Having been active in the Censorship and SB thread I sincerely appreciate the apparent rapidity of return feedback. Two weeks from initial post seems responding with due diligence to me, and particularly as it was not a united voice for action from the masses.
Changing the ToS had been discussed for about a month maybe more, prior to the Censorship thread. I had actually had a conversation with the OP about that very subject at the Florida Dive Show and encouraged him to start the thread. Well OK, I probably solicited him to start the thread so we could be more responsive to the desires of our users. Though I own the domain ScubaBoard.com, I humbly realize that no individual can really own the community. We are here to fill a need and if we ever lose sight of that we will certainly loose our magic. As a community, we have a hard time feeling out our boundaries. Some want ONLY Scuba to be discussed here, while others want to share their lives with their new found friends! We have tried to accommodate BOTH by making the
Surface Interval an opt in forum.
To be sure, until the two feedback threads were started, we were a bit stuck on how to make our ToS simple to read and administrate, and yet have something useful that would create an even more friendly environment for everyone to participate in! Fortunately, once the Mission Statement and Guiding Principles were finished, it took only about a half hour to rough out the ToS. The final tweaking took only about a week with major kudos going to the Advisor Team and the Mod Squad (especially Rick Murchison).
Many thanks to those who participated in the Censorship and the "How are we doing" threads. You provided much needed clarity and insight. We have always been known for our friendliness, but we felt we were being too "friendly" to those who like to disrupt our conversations. This isn't fair to those who would rather have on topic Scuba discussions. To that end, we are tightening up on off topic banter in our Scuba related forums, and loosening up just a tad in the non-dive related areas.
You might wonder what I see as the biggest change in the ToS? Well, there is no prohibition on politics anymore! But please confine those discussions to our new forum:
The Pub! You can disagree all you want, but you must still keep the rancor off the Board!
BTW, this is what we call a "double opt-in" forum. You have to opt in to the
Surface Interval and then opt in to
The Pub!. You should be warned that this forum may not be considered "work place friendly" by some businesses which is the reason why we use the double opt in paradigm.
I recommend or suggest consideration if you’ve not already, inserting document creation and revision dates into the specific areas.
Not a bad idea. We also rewrote our "Modiquette", which gives our moderators direction on running this board and in so doing called it the "Modiquette 2.0". Perhaps we should do the same for the ToS.
ScubaBoard was the first and only Internet Board I’ve participated in. I used to think it luck I ran across it while still in BOW and now, the luck was recognizing it for what it is. For having run across it searching for gear reviews, I’m deeply grateful.
Look for a more formal approach to our gear reviews in the not too distant future. We started a discussion with a few key people just before DEMA, and it's time we got back to that discussion.
Well, as this post now seems L-O-N-G-E-R than our new ToS, I will end it and await any further questions or comments.