Lets put this one to bed once and for all....
Many years ago (well, 4), the founders of OOF were all happy members of another site, covering all Vauxhall models. As we were all Omega owners, we tended to stay in the Omega section of that site, as Omegas were our common interest. We build up a good community spirit, helping fellow Omega owners out, not just on the forum, but physically as well. It was a nice place to be, with mostly just a single moderator easily coping with that section.
This seemed to upset the owners of that site, for reasons that are unimportant for this discussion. They wanted the members hiding in the Omega section to be more active in their chat area - this area they called "The Shed".
Now, for anyone over the age of 14, or for members where getting their car running properly in preference to square bodykits/under car lighting/blue LEDs/etc, "The Shed" was not a pleasant place to be - I've worked in some dodgy places, such as prisons and young offenders' institutions, but even residents there are more friendly/polite than the residents of "The Shed".
I a nutshell, we were alienated from that site.
4 members from that site - Laidback66, Ronald McBurger, Marks DTM Calibra(tion) and I - decided that the only way we could get back the helpfulness/friendliness ('spirit') what we had in our little Omega section was to start a new site that we could control. Thus, 8th July 2006,
www.omegaowners.com was born with the intention to have the 'spirit' that existed in our old home on the Internet. A small, tight moderation team was deemed to be the way forward, rather than a heavy handed approach.
Personnel move on to other interests, so leave, but the underlying philosophy remains consistent - a welcoming, friendly, uselful site for Omega owners, irrespective of whether they are mechanical gods or have never held a spanner. Irrespective of whether they can program Operating Systems, or can barely use a computer.
As membership grows, particularly beyond the members who knew the old site, it became obvious we needed to set some rules - many heavy Internet users feel it is their god-given right to behave in whatever manner they choose when on the Internet. Rather than hard-and-fast rules, we decided to draw up 'guidelines' that should be enough to display what we class as acceptable, and what is not. Being guidelines, there is no defined hard-and-fast line, but we should all know what is common decency. I hope.
Excessive swearing, poor taste jokes, general bitchiness etc causing dengeneration of the 'community', so we have to engage our brains before we post. Swearing, masked or otherwise. Mindless swearing has no place here. Use of particular swearwords, and we all know the ones, have no place here. Mild swearing to emphasise a point is tolerated within reason, preferably masked for certain slightly stronger words. We hope this is clear enough for members to be able to use judgement and self moderate, rather than a challenge for childish members to act like kids... :-/
So, as per Kevin Wood's comments, mild swearing is about context, rather than banning/allowing specific words.
That is the history, and the current stance of the Admin Team.
My own personal view...
Over time, we have peaks and troughs in general behaviour patterns - we've all seen it go from a really enjoyable place to log on to to a place where members really can't be bothered, due to the constant bickering (either publically, or bubbling under the surface).
From the start of the year to about a fortnight ago, we were in a particularly long, deep trough, which if I'm honest, I thought was likely to kill the community. Community Spirit=OOF, no Community Spirit=No OOF. As an Administrator, I was really beginning to dread, even hate, logging on to see what dross needed moderating that day. Certainly, any 'fun' element had long since disappeared.
As Mrs TheBoy frequently pointed out during this last trough, what was the point of me spending my own free time (I spend as much time fixing back-end issues as I do moderating/Admining) and money (there are real costs involved running a site like this, some of which are covered by the shop, some aren't - we're on our 3rd server, and getting close to outgrowing that) looking after something that only causes me hassle and anguish. To be frank, if it wasn't so hard to delete my account (my account links in in a lot of places), I would have left weeks ago. It really was a horrible, shitty place to visit
OOF is bigger than any individual, and I'm sure a new home would have eventually been found, and it would have lived on, but this would have put excessive strain on an already stretched Admin Team (no, we should not need more Admins, members should behave!!).
However, we had a bit of a clampdown, and am delighted that the status quo, as far as I can see, seems to have stabilised, and we are back to whee we are now.
I sincerely hope that that explains the current 'official' Admin Team view, and gives a small insight to my own personal view as an Admin and as a member here.
To that end, I think there is nothing more to add to this thread, so locking.
If you really feel you have to say something, drop me a PM (give me 10mins to empty my PM box - its burst due to a week away!). Or if you really don't like me, any of the Admin Team.
Long live OOF, and the OOF spirit
Jaime
Author
Topic: Swearing on the forum. (Read 2996 times)