Limiting the number of posts per day

My posts have been limited naturally! - by workload.
I do feel that their is still a lot of moderating to do, but limit posts? - No!
It get limited by the other half! Lol!
When referring to nonsense that people talk, How about looking at one's own post, editing it yourself, to make sense, be readable and understandable. Take note that when a red line appears under a word, it means there is a problem with the word, and it could be spelling!
There is one thing(2 and counting) that is getting under my skin - bad spelling and common bad knowledge about English and the Hobby!
by rethinking your post, it will be easier to understand, and a lot less k@k will be talked, and then their is less work for us mods!
Thanx
Gert.

 

i have been using forums for the better part of ten years, and this is the first time i have heard about this idea. people who post nonsence can get a few warnings, then reset their password to show them you are serious?

 

How would you define nonsense? Say someone new to the hobby joins in and does not know the ins and outs of the forum just yet? Do you chase him off with a pitchfork and torch and make him feel really un-welcome or do you show him the ropes?

 

Hmmm.. The new ones that are showing a GENUINE interest and care in the hobby are MORE THAN WELCOME to post. THey take out advice, and really do care. THey don't make stupid comments. THey are learning.

The people that "spam" the site with all sort of useless information, copying and pasting information from all over the place, and actually making fundementally WRONG statements with regards to keeping fish... they the one's who we have problems with. Put it this way... it's the loud mouths who are always posting, and are generally the first people to get to a newbie when they join with a question. 9/10 times the loudmouth gives incorrect advice, and leaves it up to the more experienced people to come in later and pick up the pieces.

Someone posted a problem recently with their fish. Everyone started advicing general tonic and salt... oh, and not to forget, push the tanks temperature up to 30degrees. No one bothered to ask the fundemental problems to try and diagnose the cause. Sadly that particulat person lost their fish... however, after further investigation, it was found out that the weekly water changes were not high enough, and the nitrates were climbing steadily.

This is why you will see me make a comment one in a while...

"POST LESS, and READ MORE" (This basically means you are posting crud, and need to do some research!) If you want to be a loud mouth, be prepared to be corrected when you are wrong. ANd take the correction with humility, admit where you are wrong. Don't say, "that may be correct, but I..." If you have not done your research properly, extensively, and formalised a CORRECT opinion, be prepared to be taken on by the older members. I have given them full permission to... because at the moment this site is becoming full of people's opinion, based on their quick googling skills, and not on the experience of the aquarist who has been in the hobby for 20+ years!

 

For someone who posts crud my fish are doing pretty well, 16 months no issues with PH or Nitrates haven't been sic in that whole time period. Not to mention growing rapidly at the moment and extremely happy at the moment. Not bad for someone who posts crud, so how would you explain that? ^_^ I love how we (as a society) have degenerated to a state whereby other people tell us what our opinions should and shouldn't be.

 

I dont think that is what Zoom means Larch. There's many people on this forum with great many skills and vast amounts of knowledge. Yet at the same time there seem to be some who think this is the place to get their daily ego-boost by posting untrusted and untested advise to newbies who really know no better. As an example-I've bred many malawi's years back, yet I will never post on malawi threads as I know my knowledge of Rift Cichlids are very limited. Some, who know no better will take my advise, as I give it on the basis of my 'malawi breeding experience', which amount to nothing as breeding them is almost like breeding guppies. So there will be others with much better advise than me, based on their love for the species and years of experience. Should I post when I myself do not trust my advise? Again, keeping fish and being a 'fishkeeper' is worlds apart. Lets 'know your species' and stop wanting to be the first to comment in an attempt to sound significant. Life has a way of 'humbling' the big mouths, yes, even on Forums. . .

 

Well Marco the comments were obviously aimed at me since he uses the same old "POST LESS, and READ MORE" in many of the threads I even got a warning because I did not agree with him that you need to buy expensive equipment to get the job done. But that is besides the point.

Obviously there are loads of skilled and knowledgeable people on this forum with years of experience who will part with their knowledge and opinions. That I have no issues with, the issue I have is when you get told your way is the wrong way and that there is only one correct way of doing something. If the whole world thought like that how would it be possible for for new discoveries or break throughs to happen? If that was the case the world would still be flat. And what might work for one person might not work for another.

Obviously you are correct, I dont and cant comment on threads were I have no experience hence I rarely post in most of the sections in any case because I know very little of the subject matter. But when I do comment on something it is because I have tried and tested it and it has worked for me. I would never give someone advice before I haven't tried it myself.

I have no issue with that and I agree 100%. But I think Zoom needs to be a bit more tolerable of people who dont agree with him because he comes off as very hostile towards people who aren't regulars here.

 

Point taken. Yet, on Zoom's behalf, I joined the forum in April/May sometime, and since then I am AMAZED at the growth rate of this forum. I have noticed many people jump on this wagon, upset some 'loyal' (permit me to use the word "loyal" ) and long standing members just for kicks, then they disappear. Unfortunately moderating a forum is vital yet always contentious. They will step on some toes to keep the "Forum" to a standard that has made it grow. Its a tough job. My advise to you, and I hope you both will agree, is to sort the issue in PM. Bickering in 'public' has long been accepted as 'unacceptable'. Lets all be adults and accept moderation and also protocol on dealing with these issues. I for one feel the less 'petty' we make things, the less petty moderators will be.

 

Well I am hardly one of those people, and it would be a great act of stupidity on my behalf to get banned from about the only local tropical aquarium forum. But the points I have bought up is valid none the less.

And I agree with you 100%, but then treat someone like you would like to be treated yourself and the respect and mutual understanding will follow.

 

Sharp! I'm just a member like you, but can we now close the subject, all shake hands and talk about FISH and the passion we have for the best hobby in the world instead of who's right/wrong. Lets accept we are all different and due to that there will be differing in opinions, yet, and you said this, we can all learn from each other. It should be done constructively and in a positive light though.

 

dont worry i hear you guys, the forum wont limit posts but hear me out anyway..

ok what i was trying to say, but something went wonky on opera mini when i was posting yesterday, and only zoom's quote came out lol

if this forum should go in the line of limiting posts, this might easily become more of an "ask the experts" website with a classifieds section bolted on, with no-one contributing and only the moderators having true freedom of speech. ok that would give most of the people asking questions decent answers, and eliminate the K@K talk, but the reality is that 90 percent of the forum members actually really give good advice..

 

Sorry guys here's a quick 2c worth the, idea of a forum is to create friends and to have community, I would not go to any social if I only had 9, 12 or x posts as there is no way to get to know any of the other members... And to auto lock a threads also not a good idea. Had my thread been locked or closed I would not have got rid of my fish that needed to go... I think we are walk a very dangerous line here...

 

Larch, I was not attacking you personally. I OFTEN post "post less, read more".
Larch that infraction was because you publically belitteled a comment I made in that particular thread, and was no because your opinion was different to mine. You are fully entitled to your opinion. You say we need to learn to tolerate other people's opinion, yet when we place out opinions you are one of the first one's to say we are wrong.

We all need to practise what we preach. And I mentioned this to a certain member via PM recently. The moderators are not perfect. We are all human, subject to mood swings just as much as you are. We are also subjected to stress. As such, at times we may make "hasty" calls on certain threads, posts, or comments. If you have a particular problem with a moderator's action, please consult with the other moderators.

I have got absolutely no problem with anyone who goes to Gert, Big G, Rory or ZP if you feel I have wronged you in any of my moderating. I also believe the other moderators will feel the same. And if the other moderators feel that the mod acted in haste, or out of line, they have free movement to reopen, undelete etc... We are not a dictatorship here.

Our core aim is to maintain the rules and regulations, and common human decency. Violate the rules and regulations, and we will take action. Violating human decency is a moral thing... and I've said before, this is personal, and has no real core laws. This is based on "gut feel."

 

Hi Guys,

I have only stumbled on this thread yesterday as I have a very full schedule now again. I would like to add one or two thoughts from my perspective.

If you would scan this forum, you would see that I have now contributed over 700 posts many of which are long and contain significant amounts of information. You may ask yourself why I do this. Well, I enjoy keeping my tropical fishes and plants and then I believe that if I can educate someone to keep their fishes better, then I would like to do so.

Having said this, when I sometimes take the trouble to reply in the way that I do, I get back a one-liner from someone saying, "well cool, thanks, cheers and bye". What I find is often lacking is a discussion on a topic, or someone else contributing their experiences, so that I could perhaps also gain from the experiences of others. Although I have a lot of experience I can certainly still learn myself.

So what I am saying is that I do not believe in limiting posts per day, but that I can understand the frustrations that have been expressed here that some members of the forum just ramble and do not contribute meaningfully. What I would also like to say is that I do not mind if persons just read the threads, it means that they are getting something from reading the threads. It would however be nice if there were more knowledgable contributions on the forum and less one-liners.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Prof Dirk, I think what might be the problem as to your post is that most of us lack in knowledge to educate you. . . Maybe not in essence but in belief most certainly. Maybe your posts are so informative that questions do not arise after your explanations. I for one always have a million questions to your answers, yet sometimes feel I should go look for answers and explanations myself, as I dont want to waste your time, and I might already have recieved the broad strokes from you. Maybe other members feel the same.

 

I think we need to be really careful here, and with all due respect to Prof Dirk I dont think many of us can discuss a topic on the same level as you do being a professor and all. Even then there is a gap between fish keepers like me and the seasoned veterans. Because of that "intellectual experience gap" we might not be able to hold a conversation at the same level but we would like to participate in a thread. So now we have someone who is eager to be part of the community but is to afraid to give advice or post because he might just land in trouble with a mod.

That would be counter constructive to getting new users on the forum, which would mean less posting meaning the community wont grow and we will be left with a couple of core members and that is it. A forum like this is representative of our hobby, it is already a daunting mission to start a tank, and even more daunting to ask for advice. The warmer and friendlier we make a forum like this, bigger the chance we can get more people into the hobby and keep those people instead of having them sell there tanks after only a couple of months.

 

also some of us might also be afraid to post about our own experiences, firstly because we might be wrong and look stupid, but also, if we speak about mistakes that we make, maybe the tank is too small for the fish we purchased or whatever, you get hammered by a million voices instantly clamoring "you cant have that fish in that small tank!" or "you cant put that fish with the other!" if one person says you've made a mistake then you obviously now know that you got it wrong, but its the way people get almost attacked when they doing something wrong, so next time they just keep their mouths shut and only speak when its not about something they likely to be attacked for getting wrong. so its easier to say "nice post" than to say "ya i like the way you do this, but i do it that way"