IdahoFallz.com - New Ownership Information (it’s about TIME!)

What’s not to love about cats? Purrrrrrr

Joe,

Glad you took the chance to keep this site open. It evolves more each year.

Having helped moderate previously, I wouldn’t mind volunteering some time to help vs. seeing some of trash we’ve had to remove over the years here. However, I’m wondering if you’ll be posting the names of the moderators on the site?

That was an issue about 18 months ago as some felt that another moderator and I were “watching them.” It was an experience I don’t wish to repeat, given all that was written about me. The truth is I couldn’t care less who those people were/are, nor do I have the time to wonder.

However, it was an important lesson for me. I participate in other web discussions and moderators are always identified. Partially so people who want junk removed know who can do it.
Partially, so moderators are inaccurately accused of “watching” all chats and dialogues.

What are your thoughts about posting the moderators names vs. not?

Thanks,

Ok4Now

on moderator issue I remember regular[s] did it before, people were more upset than usual because moderators were removing way to much content {control}if it wasn’t likeminded it was considered mean,or name calling etc.

The name change is a good strategy. Of course I supported going either way, but you chose a good middle ground of legacy continuity and clearly marking the new owner.

Regarding moderators, I blame myself for the prior failure. I jumped into doing it without as much forethought as I usually do things, and we did not have much communication about expectations or responsibilities. Keep in mind that was also before we had the site community guidelines, so the moderators had a tough job thinking “what would Joe do here?” and what they think they should do. A couple moderators argued a bit, and I got some messages from people concerned they could not be anonymous due to who a couple of the moderators were in real life, so I eventually just demoted those folks back to regular users instead of moderators. I tried to tell them but I must admit I again failed to communicate it as clearly as I should have. I hope if a new moderator program is started you address the problems I had/created and avoid my mistakes.

I think new ownership is going to be really great for this local online community. I look forward to seeing what you decide to keep and what you decide to innovate. It can be tough to try balancing everyone’s interests and desires because eventually someone gets unhappy, but I know you’ll do it with the best interests of the community in mind.

Coooooool. Let’s get some new articles written!

Ok4Now,

I have not put much thought into whether we share who the moderators are or not. I was not around when the previous issues took place, so I’m not familiar with the issues there. If someone would like to update me on the challenges, I would appreciate that.

The detail that has been given so far is a bit confusing. I can’t tell how announcing who the moderators are impacted the situation.

Please share with us what your vote would be (share names of moderators, or don’t share names of moderators)

I can say that anyone who moderates the site will need to abide by certain rules, one of which is to allow the continued flow of free speech. If there is a question as to whether or not a comment is in violation of our family friendly environment (because it is on the boarder and could fall one side or the other), the moderator should err on the side of free speech.

Also, it is my opinion that if a moderator has a personal distaste or conflict with a user, they should try to not get involved in moderating that individual at all and leave it for another moderator to make the decisions – unless the comments include vulgarity or another type of similar blatantly unacceptable comment for the community.

Deleting comments or requiring users to craft their speech so “no one gets offended” is not reasonable or realistic. When passions run high, as they will from time to time, someone is bound to be offended. That will just happen. I much prefer a heated debate on good merits to someone being overly careful that someone might “get offended” as the I believe in the former the real issues get put on the table.

Things that will NOT be tolerated, however, are vulgarity, threats, attacking someone’s family or religion without merit, blatant hate speech towards a race or religion, repeatedly using the site as a soapbox for a topic that has nothing to do with the article, and any discussions about cats. (ok, kidding again about that last one. Ally cat, I hope you can forgive me.)

I hope that everyone can be both civil and maintain thick skin while engaging in the heated discussions.

The Volunteer,

You’re thinking exactily what I’m thinking. There is so much more potential for this site. What has to happen is we have to get word out on the site, and I’ve got some ideas (tried and true, and hot and new) that I think will really start to drive some good trafic here.

Thank you for your invovlment with our community site.

Thanks, Joe Eagle, for the comment. Right off the bat, I’d put up 8.5 x 11 flyers on grocery store bulletin boards with little tear-off thingies on the bottom with the web address on them. I am a big reader of cork board where I can find them. People put a lot of interesting stuff on those cork boards. I’d also encourage you to find some low cost bumper stickers that just have the web address on them–nothing more, just plain old vanilla “idahofallz.com” No hype, no nothing, just the URL.
I’d be realy happy to put one of them on my bumpers. Hey, another thingie you might want to put up in some niche on this site is a Paypal donation button. Some of us, myself included, would actually send you a few dollars once in awhile. I go to this blog where some guy keeps track of bank related stuff. He does such a great job, lots of people donate to him. It’s not a big push to donate and there’s no hype, but at least willing people have a place to click and donate. It probably wouldn’t get you a whole lot of money but every little bit would help I would think. One thing I wish this site had was a way to review eating places. There’s a website called “hikearizona.com” where hikers can add their own reviews to trails that they hike. All the reviews get added on chronologically to the same trail. It’s a great, low-key website–no commercial hype–just hikes–lots of hikes. Well, I am wondering if that model couldn’t be used for restaurants here. Someone would post up on a particular restaurant and then people would just keep adding various sequential reviews under that particular business name. Check HAZ to see what I mean. Well, thanks, Joe Eagle, have a great day, The Volunteer

WOW who is this ok4now? post 13
“ppppppppplease tell the truthh”is a example of moderation.

That was covered in “blogging 101″. Never reply in a post when you’re mad or upset at another poster or their comments.

Mr. Eagle,

How about advertising in River City Weekly….and even hit the Post Register up for coverage of the site and it’s offerings. Perhaps you could approach Cable One and trade some ad space on the site for advertisment on Channel 11 and 12 rolling ads?

Klicker, most likely Anon. in post #6 wasn’t a moderator. What I wrote was something only someone who had moderatored would know.

We all had limits of what we could or couldn’t remove, given how Joe Vandal arranged for us to contribute both in approving new articles and removing inappropriate posts. This is where I do agree with Joe Vandal about “communication issues.”

That being said, Klicker, I believe your point in general is a good one.

Anonymous #17 ….would you please explain how asking another user to please tell the truth is moderation?

Joe Eagle, I’m still thinking how I want to respond to your question about whether I think moderator’s users names should be posted or not. I haven’t totally decided yet, partially based on feedback I’ve had from others at IFz.Com.

I think my answer probably will be yes - post the usernames of the users, as well as what adminitrative functions they can perform. But, also remind other users than moderators can agree or disagree with posts based on being users, not moderators. Sometimes, I think some users didn’t separate an administrative function from a personal opinion, in the past.

I appreciate you asking me, Joe Eagle, for that direct feedback in a thread so others could read more of the realities of the responsibilities and what did or didn’t occur (at least for me). While I’m surprised at how much feedback I’ve gotten about my post, let alone what I see at other websites etc., thus delaying my opinion, I would like to share some of the thoughts I have about your question, as I’m rethinking what others have written.

As I believe you noted, the guidelines for what to write in posts or not, was not developed at the time the first moderators were asked to help. The guidelines certainly would have helped, IMHO. But, they are in place now, so I think a decision whether conetents of a post are appropriate or not, is much easier for all to see now. I believe there was a very recent example where many pointed to a post they felt was inappropriate and why, stating the guidelines. I think the posting guidelines are a real plus for the site.

I can’t speak for other former moderators, but with the exception of about 3 posts in the articles (all obscene and inappropriate for here), every other comment I ever removed was from the chatbox. Essentially, some people were trying to make this a dating site (and I’m trying to be polite selecting those words), writing in other languages, requests for illegal drugs and at times writing some very violent exchanges. Those comments didn’t seem appropriate to me, for IFz.Com.

I seriously doubt, with the exception of one person, most of those comments were written by anyone connected to the Idaho Falls area. All users, of whom I’m aware, appreciated when a moderator was around who could remove the inappropriate requests the one local person repeatedly wrote. I know several of the female users in particular, would immediately leave the site if that former user, who returned with a different name later, was on the site. Additionally, requests for medications, comments about other potentially violent ideas were not comments the other users, at that time, seemed comfortable having on this site.

Unfortunately, those who wrote their “requests”/ “offers” left some very crude, totally unappropriate remarks for other readers. NOTHING was family friendly. Most readers (maybe more than 98%+), never saw them as those comments were gone before most readers logged on.

Interestingly enough, there use to sub-groups of users who would have lively, friendly discussions when certain moderators were logged in. Probably about 10-15 of those people have contacted me, via email, about why they no longer visit site. They always include comments about moderators as one of their major reasons for not returning. And I don’t mean complaints about the moderators, more how when I was asking Joe Vandal and others to please explain the role, those questions were not addressed. Many users got tired of the pot shots and inaccurate assessments of some, at moderators.

Joe Vandal/geekery has already acknowledged communication above. Hopefully, some users have a better understanding now than they did.

Also, I think there was tremendous confusion of what it meant to be “logged in,” - i.e. - just at the site, vs. watching every word that was being written. The majority of my time, when I was actually even looking at this site, was reading what others had written or writing my own comments.

Additionally, I don’t know how many other users even read Joe Vandal’s request to all users, at one point, to stay logged in to help build the site. I’ll let Joe Vandal/geekery explain his request and how often he asked some of us to please remain logged in. I believe some of those comments can still be found under certain threads. The problem is if certain users didn’t read that post, then they wouldn’t understand that of 5 windows being logged into, MAYBE IFz.Com got looked at for a few minutes every 4-5 hrs., for me.

Babs, look through the posts of Dec. 2006/Jan. 2007 and I think you’ll find what you were questioning.

CafeDelSole, I’m interested in your post. Are you saying if you write a view that doesn’t agree with the moderator it is automatically gone, at City-Data or perhaps another site? Are there any rules written outlining what criteria a moderator may remove posts, or close threads? I think you raise valid concerns, but what I’m not clear about is whether or not it would make a difference if the moderator was unknown, or his/her username posted as a moderator.

Joe Eagle, I hope sharing my thoughts helps you understand a little more of what a double-edge sword it can be for someone to be asked to help moderate, then get “beaten up verbally,” for also agreeing to do what the Administrator has asked that person to do in helping the site another way.

The other part of being a moderator, which I tried to help with when Joe Vandal was very, very busy, was approving new articles to be published. I remember a few that the users really needed information, but couldn’t get their articles published due to Joe’s backlog. When I heard complaints about that subject, it was because users wanted moderators identified to know who could approve articles to start a thread.

Perhaps asking some of the other moderators, who still even visit the site - as some haven’t been here for many months, but may now- might help as well?

I do believe Joe Vandal/geekery probably named the #1 key - communication or failure of communication about this issue and being successful. The questions are: is that communication ONLY with the moderators, ONLY those who may complain, a posted comment for all users to understand what the moderators can and can’t do at IFz.Com and/or other?

Ok4Now

ok4now you’re back{please tell the truth}is what you wrote anon #6. Moderation is not calling a anon poster a liar, when they were not refering to you ??possibly??#6 is not a former moderator as you wrongly assumed.You explain the past moderator removals as geek’s fault,long version above.So my question is ,PLEASE TELL THE TRUTH is #6 a former moderator who must have also failed because of geek as all moderators were demoted to regular users.

Would someone please fix that friggin login problem!?!? This is the third time I’ve started a post logged in then been logged out before it posted!

CafeDelSol

I guess today is close to an anniversary of sorts for the site and Joe Eagle. To echo Spock and Nemesis, may it continue to live long and prosper…..