I am going to take screen shoots of the various moderation tools and place them here in this forum. Then we can start some test discussions to practice using the tools and see how they work. After that I can also schedule time with each of you on the phone where we click through some of the tools to better understand how they work.
Look for the screen shoots of the mod tools in the next couple of days…
Andy.
I will look for the screen shots. Thanks.
Mangala
Andy -
Looking forward to moving ahead with this. It will make me much more comfortable in “Zapping” spam with your guidelines in place.
Namaste,
Chandra
Chandra, I am working to develop some site polices that will give clear guidance about how to handle advertising posts and those with commercial interests, I’m just not quite ready to roll out a draft.
Can you tell me what you consider spam (aside form overt ads for cheap cell phones)?
Andy,
Hmm, that is the key here - I am adjusting my perspective as we move into a new phase of yoga forums. As you know, in the past we (Chris and I) were pretty strict about not linking to advertising at all, wanting the focus to be on yoga not commerce. We did tinker with the idea of creating a separate forum which would be called “community bulletin board” where the gloves could come off and advertising was the name of the game. That way, people offering services and people looking for services would have a place to find one another, and a piece which seemed to be missing (ie info about conferences, events etc.), would have a place to call home. Best of all, the the discussion area could remain virtually advertising free! We had 4 responses to the poll - 2 for and 2 against! Here is the content of the post “community bulletin board poll” fyi:
"Poll about a Community Bulletin Board
Yoga forums has made a concerted effort to avoid all forms of advertising content on this web site. For the most part, the terms and conditions stated on the registration page are respected by forum members. Occaisionally, posts have been deleted which contain clear advertising intent for products, sometimes products not even related to yoga! We have also posts made which are advertising upcoming events or classes. So far, our policy has been to keep the forum a discussion board, and have removed all advertising as we have become aware of it.
Our intent is to provide the yoga community with a clean, accessible space for yoga discussion and support. As a service, I would like to know how you, the yoga forum community, feel about having a forum group which would allow advertising for classes, retreats, products and services related to yoga?
Please vote in the poll! Let us know how you feel about adding subforums for a “Community Bulletin Board” and/ r “Products and Services”."
SO - in response to your querie, my opinion is that in all fairness, money makes even the yoga world go around, and people who are forum participants have services and information to share. Let’s give them a separate space to share goods and services in. Some people want to link to yogaforums to increase their own site’s rating on Google. I don’t know if it is realistic to try to restrict links. Perhaps it is good policy to just allow people to put their link in under their name every time they post, but to restrict blatant advertising to a contained advertising subforum.
How does this feel as an approach?
When guidelines for the forum are developed - how will they be made public?
Namaste,
Chandra
I think that we will post a draft for forums staff to review and give input on. And then, when we are comfortable that we have a good set of guidelines, we can post them and add a link so that they are always available. New registrants will be directed to view them as well.
It should be really helpful for all members to know what they can and can’t post and make moderating content much simpler for us.
Andy,
May have to wait for that phone call to "get it"
Zoe
I just wanted to let you know that a draft of guidelines has been posted here:
http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/f22/discussion-forum-expectations-and-guidelines-1565.html
Please post your feedback ASAP because I got an email from Mukunda (which I suspect you all will too) and we need to get our rules in place on what is allowed and what is not.
Our traffic is picking up tremendously due to some Search Engine Optimization work I have been doing (click here to see the stats). With all this success (traffic) comes more and more people. Some may be less experienced, have a different perspective, or even looking at this community as a marketing tool. We need to discuss how to handle the various situations that may arise and steer this community towards a successful future. If you want to be part of steering this community in that direction, please post your comments to this thread and the draft of the guidelines above ASAP.
I only know how to use the quick reply. I need more training!
Mangala