Dan,
Thanks for taking the time to communicate with the site members. I know most of us would not want to be in your position at the moment. But, it is good to get communication, since we rarely got any before. I have a few comments / suggestions and experience to share with you.
Just so you know where I'm coming from, I co-founded
www.LS1Tech.com, which is still the busiest GM based performance site on the net. Several, several times busier than the VCA forum. I sold the site in 2007 to a large corporation, after owning it for 6 years. We learned a lot during the growth of that site, and how to manage all the personalities under that roof. We had a moderator staff of over 100 members.
That being said, we always treated our user base as the customer. Moderators that abused their power, made decisions based on ego or agenda, were promptly spoken with. If they continued with that behavior, they were removed from the staff. If moderators were inactive and didn't manage their respective forums, we found replacements more willing to participate.
We never allowed "Alter Ego" type accounts, such as the current "VCA Forum Staff" that is found on this site. That can be perceived as cowardly, as communications could come from anyone. When you are to warn or reprimand a member (customer), they deserve the right to know who is speaking. We had a few moderators try and create AE accounts to abuse their power, those people were removed. Moderators should be easily accessible and have their username for any communication with members, period. Nobody should have access to more than 1 account on this site.
In the private Admin/Moderator forum, we had a thread stuck to the top of the forum. The "Banned List". Any moderator who banned or moderated (permanent, or temporary) a user had to put a link to their user account, as well as a reason for doing so. Usually followed by a link to the thread(s) that resulted in the ban. With this Banned List, the other staff and Admins could see who was banned, and raise questions on if the process was followed properly. Sometimes a vote was held to overturn these decisions. Any moderator caught banning people without filling out the list, was removed. I suspect this site doesn't have this sort of arrangement, since you have a lot of evidence of members disappearing without notice. The worse part is that many of these members pay to be here, yet get treated this way.
This statement "competing car club" doesn't sit well with me. The VCA is a non-profit. "Competing" is a term generally held for companies or individuals that want to excel over others, in terms of performance or financials. How would two non-profit type clubs be viewed as competitors? Is the club about the Viper, or the windfall of cash that comes in from paid membership? If the club had fewer members, it would require less money to operate. Still a non-profit, right? Income, and expenses, should be relative to the size of the club. So please define what is
competitive for us. Shouldn't all Viper enthusiast clubs be welcoming of similar clubs? I belong to a couple Corvette and Camaro clubs, and we even meet up with other similar clubs a few times a year and have large gatherings. This is because the clubs are based on the VEHICLE, pure and simple.
Now, I agree that we can't have people going around badmouthing the VCA and trying to get people to leave, while promoting another group. That is understandable. But, the paragraph I wrote above should have more meaning about how this is handled.
If membership was so important, then banning paid members makes absolutely no sense. Do you think they will ever come back? How many others did they influence not to join, due to how their situation was handled?
Thanks for your time,
Tony
