Adam, when I bought MoviePosterBid in 2006, I considered creating a forum on the site.
then I realized I would have to have very stringent rules and not only would I have to moderate it, something which I probably wouldn't have time for, but I couldn't be available 24/7 to do so anyway.
I decided against it, just like Jon Warren eventually decided to kill his old site
managing these forums is very difficult. you get lots of people who think free speech means they can say and do anything, many people use lots of innuendo and if you aren't up on things, you may not catch when someone is getting out of line until it gets to a fight. It's alot of work because a certain number of people don't believe rules always apply to them. The Don Quixote garbage some people like to pass off is complete and utter bullshit 98% of the time (or more), moreover there are few penalties that can be levied against anyone.
Moderating these forums is an impossible job and realistically, the people who create these problems should have the courtesy to the forum that they would like pointed at themselves. There are rules believe it or not about where to promote yourself and every thread in every sub-forum is not intended to be someones marketing opportunity and marketing (aside from signature banners which are allowed on the vast majority of forums). Nor are these forums meant to be populated visibly by a small number of people. For the most part for instance, this forum has 20-30 vocal members and hundreds of nonvocal members. It's the same on most forums, as most people are readers, not writers
I do agree however that all members should be easily identifiable by their true identity, especially if they want to post and lob bombs at others. Anonymity is unfair to others, especially when you're a big mouth like the asshole on NSF, whom we all know his identity for other reasons and that all anon attacks should be removed immediately from any forum
This forum was created out of what T&H viewed as too much moderation at MPF. Andy does do a good job. He reels in promo posts in the wrong place (it is my opinion that any post used to promote a persons business that does not otherwise have an educational aspect - asking to join your facebook page where you post trivia should be allowed in discussion forums. Posting how good you are, which is purely a promotional statement, should not.
The problems of course are not just dealers. It's pretty obvious that some non-dealers have and do create trouble here and elsewhere
None the less, T&H never meant to do any moderation here. They expect everyone to watch their P's and Q's and everyone else to live with it. I fully support their moderation scheme here.
By the way, for those that want to say how "dead" MPF is and then use the forum to post, I think you're giving Andy short shrift. No one forces you to post, if you don't like what he's doing, go somewhere else and if you really want to see a dead forum, go to the Serials forum. They haven't had a FS/FA/WTB post since January, their average daily visitation is about 15 people and it is a very heavily moderated forum.. so there may be a lesson there.
none the less, enjoy what you have, not what you dream about
