Swear Jar

[o_man_ra23]

Hi,

As a paying member, I don't see the advertisements for Kia's etc which are irking the non-paying forum only members.

As such, I would like to know if we paying members can choose to opt out of the swearing filter?

I must admit that I am guilty of not keeping up with the club meetings and what is discussed/voted on, mostly due to locality reasons thus negating the ability to physically appear. So in lieu of me going through the meeting minutes of past meetings, was this mandatory filtering actually voted upon at one of the meetings? If not, will it be, and if so will there be away voting for members not residing in the locale of the meeting?

I personally don't like filtering, as it leads to further filtering, and in the end, we may as well live in China. If it is something to keep the post sponsors happy, then there should be no objection to removing the filtering from my screen as I don't see those ads anyway.

[ian]

maybe its just me
i couldnt tell you what adds are on the forum
i never look at them , with the one exception of J A R radiators
but what i really object to is a sponsor dictating to me what i can read ,
furthermore , i will go out of my way not to buy from any of the sponsors
except for one
and on membership matters
if we all lived in sydney i could see the benefits of being a paid up member , and wouldn't hesitate to sign up, what benefit is there to people in other states apart from getting a "T" shirt,
i would almost go as far as saying that i speak for the majority of forum members Australia wide
please dont think that i am knocking toymods , to me , its an enjoyable part of my existence

[Draven]

ditto - would like a response.

I realise that the board would be the most likely to vote on this initially, but can we put it to a members vote? Or look to sponsors who aren't actively making me angry at them?

[Draven]

ditto - would like a response.

I realise that the board would be the most likely to vote on this initially, but can we put it to a members vote? Or look to sponsors who aren't actively making me angry at them?

[TheToyman75]

Hey People,

I see a few of you are less than impressed over the filtering of swear words on the forums. As a result the Board is revisiting the discussion in regards to the filter.

A few key things to be made aware of:

The Toymods Forums rules have always had a policy on Swearing - No swearing in subject lines or signatures - ever, and Restrict all swearing to as little as possible.
No Sponsor has asked us to implement the filter

So why the filter ?

The financial drain of the Forums has has reached the point where club membership and our traditional forum sponsorship levels cannot sustain the forums existence. In a nut shell the cost to run them exceeds the clubs traditional income levels. So what does that have to do with the Swear filter.... Corporate sponsorship and programs such as adsense are the clubs only way of moving forward without impacting on financially on the forums users. We dont ever want to see a forums that is only open to paid users. We like the community here and we want to keep it as open and inviting as possible.

Corporate sponsorship as a blanket rule has really on got 2 stumbling blocks for a busy forum like ours, We have the traffic they want, and we have the audience they need BUT it comes with a proviso. No Porn (at all) and No swearing.

So in the interest of preventing any of our valued sponsors or Google having an issue with our site content, turning on the Swear filter seemed like a sensible option. I mean lets face it, most of us on the board swear just like the rest of the forum users so it seemed the best solution.

As a result of this thread and the boards pending revisiting of the discussion we have wound the filter back, it only filters one word at the moment. It starts with C and ends with unt. Hopefully people don't have a problem with that ?

But if you do, we are listening so let us know. If people would rather no filtering and just infractions etc for swearing then hey voice your opinion here and let us know.

[TheToyman75]

Hey People,

I see a few of you are less than impressed over the filtering of swear words on the forums. As a result the Board is revisiting the discussion in regards to the filter.

A few key things to be made aware of:

The Toymods Forums rules have always had a policy on Swearing - No swearing in subject lines or signatures - ever, and Restrict all swearing to as little as possible.
No Sponsor has asked us to implement the filter

So why the filter ?

The financial drain of the Forums has has reached the point where club membership and our traditional forum sponsorship levels cannot sustain the forums existence. In a nut shell the cost to run them exceeds the clubs traditional income levels. So what does that have to do with the Swear filter.... Corporate sponsorship and programs such as adsense are the clubs only way of moving forward without impacting on financially on the forums users. We dont ever want to see a forums that is only open to paid users. We like the community here and we want to keep it as open and inviting as possible.

Corporate sponsorship as a blanket rule has really on got 2 stumbling blocks for a busy forum like ours, We have the traffic they want, and we have the audience they need BUT it comes with a proviso. No Porn (at all) and No swearing.

So in the interest of preventing any of our valued sponsors or Google having an issue with our site content, turning on the Swear filter seemed like a sensible option. I mean lets face it, most of us on the board swear just like the rest of the forum users so it seemed the best solution.

As a result of this thread and the boards pending revisiting of the discussion we have wound the filter back, it only filters one word at the moment. It starts with C and ends with unt. Hopefully people don't have a problem with that ?

But if you do, we are listening so let us know. If people would rather no filtering and just infractions etc for swearing then hey voice your opinion here and let us know.

[o_man_ra23]

Wow, the double post issue is hitting the top of the tree.

Thankyou for your detailed response Rod. Although the reasoning is understandable from the point of keeping the forums going, it would be nice to explore other alternatives to having a swear filter. You get far worse language in most sub M rated movies these days. I believe it was Ctrain in another thread who suggested a voluntary Paypal donate button up near the banner ads. I don't think this would be too bad an idea since Toymods already uses Paypal for membership purposes. I also note that the membership fee has not been indexed with CPI, thus it is actually getting relatively speaking cheaper. If the membership fee were increased a small amount, I don't think too many of us would be ultra upset - perhaps that could be put to a club vote? Maybe an online vote seeing as the numbers who attend official meetings are relatively low, and there are a number of us who do not reside in the local vicinity.

Or perhaps the corporate sponsors need to understand that being an automotive forum, there is language not suitable for primary school kiddies that gets thrown around - that happens in any workshop, and not just on forums (though in the workshop they have pictures of naked ladies hung up too). I'll bet the workshops of the sponsors have foul language (and naked ladies) that even the hardiest of sailors have never come across being thrown around.

As for the Porn, I was under the impression that was under control, hence nobody has kicked up a stink - and there wasn't really that much of a fuss when it was banned in the first place as it is understandable that being a car forum, the sorta porn expected around here had 4 wheels and a Celica badge anyway.

Oh, and the number of times Kia has been mentioned in the recent past is far worse than any member's swearing habits, with the exception maybe of River I don't think that removing Carmichael Hunt from the forum vocabulary will be sorely missed, even River refrains from typing it (probably only his posts which will get edited on that one).

[ian]

good sentiments there owen,

how many financial members are there on toymods ?
surely there has to be a better way to get funds flowing
as i eluded to earlier , why not a small fee for forum only members
i dont know how much the sponsors are contributing ,
if we have 15,500 members , i would guess that there would be at least
500 paid up full members that would leave about 15000 non paying ,allow about 1000 for casual and overseas forum members
that leaves 14000 ,multiply that by say $5 per year, that would give about $70,000, per annum, i bet thats not what the sponsors are kicking in
we all get great benefits from toymods ,
whether its technical information , humor , parts, or using it as a social notice board
ian

[trdee]

we are trying not to make this a pay per view forum. that is against the whole point of this place being a free source of technical data as well as an open community of toyota owners and enthusiasts.

it's all about finding a happy compromise...

[Bananaman]

Making normal membership paid i think would just kill the number of people using the forum completely - assuming that 15,000 people would pay $5 is a huge assumption, i think it's more likely they wouldn't and would just stop using it or not sign up. I know that if i didn't already know that toymods was any good and was a new person who just found toymods on google, i wouldn't want to pay $5 to sign up to a forum i knew nothing about..

It's very easy to take the moral high ground not wanting to endorse censorship, but the reality of the situation is that toymods needs the cash to survive.. and if the advertisers say no swearing and thats what is keeping toymods going, then unfortunately it's a compromise that is surely worth making? Advertising is the way to get that $5 from random users without them actually paying it..

[o_man_ra23]

Rather than going to a mandatory cash cost to sign up for forum only members, which I agree wouldn't be a good thing, a simple donation point would surely attract a number of people (including paid members) to cough up a few dollars when their personal circumstances are good. Oh, and looking around at the sigs of paid members in this thread alone, there is an overwhelming support to keep the censorship at bay. Rod is one of the few with a clean sig.

[trdee]

donations are all well and good, but what happens when people decide they are too poor/cbf in 6 months time? if we want to secure the future of the forums then we need steady, secure cash flow.

[Draven]

I've got no problem with carmichael hunt being censored - probably one of the few swear words that a decent number of people still find offensive, and certainly not friendly especially to our (few but important) female toymodders and our significant others.

re: forum member fee... if it was optional, I think the uptake would be pretty small - it's not as though the full club fee is prohibitively expensive.

Totally agree re: keeping toymods free - compulsary membership fee would be a pretty nasty step, and should be a last resort - imagine the impact on the random internationals from colourful places we get rocking up with great builds and questions

[Lambolica]

Guys,

At the last 2 board meetings there have been discussions in regards to supporting the forums financially. Most of the options thrown around would create a double edged sword effect.

If the board were to create a forum only membership, there is a good chance that this would bite into Full Club Memberships.

A pay per view registration is off the table as it is against what Toymods is about.

A Donate button is on the list of things to do for those who find value in the forums and wish to give somthing back, but historically, this alone isn't the answer.

What the Board is currently looking at is making full Club membership more beneficial, particularly for those outside of NSW. At the current rate the Membership fee and renewals don't add much if anything to the Club coffers and that is fine, filling the Club coffers this is done by way of BBQ's and major events (Toyotafest, Classic Celica Appreciation Day, Megacruise, Dyno Day and various Club organised cruises & events throughout the year)

The forums itself have the capability of being self sufficient due to the size and the quality of the user base & Content, and the board is looking to take advantage of that through advertising.

A note to the Advertising, The current level of advertising is in a trail state, and is constantly under review. What you see currently is probably in the order of the worst case senario, and pending the results on a month to month basis may be scaled down a little from a regular user experience point of view. But some form of advertising is required in conjunction with other ways of supporting the forums.

Which brings me to the swear filter. I may have gone over board with words... My bad.

My personal view on the filter (after reading comments and thinking about various comments overnight) is that the filter be used as a line in the sand of what is "socially" acceptable, with that in mind there is only one word that I believe has no place in these forums. Other words, when read in context in a forum like this, are generally "Socially" acceptable. Personally I still draw the line when swear words are used in a sentance like " You are a raging F**ktard, Suck my C**k " that can be taken offensively to whom it is addressed to, or where there are just too many Swear words in any given post. In these cases it is probably better to use the infraction system where swear words are used in a negative context. I can accept that. This is my personal opinion, not one nescessarily that shared by the Board.

At the end of the day every individual has a different level of tolerance, I am probably the least tolerant out of the board members (remember I'm also the one who brought Rivers upskirt career to an end, which he never lets me forget about)

The filter has been pulled back to C U Next Tuesday, pending further discussions on the topic.

Note, the recent slowness of the forums isn't anything to do with the filter, as it has always been on. The impact of ads on page load times is being monitored for review as well.

Ian, in regards to your numbers...
There are in the order of 70 Financial members.
Out of the number of "Registered users" about 2500 would be contributors, the remainder are lurkers, or people who signed on to sell/buy stuff.
out of that 2500 I would guess only 20% would pay to view, but the flip side is the social / and technical discussion would drop significantly if it was pay per view. This doesn't benefit the members.
Registered users generosity by way of donations seems to be the obvious form of forum support in addition to the advertising that doesn't threaten Club Membership numbers.

Cheers
Simon

[o_man_ra23]

Personally I don't find that word offensive, in fact the object at the centre of the true meaning of the word is a wonderous thing which all men should praise. However the context which people have used it as an adjective, or in some cases a derogatory pronoun, have given it a bad light, seemingly since about the late 19th century. If that stigma of the word goes away, then people will naturally stop using it. Until then, the fact that the people who are the bearers of the object at the centre of the true meaning of the word are in general opposed to the use of the word vehemently due to the vulgar prose in which it is used, it would seem a good idea to displace it from conversation in such an open forum.

Of course, there is no objection to the word Fanny, which in Australian slang has the same meaning, due to the lack of its vulgar use. And you can't bring into play the fact it is also a name, as Dick, too, is a man's name which also describes the male genetalia, and is considered too nasty for the initial implementation of the swear filter.