[RoadKing]

I for one, know that I will stop posting, if I would have to use my name. Not because I write to offend people (if it that happens, it is an accident since English is not my native speak), but because as others have stated, I express my personal views, albeit much of the travel is business travel.

Anyways, I have a proposal. In other forums I attend, a moderator is not necessarily a member of the site running the forum, but a trusted user of the forum.

So, how about introducing moderators, picking them from us users?

[JonathanCohen09]

Hello everyone,

thanks to all for your contributions to this thread so far. I have to say that I had not thought of some of the valid reasons given by contributors as to why they want to remin anonymous, perhaps I should have.

However, as excessbaggage has pointed out since we began discussing this topic the personal attaks seem to have ended for now so I guess we have achieved what I hoped we would. Long may it coninue.

I also like Roadkig’s idea of us looking into having some moderators from among ourselves. What do others think about that idea and how could we make it happen.

Tom, can you help with this?

Regards to all and safe travels,

Jonathan

[Tom Otley]

We can certainly look at it.

There are a couple of problems however.

When we started the forum, we could have just used the normal forum software that you will be familiar with. The problem with that would have been you would have had to log in to read everything on the site (ie: new stories etc…) but then when you went through to the forum you would have had to register again, and log in again. This would have been a separate database of names and email addresses, and we felt it would be confusing to both users and us.

We also thought logging in twice would put people off, so we used one log in for both, and that’s how it works today. This same log in also works for http://www.seatplans.com as you might have noticed, so we thought it was a good solution.

The forum software we use however can’t distinguish easily between users. Two of us here in the office moderate the forum, but that is because we have administrator rights. It also allows us and a third person, the subscription manager, to deal with changes of address for the paper subscriptions etc…

As you’ll appreciate, I can’t give out administrator rights for data protection reasons – you would be able to see much more than the bit which allows you to delete spam, porn and unsolicited advertising and links. In fact, you would be able to post stories.

Sophisticated forum software costs only a few hundred pounds – we are testing it at the moment here http://www.smarttraveller.co.uk – but as you’ll see, it needs a separate log in and that’s a route we don’t want to go down. At the moment your log in allows you to access all our websites, including http://www.businesstraveller.asia and http://www.panaceapublishing.co.uk where you can renew your subscription online, for instance.

So in principle, I have no objection to creating moderators, but right now we are unable to. The bespoke software would have to be adapted to allow it to happen which can be done, but will be expensive, and will have to join the long list of things we would like to do, and will possibly do, as and when funds permit.

As you can see (I hope), we are investing a lot in the web – the new http://www.seatplans.com is an example of this, and I’d love to hear your comments on it (perhaps another thread, though).

I do appreciate the time many of you are putting into finding a way forward through all of this, and we will do the same (and spend money making it happen).

Tom Otley

[JonathanCohen09]

Hi Tom,

thank you very much for the quick and comprehensive reply. We cannot ask for more than for you to look at the situation to see what can be done.

We look forward to an update in due course.

Have a good weekend,

Jonathan

[marckirby]

Just a couple of points.

I agree that a good way forward would be to appoint trusted forum posters as moderators…provided that is technically possible.

I have no problem using my real name. I use this forum for mutually beficial exchanges of views and nothing else.

I make my own mind up on whether someones view is useful to me.
Those with an “angle” are easy to spot and I ignore them.

On a final point you may be aware of recent court cases where sites and blogs have been forced to reveal the real identity of posters. There seems to be no real anonymity when legal proceedings are involved.

[Tom Otley]

Yes, it’s an interesting point.

If anyone would like to read about it further, I thought this article in the now-closed Conde Nast magazine Portfolio was very interesting (it’s a long article, but worth reading)

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2009/02/11/Two-Lawyers-Fight-Cyber-Bullying/

[marckirby]

SA

Yes, an excellent article in all respects. Recommended reading.

[Author]

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