Canada Forum

[Crono]

It has recently come to my attention that the former moderator of the Canada forum, Evn is no longer filling this position, and has been replaced by SPF5.Kiba. Now I don't mean to say anything against Kiba personally, because I don't even know him, but it does seem very odd to me that someone from SoCal would be needed to moderate the Canada forum when there are at least a couple of valid Canadian candidates for the same position who post within our forum. (Said individuals have experience moderating on a number of other DDR-related forums)

There have been some complaints (mainly ones I've heard from word of mouth) that the threads within our forum have become more or less unchecked, that, there is a fair bit of petty bickering going on, and not really any visible moderation. (See: Lethbridge thread) Though it's not exactly apocalyptic, I have noted small things that are not being tended to, for instance, there's a thread for a tournament that happened a while ago, which is completely inactive, yet still stickied.

Now, I'm not sure about the linguistic status of the staff here at DDRFreak, so I'm not going to assume too much, but I would like to also point out that there is a good deal of french-speaking that goes on in the Canada forum within the Quebec thread, and that things could potentially get out of hand within said thread without a non-french-speaking mod watching over the conversations. I apologize in advance if this comment is made in ignorance, it is simply what I see as a legitimate point. (Most Canadians have at least a somewhat rudimentary understanding of french, as some basic french was, until very recently, a required part of our schooling)

It may be noted that the Canada forum does not receive a lot of traffic, and therefore does not deserve the attention of its own moderator, however I would question whether us not having our own moderator, may in the end lead to even less traffic.

This is a seperate point from what I have to say about moderation, but I feel it should be made. I feel that a great deal of the traffic from the Canada forum on ddrfreak has moved over to ddrcanada, not because it's a better site (it's only a forum) but because it does a much better job of catering to the geographically diverse...and, well, HUGE nature of Canada.

It is simply ridiculous to try to cram the 2nd largest country in the world, all into one forum. It wouldn't hurt too much to at least divide the east and the west - the vast majority of us on the west, will never meet the vast majority of anyone from the east. (I myself have, but that's because I'm crazy that way) I mean...if you travel from one end of Canada to the other, you could have as easily crossed either ocean. The length of Canada from coast to coast is something ridiculous like I believe 1/4 or 1/3 of the world. This make as much sense as having people from New York, Texas, and Montana all talking the same forum.

Now I realize that we're not a big country in terms of population, and that other countries with larger populations have only one forum, however somewhere like Australia or the UK, though still very diverse, are more geographically confined spaces than Canada. I feel that it would be to our benefit to have something a little more specific than one forum for the entire country. (I think that something like East & West, as was originally set up in this forum, would be appropriate)

I hope that you will take what I have had to say about moderation and our geography into account,

Thank you,

Adam Park
_________________

[evn]

[sherl0k]

I moderate Down Under, I live in NY, and nobody seems to mind... the region isn't active enough to warrant a mod from the area. Canada seems to be the same way. British Isles also, it's modded by a NorCal'er.
_________________

[quote:ed1f6848c5=\\\"jaeness\\\"]get your change from obama, he apparently has tons of it.[/quote]

[Crono]

I found from personal experience that, whenever the Canada forum starts to pick up in popularity, it's always an unsustainable growth of sorts, because of the fact that 80% of the posts you see in the forum just aren't relevant to your region, or usually anywhere even relatively close to your region.

The purpose of a regional forum, from what I gather, is to bring people from a region together, so that, y'know, we might actually meet face-to-face someday or something crazy like that. (Otherwise, it's really just another DDR chit chat forum, no?)

Honestly at the rate that we're going, we would be better to split Canada into forums grouped together with states that are more realistically within our regions. Keeping in mind that something like 80% of Canada's population is within 300km of the American border, in most cases our regions are a lot closer to the corresponding states south of us, than we are to most other places within Canada.

Take for instance Calgary - my home is 717.5 km* away from Seattle, which is, for me a couple of states away. (Montana, Washington) Now, comparing that with Vancouver, BC which is just in the province next to me, it's a 971.8km trip. Las Vegas, which is pretty damned far from where I live @ 2095.4 km, is still a hell of a lot closer than our nation's capital, Ottawa, which is 4019.6 km away from here!

I think you can take a look at a map you will easily see that you can find a great number of examples where Canadian provinces would make a lot more sense to be grouped with states, than it would for us to be all smacked together in one region. Seeing as the border between Canada and the US is the largest undefended border in the world, we really have to take a look here and realize that there is very little seperating us.

I don't know if anything I'm saying here makes sense, but from my point of view, I know that I would have a lot more reason to associate with someone from Seattle, than with someone from Toronto, given that it's actually not all that unimaginable to make a trip down there at some point in time, or for the same to happen in reverse.

*Distances used are provided by yahoo maps.

[edit]

Returning to the subject of a moderator within Canada (assuming my above point isn't seen as valid enough to make a change) I believe that someone within Canada would be more well-suited to moderate our forum given that we are a lot more motivated and interested in keeping an eye on what's going, since well, we live here.

There have bene a lot things that have been going unmoderated which are a little more subtle than huge pornographic images. I think that for the most part it would make sense for one of us within the forum to be moderating, since we're reading the stuff anyway. Mazrim Taim, and myself are both moderators on other DDR boards, we're more than qualified, and definitely willing to handle the job.

Either that...or maybe the existing moderator pool could keep a better eye on things? I guess the latter is easier, but I think the former would be better.
_________________

[Thomas Hobbes]

Do the Canadian Message Boards even warrant enough activity to split them apart like NorCal/SoCal has going on?

If so, why not just make it a Western Provinces and Eastern Provinces sort of thing.

However, if it doesn't work you can just have a Anything Else forum that seems to be what Asia, Anarctica and all that is grouped under, and that works for the most part.
_________________

"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

| Pics | Play-Asia |

[Crono]

I don't think that, with the current format, traffic will ever grow for the Canada forum. As I said already, 80% of the topics you read at any given time, regardless of where you're from in Canada, are entirely irrelevant due to the sheer enormity of this country. It's just like reading a second General Chat forum. I think it makes more sense to either split us East/West, or group us together with states' forums that are closest to us.
_________________

[Edible Bondage Tape]

its not up to DDR freak to split the forums apart to stimulate growth its up to canada to stimulate enough growth to split the canada area apart
_________________

[IguanaGrrl]

Total machine locations in Canada as a whole - 208

Total machine locations in California, where the site started - 401


Southwest - 187
Pacific Northwest - 154
Midwest - 339
New England - 111
New York - 76
Mid-Atlantic - 220
Southeast - 238
South - 246
British Isles - 363
Down Under - 73
America Latina - 200


Are you noting a trend here? Nearly every forum, unless the traffic warrants it, runs around 200 machine locations.

The only state that has been split in half is California, which not only is where the site was originally started, it also used to have the most traffic of any area in the site, thus the NorCal/SoCal split. California warranted it.

Canada does not.

As for adding a local moderator, if you have an issue with my decision to place Kiba on the role, take it up with me. If he isn't doing his job, let me know. There was some confusion to which he didn't realize that he was assigned to Canada (though he had volunteered) for a few weeks.

During the last moderator re-organization, we lost several moderators. Let's face it, though... DDR isn't nearly as strong as it used to be. The forums are less active now than they were a year ago. Why should I add on additional unnecessary moderators when I can place a current moderator who is willing to take the position?
_________________

[MazriM TaiM]

I believe the whole reason this topic was even created was because the lack of moderation from ANYONE on DDR Freak was terrible. Anyone even skimming through the last couple pages of the sticky topics would probably notice the need for someone to moderate some of the posts. I feel that the forums would be more active if the general level of stupidity from a few users didn't ruin the whole thing, which is why I generally lurk on DDR Freak and post more often on DDR Canada, since the atmosphere is generally a lot nicer. So yes, Kiba isn't doing his job, and neither are any of the regulators, and it should be looked into so that pornographic images don't pop up on the forum when certain users realize no one is moderating their topic and they can do what they want.
_________________

[IguanaGrrl]

And I already mentioned that there was confusion. I have spoken with Kiba since this was posted and things should improve.

In the meantime, have patience.
_________________

[Spike]

I keep forgetting that we're supposed to do everything.

We're supposed to change the forum around to stimulate growth.

We're supposed to read EVERY POST IN EVERY THREAD to make sure that stuff that needs to be moderated is taken care of.

You CAN PM us you know. You can help us out. You can get your friends to come join the forums.

If you want a nice community, then you have to contribute to it.
_________________

[MazriM TaiM]

[Phrekwenci]

[Spike]

[MazriM TaiM]

You should have heard about the Lethbridge thread a few days ago since a moderator obviously went into the thread and deleted a post containing a pornographic image.

Phrek's post only reinforces the fact that forum specific moderators is a good idea on a place as large as DDR Freak. Less staffing causes issues like this, and yes, I believe that if you are assigned to moderate a forum, you should be reading all the posts in it. I read every single post on DDR Canada, which is easily more than one forum moderator would have to handle if they have one forum to watch over. Again, it worked in Bemanistyle, why won't it work here? In the past, something has come up and been promptly dealt with so I can't see how that woudn't apply here.

If moderating in such a way isn't possible, expect a PM from me every time I see a post I myself would deal with, as I do in any forum I help moderate. I'm willing to help, so if I can in this way, i will. I hope Kiba checks his PMs often enough.

IMHO, Phrek, you probably have a little too much to deal with here, which is why I can understand that you don't check every post. My point of view is different as I tend to moderate either an entire forum that is much smaller, or specific forums. You moderate some really large forums, but I'd hope there are many others helping you.

EDIT:

Spiek, Spike, whatever: Again, look up at what I just said as clarification. Of course some people will miss things, but even a quick skim read of topics like the Lethbridge thread would pick up some issues...it's not like you had to carefully interpret every post. I understand you'll miss things, but again my forum specific moderator point above comes into view. And as I said, yes I'll be PMing on a regular basis most likely now to Kiba to resolve issues.

I honestly havn't tried recently at DDR Freak...why? The sense of community here was lost to me, though I still find DDR Freak a valuable place to talk to people. As I had increasingly negative feelings towards this place, not just from people, but during the bad server times, I migrated to a Canada specific forum, and even a city specific forum. Now I have DDR Canada, though I like to keep up here. That's the main reason I havn't been trying. Sorry. In any case, every time I've given my opinion, I've been either politely asked to not make comments against the flow (see: Extreme 2 thread), or even outright flamed. Let's face it though...the forum is aged, and with that comes difficulties such as we've been discussing about helping to make the forum better. The game of DDR has aged and directly affected this.

As for you comment about doing "Administrator"-like things and turning people off from the forum...I'd say Bemanistyle sets the example for that, a while ago when all the "elite" members were flaming others left and right. It was a very nasty atmosphere and kept many people away. I'd prefer moderation to open freedom to say anything, as that really doesn't work in internet forums for the most part.

I don't think I ever meant to say "HAY CHOOSE THIS GUY FOR CANADA MOD" in this thread, but if I did it was a mistake. What I'd prefer to see is someone appointed who would regularly check the forum, and the best possible scenario is if they're appointed to only a couple or a few forums at most, as it makes their job of keeping up with active threads so much easier.

[Phrekwenci]

[Shinmizu]

[MazriM TaiM]

No no...I think you're mistaken. That image was actually posted early in the morning, and I heard about it when I woke up from Crono, who then proceeded to make this topic. That itself was taken care of quickly, but the rest of the topic was essentially left alone, and now that there was an open link in this topic to there, I would have thought some cleaning of the other useless posts would have been done. Unless someone overnight had checked that thread and PM'd someone, it couldn't have been taken care of any quicker, I imagine. I was just hoping some of the rest of the spam would be taken care of and appropriate warnings issued.

The same people who posted that stuff also posted pictures of gay porn on DDR Canada, plus other useless topics, and I was sorely tempted to ban them but it was their first offense. =(
_________________

[Shinmizu]

Well, there was an image on page 28 of the Lethbridge thread that I took care of after seeing this thread in Site Feedback. I suppose it's possible we're talking about two different images. It was post #541.
_________________

For a Good time, call 555-1212 and ask for Susan. For a Great time, call 555-3487 and ask for Mindy. For a Perfect time, call 555-6341 and ask for Stephanie. For a Marvelous time, call 555-6341 and ask for Stephanie's mom.

[Crono]