Well, you don't have to look very far. I'm a member over there. It's not very active. Last time I was there there may have been 4 people actively posting---I hate the Democrats/Republicans and your team sucks. From what I could gather, a few people join but leave within 30 days.
I was recruited because he liked my postings here a lot, though I would be a big asset to the forum. I joined to see what the fuss was about, after a week of it, got up and left, that was about 2 months ago, big mistake to join in the first place.
Not going back there at all, will stop the monthly e-mail when it comes around again.
Stealing members from a form and rewarding members who does the stealing is an extremely stupid idea, not a valid way to build membership. I have seen forum defections being done through PMs before on two forums, the original forum suffered and the new forums died out within 1 1/2 years. Everybody lost, which is why we should support THIS forum and help stop this underhanded skulduggery, then we will not suffer for it.
We say that, but you did go there as did I. Maybe this board could make you have a minimum posts before having access to PMs though I think 50 is excessive.
If I had a board like this, I wouldn't worry. Every board I've been on is about the same. The owners and moderators want a board that leans toward their values, so they weed out anyone that is too outspoken against whatever the mods and owners believe in.
They all claim to be non-partisan and if you accuse them of leaning one way or another, they come unglued, get rid of you and eventually a year or two later their board collapses. This latest board probably won't last a year and people from here will be there recruiting to get people to come to USM when they figure out the other board caters to a couple of trolls and it ends up being an all conservative or all liberal board.
That other board got 10,000 posts, thought they were the big deal and got rid of a couple of people they didn't like while letting two or three posters troll everyone who joined. They don't know it, but 10,000 posts is probably about a month's worth of posts here. I don't see the big deal. Competition is good for business and the way those guys run their show, most of their posters will come here by way of PM referrals. They are good advertising for USM.
This was the main reason why I went there:
"I was recruited
because he liked my postings here a lot, thought I would be a big asset to the forum. I joined to see what the fuss was about"
He was very serious about me in the PM I had gotten from him, that is WHY I went there to see what it was about.
As I made clear, I quickly realized the place was not worth it, I sent several PM's to the owner about the forum and sent a few REPORTS complaints about over the top trolling to him. He ignored most of them, did say on one report that he doesn't agree. That was the last straw, when even the owner allows abject trolling behavior to run unchecked, it was time to leave.
You wrote this:
If I had a board like this, I wouldn't worry. Every board I've been on is about the same. The owners and moderators want a board that leans toward their values, so they weed out anyone that is too outspoken against whatever the mods and owners believe in.
Actually while this is a conservative leaning board, they show no indication of deliberate censorship here, they have banned conservatives who don't come back, they have "banned" (
suspended) leftists/liberals over and over, they still come back. I await Caddo Kid and Moonglow to reappear, to see more of their loony postings. This forum does a better job tolerating various viewpoints, even stupid ones than most forums I have been on, which is a factor on why I give some financial support and intend to stay around a long while. It is by far my forum of choice, where I post around 90% of all forum postings on the internet,
HERE.
I was a member of
Free Conservatives, a definite Conservative site (with a few thousand members), but allowed one Administrator to say after he admitted he was a Homosexual, which is normally a no no for a conservative site. I became an Administrator there near the end, to help revitalize the place, due to the damage of numerous bad moderating decisions to ban liberals who didn't deserve it. The place was once very active with hundreds of members who posted daily, which quickly slowed to a trickle when 2/3rds of the Mods were removed and the board undergoing renovation, updating the posting rules and so on, It never recovered.
When it was announced that the forum was going to close temporarily for renovation, with a lot of Moderators being removed, that led to an exodus of people to leave and soon form their own board
Liberty Dwells, which lasted about 3 years before it fell apart by hacking attacks, it seemed that the owner didn't make good decisions to protect the forum from attacks. It never went beyond about 350 members in the three years it existed. Members quickly gave up and the board which did come back died quickly soon afterwards.
Two of these forums dies largely because they were intolerant of viewpoints that were not conservative, would find any excuse to push around the liberals who used to make a sizable part of the membership base. I had a couple of Liberals send me PM's complaining about the Mods (while I was a regular members) being intolerant.
I had that happened to at another Forum too, where a couple liberals complained to me, which still lives, but barely, after the last two OWNERS were derelict in their duty to maintain and protect the place (One owner was gone for nearly a year, didn't respond to e-mails from Mods
, when the forum was in trouble
) I regret not taking ownership of the place when the original owner offered it to me, about 8 years ago. It didn't help when they left a good software to something I would call "The Cave" software, visiting it make it look like you are the only one there (I pointed this out to the current clueless owner)
. They limp along with a handful of members, of a once bustling forum, it will eventually fade away.
This forum still exist, a place where my silent banning (
account suspended) took place after 10,000 postings as of December 2007, it was my forum of choice, but the new owner who took the original owners place, ran it down due to her incredible intolerance, I was shut down with no mention of rule infractions, she simply didn't like me.
She and one of her lady mods were caught stalking members, who were members of other forums, they were told they would get sued for it by one of the members. Hundreds of people were banned in the first year (some I am sure deservedly) many who were Libertarians, who started threads about that viewpoint, which the owner disliked very much, started warnings, stopped threads, which led to an exodus of members to a brand new forum that would allow Libertarian views to thrive unimpeded, I went there AFTER I was shut down, but they faded away too. It limps along now a former glory of what it once was, a cavernous forum with over a
MILLION postings in it, intolerance killed it, that is what the witch bitch owner did to it. It used to have HUNDREDS of members posting daily (0ver 35,000 members), now just a couple dozen do so today, with most liberals, libertarians and other non conservative viewpoints pushed away.
The witch bitch goes out of her way to block me from seeing her place completely, by banning my IP, that is how messed up she is.
The success of a forum largely depends on a
tolerant owner and moderation team when diverse viewpoints are allowed to exist.
This is one of them.
The object would be to pester him just ENOUGH so that you get banned eventually and come home a hero...
Let's us know if you accomplish the mission.. We'll consider a proper medal of honor for you...
