Donating Member subforum suggestion - improve the experience for HF newbies

[Ratdog]

Knowledge of HF's "Draconian" moderating policies preceded my signing up, even so, when my first OT (commenting on a pet related thread) post was moved, no hint of what transpired remained, not even a chirping cricket. Only upon inquiry did I learn the likely fate of my ramblings. There was a brief emotional response, the chaos of the ether briefly ordered, it felt, unpleasant, followed by acceptance and finally understanding such as it was.

A bread crumb, the sligtest of trails, may have perhaps, eased that brief moment that was caused by the apparent vanishing of my instantiated thoughts. An automated PM, 'fret not knowledge seeking new comer, your words are not wasted, not lost, merely transported, moved on to a different, elevated plane, housed in the threads of the most caring, most dedicated, most generous of the membership, the Donating Members Forum'.

I've long since donated, happily. The value of the summed donations amounting to little compared to the outright sale of the forum to a corporate conglomerate.

TOS - mandatory reading? Nah, not until somebody quotes my page 34( or whatever page it is now) of the Miceosoft XBox/Kinect agreement, Microsoft recording anything on the mic or visible to the Kinect for "research purposes". Or page 72 of the GMail TOS/UA, or page 5 of your IOS or Android OS UA/TOS. Legalese CYA gobbledegook.

A concisely stated, brief paragraph on the essential philosophy of the site, perhaps, but a complete reading of the ToS? That said, clicking Yes makes you subject to the agreement, even that I say is without merit, an unreasonable expectation, just like so many other fine printed, over worded, legal phrase riddled agreements that we are forced to accept or be denied use of any computing device, essentially severing our connection with the virtual world which is now so much the 'real' world.

No sir, I reject all ToS and UAs as unreasonable, untenable, overly burdensome and just plain farcical. Another example of the man trying to keep us down. Next thing you know, you'll tell me driving is a privilege, not a right, as if mass transit, a horse or my feet could get me where I need to go.

[DanglingModifier]

To save us a whole lot of future typing about hypotheticals that might be dead ends, and Srfr and I going back and forth a dozen more times trying to talk each other into a corner, can an admin reply with one of the following answers to my original question re: retaining permissions to your own threads when they get moved to donating subforums?

Possible? Impossible? May be possible?

Edit: I mean technically possible, not "practical" per se.

[gmcttr]

...I don't imagine the type of change I suggested for consideration would entirely eliminate that specific work for the mods, but it could certainly reduce it....

One thing I am confident in stating is that any change made to reduce work for mods will invariably increase it in some unforeseen way.

[SilvrSurfr]

Out of curiosity did you comprehend and retain 100% of the TOS the first time you read it? Did you reread it with every new post you made until you had 100% retention? I know I sure didn't get all the details in the first read, or even the second, and my native English reading comprehension falls on the "not stupid" side of the bell curve. I don't disagree that people need reminders of the TOS. They do, routinely. I do disagree that this should be categorized as a simple TOS education issue.

At its simplest, it is a TOS issue. "Where'd my post about best sugarfree gum for hiking go?" Read the TOS.

As for allowing people to indefinitely access the off-topic threads they started, then what's the point of having a donating members section at all?

Let's rewrite the TOS section with which you disagree. Instead of:

Please note that if you are not a donating member, you will not have access to a thread you started that gets moved to the off-topic area. You may either participate on topic in the free access areas or donate to get access.

Let's make it sound like this:

Please note that if you are not a donating member, you will have access to any thread you started that gets moved to the off-topic area. You cannot participate in any other off-topic threads, but you can participate in the ones you started.

That makes it all clear as mud.

[OutandBack]

DanglingModifier thank you for your suggestion. At least two mods and the site owner has read it.
I don't think we need any addition discussion on the topic.