Drizzt80 said:
Me too, and I just want to add another thought. My 'angst' centers quite a bit on feeling bad for Rich having to deal with this and other issues. Here we are in his house telling him how to run it. Does anyone here go to someone's home, have them ask/tell you to use a coaster under your drink, and you throw the coaster in their face telling them they're wrong and coasters are useless, yadda yadda yadda. And THEN when their two year old comes through the room and places their sippy cup of milk on the coffee table and says "Nyah nyah", now you get to put your glass of lemonade down without a coaster too? :shrugs: Just something to think about.
D80
I don't completely see it that way. This isn't his house. It's a place of business where he intends to draw people. Sometimes some perspective on how things
look (whether they are true or not) is invaluable information. I think the very thing that made this site fly is that Rich has always been open to people's opinion. Being open to an opinion doesn't mean you have to agree, but at least give people acknowledgement on it.
I am in a somewhat similar position at work. I manage a place where people come for recreation. It's not like a grocery store or gas station, where people have to go. They come because they decide that's where they want to spend their free time.
Customer feedback is probably the most important tool I have in my job. Sometimes people feel things could be better, but when I explain to them the circumstances I have to deal with, they change their mind to being surprised things are going so well. Sometimes they say things could be better, and they're right and it was just something I overlooked underneath a daunting workload. Sometimes people are just full of crap and won't be happy unless you drop everything for them and give them a dollar while you're at it. Sometimes people don't necessarily want a solution, they just want to be listened to and know their opinion is sincerely valued.
Through frequent interchange, I gain a lot from listening to my customers and they gain some understanding listening to me. Perception is what it is, no real wrong or right. Much like here we have many loyal members that we all know by name, and we have "new blood" trickling in all the time. The "older" members do a great job in helping take care of the new comers, and ensuring rules are followed even when I'm not watching. I couldn't keep up with my job if there were no loyal faithful members, but the business could not grow without the new ones. They are both a very important part of the business. I think it would be a big mistake on my part if I were to close my ears to any of them. I do have the final say, but I take everyones input into consideration before I decide what's best. Then the second most valueable tool is accepting that you can't please everyone.
I'm not trying to tell Rich how to run his site. I just wanted to give him one users perspective before he made his decision. It seemed that Rich had the idea that people left because they were told not to behave inappropriately. I don't think that was the case at all and speaking for myself, I KNOW that wasn't the case.
I think the chatroom was getting so big, so fast, that there was no way two mods could keep up with it. So I'd say let it recover slowly on it's own time instead of pushing for volume that just proved itself to be too much for the given resources.
Just my 2 cents. Take or leave it, but I do appreciate being able to give it.
