It has been a long - a VERY long - weekend and I've still got a huge pile of things I want to do. But it has been productive too.
When I set up the
First Great Western Coffee Shop - a forum site for First Great Western Passengers - I wondered whether or not it would take off. Well - thanks (it must be admitted) to FGW themselves, who have managed to generate an incredible degree of dis-satisfaction in their customers and wannabe customers from whom they have withdrawn trains, our forum has flourished. People love talking when they have issues, but go quite quiet when they don't.
In fact - it flourished so much that I couldn't keep up with all the moderation that was needed - a very low
proportion of posts need attention, but where the post level creeps up to 50 a day it's still a lot to look after. So I approached the steadier pairs of hands and appointed them as moderators. And still it grew, and the moderation and admin team grew with it.
We have excellent communications set up between the "mods" and they work well ... but there were some who had not met others, and this Friday evening and Saturday daytime, we had our first moderator's meeting. Truly excellent - and thanks to our guest speaker (I know she will read this) - and a lot of issues discussed and - today - tweaks made to the board. Onwards, upwards - whatever next? I don't know, but I sure know I've made a lot of very good friends, and learnt a very great deal too - through my "train experiences".
(written 2008-03-30, updated 2008-03-31)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
G903 - Well House Consultants - Running and moderating forums and social media sites [22] Falling out over the silliest things - (2004-08-21)
[29] Silence is Golden - (2004-08-26)
[115] Expiration dates or times on web pages - (2004-11-12)
[130] Spelling and grammar - (2004-11-25)
[204] The confidence to allow public comments - (2005-02-06)
[231] Feedback as lifeblood - (2005-02-28)
[248] Use me, but use me effectively - (2005-03-16)
[424] How not to run a forum - (2005-08-24)
[516] Open source questions? Anyone can ask. - (2005-12-03)
[651] Please Register with Opentalk - but just once! - (2006-03-19)
[806] Check your user is human. Have him retype a word in a graphic - (2006-07-17)
[828] Freedom of speech and freedom to post - (2006-08-10)
[841] Forum help - a push in the right direction - (2006-08-21)
[919] Freedom for X is denial of privacy for Y - (2006-11-09)
[923] Why shouldn't I spam? - (2006-11-13)
[948] Running an on line campaign - (2006-11-27)
[1088] Why use BBC code not HTML? - (2007-02-21)
[1190] Save the Forum - A regular clean sweep - (2007-05-17)
[1362] No Thank You - (2007-09-23)
[1472] The Horse goes on and on - (2007-12-15)
[1485] Copyright and theft of images, bandwidth and members. - (2007-12-26)
[1523] Ive just received an email from myself. Should I be worried? - (2008-01-29)
[1532] Comment spam blocked. Please comment via Forums - (2008-02-05)
[1539] A forum is not always the best vehicle - (2008-02-14)
[1563] Guidlines for posting on a forum - (2008-03-04)
[1569] I dont care - goodbye - (2008-03-09)
[1578] Please don't shout at me! - (2008-03-16)
[1678] Software - changes and delays. But courses must run on time! - (2008-06-15)
[1759] While the world sleeps ... - (2008-08-19)
[1923] Making it all worthwhile - (2008-12-04)
[1972] Pettifog and forum boards away from public view - (2009-01-03)
[2103] Ask the Tutor - Open Source forum - (2009-03-25)
[2116] Why do we delay new forum members through authorisation? - (2009-04-03)
[2156] Stopping forum spam - control of the signup process - (2009-05-04)
[2162] Admins thoughts on banning a member from a forum - (2009-05-09)
[2177] Preventing forum spam - checks at sign up - (2009-05-12)
[2254] Forum membership - a privilege not a right - (2009-06-22)
[2386] Computing under the influence of alcohol - (2009-08-29)
[2526] A reluctance to move from old shoes to new - (2009-12-05)
[2527] Flying tonight - (2009-12-05)
[2569] How to run a successful online poll / petition / survey / consultation - (2010-01-10)
[2781] The 500 pound question to get you started - (2010-05-26)
[2820] Netiquette for forum newcomers - (2010-06-20)
[3479] Practical Extraction and Reporting - using Python and Extreme Programming - (2011-10-14)
[3910] Identifying your real customers and keeping them well informed fast - (2012-11-02)
[4017] Acceptable User Policy / vexatious interacter - (2013-02-24)
[4025] Backups, Codebase, Strategy and more - dealing with forum incidents - (2013-03-03)
[4065] Handling requests to a forum - the background process - (2013-04-17)
[4234] Change to Libel and Defamation laws from 1st January 2014 - (2013-12-31)
[4239] Facebook marketing - early experiences - (2014-01-19)
[4283] Can a legitimate forum post become illegal a year later? - (2014-07-11)
[4307] Identifying and clearing denial of service attacks on your Apache server - (2014-09-27)
[4315] Welcoming genuine forum posters quickly - but turning away off topic advertisers - (2014-11-16)
[4403] The unbalanced relationship between customer and provider - (2015-01-21)
[4492] Almost so wrong, but perhaps it's right for some? - (2015-05-11)
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Fresher tutor, better courseEvery link has two ends - fixing 404s at the recipientComparing hotels - as a guest and from the proprietors viewSelling curry to the chinese takeawayFirst Great Western WeekendPlease support improvements in our train serviceKeep the client experience easy - single server contact pointSetting up a new user - Linux or UnixEaster Sunday at 404, The SpaAll Change, Portsmouth Harbour