore" feature.

I tend not to use ignore features as a matter of principle.

But do you really think I could be so blessed as to have the likes of "Curtis" ignore me? That would be boss.

I'm sorry to hear you're getting another sinus infection, Beth. Some people claim, and I'm not sure if I believe them, mind you, but some people do claim that sometimes God uses sinus infections to punish forum moderators for being needlessly mean.

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001