Senior Membership Guidelines

[Admin]

This subject was closed to further posting on 8-16-03.

If you have additional comments on this subject, please post them in the "Comment on Site Rules" area of the Site Administration section of the Forum.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on this issue.

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FINAL SUMMARY POSTED on 8-16-03

I found the discussion regarding Senior Membership requirements to be quite beneficial. The general consensus was that both the criteria and the upgrade process were reasonable, and I have already made a number of Senior Member upgrades.

As I began the process of upgrading prospective Senior Members, I modified the upgrade process to eliminate the requirement that the prospective Senior Member be seconded by another Senior member, largely due to the fact that it wasn’t beneficial in the decision making process because it was too cumbersome to go looking for the message seconding the prospective Senior Member during the review.

In addition, I eliminated the suggestion that the prospective Senior Member post links to some of their reports in their Senior Member upgrade request because I determined that it was necessary to do my own search and review of all the prospective Senior Member’s reports.

Some members have suggested that the upgrade be automatic, wherein the upgrade would happen when each member reached the proscribed number of posts, thus eliminating the need for personal review. As much as I would like this myself as it would reduce my workload, it’s not possible. For one thing, the serial spammers would post the required number of “reports”, each containing complete BS, until they had achieved the unrestricted access they desire.

Secondly, the idea behind the Regular/Senior member system is simply to delineate the members who will adhere to the Posting Guidelines and thus do not need to be monitored. This requires a personal review of the member’s posting history. Consider for example, a member who posts 10 reports in the USA section, each of which was in chat room format that I was compelled to edit. He may have 10 posts, but he obviously doesn’t care about the Posting Guidelines, and for the purposes of being upgraded to Senior Member, he has zero reports.

A number of members also took the occasion to post their thoughts about finding volunteer moderators to help with the review process. The idea certainly has merit and will be the subject of a future discussion.

THIS IS THE TEXT OF THE ORIGINAL ISSUE
AS PUBLISHED IN THE FORUM ON 8-1-03:
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SENIOR MEMBERSHIP GUIDELINES

Approximately two months ago, I made a determination that the Senior Member review process was too arbitrary and too time consuming, largely attributable to the absence of clear guidelines upon which to make these decisions. As a result of this realization, Senior Member upgrade reviews have been on a temporary hold pending the development of specific guidelines. I have certainly been aware that there are a number of members who would qualify for Senior Member status under even the most arduous criteria, but I felt it necessary to formalize the process before proceeding.

Upon the completion of this discussion, and the finalization of the specific guidelines for Senior Member upgrades, the Senior Member review and upgrade process will re-commence.

The original idea behind having two categories of membership was born a few months ago after a rash of Serial Spammers began employing the strategy of securing multiple memberships, then spamming the Forum under one name until I detected their activities and banned that user name, only to have them immediately continue using another of their "backup" user names. Approving new members wasn't a sufficient deterrent, and it became apparent that the only real solution was to change the Forum's setup so that new reports would first be moderated prior to being posted in the Forum. This strategy has proven effective in stopping the serial spammers and a lot of other minor miscreants, as witnessed by the the fact that I haven't needed to ban a single member in several months. However, moderating the posts quickly became a daily chore for me, and an occasional aggravation to some members.

As I was contemplating the implementation of this new strategy, it was obvious that I wouldn't need to moderate many of the existing members, whose Forum contributions I had come to know and appreciate. The fact was that I only really needed to moderate the new members, and even then only long enough to ascertain their true intentions (spammer or contributor). Therefore, I needed to create two categories of members, the ones I had to keep an eye on, and the ones I didn't.

Initially, I had considered having member categories named "Moderated" and "Unmoderated", or even "Junior Members" and "Regular Members", but diplomacy dictated that I shouldn't use membership categories that might imply that some members were somehow less important to the Forum that other members. Thus I decided upon the two category names of "Regular" and "Senior" memberships, the only difference being the moderation of posts. At the time, I had no intention of distinguishing between the members based on the caliber of their contributions to the Forum, although by nature the unmoderated Senior Members would also be the Forum's strongest contributors.

Nevertheless, from the many emails I get requesting upgrades to Senior Member status, I have come to realize that Senior Member status is perceived as something more than the simple capability of posting directly into the Forum in real time. Instead, it appears to have become a sort of "vanity plate" by which the more knowledgeable and prolific Forum contributors may serve to distinguish themselves. Okay, that's cool, but it also means, given the apparent significance of the designation, that Senior Member reviews could not be made on an arbitrary or subjective basis. Thus the need for published guidelines and a systemized upgrade procedure.

Initially, I was reluctant to establish specific guidelines for Senior Membership status because I anticipated that the serial spammers out there would fabricate posts specifically designed to meet the criteria, thus coercing me into granting them unmonitored access to the Forum. Believe me, when you know my history of fighting to keep the serial spammers off the Forum, this is a legitimate concern. Nevertheless, for all the reasons enumerated herein, I'm going to publish the guidelines, and I'm also going to rely on the membership to help me monitor the Forum and identify the Serial Spammer moles as they may appear.

With all the caveats out of the way, I will layout my proposed Senior Member guidelines and review procedures, and we can begin the discussion.

PROPOSED SENIOR MEMBERSHIP GUIDELINES

General Requirements:

1. A Regular Member for at least 30 days.

2. A valid Email address (to be maintained for duration of Senior Member status)

3. A User Name that conforms to the Forum's User Name Guidelines. (Note: Your user name can be changed at your request by Admin as necessary to qualify for Senior Member upgrade.)

Number of Posts:

MEET ONE OF THESE FOUR POSSIBILITIES:

1. Ten USA reports, posted on different days, consisting of one to several paragraphs in length, each describing an experience with or review of a specific area, club, commercial establishment, service establishment, service provider, LE activity, legal issue, etc., OR…

2. Five International reports, posted on different days, consisting of one to several paragraphs in lengths, each describing an experience with or a review of a specific area, club, commercial establishment, service establishment, service provider, legal issue, etc., OR…

3. One detailed report on an international country or city, several paragraphs in length, demonstrating intimate knowledge of the area and providing information that obviously reflects the member's personal experience, OR…

4. One detailed international travel report providing a detailed narrative of a trip, including details regarding flights, customs and immigration, currency exchange, transportation, lodging, restaurants, clubs, other commercial establishments, local services, and of course, the girls.

5. Postings that consist primarily of questions, requests for more information, casual short comments, retorts to another member's report, chit-chat, etc. do not count towards these totals.

6. All reports must be in entered with some adherence to the Forum's Posting Guidelines, which essentially mean that they weren't typed in "chat room" style with all lower case lettering and devoid of punctuation.

Quality of Posts:

1. No more than two early posts written in chat room style, after which subsequent reports are written in generally accepted writing style (standard capitalization & punctuation, etc.) I'm assuming that the conscientious members will get the idea after they read my tag line at the bottom of their initial reports indicating that I had to edit the report for capitalization and punctuation.

Please note that writing style or quality of content ARE NOT factors. I don't want to even begin to start evaluating the quality of a member's writing or the accuracy of their reporting, all I'm asking is that members use correct capitalization and punctuation.

2. Reports did not violate the Forum's SPAM Policies (i.e. Did not start or inflame any flame wars, did not demean or denigrate another member, etc.).

3. Reports did not attempt to thwart WSG Posting Policies (deliberately misspelling banned words, etc., referring to competing forums, posting commercial messages, etc.)

Duration:

1. Senior Member status shall be presumed permanent as long as the Senior Member posts a minimum of one report per year.

2. Senior Member status may be rescinded in the event the Member begins to violate the Forum's Posting Policies, doesn't maintain their email address, etc.

3. Senior Member status is always at the sole discretion of the WSG Forum Administrator.

Advantages:

1. Reports by Senior Members are not held for review and moderation by a Forum Moderator, and are instead visible on the Forum immediately upon posting.

2. Senior Members may select a custom Avatar for display adjacent to their reports. (This is a proposed future enhancement to the Forum. Please do not make me crazy asking about this now. Thank You.)


PROPOSED UPGRADE REVIEW PROCEDURE

1. Review Procedure Senior Membership upgrades shall be performed only at the specific request of the Regular Member, said upgrade request to be made by posting a request in the Senior Member Upgrades section of the Site Administration area of the Forum. Said request will begin with a sentence to the effect "I want to be upgraded to Senior Member status.".
Current Senior Members may support or object to the Regular Member's upgrade request by posting a message in the same thread beginning with a sentence to the effect "I support [username]'s Senior Member upgrade." OR "I do not support [username]'s Senior Member upgrade." along with their specific comments.

2. Current Senior Members will be encouraged to review the Regular Member's reports and post their comments and opinions of the Regular Member's Forum contributions.

3. Current Senior Members may also be recruited by the Forum Administrator to review all pending upgrade requests and make specific recommendations.

4. Senior Member reviews shall be conducted periodically by the Forum Administrator, who shall review the comments and the Regular Member's Forum contributions. No specific notice shall be made in the event of a decision, although any member may review his membership status at any time by reviewing any of their own posts.

That's my plan, and here are my questions to the Membership:

1. What does Senior Member status mean to you?

2. Do we need Regular Member/Senior Member designations?

3. Are the criteria reasonable? Are they too restrictive? What would you modify?

4. Is the review procedure reasonable? Is it too cumbersome? What would you modify?

5. How do other forums handle this situation?

Given the obvious backlog of Regular Members who will obviously qualify for Senior Member upgrades, I'm going to initiate the new Forum section for posting the Upgrade Requests now, as opposed to waiting until this discussion is completed. My assumption is that regardless of any modifications to these proposed Senior Member Guidelines and upgrade procedures, I may as well begin allowing interested Regular Members to at least post their names on the list for consideration.

This discussion will be finalized on August 15th, 2003.

[Barista]

Originally posted by MoonDog
Paper trail? Yes. Problems with it? No. I have been a member of pay sites for years, and have never had a problem.

I guess this is truly a case of "ymmv."

One poster's "mistake" was not to delete the history of sites visited in his browser. So when snooping eyes in his family decided to do some exploring, all they had to do was create a handle with a free email account, and they were in. They would not have done this with a credit card payment as a requirement.

Like I said before, this was all the fault of the individual concerned, and not necesarily a fault of the site being free. Allowing for sloppy browsing habits just because a site is for-pay is not really an excuse, in my book. One can only protect a person from himself for but so long, and only a certain extent.

On the other end of the spectrum, a person who did pay to join one of the pay sites started to make trouble for one of the posters. Because of good tracking ability, the trouble maker was identified, confronted, and his antics were stopped. Turned out he was a disgruntled guy, who was jealous of the poster's ability to travel to far off places all the time.

Hence that little link at the bottom of each and every post....

We pay for good information from bartenders, chicas, bellman, hotel front desk clerks, etc. Why not pay for information from guys all over the world? You go to a destination, explore, write it up to help out the other guys, and post it. Why should every person in the world be able to read about your work without helping out himself? If he is a paid up member, even if he never reports, his contributions help the owner defray the costs.

Hey, I'm not arguing with you on principle; I just don't see WSG becomming a pay site as the panacea that I perceive you to think it is. Trust me, if I knew that a for-pay WSG was going to have a decent amount of info on my area (scarce as SW activity is here), I'd join in a minute. However, I have to look at it this way: a for-pay site will not have the sheer number of potential posters that a free site does; from that reuced pool, an even smaller number will be posting on my area, as well as other smaller towns. Joining a pay site that caters almost exclusively to the larger cities is ccounter to my intrests at this point.

I know guys who use only this site, because it is free. They take all the information from here, and use it to full advantage for themselves, never contributing one iota to the board for anyone else. With a pay system, at least he is paying for the information like everyone else.

You'll get no argument from me on that point. All I can say - at the risk of sounding like a broken record (or a scratched CD, guess I'm showing my age) is that this site has so many more potential posters because it is free. Someone who lives and conducts his buisiness almost exclusively in an area such as Kitsap County, Washington would be very hard pressed to put down even just $5/month in the hopes that some little bit of info relevant to him is thrown his way. At least with a freee WSG, the chances are that much greater.

We could debate this forever, so let us agree to disagree.

Good idea.

To me though, the pay sites are much better for content, safety, and features than a free one. Everybody pays with reports or money for the others, why not here? That way we all would contribute something, and the quality and time that you put in a report would not go to waste on a freeloader.

I really don't mind the fact that my contributions won't always be reciporicated, but then again, that's me. Perhaps it's my New Land Buddhist upbringing, but I honestly do believe that my own efforts will eventually be brought into balance. I honestly don't look for the immediate payoff, espoecially when posting to a free site such as this one.

Enjoy the life,

Mucho mahalo;

Barista
wa_barista@hotmail.com

[Seydlitz]

Jackson,

here are my views on your questions re.membership.

1. What does Senior Member status mean to you?
I do not care all that much, but it makes me feel good to see that my long-standing committment to a high-quality forum is valued.

2. Do we need Regular Member/Senior Member designations?
No, it is not needed, but if such a distinction means a seggregation between proven and tested individuals who can post unrestricted, and those under probation, then it is fine with me, and it is useful to make this forum civilised and interesting.

3. Are the criteria reasonable? Are they too restrictive? What would you modify?
I might not qualify under those rules, since I do not post as much as I used to (this being due to my reducing a lot my mongering in the last two years).

4. Is the review procedure reasonable? Is it too cumbersome? What would you modify?
I admire you for your obvious pursuit of fairness. I would be happy to let you use your total discretion, at the risk of your being arbitrary. Having seen you operate this forum for years, I am sure that a reasonable appeal to one of your decisions would be garanteed to get a fair appraisal anyhow.

5. How do other forums handle this situation?
Other discussion groups have several on line who can delete spam and rude messages, as well as cancelling membership of those who are troublesome.

[MoonDog]

Freeler,

Email me at: moondog2005@yahoo.com

Moondog

[Freeler]

Moondog,

I guess I missed the URL's to the paysites you are advertising.
Where are they?

THNX!

[MoonDog]

Originally posted by Barista
I'd be very reluctant to pay $60 a year for a paysite if I did not know for sure whether or not it had any information relevant to my locale. Living in a larger city is one thing; the county in which I live is not all that big, population-wise, and of a very conservative bent to boot. The good thing about Jackson's site is that, if I were to be disapointed with the lack of information (check out the United States-Washington State - Bremerton forum), at least I paid nothing for that disapointment. As far as maps and pictures - I have maps in my car, and I care less for pics than I do for real-live women.

Barista,

When I first joined TSM, there was a small monthly trial charge. That was got me started. I saw it , liked it, and joined. If I had not cared for it, then there was no money out except what I had spent for the trial.

I fail to see, furthermore, the corelation between a site being a for-profit one and the lack of responsibility on the moderators part for ensuring the worthiness of what is posted; in my mind, the responsibility is greater, since the priviledge of just reading such posts and deriving usefull information is being paid for.

There is no lack of responsibility requirement for a pay site vs non-pay site. The owner/moderator is still responsible for the postings, but Jackson is not put in the position of deciding who will or will not be promoted to a certain status. Take a look at this now, everybody and their brother is asking to be promoted to a Senior Member. Why should Jackson have to use his time to Judge?

I still cannot see how a pay site would be any better at keeping the identity of a poster hidden than this one, MoonDog. I noticed that, in replying to Alan Writer's post on that subject, you snipped his most convincing argument - that, in order to pay for membership, credit card information has to be collected. With this site, all that is required is an email address, and the smart poster will create one just for it - the email address that I used in order to gain membership to this site is not the same one that I use for my regular day-to-day communications. While I understand Jackson's counterpoint to the issue, to me, it still does not address the security issue, especially if you have a poster who makes, what you have termed, "mistakes".

Paper trail? Yes. Problems with it? No. I have been a member of pay sites for years, and have never had a problem. Let me give you an example of how this will work for you.

One poster's "mistake" was not to delete the history of sites visited in his browser. So when snooping eyes in his family decided to do some exploring, all they had to do was create a handle with a free email account, and they were in. They would not have done this with a credit card payment as a requirement.

On the other end of the spectrum, a person who did pay to join one of the pay sites started to make trouble for one of the posters. Because of good tracking ability, the trouble maker was identified, confronted, and his antics were stopped. Turned out he was a disgruntled guy, who was jealous of the poster's ability to travel to far off places all the time.

We pay for good information from bartenders, chicas, bellman, hotel front desk clerks, etc. Why not pay for information from guys all over the world? You go to a destination, explore, write it up to help out the other guys, and post it. Why should every person in the world be able to read about your work without helping out himself? If he is a paid up member, even if he never reports, his contributions help the owner defray the costs.

I know guys who use only this site, because it is free. They take all the information from here, and use it to full advantage for themselves, never contributing one iota to the board for anyone else. With a pay system, at least he is paying for the information like everyone else. Everybody knows about WSG because it is free, but many of the guys who write to me asking about BA know nothing about the other sites that are pay sites. I've got a BA guide that I wrote to help the new guy in town, that answers many of the questions they have. Is is kept updated, and it is posted on the other sites, but not here. Others have paid and contributed to view websites like mine and other contributors, so why should we offer it to the world free of charge with no intent by the viewers to give back either with a monetary contribution or by a report of their own. There are a lot of excellent reports on the other boards, but they will never be posted here.

You say you do not need maps, but detailed maps showing where the clubs and cafes, and hot spots are located are very helpful to the new guy. You may not need photos, but photos of the girls and the information provided in many good reports are what got newbies coming to BA who have become very popular among the masses, and they do give back. But I guarantee the quality of reports would increase if people knew they were just going to mongers who actually cared about writing a report to help others or who contribute with a yearly fee.

We could debate this forever, so let us agree to disagree. To me though, the pay sites are much better for content, safety, and features than a free one. Everybody pays with reports or money for the others, why not here? That way we all would contribute something, and the quality and time that you put in a report would not go to waste on a freeloader.

Enjoy the life,

Moondog

[Rayman]

1. What does Senior Member status mean to you?
I contribute as a frequent partaker in the joys of sex and post to let others know the locations, prices and also my thoughts on the sex scene. To my mind Sr Member status means someone who has a lot of exp. in the sex market and can guide others to make it safer and more enjoyable.

2. Do we need Regular Member/Senior Member designations?
That is something you must decide as you know how much spam this site attracts. Whichever system reduces your workload is the best one. Thank you.

3. Are the criteria reasonable? Are they too restrictive? What would you modify?
No problems there

4. Is the review procedure reasonable? Is it too cumbersome? What would you modify?
It is reasonable but then it should work both ways. If you think a Sr member is losing it then you should down-grade the chap.

5. How do other forums handle this situation?
No idea as yours is the only one i belong to. Other discussion groups have several on line moderators/managers and they delete spam and rude messages as and when, as well as cancelling membership of those who are troublesome.

Hope this 2% helps.

Ray.

[Barista]

I'd be very reluctant to pay $60 a year for a paysite if I did not know for sure whether or not it had any information relevant to my locale. Living in a larger city is one thing; the county in which I live is not all that big, population-wise, and of a very conservative bent to boot. The good thing about Jackson's site is that, if I were to be disapointed with the lack of information (check out the United States-Washington State - Bremerton forum), at least I paid nothing for that disapointment. As far as maps and pictures - I have maps in my car, and I care less for pics than I do for real-live women.

I fail to see, furthermore, the corelation between a site being a for-profit one and the lack of responsibility on the moderators part for ensuring the worthiness of what is posted; in my mind, the responsibility is greater, since the priviledge of just reading such posts and deriving usefull information is being paid for.

I still cannot see how a pay site would be any better at keeping the identity of a poster hidden than this one, MoonDog. I noticed that, in replying to Alan Writer's post on that subject, you snipped his most convincing argument - that, in order to pay for membership, credit card information has to be collected. With this site, all that is required is an email address, and the smart poster will create one just for it - the email address that I used in order to gain membership to this site is not the same one that I use for my regular day-to-day communications. While I understand Jackson's counterpoint to the issue, to me, it still does not address the security issue, especially if you have a poster who makes, what you have termed, "mistakes".

[MoonDog]

Originally posted by Alan Writer
I think it was Moondog who made the argument that a pay site is safer at keeping things anonymous than an open or free, site like WSG. That argument has been gnawing at the back of my mind for a while, and I want to respond to the faulty logic contained in it.

How can a pay site be safer at keeping identities hidden? Moondog tells of a couple of "friends" who have had their lives made miserable because they posted on an open board where wives, bosses, girl friends, etc. can read what is posted there.

These guys must have been stupid.

Alan Writer,

No the guys are not stupid, but some mistakes were made. It was then very easy for snooping eyes to log on to WSG with their own free account, and read everything the poster had written. With a membership that requires payment of say $60/year to gain access, people are very reluctant to pay for this if they are just curious bystanders who want a free look.

TSM/WSA, CH, XTN are all pay sites or by invitation only. I and others post a lot on those sites, including websites, photos, maps, and other very useful information, and each has their niche. At the same time though, we will not post this information on WSG as it is far too open to the public. For the others, you really have to dig to find the sites, some even take two different user ids and passwords to access. Some are invitation only.

I enjoy the hobby, will help out with plenty of information and photos, but not on a public site that every chica can see and read. Yes they can pay for a membership, but they will not.

Also by paying, Jackson is relieved of being the judge of posts, and whether or not a person should be upgraded. Like a chica, judgement is very subjective. Paid membership ensures all members are treated equally, and helps with the costs of running the site.

Moondog

[Freeler]

Regular or Senior?

A bandwidth saver: Everybody Regular!

It would be impossible to have 'you say this and I say that and you say this and....etc' postings if all postings were delayed by approximately 24 to 48 hours...

On paid membership:
Why would anyone pay to give information?
Also,
"a pay site is safer at keeping things anonymous than an open or free".
A memberslist is NOT safe in the hands of IBill, CCBill and the rest of 'em.
The memberslist IS safe in Jackson's hands: I have not been spammed on the Freeler associated e-mail addy yet!

[Exon123]

Jackson --- This board is an important part of a lot of guys lives --- Its saved them thousands of dollars and kept everyone up to date as to their local seen --- I for one read the local bord in the city I live in every day, plus the Mexico board and of course the Argentina board--- Its like picking up the sports page --- I truly think you should expand the forum to include more recent pictures and more of them and charge a fee as your competitors do --- Thanks Jackson --- Exon

[Alan Writer]

I think it was Moondog who made the argument that a pay site is safer at keeping things anonymous than an open or free, site like WSG. That argument has been gnawing at the back of my mind for a while, and I want to respond to the faulty logic contained in it.

How can a pay site be safer at keeping identities hidden? Moondog tells of a couple of "friends" who have had their lives made miserable because they posted on an open board where wives, bosses, girl friends, etc. can read what is posted there.

These guys must have been stupid. WSG does not require that any personal information be given by any of its members. All you have to have is a user name and an email address. Anyone can get a free, anonymous email address from Yahoo, Hotmail, or a number of other services, again without having to give any real personal information. And all of the user names at WSG should be anonymous as well. So, if someone is careful and does not use his real name and unwisely link personal information to their WSG membership, then there is little chance of someone he does not wish to know finding out about his posts.

The only chance there would be of that is that the site info may be kept on the hard drive of his computer. But that is true even of pay sites, and just as many questions would be raised about why a pay site's info is on a hard drive as it would be about a free site. And if someone is being that nosy, the password to the free site will be there to be found too. So, with that fact alone, Moondog's argument breaks down.

However, even the hard drive problem can be avoided if the member will purge his cookies, history files, and temporary internet files regularly as well as defraging his hard drive from time to time.

In addition, a pay site DOES require a member to give personal information that is linked to his membership and, therefore, to his posts. If nothing else, the member of a pay site must give some method of payment such as a bank account or credit card. That leaves a paper trail of the membership as well. That is much riskier than a free membership in WSG.

So, Moondog's arugument just doesn't hold up. Give me the free, open site any day. I will sleep easier at night.

--Alan Writer

Hi Alan,

You're missing one important point regarding the dynamics of an online forum: Pulling out a credit card and paying for a membership is a deterrent to potential trouble makers. Simply put, spammers, wives, girlfriends, bosses, fellow employees, etc. will not pay for memberships.

Jackson

[Net Pro]

The guidelines seem pretty fair to me.

I would say the Regular Member needs to have been enrolled for at least 30 days AND have posted at least 10 or 15 posts, before it is even considered for upgrade to Senior.

The ability to post in real-time is important to keep the Forum updated to the minute on important issues. A delay of only a day or two can --in some instances-- make a big difference, and help somebody or perhaps the exact opposite; by not getting a timely update published, the community could not benefit in a timely fashion from a potentially critical report on something going on that should be shared.

I think the benefits of this forum and the way it is maintained command a big round of applause and commendation.

Please, keep up the good work!

NetPro

[Flashman]

Jackson,

Kudo's for keeping the spammers out of the WSG, and anything you need to do in order to keep it clean is OK.

Your Senior Member rules look fine.

Thanks for a great board.

(Any chance you will ever update the photo section?)

Flashman

[Aviator]

As many others have said, thank you very much for this board. I have been reading it for a long time (Atta if you are Jackson, then thanks, if not, he/she really deserves a lot of credit). I have recently started posting because I now control my own IP addresses, etc. and am reasonably assured of remaining anonymous. This may be one reason there is not more participation. In any case, on to your specific questions:

1. What does Senior Member status mean to you?
Frankly, not much. I have decided to contribute as an infrequent participant in the hobby. Others have really helped me out, and the time is long overdue for me to give something back. Since I do not go out very often, my reports will not be frequent. But since I travel extensively worldwide, (see reports in London, Singapore and Iran for example), I will give what I can. If you or someone else wants to put in the time to moderate these reports, then that is great. I think moderating (or moderation for that matter ;-) improves the overall quality and keeps the noise level down (citing recent flaming going on in the ATL section). If you decide that I am for real and want to move me to Senior status, then that is great. If not, then that is okay too. But frankly, since I do not care whether I am a senior member or not as long as I can contribute, then being a regular member is just fine with me. Along those lines, it is very unlikely that I will every request senior status because a) I am happy being a regular member, and b) I am slammed with work as it is. (I guess we all are). So, while your proposal seems good, it might make sense to move people to senior status that you know are contributors for real, even if they do not request it. This might be a good idea for two reasons. First, it reduces your work load by not having to review these people all the time, and second, it would make them feel good to know that you have seen enough of their postings to trust them to post themselves (speaking personally).

2. Do we need Regular Member/Senior Member designations?
I think the differentiation is valuable if for no other reason than to keep the SPAM noise down. I run four UNIX servers. I estimate that the SPAM load on these servers is something like 75% to 80% of total traffic!!! (As a side discussion, something really has to be done about this. It is a royal pain in the ass.) So anything you can do to keep the spammers at bay would be great. (BTW, if I can help here, contact me by email. It's an us vs. them situation out there.) Also, I think the senior member status reduces your workload, and that is a very good thing too. The last thing we want is burned out moderators. We *really* appreciate the work you do. Thank you again.

3. Are the criteria reasonable? Are they too restrictive? What would you modify?
I think that overall, the criteria are reasonable. They encourage participation without being too draconian. I saw some comments about leveling US vs. International requirements. My feeling is that some members (myself included) enjoy the hobby outside the US too. I would encourage these posts since they tend to be vaulable to those of us who do travel. Having a lower requirement in this area is one way to do it. Lets face it. This is a volunteer effort. We want more participation not less. I think you have the criteria just about right. It encourages people to contribute without setting the bar too high.

4. Is the review procedure reasonable? Is it too cumbersome? What would you modify?
The revie procedure seems fine to me, but as I said above, I would add that you should have the right to sumarily promote someone to senior status for whatever reason you like, including that they are contributing and that continuing to moderate their posts is a pain and not required anyway (perhaps this would be me one day). Whatever - I just want to be sure that you do what you can to lower your work load so that the great job of moderation continues.

5. How do other forums handle this situation?
Some other forums have moderators that seem to have let their status go to their heads. This can be a real problem and kills the forum quickly. It then becomes a chat group for a select bunch. The WSG has done an excellent job of avoiding this problem. I would be *very* selective about who you might have help with moderator duties as this really affects the tenor of the group. I am very happy with how things have been going (thanks again for stepping in over on the ATL board). Keep up the great work!!

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