Due to a lot of friction and other problems in this section, we have decided to give the Character/Actor forum a little "makeover", introducing some new changes.
It's important to emphasize that this change has not been brought on by one or a few single cases of people breaking the rules. BttB is a message board with more than 12 000 members, and lately this section has become a lot more active. The system we have had has worked great, but with the increased popularity of this section it's not time for a change, to make it easier to maintain, and to make this section more member-friendly for everyone. The decision to make these changes have been made after a lot of discussion in the Staff Room, especially after we have heard a lot of members (including staff) say they no longer feel welcome in this section of the board.
The main difference from before is that the anti- and appreciation threads are now history (for nostalgic reasons the old threads are still there, but you can no longer post in them) and from now on there's one thread per character/pairing. With the anti- and appreciation threads, a lot of people seemed to think the threads were meant for competition, which was not the intention. Everyone should be allowed to post in the threads they want to post. We're hoping that this will invite more members that want to discuss the characters, and that is also will help us get rid of a lot of spamming.
The mention of spamming brings us to the next change. The entire Character/Actor dicussion forum is now set to Mod Preview, meaning that a staff member has to approve all posts. For now this is a temporary trial system, and we'll keep it for as long as it makes sense, in order to filter out a lot of spam and get the forum started as fairly and balanced as possibly.
For those still unsure about what spam is, this is a short definition: Spam is repetetive, meaningless, short posts that bring nothing to the discussion. Spam isn't necessarily one post, but when many posts by the same member seem to all be the same.
As you've probably noticed we have already created some new discussion threads. These are just to get the forum started again, and you are of course welcome to make topics for the characters/pairings you wish to discuss that we haven't already made topics for. Like all other posts, these topics will have to be approved my a member of staff, but with the whole staff now working and focusing on this section, it shouldn't take too long.
In order to keep the forum tidy, we're going to try to make the thread names as simple as possible. For a single character, just put the character's name in the title, and the actor's name in the sub title. For pairings, simply put "name1/name2" in the title and "Discussion" in the sub title. If you're unsure, just take a look at the threads we've already posted for you, and don't worry; if you make a mistake we'll fix it before the thread is posted
The regular board and section rules (including the SPAG-rule...) do still apply, and hopefully you are familiar with them by now.
We hope you understand why we are making these changes, and we hope that you will help us make the new system work
If you have any questions or general comments, please contact a member of staff my PM, or use this thread.
Happy posting!
The BttB staff
