Re: [GSAS-Member] A forum

["Clifford Miller" <clifford@clevergeek.com>]

When I first joined up it seemed like it would be fun to have an easy
place to permantently share photos.  Two things I like about a forum
(and/or gallery setup) are that:

1) Some members might post more often to a forum than a list so they don't
feel like they're spamming everyone.

2) mailing lists (that lack attachment abilities) encourage text linking
from free photo-sharing sites for sharing pictures or files.  In my
experience, most of the things linked in list archives have long since
gone missing as accounts expire or things get deleted or moved.  Even if
you find what you're looking for in the archives, if it's not a part of
the message text, it's probably gone.

If anyone would be interested, it would be pretty trival (a couple of
clicks) to add a forum or gallery setup to my existing web host, and since
the account already has more storage and transfer than I'll ever use, it
wouldn't cost the group anything.

I couldn't volunteer myself to police a forum or gallery full-time or
anything, but as has been said, there isn't really any existing moderation
going on now, so there probably wouldn't be all that much needed?

Just offering options...

Cliff


> On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Laurel Larsen wrote:
>
>> but I find forums to be a little more cohesive not only than the
>> mailing list, but also the archive, it's easier to share photos
>
> That is true about the photos.  The same scheme that keeps this list
> spam-free also is (for better or worse) what keeps us photo-free.
>
> However, it does make me think... we could open it up to allow small photo
> attachments (jpeg only, say 200k total per e-mail?).  It means that those
> e-mails would be larger when photos are attached.  Those subscribed to the
> digest would not get the photos, but they would be available in the
> archive.  If anyone has an opinion one way or another, e-mail me
> privately... it would be easy to do this on a trial basis and turn it back
> off if it got out of hand.
>
>
>> registration could be filtered allowing only members to register(with
>> their member number).
>
> This is a bit more tricky, because it requires synchronizing of the
> database with the forum, or someone to moderate subscribe requests, etc.
> Much like public radio, we don't actually keep non-members off this list,
> theory being that it may encourage them to come to a meeting or an
> auction, or even (gasp) join!
>
>
>> I understand that most forums require moderation, but there is none on
>> the mailing list and I have yet to see crazy arguments, rants or death
>> threats.
>
> It's not so much the discussions getting out of hand as the opportunistic
> spam bots and other completely unrelated junk that shows up.  It's really
> nice that this list has essentially had no spam on it for going on nine
> years now.  Over on the AGA forum, until we added a customized 'plant
> quiz' to the registration (something I had to custom-code), we were
> getting 2-5 messages a day posted for Cell phone accessories, prescription
> drugs, and other inappropriate topics.  And they're all posted by robots,
> so they never stop.
>
>> It's merely an idea that
>> I thought I'd throw out there since many other regional clubs have
>> forums.  :)
>
> Definitely -- don't stop with the ideas!
>
>    - Erik
>
> --
> Erik Olson
> erik at thekrib dot com
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