My opinion on the off-topic forum and HwC in general

[PSAD]

Ever hear the saying that "no garden is complete without weeds".


Whenever you have a garden that WAS as good as HwC WAS you are going to attract ALOT of vistors to your site. When a site is good and a lot of visitors are attracted you are going to get good members and a few "weeds" also. That fact has to be accepted.

Seems that the "bright" administrators in an effort to get rid of the few "weeds", they did something to the equalivant of spraying Agent Orange on the whole garden in an effort to get rid of the few weeds and ended up killing off all the roses and beatiful flowers that they really wanted to keep.


Moral of the story, If a web site is worthy of attrating traffic it's going to attract good folks and also bad folks too.

The trick is to keep the good people happy and to somehow contain the weeds.


The folks in charge did a miserible job doing this.
Seems what they basically said is "Like it MY way or leave".... And folks left.


Now What?

Rebuild? Goodluck.
Some of the best computer knowledge folks I've ever came across on the internet which were giving HwC their services for FREE are long gone.
How do you replace such talent?
Guess what it is almost unreplaceable! Cause the vibe that was once here is no longer here.
So now what you got is a bunch of newbies trying how to figure out how to fix each others computers, which is almost laughable.


How do you keep the good people happy and contain the weeds the adminstrators ask?

Don't ask me. That's for you to figure out.
That's why you get paid the big bucks!

Will HwC ever see days again like the glory days?
I doubt it.

Is HwC saveable?
Possilbly. But that "my way or the highway" attitude has to leave.

Something else I must point out about the so called "increased traffic". It's not the quantity of the so called "improved" traffic. It's the QUALITY!

And the quality of new traffic is NOWHERE near the quality of the people who left! NOWHERE!


Just Food for thought.


ps.
for the record I've been here since the end of '98.



[This message has been edited by PSAD (edited 08-09-2001).]

[MitchSchaft]

How long have you been here?

[Necessary Evil]

That is like the parable from the bible about a farmer who discovered weeds in his corn crop.

He wanted to burn the whole crop...but it would have killed his corn. So he had to wait and reap the corn first and allow the weeds to live for a while.

It was supposed to explain why God just doesnt destroy the whole planet...because no matter how bad it is...there are still good folks around.

Good analogy! Many of the good HWC people have been "destroyed" in an effort to get rid of the "OT weeds"...

[This message has been edited by Necessary Evil (edited 08-10-2001).]

[MitchSchaft]

good to go

[ris]

why couldn't OT just have been super-moderated for a period or those intent on breaking aup encourage to leave?

unlike our farmer of parable we can weed selectively

------------------
'i suppose it is technically possible...
but then i am already in my pyjamas'

[MitchSchaft]

'cause they're too lazy I guess.

[Bennyboy]

There are some great forums around like 'thedvdforums', where their generla forum is chock full of OT stuff, and it thrives through good moderation. The members won't stand for any **** and the mods see to it that it doesn't hang around too long. Having seen a working wxample of good moderation I can really see how poor it is here. I thought you guys were doing all you could for us, but now I see that it really was the easy-out option for you which caused the loss of not only a forum but community.

Bennyboy.