Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations I WISH (a crazy rant, viewer discretion advised)

Ok, ok I get now sorry it took me a minute. I did kind of back track over myself didn't I... LOL Gotta love it.

LOL, RC. You are officially PB baptized by the Chucklehead church of bad jokes.
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You had me a little worried, tho, when you made your first correction and presented us with

Thank goodness for periods.

Yeah and I don't stink! At least I don't think I do??? LOL!!

RC - sorry I got you into this !!!

LOL! It was my own fault. I did kind of mess that up when I wrote it!! Too Funny! Good fun fellas and I can handle being the joke once in a while no problem!

Good. I have you scheduled to be the butt of the joke again at 3:27PM (EST) on March 27, 2010.

See ya then.

I see it will be a long wait to be initiated. Dose it hurt?

(?)

Tickles a little.

WE will decide on frequency
Muuhaahaahaahaa...

It can even happen to B'ski !! So no one is ever safe.

ruh roh

I am hoping Beaver Boy's thoughts will have a little more life. I often look at a person's profile before I answer a question, make a comment, etc. Knowing "a little" about them often helps me formulate an answer.

I believe all of us can share more information about ourselves than some members currently do without jeopardizing our security. Knowing the state, reasonable description of occupation, hobbies and interests, etc. should not subject anyone to having their identity stolen. A member certainly doesn't need to post their email address, their web site, if they have one,etc. but something less revealing shouldn't cause issues.

Mr. Lusk and the moderators probably don't need any more suggestions, but I would think "requiring" some of the blanks to be filled in would make this site more interesting.

I know that in the past there have been a few attempts by new members to sell shoes or something similar. I've found some of them before the moderators found them and removed them. It virtually each case the "member" didn't reveal anything about themselves, state, why they were interested in ths site, etc. To me that is a red flag.

I belong to one hobby site, which is free, where you must be approved. If this site did this, which would be work on someones part, an applicant might need to meet certain criteria, or fill in certain blanks before they were allowed to participate, post, ask questions, etc.

Bing

Good points Bing. We have talked about that. The downside is the more you require the fewer people will join in. Growth is important so long as its manageable through moderation. It is Bob's call and we march to his tune.

and yet, JHAP and I still snuck in
If you start demanding too much info, we are gonna take Sock Puppet, Barnes, Tan, and Dwight and start our own site. (we need Tan to communicate with Dwight)

Eric, good points.

I doubt that I am alone in reviewing profiles before I answer questions. As a practice I often don't supply answers to some questions because I see that the questioner has chosen not to share anything with us.

BTW,If you are a member of this site, and put in interests in fishing, pond management, etc. and the state you live in how much "confidential" information are you really exposing?

If I were a member who had nothing about myself in my profile I would wonder if I am not getting as good of an answer because someone like Bing sees my lack of data and decides not to answer, or provide as complete an answer as they would if they knew more about you.

Is any of this making sense?

Bing

I updated my profile but I'm not sure how much it'll help anybody. It didn't help me! I really like this site. It gives me a laugh sometimes but with not having much time to look at it during the day, I get behind on most of the topics. Keep it up!

Yes it makes sense Bing. It is a trade-off. I think the IT experts will (some did) tell us that the more info you require in order to join in the less people will. The choice at that time was to keep the site less exclusive and more open by not requiring more info.

It takes different people different amounts of time to 'open up' on forums like this.

Some just dive right in while others lurk for long amounts of time.

Some use their real names while others use 'handles.'

During one meeting with Lusk, we were saying to him that he was not leveraging the forum to his greatest advantage. Now most all of you know that Lusk would give the shirt off his back to someone in need, and then you know that Lusk sees the forum as his exteneded family.

Some of us suggested to Lusk that at least requiring forum members to list the state they lived in would be important demographic information that would be desired by advertisers and other business interests. Others at the meeting suggested that the same requirements would have prevented certain valuable forum members from ever having registerd thus being an unrealized loss to the rest of the forum.

Long story short, there's a trade-off for everything.

IMO, requiring any info from users will result in people not being honest with their inputs & as others have said will discourage new members.

No offense taken - you ain't far from being right about that! Got some deeper areas - the creek channels are about 10' but when the water gets up, it floods all the woods around the pond. A good pair of boots would get you around most of it - until you sink up to your knees in mud!