Im just drawing attention to the fact the org seems to have gone down severely since its 'rebrand'. Whenever i send in a news story, i never get a reply and it is never published. Formerly, this would have been replied to and posted within 24 hours. When i put NEWS in the Prince:Music and More forum, it doesnt get to NEWS.
Then i find a few days later one of the 'mods' has posted the same thing, when its now old.
Why are there suddenly so many mods? You would think that with more mods the site would be better but no, its worse. You cant make any old joe a mod as currently seems to be the case, most of the mods seem to be rather odious and rude at times in their sarcasm.
EXTRA MODS WERE TOTALLY UNECESSARY.
This site was much better when Ben and Ian ran it themselves with minimal fam interference (which should be limited only to the forums).
I also find that the design of this site has an inverse relationship to the time, ie, the more time goes on the more dated it looks. This site looked best in 1997 till about 2002. It was worse from 2002, but passable, but now it looks much messier and unstructured.
Iam grateful to the org for the excellent and unrivalled news section but its getting diluted with not so important news and it should be centralised, run by a few.
Its great this is a free resource and i am only saying this because its a great site and i dont like to see it going downhill like this.
I hope you will consider my opinions and not shoot them down in flames.

I do credit the owners of this site for their tireless work and dedication, which do us all proud. Without this site we'd be totally in the dark.

Countdown to padlock 10...9....8....

7...6.....5.....

TOO MANY CHEIFS AND NOT ENOUGH FREAKIN' INDIANS!!!!!
[This message was edited Tue Apr 20 22:03:13 2004 by Gold319]

OdysseyMiles said:

I love your sig.

TheFreakerFantastic said:

TheFreakerFantastic said:

I am new to these boards...I do have to say I don't agree with the above poster in his description of the look and feel of this site. Compared to this one, HQ and NPGMC are clunky. The news section here is unrivaled...even if it is gotten sometimes off another board. Try to find something on NPGMC and you can't. I find the ease and the feel to this site to be better.

My only miffed point is some of the subjects are pretty dumb and not worth the time clicking on or responding. An engaging debate on Musicology is one thing...but a whole thread (or 2 or 3) saying Musicology sucks ...or turning a positive thread that is discussing thing into a negative one. And the MJ vs P what do you think? Or P's carreer is going to the crapper. Too much negativity and immaturity.

Though I don't place the mods in this category. They actually seem to know what up and what's not. When someone is lying etc. They do a formidable job. One suggestion though...perhaps remove or lock down some of the really stupid threads or reorg them to where they need to be (like they did to this...good job!). I don't mean censor everything but there is a lot of garbage that is discussed here and it takes away from the better info/threads. If it is done properly, people may think twice before starting up a useless thread requesting P to play a private concert for them and their dog.

I wonder if anyone realizes that negative comments cost P business? I am kickin myself in the pants still for holding off all this time from the membership cuz I actually listened to what some were saying..that it's not worth it. You get nothing for your money..the songs are total crap etc. yes, I need to make my own judgements etc as we all do. But reading chatter between 5-6 folks saying NPGMC sucks...well then it might be true...I'll save my $$$ for something that may be good.

Anyhoo, I am off my box.

I'm gonna go eat worms.

Anxiety said:

p.s. I hear rumours that our avatars fancy each other...

's



edit
[This message was edited Tue Apr 20 14:48:52 2004 by JaneyPoos]

Anxiety said:

The lion is back!! The lion is back!!!


hey freakerfantastic, thanks for your opinion and views... im going to bring up the news issue with the other mods...maybe we all can pull in and help and come up with a healthy discussion about this topic.....just keep in mind that while there appears to be a crap-load of new moderators, we all dont moderate the same forums....

for instance, because i only moderate the non-prince music section and the politics and religion forum I cant add news items...only the following moderators can:

matt, Handclapsfingasnapz, June7, Tom, luv4u


and luv4u was only recently added to this group last week....


so unless you want general topic discussions and/or political debates as news, there arent that many mods to update the news sections....

thanks again,

sos

JaneyPoos said:

What can I say - when the sun comes out, so does the lion....

And ya better watch out Janeypoos, cuz I'm fixin' to turn your avatar into my next tattoo.

And as for the news issue, SOSGemini put it quite well - in the forums we don't moderate, we're just plain ol' orgers like everyone else. There's stuff I'd love to post to the News section sometimes, but I just don't have the keys to the car.

Though I'll fess up on something - as a mod, I'm still learning how to click all the right things around here, so I'm not quite as nimble as I'm sure I will be in the future. But I'm learnin'...

Anxiety said:

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go eat worms!

Despite my outburst on the NPGMC, I hope you know that I think the moderation here is terrific, Anxiety.

Also, there is a much greater focus on news now than there was before, which I think is also great. I'm not exactly sure what thefreakfantastic's complaint is...

I'm amazed at how few incidents there are of moderators stepping on one another's toes etc. There is amazing consistency without a constant public airing of policy decisions.

Sure I wish that some of the other Orgers were allowed to come back. I still hope that happens. Banning is a sign of weakness and loss of control.

Anyway, sorry again for my comments to you on NPGMC...

Anxiety said:

I ate a worm in junior high. i did it on a dare and then some bitch told my dad adn i got punished. for no good reason!




i think that the new moderators are doing fine. there was one incident where a moderator was ridiculing an orger in the GD but then that moderator apologized. They've been handling themselves well.

2the9s said:

I can't really speak for decisions that were made before I started here as a mod - honestly, I never really followed "org dramas" all that much unless it involved me or my friends (and I got some boring ass friends on here, apparently, cuz they never seem to get banned or embroiled or nuffin - STEP UP, BUDDIES - BREAK SOME SHIT - MAKE ME BREAK A SWEAT!!! ), and even now as a mod, I only care enough about "org dramas" inasmuch as figuring out who did what to whom and who's outta line - I don't care about all the backstory and weird vibes and he said/she said/it said, blah blah blah.

All that said, it would take a LOT for me to want to ban someone, and if there were a way to mend fences with everyone that we could all agree on, I'd be all for doing my part to make such a thing happen. But one question ya gotta ask is: do they WANT to come back? No use makin' someone do something they don't wanna do just cuz you want 'em to...

Thanks for your comments, I do like to hear what people are thinking (in the proper forum of course). Here's some of my thoughts on your points:

FIRST, Moderation: I think the new mods are doing an AWESEOME job. Believe me, they are, and the site is better off for having them. You didn't (and don't) have as much insight to the chaos that was present way back when. The new mods are definitely the best improvement the site has undergone!

Look and feel: I understand your comment, but don't necessarily agree. I do think the site is a little "plain", but this is by design. We get MUCH more traffic than other fan sites (except maybe NPGMC, but I wouldn't be surprised if we beat them too). I simply can't afford to have "heavy" graphics etc., on the site due to them (a) slowing it down and (b) increasing bandwidth costs. Also, the org is definitely the only Prince fan site I know of that strives for maximal W3C, XML, and accessibility compatibility: i.e., it is usable by blind people, people with text-only browsers, and search-engine (for example, google) friendly. It loads quickly (when we're not swamped with traffic) too. The design may be "simple" but it's also "correct" in my opinion.

News updates: It's true sometimes the news lags. Lately, it's been tough with so much going on, and so much news coming in. I've had 20+ items/day submitted as "news" (and not just newsworthy threads posted to the forums) to sort through. It's a hard (and time-consuming) job. I will be relegating some less-newsworthy (for example, random reviews) to the forums and not linked off the homepage, but, it happens. I'm also considering asking mods to help out more with the "news" news.

Believe me, I'm striving to make the site the best it can be. If there's something you don't like, let me know about it, if I agree, maybe it will get changed. The site is ultimately for you guys, the visitors, and I want it to work as well as it can.

Anxiety said:

Technically its not mine it was presented to my by Stepinrazor think he designed it too...

Btw on the original subject, I think that the moderators all do a fine and dandy job, there aren't any arguments anymore thats for sure (or at least none that are brought to attention). i think you're all doing great... still reckon I should be one though .... joke

Anxiety said:

Well that's a pretty pointless question unless they were given the option of coming back.



I'm not talking about making people do anything, but offering options. The only thing they wee made to do was leave...I know, not your doing.

The general rule of thumb was that we do not feature a thread unless enough people voted for it. I don't think we neccessarily wait around for votes anymore now though.

Quite a few threads have been featured in the past few weeks, just take a look at the home page.

superspaceboy said:

I couldn't agree with you more. AMEN.

Tom said:

... didnt ben just disable that feature? the more news items the happier i am...i am afraid to frequent the prince forum but i like to read the news posts.....so any increase in news would be much appreciated by me...

Tom said:

That's why we have the GD!

Tom said:

no no no..we cant do that..because the stupid threads would then be replaced by the "i hate the moderators and prince.org because it hates free speech" type threads..


plus, your stupid thread is anothers pleasurefest...just ask cloudbuster and christopher

sosgemini said:

I can?



Hmmm, this is news to me!!!

June7 said:

He grassed you up big time!

Thanx 4 your response.
I only comment becuase this is a great site and i would like to remain a great site.
Its just i dont want it to fall into the trap of other Prince websites of being 'overmoderated', users like freedom and dont like posts moved or being harrased in discussions when the mods dont agree with you.
I think Mods can help you, but shouldnt have any power on inidividual issues unless the owners let them. I dont see why certain fams should have the power of being a mod over others, whos views and opinions are just as legitimate, even if they cant recite when Prince did this rehearsal in 1985 etc....

TheFreakerFantastic said:

The owner of this site put out an open invitation for folks to become moderators earlier this year - we hadda state our cases as to why we think we'd do the job well, and then we were chosen and shown the ropes. It wasn't some kind of velvet rope we were ushered behind because we're such fabulously in-the-know superior beings (not that we AREN'T, fa-fa-fa), but just because we answered his open invitation.

And believe me, being a mod isn't a power rush. It's a cool experience and a rewarding responsibility, but I still haven't gotten my golden throne and purple twinkie badge in the mail yet...

Anxiety said:

im still trying to figure out how to get out of the "panic room" ben hid me in.....

TheFreakerFantastic said:

I object to being referred to as a "Fam"

I prefer "Anti-Fam"

wtfe

sosgemini said: