Hi Everybody,
When we first started the OT forum a couple years ago, the idea behind it was to be a place for related topics to be discussed. Cars, trucks, working around the house, even cameras, computers and things that were coming up in the course of regular posting. When people asked me then, if it would be ok to post a joke list or two, I didn't see the harm in it.
But as time has gone on, more and more posts in this forum have drifted far off topic, and without any real benefit to the community other than to serve as a place for people to talk. Religion, politics, and joke lists have become way too popular, and our OT posts have grown to as much as 25% of total posts recently.
That means that 25% of the steadily increasing costs of operating this website, go to support general chi-chat between members. It doesn't go to building the base of tractor information, for example.
I fear that if we let the OT forum continue to grow, and in time possibly dominate the site, that we will dilute our content, and float away from what made this site so great; the best tractor questions and answers online.
So, we have decided to restructure the OT forum here, to a Related Topics forum. This doesn't mean that every single post must be related to tractors. Talk about your cars, your trucks, your house or your pets. Talk about computers and cameras, or whatever hobbies you might have.
But, we will no longer be allowing the following topics to be discussed here:
1) Politics
2) Religion
3) Joke lists/E-Mail forwards
Additionally, the quantity and quality of Related Topics posts by each user will be monitored by the moderators. We don't like to see users posting 80% of their messages in threads not having anything to do with tractors.
This is a free website. If you are a contributor, we just ask that you contribute something at least somewhat related to tractors. The bottom line is that too many posts here aren't contributing to the purpose of the site, and just increasing workloads for moderators, and taking up a fair bit of operating costs.
As always, thank you for your participation and support.
When we first started the OT forum a couple years ago, the idea behind it was to be a place for related topics to be discussed. Cars, trucks, working around the house, even cameras, computers and things that were coming up in the course of regular posting. When people asked me then, if it would be ok to post a joke list or two, I didn't see the harm in it.
But as time has gone on, more and more posts in this forum have drifted far off topic, and without any real benefit to the community other than to serve as a place for people to talk. Religion, politics, and joke lists have become way too popular, and our OT posts have grown to as much as 25% of total posts recently.
That means that 25% of the steadily increasing costs of operating this website, go to support general chi-chat between members. It doesn't go to building the base of tractor information, for example.
I fear that if we let the OT forum continue to grow, and in time possibly dominate the site, that we will dilute our content, and float away from what made this site so great; the best tractor questions and answers online.
So, we have decided to restructure the OT forum here, to a Related Topics forum. This doesn't mean that every single post must be related to tractors. Talk about your cars, your trucks, your house or your pets. Talk about computers and cameras, or whatever hobbies you might have.
But, we will no longer be allowing the following topics to be discussed here:
1) Politics
2) Religion
3) Joke lists/E-Mail forwards
Additionally, the quantity and quality of Related Topics posts by each user will be monitored by the moderators. We don't like to see users posting 80% of their messages in threads not having anything to do with tractors.
This is a free website. If you are a contributor, we just ask that you contribute something at least somewhat related to tractors. The bottom line is that too many posts here aren't contributing to the purpose of the site, and just increasing workloads for moderators, and taking up a fair bit of operating costs.
As always, thank you for your participation and support.
