SpaceMouse
Fun Lover
dthurman said:Coyote
Same here, they could have at least placed a posty note or emailed all the members, there is a feature like that on almost all message boards to let us know the scoop. I don't want to slam MR too hard, but I feel Terry Thompson the head ed is over reacting to all this. It reminds me of how the US/Britian handle terrorism. If you close up shop or stop doing what you do everyday, then they have achieved (the trolls) just what they wanted. It makes us model railroaders look like wimps. Sorry to be saying this, but they put to sleep a pretty good resource. I imagine that new subscribers or folks that by the mag at the store would come there, as well as it, the MR forums also led the internet crowd to other web sites like this just from the interest it created, not to mention all that exccelent knowledge that was on there, Joe's clinics, Bob's Photo Clinic etc. If those forums are left locked, and we know just how great the search feature was, let alone a new comer even knowing the lingo to search, is a shameful waste for those who posted and those that need it.
I used to own a hosting and web develpment company, we used Sun servers and we had a mailing list that was similar to how MR ran, many other lists and forums, but Sun was the palce everyone went for help or getting started. Well they decided to close it down, too much work they claimed, which I don't buy, having been in the business, so when people got togehter to move all the subscribers to a new place, we lost about 40% and that 40% was the ones that were the helpers. They just got fed up. I am probably blowing this out of porportion (sp) a little, but if they stay down any longer then Monday or mid week, I think they will hurt themselves as for the forums, though I am sure the forums, could be hurting their mag sales. I am sure the internet did.
Okay enough soapboxing. Glad you made it over. BTW what does that say in your sig file, I always wanted to ask.
We don't know that they are blowing this out of proportion yet. It could be that they were on some kind of deadline and just didn't have time to deal with it yet. Just shut it down to deal with later.
On the other hand, I was at another board, larger than this one and one person was doing a big job and trying to run a board like Bergie is doing. It gradually got more and more out of control until the guy blew up and when dictatorial on us. Many people revolted and another board, much like this one benefited from the blow-up. Eventually, the guy in Bergie's position got volunteers to help him run the place. It was a difficult restructure, but ultimately it worked.