Hammock versus hiking discussion

[titanium_hiker]

Hi all,

I guess this is me being fussy, but I seem to recall that a while back we had a mass closure of stove threads and cooking threads because this is Hammock forums, and as nice as this place is, it isn't about discussing other stuff.

(unless you donate- which is cool)

So what should we do when we see new members ask questions about not-hammock related stuff?

Is it time for a mass reminder?

Sorry to be fussy!

TH

[WetRivrRat]

Argh! Make 'em walk the plank...

[WetRivrRat]

but seriously tho -

Its already a well known fact that the Mods can only mod so much, so it almost seems that posting a mass notification may not be any more (or less) effective than any other means -

Maybe something like "Read this User Access Agreement, THERE WILL BE A TEST" before you can 'actually' join -

Humiliation might work, but well... who wants to be responsible for making somebody feel bullied...

[gargoyle]

Moderation is for the folks who wear that hat.

They spend there time policing the HF site and sweeping the crumbs away, moving/removing posts, and saying informative things (except Cannibal )

We were all noobs once and made our own mistakes and no one jumped on us. Live and learn. Bite your tongue. Share your knowledge where you want. HYOH.

[angrysparrow]

As moderators we do our best to move the non-hammock stuff to the off-topic forums. Some days we are obviously quicker about it than others, just depending on whether one or more of us is offline or dealing with real-world concerns.

There is a standardized PM that is often sent to new members if one of their first few threads gets moved. It explains the forum topic focus, and links to the TOS and an older announcement about how the forum is organized. It's not always new members that start off-topic threads though. Sometimes an established member will simply misplace a topic (most often in the General Hammock Talk forum) by accident. In this case we still move the thread, but they may or may not get a PM just depending on how busy the moderator doing the moving is.

If we miss a topic or haven't gotten to one yet, you can help us out by either sending a PM to any one of the mods, or using the 'report post' function on the first post of the thread. That will create a notification for the next time a mod is available.

I would ask of any of the new members reading this - please don't get upset if one of your threads gets moved. As you can see by the post of the OP here, many of the forum members appreciate the topic focus and organization that we try to maintain. In moving topics, we're just trying to keep that focus.

titanium_hiker - You may be right about it being time for an announcement reminder about staying on topic.

[MAD777]

I can't pass up an opportunity to say how extremely well this forum is moderated! Thank you moderators!