When everything was going to hell in a handbasket over on Mens Health I emailed
Bill.Steig@rodale.com.
He was helpful at first, but after awhile Rodale decided they only wanted narrow minded bigoted homophobes on their forum.

I sent an email off about it. Maybe if they get enough of them something will happen. The squeeky wheel does get the grease!

In the meantime - those of us who post on a regular basis should make the extra effort to keep this thing going. I am happy to keep posting all of my nonsense as long as you guys keep reading it!

quote:

Originally posted by Chief Engineer:
In the meantime - those of us who post on a regular basis should make the extra effort to keep this thing going. I am happy to keep posting all of my nonsense as long as you guys keep reading it!

Yes, we are a small but determined bunch. .... sort of reminds one of the Alamo.

quote:

Originally posted by Pecos:

quote:

Originally posted by Chief Engineer:
In the meantime - those of us who post on a regular basis should make the extra effort to keep this thing going. I am happy to keep posting all of my nonsense as long as you guys keep reading it!

Yes, we are a small but determined bunch. .... sort of reminds one of the Alamo.

Remember what happened to those guys at the Alamo!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Captain Jack Harkness:

quote:

Originally posted by Pecos:

quote:

Originally posted by Chief Engineer:
In the meantime - those of us who post on a regular basis should make the extra effort to keep this thing going. I am happy to keep posting all of my nonsense as long as you guys keep reading it!

Yes, we are a small but determined bunch. .... sort of reminds one of the Alamo.

Remember what happened to those guys at the Alamo!!!

Yep, they kicked some serious ass. Oh, you mean the defenders.

The guys at the Alamo wen't down fighting.... which inspired the men at the next battle to fight even more determindly! Since the Alamo is over I say we fight harder!!!

btw, I posted on the editors forum over at Men's Health asking wtf is going on with our forum.

We'll see what they say.

A man could kill spam all night and all day, and his work still wouldn't be done.

quote:

Originally posted by LKS:
A man could kill spam all night and all day, and his work still wouldn't be done.

Without a moderator, it is a lot like pissing into the ocean and thinking you are going to raise the water level.

Gentlemen: My name is Joel Weber, I'm the Senior Associate Editor at Best Life, and I'm going to be moderating the forum from now on. First of all, I'm very impressed and honored that you've hung out as long as you have. As everyone here knows, we've done a very poor job of guiding the forum. So here's what I would like to know: How can I better serve you? I've got a ball in motion to eliminate the spam, and that seems to be the most common complaint, from what I can see. (On that note, if you want to email me specific user names of folks I should know about, drop me a line at joel.weber@rodale.com.) Would you like me to post a topic of discussion once or twice a week? Does everyone read the magazine? Can I ask your opinions of specific articles? Also, what else would you like to see on the site? I'm in the process of finishing a significant update so if there's constructive criticism you'd like to provide, please let me know. Bottom line: I'm here. We're finally listening. Sound off. Sincerely, Joel

Hi Joel. Thanks for responding to our cries for help.

Yes, spam is clearly the biggest issue right now. Another, IMHO, is lack of members.

Welcome, and thanks again.

Well, considering we haven't ever even promoted the forums and they're still being used by you Alamo-esque diehards, I imagine we'll get some new faces once I give it some prominence in the new site...

quote:

Originally posted by Best Life Moderator:
Well, considering we haven't ever even promoted the forums and they're still being used by you Alamo-esque diehards, I imagine we'll get some new faces once I give it some prominence in the new site...

Yes, well they used to be featured on the main page prior to the last redesign. We even got updated forum software.

As for what *I'd* like to see on the site, right off the top of my head I'd suggest:

• Doing away with the dead Head Coach forum
  
• Renaming the "Passions" forum to something more like we have been using it, e.g. "General Discussions" or something similar.
  
• Adding (or rather activating) the PM feature, maybe only for those with a certain karma
  
• Speaking of Karma, how about starting to show that
  
• Oh, the "Best List" forum is also sort of lame, unless you actually start linking it to the magazine's lists
  
• To me, the number of forums on Men's Health is overkill for our magazine, but maybe you could post a poll on which of those would be nice to have
  

Probably could list some more later. Thanks for listening and responding so far.

quote:

Originally posted by LKS:

quote:

Originally posted by Best Life Moderator:
Well, considering we haven't ever even promoted the forums and they're still being used by you Alamo-esque diehards, I imagine we'll get some new faces once I give it some prominence in the new site...

Yes, well they used to be featured on the main page prior to the last redesign. We even got updated forum software.

As for what *I'd* like to see on the site, right off the top of my head I'd suggest:

• Doing away with the dead Head Coach forum
  
• Renaming the "Passions" forum to something more like we have been using it, e.g. "General Discussions" or something similar.
  
• Adding (or rather activating) the PM feature, maybe only for those with a certain karma
  
• Speaking of Karma, how about starting to show that
  
• Oh, the "Best List" forum is also sort of lame, unless you actually start linking it to the magazine's lists
  
• To me, the number of forums on Men's Health is overkill for our magazine, but maybe you could post a poll on which of those would be nice to have
  

Probably could list some more later. Thanks for listening and responding so far.

LKS,

I like your thinking. I would divide it up into something like the following:

Family Life
Sexuality
Work
Health and Fitness
Entertainment & Sports
"Best of Life" Discussions