Regarding OT traffic here in The Offshore Forum.
The process of allowing a substantial amount of OT traffic was difficult and slow to happen. We ran polls to see if you wanted us to allow more OT threads Offshore and more was the winner.
We created separate forums to handle a lot of the OT threads separately. Unfortunately those forums were on their own very slow traffic wise so we finally after running it by the posting body yet again decided to become much more tolerant to OT threads posted in this forum.
To this day I know there are some posters who enjoy the OT traffic and others who are critical of some of the more lighthearted topics. When we finally did open Offshore to more OT traffic we knew that there would be two factions. One group welcomed the the diversity while another ridicule it.
We said it then and it remains true today - it is impossible to make everyone happy at the same time.
We have tried different additions such as PMs (after resisting the idea for years) for the enjoyment of posters and I assume that has helped but there are still disgruntled posters for one reason or another. All we can do is keep trying to make the site enjoyable for everyone.
With a totally free forum posters have to realize we cannot operate without sponsors. Naturally no matter how efficient the sponsor there are bound to be disputes but these days the vast majority are minor and resolved quickly. Not to mention the amount is way down in the number of overall disputes involving our sponsors. No pays are practically unheard of within our group of sponsors. Occasionally an off the wall event occurs but those are very seldom. This year's Super Bowl was an excellent example of a heavily bet event that saw very little controversy between posters and sponsors.
I know many feel we over censor but the truth is all we do is ask for civil discussions here in this forum as well as the Sport Forums when posters have difficulties with a sponsor. There are countless threads that criticize our sponsors in the pages going back the last two to three years. Contrary to popular belief we do not delete entire threads because it is a negative topic regarding one of our sponsors.
Regarding the Rubber Room we only ask that no one post hard core porn, even more stringently we will not tolerate kiddie porn along with a ban on death wishes and serious racism.
Apparently some of the lyrics contained in Rap and Hip hop music these days has created an environment where certain racial expressions are no longer seen as out of line so we have to try to be fair in that area.
The last major diaster was the BOS failure and the site took a lot of grief for something that was out of our hands. We did get some money back to some players despite the bust being a complete surprise to the entire industry.
These days the complaints are mainly about CSD quality, grading games quickly, hanging numbers earlier and not enough deposit and withdrawal methods. occasionally a book will go into severe slow pay mode (you know who they are) but not since Lazerwager has an Rx sponsor gone totally bad.
Pretty soon I will pass 5 years as head mod and have seen the highs and lows the industry has experienced during that time. Without a doubt the BOS debacle was the lowest. As far as The Rx itself goes the highs have been our annual Bashes along with the growth is traffic at any given time.
This football season we broke 10,000 on line users - in June of 2005 the record was around 2900 on line users using the same method for counting users. Also the excellent group of mods on staff are as good as we have had during my tenure as head mod, a definite high. Last fall we experiencd a low with some very unfunny DDOS attacks, hopefully those days are gone.
Posters come and posters go plus there is a solid loyal block of vets who have been loyal to the site going back as far as the late 90s. These days we register around 25 new posters a day as we continue to grow.
Like I said it is impossible to keep everyone happy 100% of the time but as a team our moderators do their best to be as friendly and fair as possible while still keeping the peace. No mean feat when everyone we deal with is behind a keyboard and monitor.
I believe our contests are 2nd to none among sports wagering forum websites. All of our mods try to contribute to making the site more enjoyable by helping our Contest Coordinator Sportsavant and his right hand man JOH who by the way is doing a great job running the Tracker Forum these days - if you haven't visited it in a while you should..
Mods Robfunk, OldmanTed, Betallsports, Barman, Hache Man and Bucsfan along with the three mentioned above are all here to assist you in anyway they can..Please don't hesitate to take advantage of your mods should the need arise..
These days in the US itself there is an undercurrent of simmering anger among the populace, something we have tried to avoid here at The Rx.com which is why you willl see our mods asking feuding posters to kindly cease the arguing and try to get along. Our goal is to maintain harmony among the posting body as much as possible.
Every improvement attempt we try is a process and not all work out but I give you my word that the Rx will continue to be here for you our posters, all we ask is a little cooperation in return by asking you to kindly adhere to our simple posting rules..
Sorry for the long winded speech, I got carried away..
Thanks to each of you for being a unique and individual part of the site in your own personal styles.
wil..:toast:
PS: Lastly but not the least I would like to thank Marty Jensen for his outstanding leadership and positive attitude towards The Rx. Marty has been an outstanding GM for the site as well as a great boss.. Thanks MartyJ...