petina wrote:

QUOTE:
Most forums don't allow links.
Way too many spamming losers in the world - they have ruined it for everyone. :unsure:

I may be new here, but your comment about other forums is so completely opposite the truth it's not even funny. I join a lot of forums (pertaining to some of my interests) and have been a member of quite a few for almost 10-13 years. Links, videos, hyperlinks, photos, allowed.

I think maybe what you might have said is that independently run sites (like this one is?) don't like/allow linking.

A simple fix is to have people monitering these forums with powers to just delete or IP block any spammers. Admins, mods, ect. It's just that simple. I'm sure there are already more than a handful of people here that'd gladly volunteer (assuming they have experience and dedication).

petina wrote:

QUOTE:
As for all your other complaints..
make a more excellent website forum and we will check it out.. :P

Not interested in making another website. I am, however, interested in this forums board, with hopes that it will have major improvements in the future.

(currently looking for the 'suggestions' thread/box)

Right

Just a reminder, everyone..

We have had some links posted this week and one person blocked because they did not remove them when asked to.
Please don't post any links.

QUOTE:

I may be new here, but your comment about other forums is so completely opposite the truth it's not even funny. I join a lot of forums (pertaining to some of my interests) and have been a member of quite a few for almost 10-13 years. Links, videos, hyperlinks, photos, allowed.

Agreed. Linking to obviously commercial material is spam. Linking to sites that provide quality content (since TJC is probably unlikely to host all the content users wish to upload-- they don't even host their own videos) is allowed, and even encouraged, on most forums. This is the first forum I have joined where linking to public works (that don't breach copyright) that add to the conversation is disallowed. If a user wants to know a good place to start learning Japanese, is all we can say "check out videos at [site] and buy books from [popular online bookstore]"? The weird thing is-- I was able to post my comment, link and all, but when petina saw it ('moderated it?', and saw that it was just YouTube (and therefore unlikely to be spam (or worse)), it was still considered bad. So the work went in to discover if the content was bad, and it wasn't, but it's still a no-no.

"How do I pronounce this in Japanese?"
"Let me whip out my phonetic alphabet for you. Oh wait, TJC doesn't support most non-unicode characters anyway. I'll just make an approximation."

I understand the spam issue-- I do-- I've administrated a forum before, and we used to get spam daily (even with CAPTCHA-- though a good CAPTCHA system prevents everything but manual sign-ups). There were maybe... 5 of us(?) getting rid of the spam, and it could take a little while. Still, not allowing links prevented us from posting news, videos and other interesting tidbits. To be frank, not allowing links degrades the forum as a whole.

I'm going to try installing FireBoard on my server to see if there's anything that might help Eric out a bit.

We allowed links for a long time on this forum and assholes abused the system and ruined it for everyone.

Eric moderates this forum and is a volunteer.. it is not right to expect him to spend the hours he used to spend sorting through all the crap people posted.

If you boys don't like this forum you should go back to one of the ones you keep telling us are so good.
The rest of us don't want to listen to your complaining.

Links are no longer allowed on this forum - end of story.

Most forum admins are volunteers. Most forums allow links. Not allowing links degrades content unless all the content is hosted locally. I can sympathise with the so-so layout, and the fact that FireBoard hasn't been updated since 2008 (as it was replaced by a different software), but no non-text content? Come on.

But you're right, I will be leaving, and I expect that, over time, others who try to hotlink to on-topic content on youtube will follow.

That said, I find it a bit funny that you say:

QUOTE:
If you boys don't like this forum you should go back to one of the ones you keep telling us are so good.
The rest of us don't want to listen to your complaining.

when TJC is constantly complaining about Youtube, but we don't tell him "If you don't like youtube you should go to a better video site. The rest of us don't want to listen to your complaining." In fact, most of us support him. If I owned YouTube and TJC said "nah, they've fucked it up again" I would probably think to myself "hey, maybe we have." I guess it's a bit of a double-standard around here, though.

Hey, even you agree YouTube is crap: http://www.thejapanchannel.com/General/3477-Youtube-Jerks-and-TJC48.html
(can I link to TJC here? Not sure. I know-- no links, but this link links here, and it actually points to a thread where Petina has linked to...3 separate websites).

Again, you've >already< done the work by moderating me, petina, and you do it all the time. You saw my post, you said "NO LINKS LOL REMOVE" and that was that. No "oh but it's okay, it's a youtube video". No smart moderation. Just "get rid of it". So here's how it works-- only your human rules establish there are no links allowed. The system has none, that's why I was able to post it in the first place. So we've established that links are able to be posted. Every time you see a link, you ask us to remove it. We can therefore establish you have made it your duty to tell everybody to remove their links lest they be banned. Okay, so people who post links, which are computationally allowed, are caught by petina, who tells them to remove it. So... there's already [the same level of] forum moderation going on... but petina has taken the role of "remove all posts containing http://***.***/***" and not "remove all >bad< posts". Just doesn't make sense.

Look, I sympathise with Eric. Again, I've modded forums. But the way we deal with it is to add more mods to moderate, or to be a bit more vigilant with our text filters and sign-up process, not to reduce the capabilities of its users by forcing them to post on what is little more than a text board. I'm sure there are regular users here, with countless high-quality posts, who would be happy to help moderate. At least consider it without shooting me down with a "The rest of us don't want to listen to your complaining."