As per my previous post where I was looking to do something about the forum and was looking for input. I’ve been receiving input and thinking about this during my time off and have had several discussions, including during the NW meet this weekend (Report to follow later this week) and the input is fairly conclusive. You love the site and you hate many of the users. So the best thing I can do is keep the site but have nobody on it. Mmmmm.
Funnily enough as that was an option that was on my list initially I was easily convinced by some late input I had from a few people I have respect for. Their input coupled with my requirements for the site means that I can easily meet everyone’s requirement without too much trouble. So win win.
As I wanted the sites to be available to new preppers I cannot set up a closed forum. However Survival UK members have already set up and are working on closed forums already. To get new blood they will include member of these sites to their forums if they think they are worthy. These sites are independent of Survival UK and I have no control over who they invite or not. Contribute and you may be invited, troll or post inane comments and you probably will not. The members from these forums will drop in from time to time to answer questions and contribute as they see fit and I already have an article from them I will be posting later this week.
This obviously isn’t perfect but it seems to be an excellent compromise. Newbie preppers can start here and experienced preppers can deal with other experienced preppers on their own site where they control who is on and using it. Hopefully, it will not follow the path we have set.
Therefore, excluding the forum, the Survival UK suite of sites will remain as is.
The forum will change as follows;
- The rules of the forum will be updated to;
- Posts to stick to questions and replies.
- No topical news items for awareness.
- No inane comments that do not add to the thread.
- The forum will continue to be open to all.
- I will change the forum format to a different software package.
- I will either transfer the forum data to the new format or archive the existing forum if I cannot transfer it.
- I will transfer all the users from the forum who have contributed in the past.
- I will set up a rating system to allow users to rate other users. You can help police yourself.
- I will contact all the mods to see if they want to continue being mods.
- I will send out new passwords and a covering letter to every user that remains explaining what is going on.
- I will put a notice on the forum explaining what is going on and how to use the rating system.
With a bit of luck the site will return to something that will be helpful to users and we can be a feeder site for the more advanced groups. That enables me to do what I want to do. The new preppers can learn and discuss basics while more advanced preppers can move on to more advanced discussions which, hopefully, they will continue to feed us with articles.