Dear Marko,

[tomorrowstreasures]

How do you feel about our wonderful off topic conversations that we have within a given photographic thread? Personally, I feel that they spice it up a bit, but then again, maybe you are not wanting us to do that and want us to stay on topic? Please let us know how you feel...

Best regards -
a loyal Ph.ca. contributor

[Marko]

I love everything about our board including the off topic conversations The off topic talk let's us see other sides of one another and it's GREAT!

My only regret is that I'm finding that as Admin i have extra tasks so i can't contribute to those conversations as much as I'd like.. aside from that - Rock on!

[tomorrowstreasures]

yea!!!! I am so glad that it is ok with you

[jjeling]

Who has Ken?

[tomorrowstreasures]

......................

[Travis]

this community has advanced so much since I joined last year... obviously because of the friendly fresh faces that have come onboard...

it's much more relaxed now while at the same time lots of useful information still being exchanged...

EDIT: Also because of Marcos hard work and continuing participation in the forum... he has added additional forums at the communities request and this has helped really open it up...

[tomorrowstreasures]

this community has advanced so much since I joined last year... obviously because of the friendly fresh faces that have come onboard...

it's much more relaxed now while at the same time lots of useful information still being exchanged...

EDIT: Also because of Marcos hard work and continuing participation in the forum... he has added additional forums at the communities request and this has helped really open it up...

i blame er, uh, i mean credit MA for bringing us out of our shells...

+1 on the rest of your statement, Travis!

[Mad Aussie]

yea!!!! I am so glad that it is ok with you - now all i have to do is get MA to agree with my side of things.

My views comes from both sides of the fence.
I currently run two very large forums (have run others prior to these also) ... one has in excess of 10,000 registered members (not to be confused with active members) and the other is coming along well also.
I have a few admins (guys who can actually make several administrative decisions and changes without consulting me) and quite a few moderators as well.

The members on these forums are a very wide variety of people from youngsters through to aged.

What I've found in many years of running such forums is that some people like their threads to be kept on topic and other don't care too much.

The evolution of my rules for the forums has currently brought me to enforce the rule that until the author of the thread has achieved the answer/objective they were seeking, no off topic chat is allowed.
In the end I let the author of the thread make that decision. If they feel for any reason that they don't want off topic conversation in their thread then that's it.

I'd post all my rules and regs but this forum won't let me paste that much in

[Mad Aussie]

My only regret is that I'm finding that as Admin i have extra tasks so i can't contribute to those conversations as much as I'd like..

It may be getting close to a time when you will have to learn to trust a couple of people to help you.
I don't mean as admins (it took me several years before allowed any of my moderators to advance to admin) but having a couple of moderators can really help lift the workload.

These days if a moderator leaves for any reason I ask the other mods who they all think might fit. I have a hidden Moderators Only forum so discussion can be done easily. That's probably unnecessary here for now.

These are the guidelines I ask my mods to look for when choosing a moderator to nominate ...

a) assertive enough speak out/pm a member but also someone balanced enough to know how to guide a member towards communicating in a more acceptable manner.
b) online enough to be considered obsessed/addicted by their immediate families
c) who has shown a genuine need to help others
d) not prone to knee jerk reactions or aggression and can think out their comments
e) with reasonable knowledge of the forum
f) love me and my/our website (that should narrow it down a bit!! )