Vancouver Forum: Vancouver Forum -> Admin's Blog

I thought I would take this time to intro myself a little and provide some insider perspective on DV. What I will do is let you know some of what it takes to run a very active freedom of speech forum. What is a freedom of speech forum, well you will be surprised to hear that not everything is a freedom. On the DV board things are split into two places, one is called Vancouver (aka Nice Side) and Wild West (aka Caution Side).

The thing with the DV forum is that it creates what has been coined as a forum addiction, no cure has been found but many seek it: ) When viewing DV one needs to lay aside mindsets and experience peoples thoughts splattered on DV's open internet canvas. You get to peer inside thoughts and beliefs as you travel its corridors and drive on its expressways. I cannot tell you the amount of emails I get that are full of why and disbeliefs, why do you allow this content, why, why, why. Well I never feel the need to answer many because a persons mind is made up pretty much after the first 30 seconds of a visit. You either love the place or despise it, either way it's becoming one of the internets most known and unknown places. We get a ton of visitors a day and things are very fast pace, most of the time anyway. People write short stories and their thesis from the content they find on the forum. So what does it take to run it, very thick skin and I mean every word.

There are a lot of forums that are non abrasive and don't allow you to say anything more then what they want you to say. It's a chance that we are willing to take for that beloved freedom of speech, take away the freedom in one area and you give up yours in another. People speak all day about "don't give me that freedom of speech stuff"; I say ok then enjoy the freedom you have. There are things that get posted on the board that as an owner I do not agree with. The board and its comments do not clearly represent my opinions and that is for sure. Let's never forget we get complaints never thanks.

In DV's history we have had stalking issues, bulling issues, threats, vile things said about others, the list goes on and that is just since I've owned it. So what do we do about that, we delete, ban and thrash threads that are outside of our forum rules. It may take us time to catch everything but we eventually catch up to the offenders. For a fact 8 mods take care of most of the board, setting things straight and making a clear path for visitors. You did not actually think I could do this all on my own, without them I am a horse in a whipping barn.

I know so many people think man I will start a forum and get lots of members then make some money. So do the owners make any money, well we display Google Adsense and we make some money but not the kind of money that I can drive a Lotus as I have been said to drive, haha! So to those budding forum owners, beware and remember I warned you.

There is more to the site then just the forum but this is what I am blogging about now so why spread the subject matter thin. Not many can give you or will for that fact an insider's look at the insane world of forum life and especially that of DiscoverVancouver.com. It's a wild ride and don't forget the flow of legal letters we get, did I say legal I meant threats. Everybody loves to let me know what they think about me and our forum. They throw words around like slander and hate crimes and their solution is you need to moderate your board better, thanks. No matter what the general population thinks about what it takes this is only a small glimpse into the looking glass.

At the end of the day I give a smile and shake off the craziness for sometime with my family. The forum takes a big part of my day but not my whole day and most the people on DV I do genuinely care about, many are the characters of DV. So who knows I may make a 3 part blog and break down my daily routine just for fun:) That's it for now, I have to make a break for it, see you on DV.

To anyone who uses the DV Retro skin. I fixed a few things and added google adsense, not about to try and sneak it in there just making you aware. Also DV Old School skin is coming soon and we believe it will satisfy even the toughest old DVers. Ok most not all, some just don't want to be pleased:) The only thing we can do is try and hope most see we have the communities’ needs in mind. So keep an eye pealed for the upcoming change that will be a selection from the skin drop down. I am still trying to work it out so the guests can change over to the old dv skin as desired.

Have been working to get blogs launched and they officially were last night. There is still clean up to do but for the most part they are pretty solid. Wanted the Discover Vancouver community to have another way to express themselves besides the forum.

Got the new skin for DV up and running, was glad to be able to give back a little taste of the old DV. The community seems to be taking to the new skin well and I am working out any issues and bugs. So far seems to be a good direction and will continue to bring out new enhancements as they become necessary or globally requested.