A note about this forum, it's history, an apology and an announcement

[Ulvetanna_imp]

ADVrider has 340,000 members. It is solely owned by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He has recently stated that ADV is going to start selling advertisements.

Good on you mr Guth for holding the line,,,

That's something I just don't understand.

I started designing websites over 20 years ago, and had some very interesting clients in the motorsports industry, along with a lot of very interesting experiences.

The whole point of the Internet is to bring as many people together as possible. It's the Worldwide Web. Creating a forum on the Internet is a very explicit invitation for anyone and everyone to join the conversation, within reasonable rules and guidelines.

Rotor's recent comments, I believe, also address a very real conflict of interest here.

"To put in place rules and then moderate an Internet forum in order to steer well clear of anything approaching vulgarity is not a very difficult task. What is difficult, and what makes much more difference, is moderating with a view of striking the point of balance between presenting opposite sides of some argument with vigour and conviction, but without sinking to "ad hominem" attacks on the proponent of the opposite side. Rules there are much harder to put in place, and impartial, intelligent moderators even more difficult to find; this to the extent that Internet abounds with forums where the dictionary is pure pablum, but innumerable threads quickly deteriorate to endless ad-hominem ping-pong that is read by no-one but the two contributing fools."

A person can easily create a private, "members-only" forum on the Web, in which case it's not on the Web as a part of social media, it's simply using the network.

I've read a few comments pertaining to keeping the riff-raff out and so on.

The riff-raff, or anyone who doesn't fit the plan, could easily be kept out with a private forum.

This is something that has been bugging me for a long time: why create a forum where anyone on the Web can join, and then try to limit the membership?

The rules for this forum are pretty clear, and if someone joins up and follows the rules, they should not have to subscribe to the same world view as the moderators.

Guth brought up the prospect of selling this forum; the irony here, with respect to keeping the membership down on purpose and such, is that doing so decreases the value of the website, and thus, Guth's efforts to build a forum. And I believe he has the absolute right to increase the value of this forum as much as he can, and sell it if he pleases. It's a lot of work, and last time I checked, money wasn't growing on trees.

Why not just put something into the rules that says:

"We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, anytime, for any reason?"

That's basically what's contained in the registration agreement that people make when they initially join the forum. In the nearly five years that this forum has been in existence, I've only needed to permanently remove two members from participating here. Most who don't agree with the rules simply move along to other corners of the Internet and I suspect that most everyone involved is all the happier for it on both sides of the equation.

That's basically what's contained in the registration agreement that people make when they initially join the forum. In the nearly five years that this forum has been in existence, I've only needed to permanently remove two members from participating here. Most who don't agree with the rules simply move along to other corners of the Internet and I suspect that most everyone involved is all the happier for it on both sides of the equation. I bet those guys were ill-informed.

I love Men at Work. What a great band. MTV and all.