Hi all, Since its inception Ducati Forum has grown to be one of the worlds biggest and best resource for all things Ducati. We have over 1 million posts, almost 14,000 registered members and 50,000+ threads. I love the varied range of content. Whilst I personally don't post that regularly, I do read lots of the great content that is posted on here. The great content is posted by you, the members. This forum is nothing without the members, and it is you that bring this place to life. Without life, this place has no soul. So a personal thank you to everyone who has made this place what it has become today. With this amount of content, some moderation is required. Our rules are quite relaxed. Above all we expect this place to be a welcoming resource for anyone who visits. The style of moderation has always been quite relaxed. Terry has been an outstanding moderator for years here. Another personal thank you to Terry (@El Toro ). He's dedicated countless hours trying to keep the place a great place to be. Moderating is tough. It can be thankless. Theres a lot that you won't ever see, because Terry has already taken care of it. Thank you Terry. It is tough to make sure that we allow enough freedom to take place here and at the same time remove any content that doesn't adhere to the rules. The biggest two things for me personally are these rules: 'Be Nice and Polite', 'Do Not Flame or Provoke' and Do Not Behave in a Malicious Manner'. Like most things in life, we can get better with feedback and recommendations. Constructive feedback that helps us develop the moderation that takes place here. I'd invite you to share your feedback here. Please consider the way that the feedback is positioned here; I want to make sure that it is not personal, but a genuine recommendation about how we can improve or what you'd like to see done differently (if anything). Whilst I can't guarantee that everything will be acted on or implemented, everything will be considered. Also, if there's anything that you do like about how things are done please feel free to add this too. Thanks, Rob.
I think admin is doing a fabulous job, and enable the forum to flourish, thank you for all your hard work as without you it would not take long for it to disintegrate into chaos,
We've been told that "the forum is not a democracy", so why are you asking the question? If you want improvement then perhaps a more transparent and even handed approach to moderation. For instance following a member a round and editing, combining posts, removing words and pictures just 'cause you can isn't useful and isn't moderation. It's a dictatorship type behaviour. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Ps I love this forum..
Fairly sure you’re looking for a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s a bloody cracking Forum. Sometimes you don’t need to fix what’s not broken. Tbf, y’all been tolerant of me. Big Terry likes me.
Let’s see how democracy works. A yearly vote. Can’t wait Edit: Lads, it’s your Forum. Just make sure you got a good server, it’s secure, moderate how you feel, and above all, enjoy it.
There is a huge amount of what I call banter between the top 10 to 15 posters. This could be viewed by some as flaming or provocation, nearly always this is given and taken as it was meant. It helps the forum develop personality. However with all communication it can go wrong. If you rule it out, many would just leave or stop posting regularly. Unchecked it leads to chaos and snow flakes leave in their droves. Sometimes it appears that some are unfairly / unevenly targeted for post deletion. For example we have been told not to incite violence (stolen bike threads). This was very heavily censored, yet another similar thread this week has been allowed to run totally unchecked. The system of "likes", unlike, nukes, ticks and crosses and it's associated points and trophies is largely a nonsense. When Tel deletes and changes ones given by others to himself how can the rest of us take it seriously? .... are we supposed to take it seriously? It is useful for the NUKE post for spam, not seen any of that for ages and I'm normally the first one up, except NZDave and Liz. Perhaps if we could move our own posts or suggest a particular movement to another member then the heavy workload of moderator would become less. Can the software allow that? In relation to our own profiles, bike history etc some sections can only be edited by the moderator. Perhaps the workload could be reduced if we could make these changes ourselves. After all many of us are directors of companies, fly aircraft, ride fast motorcycles, control first world weapons on a daily basis without incident (well nearly always). I really hope some of these points are at least discussed, better still, acted upon.
I find it to be one of the better forums as it has for the most part, very little moderation. I wonder if El's "I am the hand of god" sometimes is a bit too heavy rather than an independent but it also could be taken as his hand of god style could be the reason why we tend to have so few flare up's, dunno. I don't like having my posts altered or removed, particularly without knowledge or a simple pm saying something like, this post/thread could be seen as offensive, we need you to reword it or it will be deleted. This however would need more time by the volunteer mod team which might be difficult time wise due to r/l. On that part I wonder if it might help spread the load a bit if there was another one or two mods to take some of the pressure off ? Away from that, as I've said, generally the forum backroom team get it right more than it gets it wrong and given you are all volunteers, I appreciate you keeping the forum going. In the end I am my own moderation if I think the forum doesn't suit me anymore then it's upto me to either abide by the rules or move on.
The policy of removing personal abuse, threats of violence, attempted frauds, defamatory statements, and advocates of blatant illegality is the easy and obvious bit. It's done pretty well here. The problem is where to draw the line. Posting lies has to be acceptable, just because moderators cannot be expected to determine truth. Being mean and nasty is acceptable up to the point of abuse and threats, but no further. Trolls who just waste everyone's time and seek only to mess up rational discussions - well I think there is a case for banning them on quality grounds, although some might not agree. Then there is the question of political extremists: is it OK to let outright Nazis exploit the forum to spread their ideas, or not? I think that is for Rob and El Toro to decide. And how they decide that one will determine what kinds of people stay on the forum and what kinds leave.
C'mon, lets go (that's me and you on the bikes, (but obviously you are fekkin huge so not proportional)
Historically we've been told that the forum needs to strive to be family friendly, to increase the goggle ranking and such like. To this end a certain sensitivity to nudity (partial) has been censored; quite rightly since porn is widely available if that's what you want or need. Should this be extended to Avatars? In the interest of an even and fair playing field.
