No replies to this topic

[SJ-David]

This was originally posted by SJ-Andrew in the Snow Talk area of the Forums

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I thought I would just post a message on here before the season gets underway.

First of all, I hope you like the updates we have made to the site last month. If you haven’t seen all of the changes and new stuff, you can read more on that here:
http://www.snowjapanforums.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/383775/10_11_Site_Updates_General_inf.html

There are still many things for us to do, and we are right now busy working on them, so look out for more on the News section in the coming weeks.

---

The Serious Bit

Anyone who knows us well will be aware of the care and effort that we put into running SnowJapan including, of course, these Forums. This year alone, we have put literally many thousands of hours into improving the site. The Forums are one important part of what we do, and actually one which takes up a dis-proportionately large amount of effort. Of course the Forums would not be what they are without people posting on them. So, a sincere thank you to all the people on here who make this the great friendly community that it is.

Sadly, some people seem to think that by signing up for a free account on these Forums or by posting so many posts on the Forums over however many years, we owe them something and they can come onto our Forums and make all amounts of fuss. They seem to think that they have the right to post a free ad. Or post a link to their blog. [After all, 'it's for the good of our readers to read their information', etc]. Or moan about how they can’t do those things. Or persistently have a crack at us - on our own website - because they have come to not like us as much as they used to, for whatever reason.

Well... we don't.

With our site and Forums continuing to grow, an increase in this kind of situation is probably inevitable and just part of what we do and have to deal with. But that doesn’t mean that we have to like it and put up with it.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with how we run the Forums. Thats never going to happen. We always welcome comments and suggestions – as I have said previously, many of the things we do each year is based on comments we have heard from the community. And I think that many people on here will agree that we are usually extremely responsive when they do contact us.

But if you come on to us full guns blazing, don’t expect a response or charity from us. And certainly don’t expect your loaded comments to last if you post them publicly on the Forums. We had one situation recently when someone came back to us with a mouthful of pretty strong abuse after we had politely told them that sorry but we don’t allow advertisements on our Forums. I’ve got to admit, it's hard to know where so much anger comes from at times.

Some of the accusations thrown around are truly baffling. Lots of this goes on without people actually seeing it happen online. I wish I could go into more detail in public and tell some of the stories but I don't want us to start taking the low road. Because of that, it is sometimes difficult to (for want of a better phrase) ‘defend ourselves’ against outright lies and exaggerations... things we are supposed to have said that we did not say, things that we are supposed to have done that we have not done. There are some shameless liars out there.

Agree with how we run our free-to-use website or not, I really do not believe we deserve that.

Anyway, I have told my colleagues from now on to simply ignore people who are consistently giving us grief that they think is unreasonable, and to not give any space to people who are obviously pushing agendas. We're not going to put up with it. Sorry, but those people are simply not welcome here and are going to be wasting their time.

The main Guidelines can be found here:

http://www.snowjapanforums.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/218295/General_Guidelines_and_Forums_.html
http://www.snowjapanforums.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/243164/Links_policy.html

They remain unchanged.

Just a simple recap on some points that seem to cause the most 'outrage':

Don't come on here simply trying to promote your business;
Don’t come on here simply trying to promote your website or your friends website, however 'useful' it is;
Don’t come on here posting unrelenting sarcasm directed towards us, or indeed other members of the Forums.

If you have some problem with our website or Forums, please just don't use them.
If you really feel that you need to bad-mouth us, please do it somewhere else. Not on our Forums.

Contrary to what some self-important people seem to believe, we really do not mind if any individual does not use our site.
In fact, if they are giving us hassle, we would actually prefer that they stayed away.
To the people this concerns - please take your anger and bitterness somewhere else or go to somewhere that you actually like.

The Happy Bit

Sorry for the nature of this post but it being here means that a lot of people, including the ones that it is really directed to, will read it.

Of course the above only applies to a relatively tiny number of people, though they are often very vocal about it.

Hopefully the reason that most of you are here is because you do actually like these Forums and enjoy using them. And we welcome you.

If you do like it here, and the community that is on here, we very much hope that you continue to use and take part.

And lastly, I hope that all our friends have a really great winter season.
After all, that’s what it’s all about.

Thanks for reading.


-----

Originally posted by SJ-Andrew in the Snow Talk area:
http://www.snowjapanforums.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/387962/Important_pre_season_message_p.html