(26 Aug 2015, 9:03 pm)aureolin wrote A lot of time and effort has been put into the website, and we need to ensure it remains a place that the majority want to visit. Do you think people will join for the same old recycled jokes, the snide remarks, or the constant jibes? I think not.
Given that Malarkey's post was directed to me, I'd like to further reiterate aureolin's message above.
Our hosting plan, which we pay for on a 3-year basis, is due for renewal in a matter of months. Last time, Liam paid just under £120 out of his own wallet to secure the survival of this community for three years. It has grown substantially since - both in terms of number of members contributing and the amount of features available on this website. As I am now employed, I have told Liam that I am not willing for him to spend this substantial amount of money on the renewal of the three-year hosting plan himself again, and I should be able to contribute to the payment this time.
At present; I feel like I come on this forum during my spare time and I'm faced with a large number of tired jokes and constant sarcastic and remarks which are directed at one another. Some members say things to provoke reactions from other members, and things go from bad to worse when other members bite (guilty of it myself!) Neither Liam nor myself are going to fork out such a huge sum of money in a few months time to see all of this during our free time: after all - this is just a hobby. Every time someone presses that report button, I get a Private Message (which in turn sends a notification to my phone via Tapatalk). In part I do feel that the "like" system is responsible for some of the snide remarks, as if something is deemed funny once and accumulates a large number of 'likes', then some people seem to try and go for it time and time again, when it's no longer funny. The report facility has been used so many times over the last few months due to people taking offence by these posts, but most of the time, we haven't taken any action as we feel the OP intended the post to be light-hearted. Even more reports come in when there's an argument surrounding the ability to discuss a certain topic, as the thread immediately goes off-topic (like this one is now). We've always wanted to have a lenient moderation approach to allow everyone to discuss what they would like to discuss, but we are at the point now when we we are too diverse a community to allow this.
The survival and continued growth of this community is of paramount importance to me, and the rest of the site's moderation team. The growth in the amount of features means that a lot of time and effort has gone in "behind the scenes" to allow these features to be made publicly available to you and everyone else, and we don't want to see these disappear. The entire forum moderation team are behind this new approach to moderating forum posts - we will use our best judgement (paired with reports sent in via the appropriate means) and discuss with one another as necessary to determine suitability of certain posts prior to removal, to ensure that all posts are removed fairly.
If this new style of moderation means that people are considering leaving the forum, then we'd be sorry to see you go. In the long run, you may re-consider and see more new faces on the forum as a result of the removal of all this immaturity. It will apply across the board and not limited to the bus operator discussion threads, so it cannot be considered a personal vendetta against any members in particular. If anyone would like to discuss this further with me, please send me a Private Message, as we've brought this thread off-topic enough.