Site news & changes

Wow what a couple of months we’ve had. I thought I’d take a moment to bring you all up to speed on some of the changes that have been happening here at LB towers.

Hosts

First of all you’ll have noticed that the Hosts have now come ‘online’. You can tell who a host is by their avatar, their duties are broadly

Newbie ‘meeter’ and greater – both online and at meets.
Starts, positive, interesting conversations online.
Acts as a guide to the best content on londonbikers.com outside of the forums
Will be in charge of organising, or facilitating meets the hosts will have access to the events calendar and will be expected to keep it up to date.
Work closely with the community to ensure the forums are a positive force for good in the London biking community.

The old and new system (moderation and hosts) will run in tandem for December to give the new hosts time to find their feet, but from Jan 1st the Hosts will be holding the tiller. It’s worth noting that the Hosts are not mini mods - they have no powers to moderate the forum, and are here to make sure the forum runs smoothly, make sure everyone is happy, the meets… meet, and that everyone is up to date on what’s going on where. The hosts are put in place by the community, so if you’re not happy with the way this forum is going, then stand up as a Host and change things!

You can nominate yourself to become a host in the Site Issues and News section - if 10 other members second your nomination - that’s it - you’re a host!

From January the first you’ll notice that there will be less ‘active’ moderation, we’re reducing the numbers of moderators (at least 2 are stepping down) and the site owners will no longer moderate the forum. The moderators will be part of the community however! Please be nice to them. Again you can spot a mod by the cut of his Avatar.

We’ll shortly be updating all the Rules, and About pages so that you can immediately look and see who is a site owner, who is a moderator, and who is a host - and how you go about contacting those people.

New site owner

Another small update, and one that many of you already know is that I am now part of the site ownership team. I’ve been brought on board to attempt to make some money to cover the sites running costs… so over the next few months you may see a few more adverts appearing, as well as a new shop, and other incentives. I’ll announce more about those as they get nearer. But it is worth saying that we firmly believe that this should be a free forum and that no members will every be charged to be part of this community.

Sig Lines and Links

We’ve also had a good look at our rules and guidelines - there’s been a lot of talk from a few members about the recently brought in ‘no graphics’ in sig lines rule. Several of you were very unhappy with this new rule, so we’ve gone away and examined the reasons behind it and looked to see if there is a way forward that solves our problems but also lets you keep graphics. What we’ve come up with is a compromise that we hope will suite both parties… we’re going to relax the sig line rules again to allow ‘small’ graphics - that means graphics will be allowed, but only up to a certain size. We’re still working out what that size will be and would like your thoughts on this issue.

One thing many of you may not have noticed is that we relaxed the linking rules on LB - originally it was felt that members should not be allowed to link to other sites from LB - this was utterly silly and was the first thing I changed when I came on board to LB - so please feel free to link to other sites in your messages and your sig lines, but please do remember that if the site your linking to is a commercial enterprise we may ask you for a small fee, or for an incentive to LB members such as a discount, otherwise we may ask you to remove it.

New Sections

We’re going to launch a few new sections at your request over the coming days - the first is going to be a Mechanics section - we’re we’ll put guides and how tos - a place to ask your mech questions, and hopefully a place where you can find the answer to that bugging brake bleeding issue.

The second section is going to be a RANT section… this will be a place were you can go to express your dissatisfaction with LB (if you have any!) the idea is to bring together and area were you can bring up any complaints that you may have about us, the site, or the community, it will be a place that we’ll closely monitor and hopefully a place that constructive criticism can be taken and learnt from.

Wednesday night meets

You will have seen above that we’re handing over any decisions about meets to the Hosts. This in a small way goes to answer some of the complaints we’ve received about ‘just deciding’ where the Wednesday night meets should be. So over the Winter period the Hosts will be asking you guys were the meet should take place in the Spring - from then on all meets are up to you, go where-ever you like, and do what-ever you want… it’s in your hands! We’re going to stay at the Brazen over the winter period however, as I think it’s turning into quite a nice meet and it would be silly to move it now most people know where it is!

I think that’s about enough for now. We have so much going on at the moment - so first of all - make sure you get your Christmas Party tickets… make sure you leave some Christmas cash to buy the LB Charity Calendar (LAA) and make sure you leave Boxing day free for the Boxing Day Burn out!

The RANT forum will only be for issues relating to LB itself, not anything outside of it.

sounds like a good few new bits coming along! well done!

I must say the above ideas show a sound grasp of what needed to happen to LB.

Having elected members as hosts/mods is far better than moderators being plucked out of thin air!

Good luck with the revenue drive!

Wig

What about the ****ing swear filter is that **** going to stay i mean i know some people dont ****ing swear me included, but sometimes its nice just to throw a few ****s or ********, **** or even a ****, just a ****ing thought thats all make the place an all round nice ****er to be just like the ****ing old days

Priceless…

lol!

Nice to see you back wig.

m

And the security section ? Been dropped?

Sorry don’t follow - what security section?

m

Yes sorry, it was written in a hurry ! When you had the Bike Theft meeting at the Ace (when you were an administrator ) you said that the topic along with discounts on safety gear , new products and interesting articles (such as the ALMAX stuff recently) should be housed under an area dedicated to security ?

ahhh yes with you now :slight_smile: Definately, we’re working it into the new version of the site, with a specific section for security with products etc :slight_smile:

m