Bubba/Mike made public that he wanted to raise some cash by selling UKBouldering and UKCaving a few weeks ago. Toby (tobyfk) and I took an interest as active forum users on UKBouldering. We wanted Mike to stay involved - he has agreed, which is great.

We are not as familiar with UKCaving as UKBouldering and need to get a feel for the place but are unlikely to make any changes in the near future until we have seen what works and what doesn't on UKBouldering first. Long term we want to make it pay its way as well and are very open to suggestions. Anyone who might want to advertise or whatever (on UKCaving or UK Bouldering) should contact me by email: http://scr.im/simonlee 

So there we have it people, and welcome to our new overlords.

Simon and Toby will not be attempting to make any vast changes in the new future so for now it's business as usual.

I'd like to thank everybody for the contributions that they've made to ukcaving over the years

Good luck Toby, Simon and Bubba (get some decent wheels now!)

Burt said:

Good luck Toby, Simon and Bubba (get some decent wheels now!)

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I'll second that! 

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

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-- Kent Brockman

paul said:

Burt said:

Good luck Toby, Simon and Bubba (get some decent wheels now!)

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I'll second that! 

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Motion carried.

Just out of interest, and probably because I was a bit bored, I have been through the membership list looking at joining dates.

Since 2003 the following numbers of members were registered each year:

2003 - 26
2004 - 47
2005 - 58
2006 - 100
2007 - 107
2008 - 96
2009 - 115
2010 to present - 1701.

Yes, that's 1701.

So I looked at those members and the vast majority of them have posted nothing. Most of the ones I checked have links to websites in their signatures. Surprise surprise.

Why I added this to this particular thread is I was wondering if this plethora of spammers (or whatever name these people have) has signed up since the change of ownership, and wonder if it is just a coincidence, or whether a memberlist pruning process isn't running any more. Has the joining process been changed, and if only a dozen of so genuine people are joining each month whether new applications should be given a check over before membership is accepted.

For example, each new member should be asked to provide by email a brief reason why they want to join, and anyone signing up with a blatant marketing non-caver related signature is immediately deleted.

Just a thought.

I think Bubba used to prune non-posters after a certain time period. I don't know whether that still happens. Even if it does, you'd expect the sort of pattern you're seeing, with a plethora of probationary non-posters in the most recent year.

If they're not posting, does it really matter what they have in their signatures? We won't see it.

Personally, I hate having to justify myself via email before I can sign on.

I'm with Kay on that. I have a very short attention span and if the registration process for any website bores me I tend to move on to something else!

I suspect that goes for most of us.

It surely isn't difficult to control the membership list and keep it sensible.

The idea of getting yourself onto various websites with a web address is supposed to increase the counts that your site gets hit by search engines, so these "users" are effectively trying to use UKCaving as a free host to boost their visibility. It may not affect the way the site runs, but it might offend those who put a lot of work into the site when they see hundreds of people trying to get something for nothing off the back of it. How many times a year do you sign up to a bulletin board? That many times that answering one email per site is such a fag? I have joined only one site in five years that required a sensible reason by email in order to have my membership verified. Hardly a big deal. If having to send one short email in order to join is such a bore, then perhaps you didn't really want to get involved in the first place.

It was the coincidence of the ownership change and the sudden increase in members that caught my eye.

It was not my intention to start a damned argument about the joining process - it was simply a suggestion.

And a jolly fine suggestion, too, Peter, which will hopefully be put into action. I've been blacklisting SEO/link spammers for months but they join up quicker than I can find time to send warnings.

Yes. A damn fine idea.

IMHO, I think having a stepped signup that has worked on other sites would work well.  Anybody can sign up, but if you don't post x number of times in the first month or two, then they can be dropped.  This would encourage postings and also cull the signups that are not interested to start with.

carabeener said:

IMHO, I think having a stepped signup that has worked on other sites would work well.  Anybody can sign up, but if you don't post x number of times in the first month or two, then they can be dropped.  This would encourage postings and also cull the signups that are not interested to start with.

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I do not think this is a good idea - it will just generate a lot of dross postings.
I think quite a lot of people read this forum just for information and seldom generate postings.

carabeener said:

IMHO, I think having a stepped signup that has worked on other sites would work well.  Anybody can sign up, but if you don't post x number of times in the first month or two, then they can be dropped.  This would encourage postings and also cull the signups that are not interested to start with.

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It probably isn't necessary to have this rule - far better simply to just stop people looking for a free marketing ride. A two-step joining process - sign up as now, and you get a joining email inviting you to reply saying who you are and very briefly what your interest is. It might be you are a newbie to caving, want to join in a particular discussion, are interested in finding a club, are doing some research - all the sorts of thing we see genuine new members asking.

Aubrey said:

I do not think this is a good idea - it will just generate a lot of dross postings.
I think quite a lot of people read this forum just for information and seldom generate postings.

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I never post dross.     
You can look at the site all you like - you don't have to join to do that.

Elaine said:

I never post dross.     

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And I would never contradict a lady.

Elaine said:

You can look at the site all you like - you don't have to join to do that.

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Correct.

Aubrey said:

carabeener said:

IMHO, I think having a stepped signup that has worked on other sites would work well.  Anybody can sign up, but if you don't post x number of times in the first month or two, then they can be dropped.  This would encourage postings and also cull the signups that are not interested to start with.

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I do not think this is a good idea - it will just generate a lot of dross postings.
I think quite a lot of people read this forum just for information and seldom generate postings.

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If you don't publicise the rule, the people we want to get rid of won't know about it, and they'll not be back, so they won't know their user name has been dropped.

And as others have said, you don't need to register just to read.

Peter Burgess said:

How many times a year do you sign up to a bulletin board? That many times that answering one email per site is such a fag?

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It's not that it's a fag, it just feels unfriendly. "We don't really want you here so you've got to convince us that you're worth having as a member". That's how it has felt to me on the receiving end with other sites. OK, I am unduly sensitive, but are we saying that we don't want sensitive types on ukcaving?