Important Changes to West Coast Ferries Forum
Apr 1, 2014 5:07:44 GMT -8
Political Incorrectness, Curtis, and 6 more like this
Post by Low Light Mike on Apr 1, 2014 5:07:44 GMT -8
Important Changes to West Coast Ferries Forum - Effective April 1, 2014:
The new version of ProBoards allows the moderators to track forum usage (views and posts) for the various sections of the forum for the various days of the week and times of the day.
We have tracked this data, and we have found certain days and times of day when certain sections of the forum are underutilized. Despite our best efforts to promote the usage of these "Minor Boards" to the forum membership, utilization remains low at certain times of days.
In a totally unrelated matter, the Forum Moderators are interested in earning fees for our forum work. Fees paid by you, the WCFF membership. And we also want to greatly increase our moderator-to-member ratio, to match the 1-for-6 management standard set by BCFS. This means we'd have about 58 staff members, and all would be paid large fees.
Because Moderator Fees should be our forum's largest cost (in a perfect forum world, we would be paid huge fees), it would be unfair to charge high fees in order to staff round-the-clock moderation of all forum boards, all days of the week. This is because some parts of the forum are under-utilized at certain times of days, and this doesn't justify a moderator fee charge. We are reasonable moderators, and it would not be right for us to charge a fee for work that only benefits an elite few (such as those viewing rail photographs on a Saturday morning, or anyone reading about financial reports on any day).
Some of you responded to our survey asking if you'd be willing to pay an extra "Moderator Off-Hour Surcharge" for moderator service during off-peak forum times. The response was overwhelmingly negative against the idea of a Moderator Off-Hour Surcharge.
A sampling of the member feedback is as follows:
- "rediculas and totally stupid"
- "your moderator crew had better write a new policy for this issue"
- "this is a ferry forum, not a cash cow"
- "what do you want us to do, carry a tape recorder and pay a fee?"
- "as much as I'd like to, I have neither the time, money or inclination to pay a surcharge"
- "I'm removing my WCFF tattoo in protest"
- "Urban Infiltration Forum has no such fee, so why should a ferry forum"
- "I totally disagree, and I'm not going to elaborate"
Because the forum moderators refuse to lose-out on potential fees earned on off-hours moderating work, and because the WCFF membership has loudly made it clear that moderator off-hour surcharges are unacceptable, the only way for us to sustain the WCFF as a whole is to reduce service hours for various pages. This is because even though any logical person would say that the best method would be to reduce or remove the moderator fees, the moderator group is totally opposed to giving up the potential gravy-train that could sustain our lavish lifestyles. And for those of us moderators who eventually reach 15-years of forum service, there could be a gold-plated ProBoards pension that awaits us, and this would need to be funded with moderator fees.
So, if the WCFF membership won't pay regular fees and moderator off-hour surcharges, then we have no choice but to cut forum services. It's the only way to sustain our forum, in order to protect the interests of the ferry-enthusiast community.
-----------------
The service reductions (to begin April 28, 2014) will be as follows:
- Flagships will change to an annual item, with one winner only, to be the one banner for the entire year. There will be no voting; it will be Scott and Jim on an alternating-annual basis.
- Other Forms of Transportation board: Cruise ship page will be shut-down during the off-season. It will only be open when the Alaska cruise season is running.
- No cutbacks to the Rail page, except that you will be required to eat a certain quota of grains while you are viewing the rail pages.
- North America & Abroad page will only be available on weekends.
- Alaska page is only available for viewing by Alaska citizens or those having travelled on an AMHS ship.
- Washington State current-fleet pages are not available during school hours, since most of the participants are high school age.
- Washington State newbuild pages are only available between midnight and 4:00am, when the participants are online.
- Voyager board are unavailable until noon, on the day following a group-trip.
- The New-Vessels pages will only be available for 24-hours following each BCF news release on newbuilds.
- BCFS Quarterly & Annual Reporting thread is cancelled entirely.
- The "Why the Sky is Blue" thread will only be available when the west coast sky is actually blue. So don't look for lots of availability from October-March.
- For the BCF and WSF ship-specific threads, if a vessel is in refit, then the thread will also be unavailable for that time as we do moderator maintenance on that thread. When a vessel is laid-up (such as Hiyu or NorAd) for parts of the year, then the thread will be moved to forum archives for that same period. However, to compensate for the temporary removal of those specific ship threads, we offer you the Nimpkish thread which should be adequate to keep you amused and entertained in the absence of the other ship threads.
- The Queen of Chilliwack thread will be permanently unavailable to all members, except Karl.
====================
We consider this notice to be adequate consultation on these matters.
The new version of ProBoards allows the moderators to track forum usage (views and posts) for the various sections of the forum for the various days of the week and times of the day.
We have tracked this data, and we have found certain days and times of day when certain sections of the forum are underutilized. Despite our best efforts to promote the usage of these "Minor Boards" to the forum membership, utilization remains low at certain times of days.
In a totally unrelated matter, the Forum Moderators are interested in earning fees for our forum work. Fees paid by you, the WCFF membership. And we also want to greatly increase our moderator-to-member ratio, to match the 1-for-6 management standard set by BCFS. This means we'd have about 58 staff members, and all would be paid large fees.
Because Moderator Fees should be our forum's largest cost (in a perfect forum world, we would be paid huge fees), it would be unfair to charge high fees in order to staff round-the-clock moderation of all forum boards, all days of the week. This is because some parts of the forum are under-utilized at certain times of days, and this doesn't justify a moderator fee charge. We are reasonable moderators, and it would not be right for us to charge a fee for work that only benefits an elite few (such as those viewing rail photographs on a Saturday morning, or anyone reading about financial reports on any day).
Some of you responded to our survey asking if you'd be willing to pay an extra "Moderator Off-Hour Surcharge" for moderator service during off-peak forum times. The response was overwhelmingly negative against the idea of a Moderator Off-Hour Surcharge.
A sampling of the member feedback is as follows:
- "rediculas and totally stupid"
- "your moderator crew had better write a new policy for this issue"
- "this is a ferry forum, not a cash cow"
- "what do you want us to do, carry a tape recorder and pay a fee?"
- "as much as I'd like to, I have neither the time, money or inclination to pay a surcharge"
- "I'm removing my WCFF tattoo in protest"
- "Urban Infiltration Forum has no such fee, so why should a ferry forum"
- "I totally disagree, and I'm not going to elaborate"
Because the forum moderators refuse to lose-out on potential fees earned on off-hours moderating work, and because the WCFF membership has loudly made it clear that moderator off-hour surcharges are unacceptable, the only way for us to sustain the WCFF as a whole is to reduce service hours for various pages. This is because even though any logical person would say that the best method would be to reduce or remove the moderator fees, the moderator group is totally opposed to giving up the potential gravy-train that could sustain our lavish lifestyles. And for those of us moderators who eventually reach 15-years of forum service, there could be a gold-plated ProBoards pension that awaits us, and this would need to be funded with moderator fees.
So, if the WCFF membership won't pay regular fees and moderator off-hour surcharges, then we have no choice but to cut forum services. It's the only way to sustain our forum, in order to protect the interests of the ferry-enthusiast community.
-----------------
The service reductions (to begin April 28, 2014) will be as follows:
- Flagships will change to an annual item, with one winner only, to be the one banner for the entire year. There will be no voting; it will be Scott and Jim on an alternating-annual basis.
- Other Forms of Transportation board: Cruise ship page will be shut-down during the off-season. It will only be open when the Alaska cruise season is running.
- No cutbacks to the Rail page, except that you will be required to eat a certain quota of grains while you are viewing the rail pages.
- North America & Abroad page will only be available on weekends.
- Alaska page is only available for viewing by Alaska citizens or those having travelled on an AMHS ship.
- Washington State current-fleet pages are not available during school hours, since most of the participants are high school age.
- Washington State newbuild pages are only available between midnight and 4:00am, when the participants are online.
- Voyager board are unavailable until noon, on the day following a group-trip.
- The New-Vessels pages will only be available for 24-hours following each BCF news release on newbuilds.
- BCFS Quarterly & Annual Reporting thread is cancelled entirely.
- The "Why the Sky is Blue" thread will only be available when the west coast sky is actually blue. So don't look for lots of availability from October-March.
- For the BCF and WSF ship-specific threads, if a vessel is in refit, then the thread will also be unavailable for that time as we do moderator maintenance on that thread. When a vessel is laid-up (such as Hiyu or NorAd) for parts of the year, then the thread will be moved to forum archives for that same period. However, to compensate for the temporary removal of those specific ship threads, we offer you the Nimpkish thread which should be adequate to keep you amused and entertained in the absence of the other ship threads.
- The Queen of Chilliwack thread will be permanently unavailable to all members, except Karl.
====================
We consider this notice to be adequate consultation on these matters.
I think it's time we start a new forum--with no members dues--to compete with the WCFF. This forum currently has an absolute monopoly on all ferry discussion in the Pacific NW, and that's not right, because then they can charge whatever dues they want. Competition is good for business.
) But in all seriousness, that was such a great April Fool's joke! I got quite a laugh out of it yesterday!! I also got quite a laugh out of reading some people's responses, too. 
