Rather than having all these knowledgable shapers bail on swaylocks, what do you guys think about using a better message board as swaylock’s backend? I’m not sure if any of you have heard of slashdot.org (“news for nerds”) but they have a great system going and the code is open source (slashcode.com). All posts would be moderated, therefore all the bullshit and sales pitches would magically vanish. Take a look at one of the slashdot discussions. It is much easier to follow than the current setup. No offense to Mike; this system works great for a limited number of users and posts. But Swaylocks has grown and slashcode was designed to support an enormous number of posts. Setting up the new message board would be cake and Mike could easily select the moderators out of the veteran posters that visit the site daily. Copying the resources over may take a little work, but it is far from impossible. What do you guys think? http://slashdot.org
I think its a great idea - but it’s up to Mike.
moderation is good
I’m for intellectual anarchy. Sometimes the best thoughts come when the blood is boiling. I doubt many people bail completely - some go into lurk mode and others get busy for a while.
Blood will still be boiling. The moderators are only there to say whether the post is relevant and informative, not to hush arguments. Slashdot has a great explanation of why they think moderation is necessary here: http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm510 Though swaylocks doesn’t get nearly as many hits as slashdot, just about everything they mention still applies.
moderation is a two sided face. if someone posts child porn should there be mod? yes. if 2 people are flaming each other up and down the board should there be a mod? nah. big deal, it’s just boys being boys. but i do agree with a registration based system. i set one up a few months back as a test. very easy to maintain, user friendly, different style of posting, doesn’t show the whole thread, instead by subject matter. anyway, i used phpbb, and if mike’s interested, i’d be more than willing to show him how to set it up. migration could be difficult though. my .02 check out the link for a preview: http://www.crofox.com/longboard
yeh nels an others jus leave for permanent! swaylocks used to be like a friendly surf spot with few hassles an plenty good waves. these days its no different than surfmags design forum. so whatever. i guess everythikng eventually reaches a lowest common denomniater. im gonna paddle down th coast an look for a smoother peak. seeya
My personal favorite is vBulletin. I frequent a an extremely large 4wd forum (it has 27,985 members, 165,243 threads with 1,868,364 posts, it’s www.pirate4x4.com/forum ) that uses vBulletin and it works really well. Very clear and logical and also offer private messaging etc. I don’t know if/what it costs to use it though. Either way, thanks to Mike for running Swaylocks. Regards, Matt.