Forum Owner, Admins, Moderators?

[ryanw]

I've been looking around the forum since I've been back on, and yes it's been a bit slow on here it seems this year.

I've also noticed that there hasn't been any new things coming out from the owner of the forum. The last thing added might have been the refrigerant section with the membership you can buy? Has there been any improvements, additions, promotions, etc to the forum in the past couple years? Is the forum owner the same and who is that anyway?

Also, who are the moderators now? Have any new ones been added?

I reported this post as spam yesterday, wondering if anyone is monitoring reports - https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/more...ht=#post298687

Just some questions running through my head today. Thanks to anyone that can add some information!

[ryanw]

Yeah, that's how it's always been done. I am more interested in the activities of higher powers on the forum. Improvements? Growth? Auto pilot usually doesn't work for anything, and is one of the reasons this forum has less activity imo. We had several moderators, very active ones at that...a couple passed away while I was active, that still gets to me now.

[ryanw]

Still miss you guys, and all of the others that just disappeared.

Mechanic688
https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/off-...ht=#post269108
https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scra...-some-not.html

Mick
https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scra...k-smith-3.html
https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/members/mick.html

[ryanw]

111111

[ryanw]

Hell yeah I remember! I was just saying ah man too bad he's been banned (again). I expected you had just wandered off into the wilderness.

[hills]

Guys:

It's not to be contrary but i have to disagree with ya on this one.



I've lived in the city and i've lived in the country. It seems like you have more trouble with more of a police presence. Same thing with Admins & mods on a forum. The more heavy handed the control ... the more people act up. In Discordian terms .... the imposition of order = the escalation of disorder. It's like turning up the heat on a pressure cooker. You can lash the lid down tight but it will eventually blow without a safety valve to let off some steam.

If you possibly can .... you're way better off to let folks manage for themselves. The community can largely regulate itself. You only call in the peacekeepers when they're REALLY needed. You don't call em' in because Mrs. O'leary's cat is stuck up a tree.

So what if there are a couple of spammers. We poke fun at em' and then they're quickly forgotten.

I know folks have paid memberships. The reality of it seems to be that it simply isn't a sustainable business model. Site advertising doesn't appear to work that well here. The whole refrigerant thing was a good try as an income generator but ????

Bottom line .... i'm thankful to have a site at all. Mindful neglect from the admin & mods is working just fine as far as i'm concerned.

Now, it's true enough that there isn't nearly as much activity as there was a few years ago. I think that has more to do with the fact that the world has changed. That, and just about everything that can be said, has been said. There really aren't that many new developments in the world of scrapping going on right now. It's long hours, hard work, and pitifully low pay.

More power to the guys that are doing it and are making good profit these days. They certainly have my admiration and respect. This is no easy line of business to be in !

[mikeinreco]

Still a core group here.........Probably only a handful I would trust to buy/sell product though..........That is what happens when the price goes down.........Ewaste still humming along but the hours are long but the payoff is usually pretty good..........Unless you are in for the long term not many make it in ewaste or scrap in general.........Most find other jobs that are 9-5 because most people just wanna draw a paycheck and let someone else worry about the infrastructure of the business.....I am fairly small independent EWASTE guy but I do have quite a few expenses every month.........Fuel for trucks/storage of materials/shipping supplies/maintenance/tools and the list goes on........If my trucks don't run or I can't handle what my clients require of me I lose money/go out of business..........I'm fairly lucky as I got into scrap metal when there was a boom in pricing and I was able to stockpile funds needed to continue in leaner times...........As far as this forum goes My membership fees paid for themselves long ago but other than the few still trading here not a lot of new customers generated by this site

[ryanw]

I get what you're saying, hills, you're content with how it is. I'm kind of disappointed coming back, mostly because I only remember what it was.

As I described, this community has always moderated itself, that's what I liked about it. However, for a community to continue to thrive, there are always leader types, usually moderators which create a lot of draw by themselves. Take Mechanic688, for example, the amount of content, personality, and activity just from him kept people here. There is one moderator left, parrothead, as far as I know. He hasn't been here for a couple months, and hasn't posted since I was around last. These kinds of people are the engines of a forum.

Second, we do actually need the admins back on developments and bug fixing. This forum can end up having no posts, and might as well be a static website. It has lagged behind in a lot of things as a web prooperty. What once used to be first line search results with scrapmetalforum.com, is now owned by iscrapp appp, random youtube vids, the .au scrapmetalforum, and random blog articles. That is possibly a huge reason there are less people coming here.

I wonder if the owner would want to pass on the reigns. I wonder if new moderators would be a good thing. All they really have to do is watch the reports, and in a very rare case, decide on a ban.

Heck, the marketplace, which was AWESOME, needs to be cleaned up in several different ways.

Just saying there are some pretty easy stuff to do. It's like maintaining your house. It'll fall apart eventually if you don't improve and maintain.

I'm jumping in here with this talk now, because this is what i've been doing for a couple years. At one point, I was helping manage an influx of thousands of new users across several social media channels (reddit, telegram, discord, forums, twitter). Times are slower now, but it's still what I do. I do community development and PR for the Burst coin project. So when I come back to my favorite place of all time, all of these alarms are going off in my head. I'm sorry if it seems I'm just coming in here and trying to stir up some dirt.

[matador]

It's a lot more quiet here. There are a few of us old-timers left, but I think a lot of the quietness isn't the moderation, it's the scrap metal and E-Waste industry. I love what I do- helping work with scrappers, connecting them to the world of refurbishing. It's a passion of mine. E-Waste collections work for me because of free warehousing (The joys of living on a farm means you have access to old barns). If it wasn't for that, though, it would be really hard to justify the business. You can make a lot more working in IT than you can working on the parts side of things. I'm hopeful that E-Waste turns around, but I have my doubts. Regardless, I'm here and not going anywhere- I love what I do too much to not do it. I've met a lot of great people on the Forum here. It needs changes IMO to draw more people here, but there's only so much that moderation can do.

I moderate on other communities, and there are plenty of times that it's a thankless job. Fortunately this is a very well-mannered community. If it wasn't, imagine what would happen with "relaxed" moderation. Yeah, you'd have a MESS....