So how are we going to fix things?
 

I say "We" because mods are stakeholders in BF to the same degree as the other members.

Let me ask the moderators/administrators a few questions with regard to the Road Forum:

1) What have you identified as the problem(s) with the road forum?
2) How are you sure that those are, in fact, the right problems to address?
3) What questions have you asked in formulating your solutions to the problems identified in (1) and (2)?
4) Who are the stakeholders? Who are the decision makers? In other words, who is affected by the decisions that the latter group makes?
5) What role, if any, should the stakeholders play in the crafting of a solution to the problems identified?
6) What questions are you asking now, and to whom are you presenting the questions?



Clearly there is a division here, and I believe that division will continue to widen unless some sort of diplomatic dialogue can occur. So let's start.

Well, for starters, the main issue from our complaints is hostility, and yes, I do understand that there is a certain amount of rough humor in Road, and that's fine. ;) Sometimes, on a periodic cycle, though it goes over the top and then we start getting a rash of reports to deal with.

A large part of them are really not serious and we PM the reporter to explain about rough humor, etc.

I don't see or hear a lot of Roadies to tell you one way/another, but since A&S is always directly above Alt Bike Culture I see the topics all the time. I don't know how many ways you can argue about many of the same subjects but I do appreciate that people care. Now I can only hope they have the musket ball packed well and the muzzle loader doesn't shoot them instead, so to speak. I normally skip it. Sometimes I wonder if they should place a one day limit on posting before threads in controversial places are closed and all can move on to something else. It's just my notion and I'm glad we have A&S.

I think that some of the former troublemakers here would also troll the pdx. hierachy on Usenet but I really don't care anymore (professional trolls killed the pdx newsgroups that mattered and the groups[s] are virtually dead).

I like my Bike Forums, they are worth server hassles. I try to keep a broad range of threads read so as not to become stale.