Forum Moderation Another Victim of Lag?

Isn't it time we grew up and took responsibility for our own forum? Then we'd only have ourselves to blame instead of Richard, and his limited time could then be spent on what he does the best instead of refereeing a dysfunctional mob of addicted card players ;)

Richard would probably love to lose this forum's load from his server and his busy day. In our email correspondence about my "Let's Talk 500" demonstration forum he said:

I'm happy to switch the current forums over (but) I guess this whole thing would be a lot more attractive to me if I didn't have to do any work... This would help my bandwidth costs too.

Free moderated forums are easy to set up and administer, whether they are hosted by Google/Yahoo/MSN Groups or Forumer. As Jon pointed out, it wouldn't take much work to incorporate an independent forum into this site and they could be made to look as one.

• Let's Talk 500 - a demonstration of an independent feature rich moderated forum for players of 500
• Expired JG500 Forum Thread on Let's Talk 500
• Play 500 Google Group - a demonstration of a basic independent moderated forum setup in ten minutes
  
• My email correspondence with Richard about an independent forum for JG500

The JG500 Administration has always seemed disinterested in its own forum, and the forum's culture of abuse is, in part, a product of their apparent lack of understanding of how online communities function and how much work they require. We need an independent feature-rich forum governed and moderated by members elected by the membership. Sound familiar?

Sharon wrote:

Hi everyone,

I wanted to publicly state that my role as one of the site forum moderators is over.

I was initially approached by Anders in early April and agreed to be involved in both the set up of the Forum Code of Conduct and in moderating the site. My reasons for doing so were solid and I felt it was an extremely necessary step to move the site forward into the future.

It was not an easy process or task and the original Moderation Team (which included Grumma and another member as well) all spent many hours of our own time on a completely voluntary basis in meeting with the rest of the team to talk over our views, issues, processes etc, as well as drafting, reviewing and finalising do?@!ents and emails.

Forum moderation was launched in early May.

Since that time I have become increasingly disillusioned and incredibly disappointed with the level of support offered to us by the Administrators of this site.

Our moderation team has met and made specific recommendations to Richard via email about steps he needs to do in order to act on our decisions - emails to be sent to members who breach the code and offending posts to be removed. Despite the lapse of a significant period of time, Richard has not acted on our suggestions.

I have had email correspondence with Richard today. His responses to my questions, comments and suggestions were entirely unsatisfactory to me. I am extremely frustrated by Richard's lack of action and support which he purports to have for the moderation process.

As a consequence I am unable to continue my personal involvement in moderating the site and seriously question the value in having moderators at all given the current logistical arrangements.
The effectiveness and capacity to act of the moderation team is significantly compromised by the set up as it is now.

It is very unfortunate as my aim was certainly always about improving the site for everyone.

I wish to pay tribute to the energy, drive and level-headedness of Anders who is an incredibly mature and impressive young man. Grumma and our other original team member spent many hours on do?@!ents and processes and their work was important and highly valued. Brillo has been a clear thinking, sensible and essential part of our moderation team.

A big sigh of relief and warm regards from,

Sharon
(Who is now looking forward to spending her 500 time playing cards rather than moderating!)

BL Shaz but WD for trying.