OPEN email to the Eboard on the Journal

[Circuitrider]

24 minutes ago, SkyKing said:

But isn’t that the function of a moderator?

I'll take a stab at this from my limited knowledge...

It could be but, as has been alluded to previously, the issue has less to do with function and more to do with workload when that verification criteria is applied to a wildly popular social media platform like FB. Yes, the membership of IPMS is a finite number but spammers aren't going to stop their attempts to access the platform just because it is "closed".

I'll readily admit, however, that this would probably be more adequately addressed by one of the FB mods.

 

[Schmitz]

4 hours ago, Circuitrider said:

I'll readily admit, however, that this would probably be more adequately addressed by one of the FB mods.

A moderators main job is basically to keep the peace in a group. That can take the form of a private message to someone who is getting a little too worked up, or a comment explaining why IPMS works the way it does, or locking down comments, or deleting a message, or blocking a member. IPMS learned long ago that you can't count on people to play nice on FB - moderators review every post before it appears in the group, and we check several times a day for people reporting inappropriate content. Deciding who can participate - be a member of the group - is expected to be a small part of the job; the Facebook philosophy seems to be to just let everyone in and deal with the troublemakers later.

Being a "member" of a FB group has changed over the years, and not for the better.  Because IPMS is  a "public" group, anyone can "join" (become a member of the group) and can see everything that gets posted, but they have to be approved before they can be "full members" who can post or comment - the first time they try to post or make a comment triggers an approval process, that includes being asked a couple of screening questions (e.g. "what was the first model you built?"). Moderators get to review those requests and decide if they want to allow that person to post/comment (their posts are still reviewed, but not their comments). The moderators look at their answers to the screening questions, their FB profile, and what's in their post/comment and decide if they're a real person, a robot, or some sort of troll/scammer.

Approving posts is pretty easy - you can see if there are pictures of models (or modeling subjects) and read a couple sentences and quickly decide if it is modeling related. Approving requests for "full membership" takes a little longer, as you have to click/scroll thru a few screens to try to figure out if the request is from a "real person". The number of requests can vary from 5 to 50+/day - the spikes can be pretty time intensive, but yes - that is part of the "job" (like all IPMS positions, it is a volunteer effort). Usually it takes less than 30 minutes a day.

If we were to have an "IPMS Members Only" group, it would be a "Private" group - where you have to be a member to even see what others have posted. When someone requested to be a member, we would need a way to verify that they were truly an IPMS member.  An easy way to do this would be to put an identity code - a random 6 digit number that would be different for everyone - in their Wild Apricot profile, that only the member and the group moderators could see. When that IPMS member requested to be a member of the FB group, the screening questions would ask for their IPMS number and their identity code. Then the moderator would need a way (another password protected web page) to check Wild Apricot to find out if  that number-and-code were valid. And once a month, the Wild Apricot Admin would run a report of lapsed members to give to the moderator so they could cull their FB membership. None of these things exist right now; the Wild Apricot keepers would need to do some work.

This glosses over a lot of details. A lot of our members aren't computer savvy; people would have problems joining the group, hackers would steal identity-codes, etc, requiring moderators to answer their questions.  If there were only 10 people who wanted to be in that FB group, it wouldn't be much work - even if there were 10 scammers a day trying to sneak in. If there were 100 total members, it would be workable. If there were 1000, the turnover and "customer service" would likely make it onerous. I don't know how many members there would be. A lot of IPMS members are already on FB; there might be a much bigger turnout of IPMS members who would want to participate this way.

The interesting question is, what would be discussed in this group that required being "behind closed doors" (with the expectation that anything controversial would be leaked by actual IPMS members)?  A non-IPMS-member might still have good ideas, an dues-paying IPMS-member might still be an obnoxious pain in the rear.

[ghodges]

In the end... ALL discussions will be in the open and aired.... here or there. Only IPMS members with the highest sense of ethics would keep from posting on FB about things discussed on this DF down in the members only area; and those people are few and far between. It's much like the Journal..... whatever is in there, even though it's only mailed to members, makes it into the public/non-member arena eventually (remember the "freeloaders" comment in the Journal?).

Face Book is what it is, and I do believe it benefits IPMSUSA to be there in the long run, even with the trollers, the uninformed, and the haters. The modeling content FAR surpasses the occasional rant.

What disturbs me is that IPMSUSA has THIS DF and it's flies under the radar. It's not promoted in the Journal or anywhere else, and it is HERE that we should be able to interact with our Eboard representatives as IPMSUSA members. Yet the Eboard forgoes that responsibility to us and our questions here continue to go unanswered.

 

Gil 

[SkyKing]

On 8/17/2024 at 9:35 PM, dmorrissette said:

Sorry. Agree with the board Gil. Chris quit and it is his call to get into it, not theirs.

As far as posting here. one place seems enough. Kill the forums and just use Facebook

 

Dave

Chris quit (and I’m reading between the lines of his post concerning the matter) because the Board wanted to exercise oversight and force him to make changes to things that rightly fell under his purview as editor and that in his opinion were not necessary or would adversely affect the quality and timeliness of the publication, leaving him as “editor” in name only. Under such circumstances he felt he had no option but to quit, and I don’t blame him. Had I been editor, I’d have quit, too.

Edited August 21, 2024 by SkyKing

[noelsmith]

The reason for Chris's resignation can be debated ad infinitum. 

It may now be time to put a line under it and all move on as this is just going nowhere.

[SkyKing]

2 minutes ago, noelsmith said:

The reason for Chris's resignation can be debated ad infinitum. 

It may now be time to put a line under it and all move on as this is just going nowhere.

It’s “going nowhere” because the membership has yet to hear a clear explanation of WHY changes in the Journal and its production were thought to be so necessary that they caused an editor with years of experience to resign.

[noelsmith]

Explanations forthcoming or not are not going to make any difference to any outcomes with the Journal unfortunately.

Chris's resignation is of course extremely regrettable under the circumstances.

Yes, I agree many members like yourself would like an explanation. But like I said, this ( I was actually referring to the debate here ) is going nowhere.

No point in flogging a dead horse trying to get an explanation. If it is not going to be forthcoming, might as well move on.

 

 

[Ron Bell]

And keep in mind that those that participate in these forums are a small minority of the total membership, most of which just want to build models and not engage in the day to day proceedings of the organization.