Too much 'Hit & Run'.

[KSoD]

Alright here it is from my point of view.

No matter what we are not going to destroy hit and runners. It wont happen no matter what the effort is. Adding in the extra effort to make it so that the rules are read and people MUST read them, will drive them to another site. Think about it. Why come here if you cant just click on the Registration button, fill in the form and go. Now you have to read the Rules and scroll through them ALL and answer some question based on them.

I can find about 500 other sites through Google that has Tech Forums, Computer Forums or any combination of Tech, PC, computers and so on that will allow me to just fill out a form, ask my question and get an answer. Why are we so special and difficult?

The Registration should not be changed and I will make an effort to not have it changed. We are not special. I can name at least 10 other sites, most of which that have a user base right around ours, that you dont need any special hoops to jump through. We are not about to start cause some people are tired of the hit and run attitude of others.

We are here to help! It doesnt matter if they sign up, ask and never show up again for the rest of their lives. We may never know if we helped them or not. We may never know if we even gave them the answer they needed or not. That is NOT our purpose. I was a HnR person for my first 3 years on site. Look at me now.

Sorry Dozer but I dont agree with your tactics and I dont think that this is how TF should be run. We are not anything special in the relm of Forums and we dont need hoops to jump through cause the amount of HnR people is growing for Summer. Forums are already a dying breed. Last thing we need is to give people a reason to leave our site and go to others cause we make it more difficult to join.

People find out real quick about the rules. Either by breaking them or by reading them. Either way they either get into line or get off the site. It doesnt change no matter what site you go to and it never will. You dont think sites even as large as CNet doesnt get HnR people? Microsoft Answers Forums has them as well. It is the nature of the beast for forums and it isnt something that you can just put measures into place to stop. I know this from experience of owning my own site that has gone under cause of such measures. In the scale of forums, we are not that large. We can't afford to lose membership and the little amount of Ad Revenue we get. If we did we would go under cause it would be to costly to continue to run the site.

 

[Slaymate]

Alright here it is from my point of view.

No matter what we are not going to destroy hit and runners. It wont happen no matter what the effort is. Adding in the extra effort to make it so that the rules are read and people MUST read them, will drive them to another site. Think about it. Why come here if you cant just click on the Registration button, fill in the form and go. Now you have to read the Rules and scroll through them ALL and answer some question based on them.

I can find about 500 other sites through Google that has Tech Forums, Computer Forums or any combination of Tech, PC, computers and so on that will allow me to just fill out a form, ask my question and get an answer. Why are we so special and difficult?

The Registration should not be changed and I will make an effort to not have it changed. We are not special. I can name at least 10 other sites, most of which that have a user base right around ours, that you dont need any special hoops to jump through. We are not about to start cause some people are tired of the hit and run attitude of others.

We are here to help! It doesnt matter if they sign up, ask and never show up again for the rest of their lives. We may never know if we helped them or not. We may never know if we even gave them the answer they needed or not. That is NOT our purpose. I was a HnR person for my first 3 years on site. Look at me now.

Sorry Dozer but I dont agree with your tactics and I dont think that this is how TF should be run. We are not anything special in the relm of Forums and we dont need hoops to jump through cause the amount of HnR people is growing for Summer. Forums are already a dying breed. Last thing we need is to give people a reason to leave our site and go to others cause we make it more difficult to join.

People find out real quick about the rules. Either by breaking them or by reading them. Either way they either get into line or get off the site. It doesnt change no matter what site you go to and it never will. You dont think sites even as large as CNet doesnt get HnR people? Microsoft Answers Forums has them as well. It is the nature of the beast for forums and it isnt something that you can just put measures into place to stop. I know this from experience of owning my own site that has gone under cause of such measures. In the scale of forums, we are not that large. We can't afford to lose membership and the little amount of Ad Revenue we get. If we did we would go under cause it would be to costly to continue to run the site.

I agree 100%. I know we would not get any review samples if it wasn't for the Hit & Run posters and readers. I say we need more of them, not less.

 

[InfiniteLoop]

i think what the OP is saying is that there is too much internet in this internet forum.

i admin at a different forum (different focus) and it's a thankless job. i think this place has a pretty good balance and a fun vibe, ksod excepted of course.

 

[KSoD]

But the truth of the matter is this. We are not where we are today cause we have such strict standards on membership. Some of these Hit 'N' Run posters are topics that are being searched for on Google and other Search Engines. Without such topics, the site might not even be found so high on Search Engines as it is now. So really we would be killing our main reason why we are ranked so high in the first place.

Not all of these HnR questions are bad. Some are very common and we are the first place that shows up on Search Engines so people as here. Sometimes people sign up just to reply that the method worked for them, sometimes they have other questions, sometimes they stick around. It is the nature of running an Internet Based Forum to have such activity. So if we made registration much more strict and tried to apply our wishes on others to try and make the community grow, be larger and more interactive with each other, we will lose one of the major reasons why we are who we are today.

I can't say that I fully disagree with Dozer on this. I don't like HnR poster just as much as the next guy. But it is something that 10 years on internet forums has taught me is completely necessary to have.

As far as the thankless job, yes and no. The staff here doesnt expect to be thanked for our work. We knew full well what we were getting into when we were asked to be staff. We have to make the tough decisions and 99% of the time we are hated for it. It happens. But it is also necessary as well to have it be done. If not we wouldnt be here cause this site would be plauged with Spam, Piracy and been shut down by now. At the same time we do have some members that go out of their way to contact us and let us know they appreciate the work we do. Yes we do work hard. Yes we do not always make the right choices. We are human after all, myself excluded. The scientists are still working on what in the world I really am....

Anyways. So it is true that sometimes we act on pure emotion or on our first instinct. It happens to the best of us even when we dont intend to. It is for this reason we created such things as the Confidential forums for members to talk with us directly about such matters, along with having our Personal Message system always on and open to members. Some of us even have our email addresses listed so you can reach us that way if you dont want to have it done on site. We have given member as many options as we can for them to contact any member of the staff and specifically us Administrators by as many means as possible to resolve disputes over anything.

We are not perfect. I am not perfect. I am the furthest thing from it. I admit it openly. I have many flaws. But I still do my job on site the way it needs to be done. If I didn't, I would be removed from my position. We try our best to make the site the best it can be for everyone. We still have a few things in the works to try and make the site even better for our members. I have to get to work on them again myself and get them pushed through to the finish to make TF the best it can be.

Sorry for the wall of text. Just had a lot to say.

 

[Yami]

^ lulz video but I fail to see the relevance