Firstly, let me apologize if anyone took personal offense at what I posted before.

Secondly, I was on my phone when I posted that, and unable to type the many words I wanted to about this recurring subject.

You all are absolutely correct. Yes, MB can and should be better. Yes, it is alarming when so many long-standing mods step down and/or members leave the site. Not one person that posts regularly on this forum is going to say they don't want MB to evolve into something bigger and better and more active than what it is now.

However, my first reaction to threads like this, especially now that we've had a few pop up, is irritation and disappointment. Nothing in the initial post was proactive. I'm sorry Lee, if it seems like I'm picking at you, but hear me out. We're just beating a dead horse here. Simply saying that we've noticed things going down hill and wanting to discuss that...it's been done before. More than once. "Bitching" is not the "boot up the arse" that this forum needs.

I think people forget that a lot of the suggestions that they've put forward HAVE been implemented, and while not entirely ground breaking, they show that the mods are listening and trying to make this forum better for it's members. And as right-track stated, there is only so much that can be done by the mods. Alot of it depends on the admins who seemingly do not care enough about this place to want to listen to our bigger suggestions. But even without a flashy front page or new banner, this site could still be something better than it currently is.

It's up to us collectively to make it better, but that fact of the matter is that this site will constantly be changing and rotating new members, and some things will never change without admin support. No one doubts that you or anyone else who has posted in this thread care about this site Lee, and I'm sorry if thats the way you took my post. But it seems to me sometimes that we become so disillusioned that we start to focus more on talking about the problem while making negative comments and less on working with what we have, however meager that might seem, and trying to stay positive. For instance, instead of simply stating that journal activity has diminished, why can't we bring attention to and encourage use of that section of the forum in some way using what we have at our disposal already? Yes, a front page would be great for that sort of thing, but perhaps we could make announcements on our own highlighting a certain members journal on a particular week...or something along those lines. I'm still pondering that one, but I'm sure any other member can and would come up with some much better ideas.

Alot of you have been here much longer than me, so perhaps y'all have already tried being super-proactive and have been disappointed. Urban and right-track would know more about that, and in fact they've already expressed their deep frustration with the admin. But what I'm suggesting is that maybe we need to think of new ways to use what we already have, and not sit around starting new threads about how ****ty things are and how things are going down hill. Is no one else depressed when they read posts in that tone?

I'm actually pretty happy with this as well :thumb:

It's in The Lounge so I think you're k?

Just because Urban doesn't like it doesn't mean it's automatically disallowed...

:laughing:

I quoted what he said with a funny satirical GIF, but a mod must have deleted it. Not a fan of satire. :(

No, the gif is still there. He was saying you shouldn't do posts with just a gif, which I disagree with.

Well it wasn't Urban because he has no power anymore... ;)

Nah, the one I posted when he first made the list has gone.
It was obviously meant in good fun but someone deemed it necessary to remove it so whatever. I disagree with the GIF thing as well, it's just a forum.
Sure, healthy discussion is always great.
In fact it's the best thing about the place, but I always enjoy a little something that makes me smile. And things that make other people smile.
It could be a little bit of wit in written form, or a harmless little funny picture.
You might post a little GIF and then in your next post you might write an informative journal entry, it doesn't make the forum any worse off. But that's just my 2 cents.

:laughing:
Maybe it's best it was removed, it was quite clearly a bit of harmless fun and irony but not if someone takes it the wrong way.

I certainly didn't. Although it may look like it when reading my rant.
My original draft quoted your post and began as two line reply with a positive tone, which quickly turned into a post of Veganesque proportions.
I backspaced the whole thing because I didn't see the point.
I just forgot to remove your quote.

This is pretty much spot on the kind of problem solving I'm a fan of which is very easy to do, not just by moderators, but also by our regular members. Before I was modded, I made a competition thread to find the site's best reviewer and it gave all who write reviews a chance to showcase their stuff. I sometimes get the feeling mods are expected to do all that stuff, but regular members can do almost as much as we do. If you need something stickied, just write.

I'll admit I've also become a bit disillusioned since then, but I try not to. If more members (not just mods) thought about what they can do to improve site activity, then we could do a lot. Create an album club in one of the sub-forums, for example one dedicated to country or hip-hop, and you might easily double the activity in that sub-forum.

Let's say every regular thought of one idea for a thread to improve some aspect of the forum, for example the lack of attention to journals or the lack of activity in a sub-forum, then a lot could happen.