I looked for the info, but couldnt find anything..
I'm not trying to whip up, or cause any hysteria, the talk of zombies causes enough of that..
am I wrong or does a moderator moderate or opinionate??
I enjoy this site because of the exchange of "information",good natured ribbing, and opinions..
a link to a post/s that covered this "in great detail" would have/been helpful
just my 12.5 cents worth
thanks, d.
Swbradley posted a very good link on the last page (thanks!) and here are a couple more.
I know that you aren't trying to rile the members up intentionally, but that's what threads like this inevitably do. It is a topic pertinent to the hobby, so that's why we don't delete them.
Here are some other threads:
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/deuce/27756-latest-addition-family.html
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/deuce/15863-guard-m35a2s-sent-drmo.html
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/deuce/32569-government-sale-off-how-many-more-left.html
Now, so far as the
"am I wrong or does a moderator moderate or opinionate??" comment, I'll tell you.
We are here to keep the place running smoothly. We want more people to show up and enjoy the hobby with us. I run the Ga. Rally-you think I want the same 5 guys to show up every year? Heck no, I want everyone to come. If there was a way for every single member of the entire site to show up and us have a 4K strong weeklong green iron party, I'd be happy as a clam.
In that task, we try to keep off topic stuff off the site. We try to steer discussions that are derailing back onto track. We help members find information (in addition to the links I just posted for you, I get a ton of pm's from people asking them to find something). We help members who aren't as computer literate as others get the most out of the site (until yesterday, my g/f had no idea you could be alerted via your personal email that you had a private message on the site). We do alot.
We're also responsible for the content of the site. We have to keep this giant reference library usable. If the content becomes so disorganized that no one can find anything, this has gone from a reference source of material to a giant chatbox. To do this, to maintain the integrity of the data management, we need people find the existing data (we'll call it a thread) and either get their data there or add to that thread as opposed to starting a new one.
Consider this:
When a person comes onto the forum and wants to learn about something and they do a search (let's say for insurance), they find dozens of threads. All covering the same thing.
And that person looks at all those results and says "Wow, I don't have the time to read all that" (or they are just impatient) so they add to the problem by posting a new thread which just adds to the problem.
Eventually, we will have ruined this fantastic library of information that's been amassed because the repetition in search words will make it impossible to find anything!
Here's a good example:
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/406597-post15.html
But you get another problem with heavy repetition of the same 10-20 questions.
The guys who have been in the hobby for years, the real experts, not just the guys who have had a truck for a year or two get tired of reading those same questions over and over again. Because they've answered them dozens of times.
So you basically begin to "dumb down" your answers and, what's worse, is that instead of having one or two threads that are in depth, intelligent discussions with a lot of answers, you get dozens of threads with just the answer you want and little else. Again, because the experts are basically staying out because they've covered that ground a million times before.
Lastly, if you think I was opinionating as opposed to moderating, I could have done some moderation and just merged your thread with one of the existing ones. I didn't do that because I thought that would be rude.