[av8r]

In an effort to make a positive suggestion I'm thinking a rules section/sticky might be helpful to the forum. Every large forum I participate on has one and I believe it helps keep things running smoothly. By setting the expectations early on with clear language and clear consequences you allow the forum members to police themselves taking pressure off the moderating staff. Additionally, you allow the moderating staff to have a clear path to take when someone steps outside the rules.
One of the most successful powersports forums on the web is www.advrider.com. They have 471,066 threads, 13,155,326 posts and 147,500 registered users. As of this posting there are over 2500 people logged onto the site. Baldy (Chris) and his staff do a great job of keeping that place from turning into the wild west. They do it by having rules stickies at the top of every forum. The rules are clear and the consequences for breaking the rules are hard and fast. They strive to have users that respect each other which makes it an amazing resource for all things powersports.

Here's an example of their ruleset:

If you see a problem click the "report this" link and we will look into it.

When an item is sold it helps us by putting in ***SOLD*** in the first line of the first post so we can mark your ad accordingly

Old ads get deleted every 30-45 days.

If you fail to meet the simple rules, the ad gets removed. We do not have time to point out each failed ad, so if your ad vanishes check the rules before re-posting.

• If it is not yours, you cannot sell it here.
• No outside links, ebay, craigslist, autotrader etc, if you mention it and just don't post the link we will treat it the same and remove the thread.
• No price in title, if you put a price in the title we will just nuke the thread. Only mods can change the title of a thread so think before posting.
• Each ad needs location and price, pics are optional but your ad will be much better if they have them. Attachments are wonky it may work, but it may not, better to host from an online photo site like smugmug.
  Here is how you do it.
• No bumping your thread within 5 days, we may remove the bump or we may remove the entire thread.
• Multi item sales (3 or more of the same item) go in vendors, if we find one it is gone. We have a vendors forum.
• Spam -this gets nuked and you get banned
• No posting of PMs or private info - instant ban
• No firearms or related items allowed, this includes illegal weapons of course.
• This is not JM, JM type posts will be removed and the inmate will be banned

Lets keep it nice and about the sale. Helping each other out vs. making a profit is what this is about.
Remember this place is free of charge so if you sell something, don't forget the donate button to keep it going.

Hope this helps.

 

[scuzz]

Right now, as we are so small I just don't see a need for it. I'm fine with something like this being in the Terms Of Service or something like that, but I don't see that many problem people. Sure, every now and then you get a jackass, but 99% of the rest of the time it's smooth sailing.

ADV rider has 3x as many people online as we have members, they neeed to have that there. Especially the bumping rule.

 

[Red-N-BlackXX]

thats one of the reason's this site is so cool! We don't need all those rules. It's a small community...

 

[av8r]

As I said, just a suggestion. While I agree that problems typically scale with membership I don't think that's a strong argument Personally, I prefer to have the information published as a proactive statement, but that's just me.

 

[scuzz]

Rules do little to stop what was going on in your thread.

Some people just do what they do.

We have a stickied rule about reviews and still people post "what do you think" threads.

I understand what you're saying though, I've seen other HUGE forums where it was needed and people had points deducted for infractions and all that, but if the members flag items they don't like that is IMO the best way to get items resolved rather than micro-managing the users and what they do.