<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Chuck Cougill:
I think we will get locked out again if we do, although I don't understand why this would be a major bandwidth user, may Basil will explain this to me. I think the pics in our sigs and of members cars would use a ton more. Actually, only very few of us read alll of that, but it did give us a reason to come here, which is what I understand is the program here<hr></blockquote>
One post probably is not a big bandwidth concern, but if I don't maintain some reasonable control, every forum here would eventually turn into one giant free-for-all and that WOULD be a bandwidth concern. But bandwidth is only part of the concern. I have the BCF divided into forums for a reason - so as to allow the discussions to focus on specific topics (or in this case, marques). Thus, someone new coming into the MG forum would (I think reasonably) expect the posts to have something to do with MGs. As Kim pointed out, I don't want to discourage new members from participating in the BCF because they see a lot of clutter. I don't expect that all posts will be techncal either - general chit-chat about, in this case, MGs is fine. And I don't try to micro-manage every reply to every post, but posts that are completely off the topic of the particular forum really only serve to clutter things up. I do provide several other non marque-specific forums for other discussions, such as humor, events, tools, and I even have a "free-for-all" forum where you can discuss just about anything. I also have a chat room where you can chat about just about anything.
I have been on forums with both extremes - some where anything goes in any forum at any time, and others where the moderators would kill a post at the slightest provocation. I have tried to strike a reasonable balance between these two extremes. In fact, I could count on one hand the number of times I've closed a post. It doesn't happen very often. Now, compare that to a post I made recently on the Miata forum (and no, I'm not knocking that forum). I don't even remember what it was - a little christmas joke I think - but it wasn't "auto related." Well, my post didn't last 10 minutes before the moderator killed it.
Bottom line: I'm not trying to be unreasonable, and I'm sorry if some might think that I am, but I do want to try to keep the various forums at least somewhat focused on their respective topics. I hope folks can respect that. It is my honest goal to build a forum that everyone who loves little British cars will enjoy and want to participate in. But I know that no matter how I structure the place, or what rules I do or don't have, I will never please everyone.
Basil
[ 01-31-2003: Message edited by: Basil ]</p>