Moderation

Bob wrote: Ivory trade is illegal in most civilised countries, so by trying to use this forum for purposes of conducting an illegal trade you have just broken the ToS and by the rules should be permabanned. You might claim it's just a joke but....

LMAO
Maybe you need to stay out of the Sun for a few days, and / or increase your hydration. lol

You guys can run your forum how you see fit but at some point you're going to have to recognize that you have toxic member who are ruining things for others.

Right off the bat there are 4 individuals who (IMHO) should/could be put in a time out corner and told that their behavior here is unacceptable. This includes the guy who is going to chime in and call me a snowflake again.

The good news is that DPR is still alive.

• Gary

Looking at the activity there, you could say it has a very weak pulse at best.

Another form of bullying is users who always have to get the last word in and are allowed to make insults and snide remarks (which they try to make seem like jokes by adding happy faces, are they really stupid enough to think that fools anyone?) Petrol gets thrown on this dumpster fire when there are no recriminations for these bullies because they are the pet of certain moderators. They do their best to turn every conversation toward a topic they think they know about (even when they don't), turning off new users and wearing down those who actually have something useful to contribute. (Note we haven't seen Michael Fryd or MarshallG around in a while. I wonder if the only reason Bill Ferris is still here is Alfn's recent idiocy at DPR. That should have been addressed by mods but wasn't.)

Yet another form of bullying (and toxicity) is moderators who have to lecture in a nasty way rather than engaging new users positively. One wonders if such people started a forum for any other reason than to boost their fragile ego.

One more form of toxicity is moderators who know exactly what the problems are but don't have the stones to have difficult discussions with bullies and egomaniac moderators.

Say what you will about DPR moderators going to far, at least they had the spine to deal with problems rather than pretending they don't exist while watching traffic and participation plummet. It's easy to brag about 4000 members but when will we get an honest answer about how many are still here? 4000 users and yet your 50th ranked user has <200 posts and hasn't shown up in a week. That's a forum that is dying. It's easy to plant, hard to grow. I'm trying to teach you something here. Ignore me at your peril.

DPReview Beginners Questions has 26 posts that have had activity in the last week.

DPRevived Beginner's Questions has 3 posts that have had activity in the last week.

DPReview Open Talk has 42 posts with activity in the last week.

DPRevived has 25.

That indicates a definite pattern including where the beginners are going. Furthermore, intelligent, useful contributors like Michael Fried and Bill Ferriswheel are now migrating back to DPR. Having been involved in several high-level discussions, it is widely agreed that offloading their number one problem child to this place has been a key success factor. I had recommended sending you a thank-you note and a fruit basket but no one else agreed.

The sad truth is that it wasn't for trolls like me and you, DummoLeakedBraincells, this place would be D-E-D dead.

I think it's obvious where the weak pulse is.

Which is well below what it was before the closure announcement.

In any case I looked at the overall activity not just a few hand picked forums.

DPReview's pulse now is much weaker than what it was.