Suggestion - Added Rank

[Skullcruncher]

How did section mods become mods? Obviously they have been around the board a while.

On another smaller board they (we) are going to be electing a Council of 5 Members who will have a position of leadership on the board.

"A Council Member will be responsible for helping to create and update Rules, Guidelines and what not and will have a voting say in what happens with the board. They will have moderator rights across the entire board, not just be assigned to a single section. They will also be responsible for policing those areas when necessary.

When something comes up for discussion that requires a major decision, a vote will be taken among the Council, and the board owner to see what will happen.

These will be YOUR representatives, so you will not only will they need your approval to be nominated"

Good/Bad/terrible idea?

[Deonasis]

For me.. keep it simple stupid. I don't think the suggestions add anything to this board. Many of us lurked for ages before signing up but i doubt i am ever going to need to quote that date or feel it is relevant. You can always add this kinda stuff to your own avatar or sig.

I do see a place for a great timeline or History of OTCA section (maybe we have it already). griffin does great archives but this is like what griffin has posted above but neater . A place where stuff about ye olde life before OTCA links out from and possibly here i can see a post that lists or honours those still current users Usernames.

We are small and we discuss things pretty well. More layers whether cosmetic or otherwise is unnessecary. imo

[BigTransformerTrev]

I guess so, I'm not on any other forums, so yeah . I did say someone who have thought of this, lol. We all love transformers, it's why we are here right? You cant tell me that at one point in your life you did not think of this, hehehehehe. I know I have, yet I still can't tie it down as to who, only thing I do know is that I'd be an Autobot. But I guess this could go into another thread.

I dunno, I always kinda liked the idea of the Autobots & Decepticons teaming up to enslave humanity. I'm on the side of all Cybertronians rather than the squishies. Naturally as a collaborator I assume I'd get a job as an overseer so would just have to supervise the rest of you toiling in the energon mines

[CHILENO20]

Hmmmm, office worker who like to fly

[griffin]

How did section mods become mods? Obviously they have been around the board a while.

On another smaller board they (we) are going to be electing a Council of 5 Members who will have a position of leadership on the board.

"A Council Member will be responsible for helping to create and update Rules, Guidelines and what not and will have a voting say in what happens with the board. They will have moderator rights across the entire board, not just be assigned to a single section. They will also be responsible for policing those areas when necessary.

When something comes up for discussion that requires a major decision, a vote will be taken among the Council, and the board owner to see what will happen.

These will be YOUR representatives, so you will not only will they need your approval to be nominated"

Good/Bad/terrible idea?

This place is a constant work in progress, and often big changes take a while for me to get enough time to instigate... but at the moment I'm looking at re-organising the staffing, to get more people who want to be involved, into the higher levels of access and duties.
I didn't intend for it to look like a dictatorship of me running this place... it is just that in the last couple years since I added on several admins and mods, I haven't kept refreshing the pool as people have moved on with more important things.

I don't like to burden others with the chores here either, so I have to be careful to offer it to those who have the interest, dedication and time.

Voting people in can get a bit problematic though. It could lead to it being a popularity contest, causing some to feel rejected if they never get voted in. Also, a popularity vote can often overlook quiet, dedicated people who are more responsible, in favour of the more vocal people who may value the power of the position more.
(we get that a lot at work with our elected Union Delegates and Safety Representatives - people get voted in because they are most known or popular, but are totally useless or irresponsible when in that position)
Worse still is when there is conflict within the staff exist, leading to factions that set a bad example to the rest of the members who gravitate behind each faction.
Going back about 10 years ago there were four major fan-sites on the net - TFW2005, Seibertron, Tformers and Allspark. Allspark was one that had factions split it into two opposing sites (com & net), and the prevailing com site now looks less active than our site.
The fansites that have survived and thrived are ones that are either run like a business (Tformers), or have an owner who maintains absolute authority, but delegates power and responsibility, properly and thoughtfully to members who put the community first.
What happened to the Allspark community is the main reason why I'm very careful with who becomes upper-level staff, as any conflict or sabotage observed within the highest rankings of members ends up affecting the way everyone below behaves.
As an example, we had a staff member here who acted inappropriately with their moderator powers, causing a bit of an issue among members. They were reverted back to being a normal member for refusing to see it as an abuse of power, and they then left the board completely.
If they were elected into that position, it might be difficult to remove them, and even if they were, they would have their supporters who voted them in, making an issue of it... or try to have them voted back in again next time.

So I'm not actually aiming to be selfish with the operations here, but I feel that until I get the time to add more people onto the Admin, it's currently my responsibility to identify the best people for running the community in harmony with each other (as much as possible), so that members want to come back, and guests want to join up. This is probably why we are affectively the longest running Transformers online community in the world now, so I don't want to risk trying anything too different when there's a legacy now, that I want to make sure is around for future fans after I'm gone.


Keep the suggestions coming though, as I do look into them, and quite often they will be instigated... eventually.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Man, looking at that timeline makes me feel old. I must have joined the board soon after it started up, I always thought it had been around a fair bit before then too. Wow. But it is interesting to see I will admit.

[liegeprime]

A brief timeline of Ozformers...

1995 (mid) - I first got online and found the only TFs fan community at that time (ATT newsgroup), and my first fellow online Australian fans.
1996 (mid) - Knew at least a dozen Australian fans by now, and decided to track down as many as I could, to create an email mailing list. Had about 20 on the mailing list.
1996 (Sept) - I offered to start up a printed monthly newsletter as a fun novelty thing for us fans away from the main fandom "action". 16 people were willing to pay a couple dollars per issue.
1996 (Oct) - Issue 1 went out, as a fan newsletter.
1996 (Dec) - Issue 3 was when the newsletter started calling us a fanclub, with our original name of "Austrans".
Somewhere at this point, I got written/email permission from Hasbro Australia to be allowed to call ourselves a Transformers fanclub.
1997 (Mar) - Issue 6 had our first NZ member joining. Members in the next few years would come from nearby Asian countries as well, as they felt just as isolated from the main American fandom.
1997 (May) - Released the first of 14 "Junior" issues, for our younger members at that time.
1997 (Oct) - Issue 12 of the main newsletter was when I was able to email the newsletter out to those who couldn't afford it.
1998 (Oct) - Issue 24 was our second birthday, and we passed 50 members (had 55 at this time).
1998 (Dec) - Issue 26 was when the club's name changed to "Ozformers". (to prevent conflict with a transport company name, & trannies).
1999 (July) - Goktimus set up the first Australian Transfan Messageboard (Planet Sabertron).
2000 (Sep) - Issue 47 was the last issue to get printed. We had 65 members by this stage.
2000 (Oct) - Issue 48 was meant to be the last printed issue because I was getting too busy and too late with each issue. As such, this issue was never produced.
2000 (Nov) - Issue 49 was when each issue would just be a webpage and emailed out to members. (quicker for me now, not printing them out)
2000 (Dec) - Issue 51 would be the start of a fortnightly newsletter, as the amount of news each month was too much for a single issue.
2002 (Feb) - A second Australian Transfan messageboard starts up (Theyareamongus)
2002 (Apr 13) - Following the lead of the other two messageboards, I finally get to set up one for the Ozformers club. (at Xorbit)
2002 (Aug) - Issue 91 ended up being the last webpage issue, due to us having a Club messageboard now. Weekly or monthly news-summary emails would go out sporadically, if I had time.
2003 (Jan 17) - Ozformers V2 messageboard relaunched at Ezboard.
2004 - TFs fan convention in Sydney.
2005 (Jun 10) - Ozformers V3 messageboard relaunched at invisionzone
2006 - TFs fan convention in Sydney.
2007 (May 24) - Ozformers V4 messageboard (Vbulletin) created on my own (otca) server, finally opened for business Dec 27th. (the current location)
2013 (mid) - Ozformers V4 messageboard to be eventually relocated to the Ozformers.com domain.

Hope that sheds some light on the history of Ozformers.

Wow, a lot has happened waaay before I got in here.... I got in Ozformers on 2006 after dirge mentioned the site to me when I attended the TF fans convention at Wharf 8. Ozformers V3 (Invisonzone) - which we then moved after a year to this current board. I remember once logging in athe old board and it was creepy coz it has that twilight zone feeling that your in the forum, but no ones there..... at all it took a while before that old forum was totally "closed down" ,hehehe people here I remember kept logging in it and were saying "I logged in the other forum and it was creepy and eerie, heheheh" It took a while for me to change my bookmarks to this current forum as well so I don't accidentally log in the Twilight Ozformers forum.
We lost a couple of members as well during the move.... e.g. anyone remember Blackarachnia?

Anyways as per the added rank, nah. Don't need it IMO. we always have the Q & A thread anyways if you got a query - and everyone is there to pitch in their answers, new member or old. we could always just star a thread where people can put in their original join dates if that's the data Cat would like to know and then stickie that and just keep adding to it. Kinda like the collective collection thread