it is time to get rid of the unmoderated forum policy

Yes, sort of. I think what you are refering to as the unmoderated forum is actually the unarchived forum which is moderated as much as the moderators can stand I guess ;)

 

I know I was one who was whining not that long ago about increasing the life of questions in the unarchived forum from 24 to 48 hours and that not enough of the questions where being archived. I've completely changed my mind, I think the unarchived forum should go. As it is now, I think the unarchived forum is nearly worthless and just wasting the moderators time (deleting my smartass remarks, no less, I just can't help myself sometimes...).

 

Further, if it isn't current policy already then the moderator(s) of a given forum should also be able to decide which of those questions that they approved are to be archived when they expire (or aren't new anymore or whatever). That way you can still allow some short discussions and notices of exhibits or other timely information without clogging up the archives.

 

Someone above mentioned that removing the unarchived forum would just mean those people would be posting to other forums, and that would probably be true for a little bit. But they would hopefully go away after their questions don't appear in the forum. Might be rough on the moderators, though.

I personally like the unarchived forum, but I do wish there was some way to have posts that I have participated in automatically get emailed to me when it expires just like the ones I post.

 

If we lose the unarchived forum, would it be possible to set an expiration on our own posts? For example, a while ago I posted about a photography related show that was going to be on CNN. I posted it only because I knew the thread wasn't going to stick around long term because the point of the thread was very short term. I'm sure there are other posts where the poster knows full well that it is of only short term interest and I'd hate to lose the ability to make these temporary posts.

 

Also, someone said to get rid of the archived stuff. As someone who actually reads the archived stuff, I vote no on that. I wish everything except abusive posts and short term topics was archived, though I imagine hard drive space is limited.

No, the unmoderated forum seems to be used a lot by intermediate photo enthusiasts, let them have their 15 minutes (or 48 hours) of fame. The fact that it's unmoderated (actually loosely moderated)makes it more laid back and adds a sense of freedom. I think that this freedom is conducive to the freedom that initially was a hallmark of the internet per se, which is a bastion of freedom of speech. Overworked monitors will start "blasting" poor, well intentioned newbies. Government, soy contra!!!

Yes, I agree we need more moderation to prevent insulting posts - off-topics are not such a problem, we can just pass... But how to do it without pumping human energy that would better be used at better things ? Simple.

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STATE IN BOLD LETTERS EVERYWHERE IN THE FORUMS - ARCHIVED OR NOT - THE NEW FOLLOWING RULE:

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ANY AD HOMINEM ATTACK WILL BE PUNISHED BY A WARNING.

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3 WARNINGS = YOU'LL BE BANNED FROM THE POSSIBILITY OF PARTICIPATING IN THESE FORUMS.

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ANY PERSON WHO NOTICES AN ABUSE THAT WOULD SERIOUSLY REQUIRE MODERATOR'S INTERVENTION, PLEASE REPORT IT AT THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL: X.

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If there were no jails, many more people would be acting illegally, don't you think ? As simple as that. Regards.

I'm with Nicholas Barry. Let every post be modded by the whole community - the posts will live or die on their merit as judged by the community. After 24 (48... whatever) hours posts that are not considered worthy are dropped, those that are of value get archived. The current moderators will become meta-moderators policing, evaluating & ranking the community moderators. Community modrs will only be allowed to mod x posts/timeframe with bonus mod points being awarded by the meta-modrs and cold hard cash donations to Photo.net

 

Obviously this idea needs polishing, but the blueprint is out there.

 

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