Forum moderation is a joke

Nancy Rodriguez38 said:"Over 120 expert, highly competent moderators from across the US and around the globe actively guide and curate our discussions to ensure top-tier quality" — that’s what your marketing claims, so I gotta wonder what those 120 "experts" are actually doing all day?

Kevin Williams56 said:We're all just waiting for the forum to get back on its feet 😁

And honestly, we're just as frustrated as you are. 😠

The thing is, the moderators aren't actually the ones who have any power to fix this specific issue.

Nancy Rodriguez38 said:To the admins, the tech support crew, the experts, and everyone else in charge!
I'm starting a new thread because, honestly, I have no clue if there’s already one like this. I didn't bother looking because the site has been down for maintenance all day, and now that I finally managed to log back in, I'm typing this as fast as possible before you decide to take the servers offline again...☕

Look, this is getting ridiculous. Seriously, people, how can you claim these aren't "brief" outages when we're dealing with at least three maintenance windows every single week? Don't try to sugarcoat it with those excuses. And maintenance during peak hours? Really?!!!!😠 🙂 Why don't your famous tech guys just pull a night shift once in a while and get the work done then? If you're going to brag about being the largest forum in America, I'd think you could manage to avoid this kind of downtime (so FREQUENTLY). Your own marketing claims that over 120 skilled and competent moderators from across the country and around the world actively guide and manage discussions — so it makes me wonder, what exactly are those 120 "experts" doing?

To be honest, I'm getting tired of the apologies. I wouldn't mind if you did this a couple of times a month, but several times every week is just overkill. Thanks a lot! ☕ 🙂

hiddensailor14 said:🤣
Why don't you just step outside for a bit? Look how nice the sunshine is😛

Charles Fox10 said:We should probably implement some kind of membership fee, maybe something like $33 an annual subscription, just so we can afford to lease or purchase a high-end, top-tier server.

Nancy Rodriguez38 said:...the largest forum in America...

Sophia Peterson93 said:Look, it's a huge forum, so it's just easier to run small daily backups instead of one massive monthly one that takes forever. Honestly, vBulletin can barely handle this, if you ask me. It's basically just a brand name people pay way too much for... I don't even get why they bother with membership fees when they could just grab some ads and pay for a server that handles double this load plus a dedicated backup server...

William Green4 said:I'd almost love to see someone actually hit me with a ban, especially if they didn't even have a reason.😍

Charles Fox10 said:Look, if you get banned for no reason, you get a grace period, and if a mod bans someone unfairly, they take the hit.

Charles Martin2 said:

So we’re going to prove how irrelevant he is over in the Ban Corner?

😁

Sophia Peterson93 said:Yeah, honestly, since this is such a massive forum, it’s just easier to run small backups every single day rather than trying to do one giant one once a month. That would take forever. From what I can see, vBulletin can barely handle it—honestly, it feels like you're just paying a premium for a brand name at this point... And I don't really get why they even bother with membership fees when they could just pull enough from those cheap ads to pay for a server that actually handles double the load, plus an extra one for backups...

dustypuma5 said:Look, vBulletin is actually one of the better software options out there, and by the way, it costs $180, which is a joke for a serious, high-traffic forum like this—definitely not huge money.
Second off, vBulletin can handle tons of large forums without breaking a sweat, and users shouldn't even notice the backups, especially not at 10 in the morning.Thirdly, whenever the server goes down, a message pops up automatically saying there's brief maintenance so people don't freak out.
Fourth, there have been two broken ads on this forum that haven't been fixed for a month now, which clearly shows a total lack of care. It suggests these "services" aren't failing because they're working too hard, but because they aren't being managed at all.
Fifth, the server for this forum is funded by just a few days of advertising for the whole year, so I really doubt that's the issue.

Oh, and this whole situation with this forum has been going on for years. Sadly, I guess we just have to get used to this "new normal."

dustypuma5 said:vBulletin is actually one of the better software options out there, which—by the way—costs about $180. For a serious, massive forum like this, that’s practically pocket change, not some huge investment.
Secondly, vBulletin handles heavy traffic on big forums without breaking a sweat; users shouldn't even notice a hiccup, especially during the morning rush around 10 AM.
Thirdly, when the server goes down, it automatically displays a maintenance message so people don't start panicking thinking everything is broken.
Fourth, we've had these two upside-down ads on this forum for a month now that nobody has bothered to fix. That's a clear sign of total neglect. It shows that these "service issues" aren't caused by technical glitches, but rather by just not doing the work.
Fifth, the server for this site is funded by just a few days' worth of ad revenue for the entire year, so I seriously doubt money is the issue here.

Oh, and honestly? This whole drama surrounding this forum has been dragging on for years. Sadly, I guess we'll just have to get used to this new normal.