owner found! new questions abound!

[Guest guest]

Hi gang,

Thanks to everyone who messaged with info about and with contacts and

links to the moderator/owner of this forum!

I have received a message from - the original owner and founder of this

message board- and

we are currently discussing how to handle the spam problem among other

things.

The spam has quieted down right now but there have been those weeks when the

weird-o's and freaks get on the board in record numbers. There has been a

rash of posts on a couple of other forums I subscribe to. They log on as a

new member, post their crud and then vanish into cyberspace without any

trace.

There are a couple of ways to deal with them.

The easiest way is to have several people acting as moderators or co-owners

of this message board.

It doesn't take a lot of extra time, but the position does require that the

owner/modator be someone who can check up on messages on a fairly regular

basis. If you have moderator status you can " delete " a message as soon as it

hits the message board- hopefully soon enough for it to stay off the digest.

And an owner has even greater power... to ban that email address as well. It

is not a position to be abused, which is why on the WA thyroid forum that I

own/moderate we have more than one person acting as moderator at the same

time. And we have atleast three " owners " .

So I made a few suggestions to (thanks again to him for responding to

Joyce F and myself about this matter!) and we are knocking around a few

ideas. On the WA board we changed the set-up of our site (for now) so that

all new members are " moderated " for the first few postings. The owner or

moderator verifies that the message they want to post is actually legit and

not just some spam (we were getting a lot of sexually oriented crap) and

then allows the message to post to the forum. After a message or two- the

new member is removed from the moderated-status and becomes a full member

with all priveleges. There is NEVER any attempt to censor the comments or

views of a post- this is strictly a way to be sure we are not dealing with a

spammer- be it a religious zealot, a peddler, or any other kind or

cyber-creep. It would not stop off-topic chatter unless that chatter was

truly offensive to the group as a whole (not an individual with a personal

and private belief system). Again, there is no attempt to censor, ever. Just

keep it clean.

So here is a question, maybe will post it as a poll for all to vote on?

Would anyone be interested in participating as a moderator/owner? Keep in

mind we are not asking you to put all your free-time and energy into this,

just lend a hand to help keep this forum clean. And an owner has the power

to periodically update the homepage of the forum with any timely information

and to post links to articles and other digests, much like Aegis does on his

LDNers board.

Having this board more closely moderated will help unclutter the digests,

especially when someone forgets to trim a reply to a post thereby allowing

the spammers message to remain with us indefinitely.

If anyone would like to volunteer or nominate someone else for the job

please send me or a message! And I'm not asking to be nominated! ;-)

I've got my hands full with 2 kids, 2 cats and another message board that I

help babysit! But I would be willing to fill in until someone else wants to

give it a try...it does not take a lot of internet know-how either. When

your status as a member is upgraded to owner or moderator you will receive

an automatically generated message that gives you links to restricted areas

of the site for management needs as well as some brief tutorials on how to

navigate.

My other suggestion to was that this could be a rotating

responsibility...anyone willing to moderate for a set time period, say 1-3

months at a time? Raise your hand! Put your name in the hat! We could keep

all those names in the " cyber-hat " and take turns, on an alphabetical basis,

keeping an eye on things. In that way we could all contribute to the health

and harmony of this message board.

I think it would be best for us all if we work together to keep the crappy

spam from getting on the forum. And even though I truly believe that a

doctor should be directed to the main site www.low dose naltrexone.org for

relevant info that might encourage him/her to prescribe this treatment, I do

know that some of you send your docs to this forum. So keeping the spam off

the board will help legitamize the info here in that regard as well.

So are there any other ideas or suggestions? Can we brainstorm, even on the

days when we feel like we have a foggy brain? ;-) I know my brain is pretty

foggy, but that would be from the anesthesia I was subjected to earlier this

week. Anyhow...

You are all a wonderful bunch of people, each with your own unique and

important experiences to share. And even though I am not a dx'd MSer, I am

so glad I found this forum (Thanks Sammy Jo!), this treatment, and the

friends and support that came with it. I would like to see it continue on in

that same vein and thrive and improve as we spread the word about LDN and

all that it can offer.

Wishing you each the best of health,

Lara

Seattle (sunny and lovely, even after St. Helen's little sputter this week!)