wiggi said:
Something has to be done about Other Drugs. The vast majority of threads are completely idiotic and it just seems to be getting worse as the days pass by. A great deal of Bluelighters that regularly visit OD are getting fed up with this and the fact that no one is willing to do anything about it when we complain to various admins. Someone is going to end up dying because he or she couldn't find information that could save his or her life. All suggestions that have been made have just been ignored and that's just bullshit. Other Drugs is being raped by idiots that have no idea what they are talking about and give horrible advice.
I'm sorry, but your statement doesn't hold water. I'm not going to say OD is perfect, or that it can't be improved, but your statement isn't correct. As much as we value member input and try to keep the site running for the sharing of information amongst users, let's take a look at what's actually been stated, shall we?
RFD for things regarding DD and FF forum groupings (including OD) .... um yeah....read it again and show me this "All suggestions that have been made have just been ignored and that's just bullshit"
Let's take that focus back to THIS thread, since this is the one you replied to back in June
wiggi said:
I say restrict newer members from posting in OD and only allow them to post in BDD.
Promptly responded to, by an admin, only days later
Infinite Jest said:
Worth consideration, but often a new poster may be a very experienced user. I wouldn't want to lose out on that knowledge, or make them feel like a noob, just because they hadn't spent long posting here.
Will think about it, though. Thanks
The only other OD reference in THIS thread was
Flexistentialist said:
^ Shitty replies are best dealt with by a clear argument of the facts. The majority opinion is not always right. In fact, often on Bluelight (and unfortunately Other Drugs suffers from this) the truth claims of a post are judged on the popularity of the person posting and not on the facts.
Immediately followed by an OD mod's response
GenericMind said:
I read 90% of the posts in Other Drugs and I don't observe that happening. Can you give some examples?
...to which no examples have been provided, in here or elsewhere (unless they were PM'd to the mods or REPORTed to the staff in general).
I will point out two further things on decrying that OD is mismanaged. First, OD is one of the more well represented forums in getting response here in SUPPORT, with an openness to discuss and address member concerns when examples and facts can be presented. It's not like the staff are ignoring the forum or the member comments, there just isn't more to work with beyond 'I am not happy'.
Second, and I don't know how much of this is visible to you members, but the mods (GM in particular) have been trying to change the way they handle their forum content over the past few months. In their forum mod thread (visible to only them and the sr. staff) they have been trying to get consistency on how they handle threads that are borderline (or lower) with the OD standard. Behind the scenes there have discussions with the mods of other forums to help draw the line on what gets flat out closed, vs moved to other forums (HL, BDD, ADD, TDS, etc). You wouldn't see threads that get deleted, but you might see ones that are closed with a reason given. You might not see PM's sent to members who post incorrectly and have their post edited, closed, or moved - the time and effort the mods put into improving the contributions from members still learning the internet and our forum alignments. There's effort being made, it might not be as quick as you like, or to the standard you might hold the forum, but it's not like the mods are sitting in their spots just abusing power, editing threads for their own entertainment, and saying "Boy, we sure fucked with our regulars today, didn't we? Let's go grab a beer!"
The site generally relies on the forum mods to run the forum as they see best, with oversight by sr. staff to ensure it fits within our general scope and to watch for any mods who get out of control. But in general, we trust their judgement, since they generally come from the pool of forum members, and thereby have a feel for the forum. That, plus their history of showing good judgement in tune with the site goals, leads us to trusting them, but we remain engaged in their mod threads to help ensure a team of mods operate together, not as individuals, and thereby provide consistency within the forum and across the board.
As I said, the OD mods are very well represented in SUPPORT and are open to such discussions - to the point of having asked repeatedly for your help in improving the place. They have to balance the 'old skool' forum members with the continual influx of new members, so their perspective might not perfectly match your view, but they are trying to achieve the best 'happy medium' for the members while adhering to the site goals. I think, if you spoke to them directly, you'd get a reasonable response that might help you either get the action you seek, or you'd at least understand why they don't' see it your way. Likewise, if you raise such an issue via REPORT or by citing examples in here (preferably in the appropriate thread), you'd get a well reasoned response. But to simply say "It sucks and nobody listens" tells me you only see it from your perspective, and you aren't listening when we ask for you to help us with examples or facts......not just your opinion.
Trust me, we all want to improve the place, OD mods included, otherwise we wouldn't have posted these requests for member feedback. But to do so we need to all see what the entire situation is and understand what the possibilities are, and which ones make sense to employ. As ever, the site rides on member contributions, both in ideas and in handling 'idiotic threads' and 'people dying from not finding the information they need'.