A Members’ Forum?

Lost of notes taken 🙂

Our first (of probably many) forum facelifts is scheduled for Wednesday next week. This one will be a design based update rather than functionality, but I think you are going to like it.

As another long term user of this place stretching back to the Gofar days, I’m up for this. Around 15-20yrs ago I used to be a regular poster, but nowadays I’m one of those who’s actually intimidated by the ‘big hitters’ on the regular forum and I often shy away from posting in case I get a virtual flaying. Not an easy admission from a big hairy Scotsman in his early 50’s.

I like talking about push bikes, any sort of pushbikes, and bike routes and how to fix bikes. That’s what brings me back to this place, oh alright, I do get a dirty thrill out of people posting about neighbour disputes. Mostly though, I like bikes!

Regarding those “intimidating” foreskinum members on the main forums, has anyone found a killfile that works in the latest version? I’m pretty good at ignoring posts, but there are a couple who’s work I would love to be able to ignore by not seeing it at all!

Beagleboy +1 . I’m not really here for the bunfights, well there is a bit of joy in them. More it’s light relief from work to drop in, chat about something bike related and then back to work again.

has anyone found a killfile that works in the latest version?

I’ve been haranguing Mark for years to implement a bozo filter. He was on board last we discussed it but there’s always something else that needs doing first.

For the uninitiated, this means that moderators could flag a problematic user so that their posts are only visible to themselves. So they can talk shit to their heart’s content and no-one else would ever see it. It’d be invaluable for dealing with the persistently-returning permabanned.

I know we aren’t allowed to slag off other members on here, but are these pop-up covid sceptics actually all the same person or two then? I’ve seen some distinct word choice / stylistic similarities now and then but I’m not claiming to be a forensic forumite sufficiently to actually call it.

Re the private area…do we get free drinks and peanuts like in the airport club lounge?

I asked if members could get have the option of an email notification when stuff gets put on classifieds, and can see them before general release. A great way to encourage membership I thought.

do we get free drinks and peanuts like in the airport club lounge?

You’ve convinced me….

I like it. But does it need a menu option up top? Or have I missed a nav feature?

Edit, found some navigation links.

Stuff the peanuts and drink, can we have biscuits when something contentious pops up on the main forum?

I’d happily increase my subs for decent biscuits.

some members are intimidated by the main forum and by some of the regulars so they are put off from contributing.

That’s sad. But by creating a sub forum, those members come here, and then eventually get intimidated by other members who have graduated into big hitters on this forum, and the circle begins again?

Sounds very f-ing divisive to me.

Why not just kill off people you don’t like in the main forum and be done with it? ….[edited]

This one will be a design based update rather than functionality, but I think you are going to like it.

Judging by some of the latest articles and bikes for staff, it’s going to be purple, isn’t it? Say it’s purple…

It’s not purple 🙂

I like it. But does it need a menu option up top? Or have I missed a nav feature?

A better and more usable nav is coming next week.

It’d be invaluable for dealing with the persistently-returning permabanned.

How do I miss these people? I always figure I spend quite a bit of time on here, but then I seem to miss such things. I’m not asking for names, but are there specific topics/threads that such people tend to post on?

Why not just kill off people you don’t like in the main forum and be done with it?

If I’d done that as a moderator there’d be no ****er left we’d have been accused of bias.

How do I miss these people?

Highly efficient moderators, generally. Well, there used to be. (-:

Honestly, the reason people earn life bans is because they are wanksocks. And the problem with wanksocks is they cannot stop being wanksocks. So when a new user appears who has never posted before pops up and is immediately a wanksock, they’re probably a returning banned (exponentially so if their first post is “I’m new here and…”). They think they’re clever and the mod team is stupid but they light up like a Christmas tree. After a while, you learn people’s handwriting. So they get banned. Again.

They’d probably fly under the radar – at least for a while – if they simply just stopped being wanksocks. But as members I’ll let you into a dirty little secret: generally that’s all we ever really wanted in the first place.

There are exceptions. There is a small subset of users whom were such an entire hosiery department full of spooge over a sustained period both on the forum and directly over email and other media that they will never, ever be welcome back here; and there are a couple for whom if that policy was ever rescinded it would be sufficient to drive me to close my account (so if you ever want rid of me…) but on the whole STW just wants people to play nice.

Do I have to wear trousers in this forum seeing as it’s private. Will happy endings be available?

Not that sort of private club?

There are exceptions. There is a small subset of users whom were such an entire hosiery department full of spooge over a sustained period both on the forum and directly over email and other media that they will never, ever be welcome back here; and there are a couple for whom if that policy was ever rescinded it would be sufficient to drive me to close my account (so if you ever want rid of me…) but on the whole STW just wants people to play nice.

He used to send abusive emails to me too, I forwarded them to the relevant authorities then blocked him, quite tenacious though & with multiple email accounts he kept on until I guess he found another target or ran out of accounts.

Those were not happy days

RD that sounds awful, I guess nut jobs get everywhere.

I’m not on the happy side of the trail about this.

The great thing about ST is the diversity of views.

If you want to interact with us as paying members then fine, please do it by email.

I’m best not saying any more through fear of being chased with pitchforks and lighted torches

How do I miss these people?

It’s not just you. Thanks to the mods, I don’t think we get to see half the crap that does go on.

I’m on the side of the people who think this (a separate members forum) is a bad idea.

Members will bitch about non members (already started above) , non members will bitch about members. Diversity will reduce, forum content will get spread more thinly.

I think the only way it might work is by heavy moderation keeping stuff in here on the subject of discussion about membership, the mag etc. But then if all that content comes here, it will not be on the main forum and current non members won’t know what they’re missing out on.

Anyway, that’s my view…

Why not just kill off people you don’t like in the main forum and be done with it?

I see a flaw in your public executions request, they would have to be pay per view for maximum revenue. Do we start with the free whiners?

He used to send abusive emails to me too

Assuming we’re talking about the same person – and let’s be honest, it’s fairly likely – then he was a positive charmer on the forum compared to the stuff he sent us in private.

You’ve got me to thank for finally getting shut of that one, incidentally. After we’d deleted yet another of his incarnations he sent in one of his poison pen emails going “found me at last, have you?” (we’d spotted him about two days after he created his new account, see above), calling us things that would make the swear filter melt and gloating about how he can just create another account and he’d see us again soon. So I spam-killed the account instead. Every post he’d ever made over a period of months, deleted in one click. That was the last we heard from him, aside from a concession we once made later to allow him to pay last respects to a forumite who’d passed.

OK so my previous suggestion was slightly beer fuelled. Why not limit free members to a certain number of posts per month, say? With the incentive that they become a paying member if they want to continue posting guff?

I just find the idea of a separate forum all a bit nobby. Less of a biking community, more of a golf club.

OK so my previous suggestion was slightly beer fuelled. Why not limit free members to a certain number of posts per month, say? With the incentive that they become a paying member if they want to continue posting guff?

Thats counter productive though why would you actively limit usage on your site? The drop of plus the tip you from ad impression would likely not be worth it. People would just go else where.

With the incentive that they become a paying member if they want to continue posting guff?

Love it. Would wreak havoc with some of the lastworditis that some of them enjoy.

Not sure how useful this subforum will be, be interesting if it gets lively or is just some ante-chamber where you ask where your copy of the mag has got to.

Members will bitch about non members

I disagree; there’s no moaning I can see about people choosing to be non-members (maybe a bit of ribbing), just those that want all the same entitlement without contributing to upkeep.

If you mean on this thread – it’s not non-members, it’s the type of non-member that keeps joining under different names to troll and sealion (particularly CV19 and Brexit) threads, and then disappear again.

I just find the idea of a separate forum all a bit nobby.

A few people have said similar but it’s self-evidently not the case, just look at the index. There’s two threads discussing the fact that this sub-forum even exists, three discussing member-specific details like delivery information which would be irrelevant to free members, and the rest is the usual irreverent nonsense unless you’re expecting “Testing, 1, 2, 3” to become the next STW Classic Thread alongside Sudocrem cat.

And besides which, it already IS a tiered system and has been for decades. Non-paying members don’t get the magazine. Even if it does turn into a perk (and gods only know why it would), how is that any different from all the other perks you’re already getting with your subscription?

CHANGE IS BAD WE FEAR CHANGE THE SKY IS FALLING! Don’t like it, don’t use it and if everyone agrees then it won’t matter anyway because it’ll get killed off through disuse.

Point of note on terminology, incidentally: “non-members” would be people without an account and therefore cannot post. The preferred term is free or full members as per the titles next to your name.

@cougar in your previous experience as a mod are full members typically more accountable than free members? Is there less arguing for the sake of arguing, or is it the same regardless of free or full?

Point of note on terminology, incidentally: “non-members” would be people without an account and therefore cannot post. The preferred term is free or full members as per the titles next to your name.

I understand the point you’re making, but This forum has been titled ‘private:members forum’, which goes against the full member /free member terminology.

Also I think titling it as private gives it an air of snobbery, an air of secrecy, an air of divisiveness etc.

If the new forum is just for full members to discuss some of the aspects of being a full member, just make it read only for everyone , and only allow paying members to contribute. That might work better?

in your previous experience as a mod are full members typically more accountable than free members? Is there less arguing for the sake of arguing, or is it the same regardless of free or full?

Can’t say as I particularly noticed a trend in user behaviour either way to be honest. But I’m not very good at paying much attention to usernames unless they’re sufficient thrushes to make it onto my ‘Problem Children’ OneNote page.

One thing I can confirm is it made absolutely no difference to moderation decisions, everyone got dealt with equally whether they were lifetime subscribers, free members or freeloaders. Paying was never considered a factor. In rare cases people have had their subscriptions refunded as part of their ejection, it’s not something that can be hidden behind.

The moderators don’t see any of the subs money as volunteers, obviously, and we were allowed to operate pretty autonomously. We were trusted to make sensible decisions and STW generally backed us up unless we truly dropped a bollock, which was rare but happened (usually me running my virtual mouth off a bit too far); if we couldn’t be trusted then we were the wrong people for the gig. Mostly we self-policed as a team and would discuss disagreements when one felt the other had made the wrong call. It’s difficult sometimes when say it’s an incident in the middle of of a long argument and you need 5 / 20 / 1000 pages of context.

There were no mandates from above for us to behave in a certain way, the one and only rule I was given was not to openly slag off the site. Ie, I was never told that I had to defend the forum, the site, or the owners’ decisions, when I did that it was of my own volition because I have a low tolerance for bellends (-:

There was a lot of misapprehension from the userbase about a lot of things when I started, STW was a black box operation because they’d already got sick of users sticking in the boot every time they did anything and had essentially given up trying to communicate. One of the things I set out to do was try and bridge that gap and add a bit of transparency. How successful I was, you guys are a better gauge than I, but I can hand on heart say that I tried.

When I was offered the gig I was recommended very strongly to remain anonymous because of situations like Mr Dog describes above; historically if you were to out yourself as a moderator you were into “bummer of a birthmark, Hal” territory. I gave it some thought and said that I’d only agree to do it if I wasn’t anonymous, I couldn’t do a fraction of what I planned to attempt otherwise. I figured so long as I didn’t openly reveal my real name (which is unusual and not all that well hidden if you know how to use the Internet) to avoid cyberstalking and either ignored or immediately shut down any email shitagrams with “I’m not talking to you, please don’t email me again” then I was probably thick-skinned enough to get away with it. As it happened it was a pretty rare occurrence, the biggest issue it caused was probably hampering debate as a user. “I can’t argue with you, you’ll ban me” and other such flights of fantasy. If I were to do it over I’d probably ask for disparate User and Moderator accounts.

And for the avoidance of doubt on this post: I’m not saying it was all on me, far from it, we were a team and we worked well together. But I can’t speak on behalf of anyone else, only my own Memoires Du Moderateur.

I understand the point you’re making, but This forum has been titled ‘private:members forum’, which goes against the full member /free member terminology.

Fair comment. But that’s Beta for you, that’s what testing is for. I’m assuming Mark is still reading this so it’ll be taken on board.

Interesting reading “Confessions of a Moderator” up there.

I think all the mods have done a great job making this forum the fabulous place that it is.

A mate is a Moderator on another 8000 strong cycle group so I regularly hear the nonsense he has to put up with. I don’t have time to take him up on his kind offer to join him in the role but he’ll sometimes bounce issues off me and it’s a real eye opener.

About time..Do we get a Prefect badge too?

For the people thinking this is a bad idea, it isn’t really ‘that’ exclusive to be a fight club type sub section. Because if this, it will still need to be relatively heavy with the moderating and will likely end up just being a heads up notification area for members benefits.

Maybe some bitching and a level of general policing of the main forums can be initiated here but, anything beyond that is a job for admins and staff and will (guessing again) be kept out or deleted from here.

I am a mod and long standing member of what used to be a large UK forum and we’ve had similar things in the past that worked very well – even had the wankpuffin users that thought they were too big in the industry to be removed/banned from the forum. Took great pleasure in proving a few of them wrong back in the day. lol

Sadly that forum is on it’s backside now and although still going, it’s lost in the world of Tapatalk and minimal investment.

All in all, members areas do work as long as they are not a distraction from the main forums – in other words – posts that are best utilised in the public area remain there and are not started in here.

A few people have said similar but it’s self-evidently not the case,

Maybe you misunderstood what I meant by “nobby”. I didn’t mean “no one will post here”, I meant it feels a bit ****. Or sockwanky even 😉

Non-paying members don’t get the magazine.

I imagine non paying members don’t expect to receive a magazine for free, but they may expect to post in the same forum as everyone else.

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I imagine non paying members don’t expect to receive a magazine for free, but they may expect to post in the same forum as everyone else.

They still can, just as they have done so for years.

Seriously, how is this an issue? What are they actually missing out on?