Wow!

I am having trouble understanding your post Eoin so you might have to provide more info.

Very few posts have been deleted here. I'm guessing there would be less than 10 since we started and that's a year ago . Nearly all of these would have been posts by two brewers that posted incorrect information into definition threads. Having incorrect information in a thread that defines something is not a great idea for those seeking to gain quality information on a new subject. There is already a lot of misinformation about BIAB on the net so making sure BIABrewer.info corrects this is a high priority to us.

I'd guess that another 20 posts may have been edited in this time. Here we are talking about re-wording a subject title better, or deleting or re-writing a phrase that reads against the culture of the site. In these cases, the writer of the post will have not meant to be blunt or dismissive but it has read that way to at least one of the moderators who have then taken the time to re-write the post to remove the possible misinterpretation without removing the essence of the post. There are so few times this has been done that I remember the names as this is always noted in the Moderators forum. I know that we did this to you once where you came across as a little blunt. Doing that was a service not only to the forum but you as well.

We never tell anyone to move their post to another part of the forum. Sometimes we'll do it for them (maybe 5 times in total?) and this is only done when we see the person needs a bump to their thread or when we think it is of such value that we really should move it from the New Members section to a more defined section. In any case we have done this, we have always advised the original writer and they have been pleased.

The idea of deleting posts when obsolete is something we would like to do but haven't done yet. For example, certain administrative decisions might require a lot of input over a few weeks but become irrelevant after several weeks. I would like to see these threads being deleted so as the "Important Notices" forum does not become cluttered. We haven't done this yet though as we don't want to see enthusiastic members input being deleted.

I certainly don't think we need to lighten up. I think this forum is light and it is friendly and it does offer quality advice. We put a lot of time and thought into all this. And, we don't even reprimand people such as yourself who are retailing on the forum without following the forum guidelines for retailers . (You should have contacted us regarding your retail activities you naughty boy!)

So, my thinking, and those of the other administrators and moderators, is that things are going well here and that members are enjoying the forum. We could well be wrong. People can post here freely on this. Your post makes it sound as though any negative feedback gets deleted. It doesn't.

I think what we really need are more people to volunteer their time. Only two people have ever clicked on the Donate button so people putting some thinking into how we can make the site self-funding would be a great project that I'm sure that some members here might be able to work on. There are a lot of other interesting projects that simply need manpower. (PM us please!)

In the meantime, we have no desires to become the biggest forum in the brewing world. Mind you, we would like this forum to be the highest quality one .

Cheers and please let us know your thoughts on this,
Pat

Bit rushed tonight Eoin but thanks for getting back to us.

Seriously, very few posts have ever been edited here, probably less than the figures I gave last night. Of these edits, I am battling to think of anyone that would have had more than two posts edited. In most cases, the person is contacted and advised of the edit.

One previously frequent poster did leave the site after disagreeing with our deleting the posts that contained incorrect information in the definition thread I mentioned. None of the moderators could understand this. Surely readers here would like BIABrewer threads to be clear and free of confusing or incorrect info?

I think it would be a good idea for you to encourage the two guys you are talking with to send us a PM explaining what they are worried about because myself and the other mods are pretty bewildered by this. We honestly can't think of any post that has been edited or deleted without a sensible or helpful reason.

Feel free to start a thread or poll on this if you want to - "Have you had a post edited, moved or deleted on BIABrewer.info?" Add another few questions such as, "Do you think this was done unfairly?" and "Do you think this was sensible?" I think the results of this would show very few negative comments. For example, I don't think you would answer this negatively.

Now to more important matters. How much money are you going to send us? We need $2,000.


Pat

Wrench, thanks for taking the time to post above. It's always great to get feedback from new members to make sure we are staying on track.

Much appreciated,
Pat

Thank you rb and also to the others who have written here,

Rating recipes will be part of the BIABacus as things like this will be very simple to do there. Unfortunately, trying to do them here in a forum format is really difficult and time-consuming.

A lot of recipe sites have it so anyone can click on a recipe. With the BIABAcus, we can probably improve on that a bit. For example, one possibility could be that you can only 'Like' a recipe if you have actually brewed, fermented and tasted it. In other words, recipes would build up a rating on number of 'likes' per times brewed.

Something to think on ,
Pat