A few days ago a forum member asked whether it is time for the class to consolidate and close the open discussion as per this forum. At that time I would have disagreed but on reflection I think it maybe time to have an " official " forum where only members can openly discuss.

My reasoning for this is that as has been shown, an unmoderated forum can become hugely distracting from the real issues, those that pertain only to the F16 community, not those of a non member wishing to influence.

I have also been noticing over the winter period that a lot of the British F16 boat owners are no longer contributing to the forum, I do suspect it is due to malaise and disillusionment with the current forum, these are the very people we need to be representing.

My question is how do we set up an "official" moderated forum ?

Winter time is not sailing time, at leas for us north europeans. Could it be that these people not posting here are doing their normal business besides sailing, and come back when season starts?
Not everybody is an armchair sailor, and if we are more occupied with real sailing, some useless discussions here wouldn't happen.

Every poster shuld show in the signature if he is a F16 sailor.

Wayne,

I fear you are right. I used to think that completely openess was good, but I have reconsidered. We need the power to end/lock threads here when they go too far, like there have been just way too many examples of lately. I have asked Mary if this is technically possible and wether she and Rick will delegate that power to the GC or those the GC delegate the power to. I have not recieved a conclusive answer. If Rick and Mary are willing, we need some very clear and simple guidelines for moderation which we all feel are fair and good.

I dont want the class to close up in an exclusive forum. One of the largest mistakes the Tornado class have done is to close up their discussions. I think we need two forums, one open for everybody but under our control, and one for class rule discussions, changes/proposals, strategies, ballots etc. If we can make that work, we would have the best from both options.

One thing I miss in this forum, is the possibilty of subscribing to threads by e-mail. If worst comes to be, we should look for a forum with e-mail integration.

I understand the frustration, but I think that would be a step backwards and would limit the exposure we can give the class to outsiders. And we benefit by getting insight into how outsiders see the class, whether well-reasoned or not.

Although much of the non-constructive debate over the last week has been a result of some poor use of logic, poorly organized writing and poorly considered reaction to it, I think it has thrown up some interesting issues that we haven't all had an opportunity to think about carefully in the past. Having had the opportunity to dissect all of the arguments, I think we are in a better position than when this started to respond in the future to people in a way that will avoid some of the bickering we've seen.

I have suggested to the GC that they develop kind of a position paper or FAQ file around issues like this that lays out in a fairly systematic way the thinking behind the way the class has chosen to do things - not to preclude further discussion but as something we can refer people to without having to rehash the same arguments over and over again. However it does also require a certain amount of discipline on the part of some of our more excitable members (I'm not looking at anyone in particular <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />) to sometimes just point people towards existing information rather than getting dragged into debates around entrenched positions that don't actually lead anywhere.

I believe Mary already has the ability to remove individuals who are abusive - and maybe has done so before. Moderation that involves someone checking everything before it is published would completely change the dynamics of the discussion here - and not in a good way.

There may be a case for a different environment for communication related to official class business, discussion of proposed rule changes etc, but that could be handled pretty easily by an email reflector and I think should be used sparingly.

My thinking about moderation is not approval of all posts, but the ability to just close a thread for further posting when it goes bananas and out of control.

Rolf,
Rick has the capability of providing you with a separate, private forum for members only. We also have the capability of providing an e-mail list from a specific forum.

What concerns us is how do you determine who are members of the class and, therefore, should be eligible to participate in the "private" forum? So far there is no real class organization and I don't think there are paid members. What are the criteria for being a "member" of the class?

Rolf:
Having a private forum is a very bad and unnecessary idea.
Also IMHO delegating moderation control to the GC is an even worse idea because it will appear there is a sort of "censoring" going on.
Maybe someone independent like Mary should be moderator , so anyone can send her a PM requesting closure of the thread when needed?

Sample wording from a draft F16 National Association Constitution:



In this draft only Full or Life Members have voting rights.

Lots of comments now..

Tony. Having a private forum for pure class business like class rules and ballots have in my opinion become neccesary. We can not have the kind of periodic turmoil we see. It has been like this since the F16 forum started and moderation and a split is the only solution I see. By restricting moderation to locking a thread go haywire and having accepted and public guidelines for both posting and moderations should kill any doubts about "censoring". Closing a discussion for further posting is very different from "censoring". I dont think Mary is the right person to moderate the forum. Not that there is something wrong with Mary, but she is not involved in the class and dont follow this forum very closely. Having someone with stakes in the class do the moderation is needed in my opinion.
I agree that splitting comminications into a closed part and an open part is risky and in a theorethical world uneccesary. In real life however, it seems like the only solution.


Mary,
access to the "closed" forum would be by membership. We have earlier defined members as those who own F16s or are genuinely building. It has been like this for quite some time (as long as I can recall), but what John posted seems like an acceptable definition to me. "We" know who owns the boats, the class has not become that large yet. Rick and you would as such be class members if you still have the F16. Anyway, I think who gets access to the closed forum should be administrated by the class and regulated very clearly. What the closed forum is used for should also be clearly regulated as we obviously would be best served with as much traffic on the public forum as possible.
I disagree that the class dont have "real class organization". It is a small organization, but well defined, well working and all information about it is publicly available. If you visit formula16.org you will find the same or more information about the organization of the class as every other class out there. As national associations are created, information about this will be posted on the website.
What I really want is for someone in the class to have the power to lock/stop threads going haywire.

<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> There goes my life membership ! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Wouter

(That is a joke guys !)

Well, I posted this on the Muppets thread, but here it is again. PLEASE!

On top of that, Macca has his profile on the ISAF web site, and he is obviously a very young person, since he was sailing in the Australian Youth Nationals (for kids 18 and younger) in 2004. So he may not yet be diplomatically mature. (Not that a lot of us are. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />)

Sure wasn't me at the youth nats in 2004.

Sorry. Guess it must have been another Andrew MacPherson.

I think this is the longest thing I have ever posted:
Okay, thanks to Rolf, I have now been directed to what is supposedly causing all this controversy, and I STILL do not understand what the fuss is all about.

To me it is pretty simple. The F16 Class has rules. If somebody wants to build a boat for himself or if a manufacturer wants to build boats for the class, they have to build within the class rules.

Why are you guys discussing and arguing with macca? There is no basis for discussion or argument. THERE IS NO ISSUE.

You guys MADE it an issue by responding to him and arguing with him. That makes it seem as though the rules are somehow being debated. And that, in turn, makes the class look wishy-washy.

Why didn't somebody just say originally, "Sorry, these are the rules. Go find another boat to develop."

It is not macca who needs to be censored -- it is all of you who have responded to him who need to censor yourselves.

Now, if macca is indeed scouting the F16 for a major manufacturer and trying to get the minimum weight raised for mass production purposes, that is probably very flattering and might help build the class. And that, indeed, would require some serious, cloistered conversation among class members.

Personally, I think it is always better if later boats are heavier and lighter boats have to ADD weights, because the reverse is not possible.

One of the reasons I think this whole debate is ridiculous is because my sister and I sailed in the Hobie 18 Women's Worlds in New Jersey. They weighed all the boats. Ours weighed about 403. Others weighed up to 430+ pounds. And that is called a ONE-DESIGN class.

Betty and I were a little bit under crew weight for that particular regatta, so we, and others, were issued bags of sand to put in the hulls to bring us up to minimum crew weight. They didn't do anything about the variations in boat weight, as I recall, but they could have done the same thing with the sand bags to get all the boats and crews up to equal weights.

Sounds like you are saying that if a major manufacturer wants to start building F16's, you are adamant that the current minimum boat weight has to be accepted, even if it were possible to build a LOT more boats at a lower cost if the minimum weight is a little higher?

Is that what this is all about?

Even if that is the case, I don't see how that would hurt the existing F16's. And, if you guys are right about the motives, all it would do is grow the class. And what's wrong with that?

The only thing I can think of is that if a major manufacturer started building F16's, it would shut down the current manufacturers, because, theoretically, the major manfacturer would be able to build and sell the boats cheaper.

Am I right?

But then there would be more boats out there on the water, and the serious racing sailors would still want to buy the lighter, more high-tech boats from the original manufacturers -- even if they have to add sandbags.

More boats is always better for a class and better for everybody in the industry -- for ALL the manufacturers.

What in the world is wrong with a major manufacturer being interested in building F16's? And there is no reason for the class rules to be changed in order for them to do so, as long as they are building OVER the minimum weight. If it were UNDER the minimum weight, that would be an issue to be debated.

Mary,

with all due respect to you. Andrew Macpherson have been told repeatedly to go somewhere else with his ideas. He insists on coming back to heat up whatever controversy he can create. Blaming everybody else for responding to him might have some merit, but I think you just put the whole situation on its head. Worse, you are supporting him giving him even more reason to keep at it. Everything which can be said have been said, so I am not going to argue with it. I am going to do just what you said, refuse to accept his arguments and tell him to move on somewhere else..

Mary,

Please don't agree with me, I was just getting comfortable with the notion that I was crazy <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Me personally would love to see a F16 private forum AWAY from catsailor. I would like it to be linked in our official website.

I volunteer myself to install the database, forum software and even cough up the money for vb software if need be. I have done it since 2001 so I know my way around vb software and databases.
This will enable us to make the forum to our likings with graphics, links and even post up items and boats for sale without worrying about breaking any forum rules.

I talked about this back in 2005. Catsailor does not give us any support other than a location for us to post our ideas. Even this is just a matter of a few clicks here and there on the forum backend. At times Mary slanders the class by posting her very own personal opinions how how the class should be run or how the class is actually doing. When in fact she has NO knowledge of what is actually going on other than what she reads on the forums.

Ide rather go else where for an official forum.

That is a bit strong Robi. Mary and Rick have done us a big favour when they have supplied the forum with all its costs free to the class. This is a very well visited forum server in general and we have no doubt benefited much by having this forum on their server. I think we should be grateful for what we have got for free.
This discussion is supposed to be about what we want in the future you know, so please let us be constructive instead of negative.

Rolf, strong true. Very strong.

Lets not twist my reply, not once did I say I am not greatfull for the cyber space provided. But on the flip side ive ordered very high price items from the store so its all a big circle. What goes around comes back around.

I stand on what I said.

We are at the point where we need our own private forum for verified class members, out of the public light. Lots of people see the F16 class as a bunch of internet sailors.

What has been turning up in the last few days/weeks is a clear example of something I mentioned a long time ago with a few other members due to the constant threats and untastefull posts and private messages from samevans.

I myself have migrated away from this forum, due to I honestly do not want to be associated with what has been going on here.

Sorry to be so blunt but I am being honest.