Greg

There are a number of reasons for this discepancy: 1) While the MLW forums may have over 188452 posts, this does not equal 188452 separate pages. Forum postings are arranged into threads, and those threads are broken up into blocks of 10, 15, 100, etc, postings. According to the forum statistics the forum has over 7500 threads. The forum averages around 400 new postings a day, and 10 new forum topics/threads a day. 2) Google does not necessarily provide accurate information about how many pages are in their index. Just because the information in provided, doesn't mean it is accurate. These numbers can fluctuate greatly, particularly if Google makes any changes to the search algorithm, Not for me, http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=f...com&btnG=Search results vary, as you can see, Cheers, Greg

Failure to post a link is indeed a inconvenience and a royal pain in the ass. It you want anyone to take what you say seriously, then provide as much evidence as possible.

I certainly don't have a problem with anyone posting messages in French, as it appears there are a number of you who can speak French. I've never really pushed to have a French language section of the forums due to the fact that I can't speak French. Moderation would be difficult if problems arise as I would need to have someone translate the thread. However, I'm open to giving it a shot,

The thread was pulled due to some remarks made by a forum member which could be construed as a criminal act. The thread will remain unavailable while I consider whether or not it should be public again. The offending member has been suspended until further notice and we are now consulting with the authorities about whether or not this was a criminal act. I strongly suggest you seek professionals advice from individuals who have experience in these types of issues. These forums, while valuable, cannot replace the advice of trained professionals and should not be used as a method of gathering legal advice. This thread has been closed, and any thread relating to this specific case will be deleted from this point forward. If you have any questions and or comments relating to this issue, please feel free to contact me. Greg Farries M.A. Project Director http://mapleleafweb.com Phone: 403.329.2286 Fax: 403.382.7148 Email: [email protected] -------------- Canada's Premier Political Education Website

Sorry for the late response, I've taken the emoticons feature down. I felt they were more distracting than helpful. If you disagree, feel free to voice your opinion below, thanks,

Nope the rules are clear, any insults (whether at members of the forums, or at third-parties) are against the rules. Honestly, what does calling anyone an moron accomplish? It certainly doesn't improve your argument. Insults are easy to use, the hard part is explaining your position without using a bunch of four letter words. It isn't ok, and that member has been warned. Two wrongs don't make a right, and don't assume that I haven't warned someone for using an insult in another thread. Nope, there is never a good reason to use an insult. This rule is one of the many things that separates this forum from nearly every other forum on the Internet. It's a simple concept, don't use insults... How much more clear could this rule be?

P.S. It's kinda nice to be able to openly discuss these issues, as I've got a fair amount of experience in these areas. So if anyone has any other questions and or comments, please share them. I avoid discussing politics - for obvious reasons - in the forums, so I'm tickled when there are topics like this one that I can join in and share my thoughts,

The forum software recognizes that the Google spider is indexing the forums contents, and it shows up as a active member. This is just a function of the forum software and Google isn't doing anything malicious. You might also see a few other search engine spiders (and forum search spiders) in that field too. The best way to distinguish between an actual member and a spider is an actual member has a link to their profile, spiders do not. It's not really a privacy issue, as I actively encourage the Google spider to index the site regularly. Anything written on the Internet has the potential to find its way into the Google database. I won't go into specifics, but Google provides a number of services that webmasters can use to maximize the indexing rate and depth. The Google spider has no more access to the board than someone viewing it anonymously. It is just that this board provides a visual indication that the Google spider is actually indexing the site. They could be, but I HIGHLY doubt it. What would be the incentive for Google to spy on foreign or domestic citizens? I imagine they're more concerned with their stock price than with a governments desire to peek into the search habits of average citizens. They're not an unauthorized member on this site. That isn't exactly true. I could ask Google NOT to index/access the site via a Robots.txt file on the server. The Robot.txt file would instruct the Google spider to NOT index the domain, mapleleafweb.com (or I could even specify not to index the forums). However, I'm not willing to do this as Google provides a great deal of traffic to these forums and to Maple Leaf Web. I could also block the IP address of Google (or anyone else for that matter) through a few lines in a .htaccess file. However, again, this isn't something I'm willing to do. This forum software has this capability too, however, i prefer open access to everyone. The only thing Google is going is indexing the website. Nothing more, nothing less... PM me and I can help you with this. The spiders for Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc, have become pretty sophisticated now, and they can index almost any website. However, there are definitely things you can do to improve the index depth and rate. PM me and I can take a look at your site and help you improve it. Again, what would be the point of Google compromising someone's website?

Nope, you're wrong. Just because the Globe provides the article free of charge doesn't give you right to copy and paste it into a forum. For more information on Fair Dealing in Canada, please read: http://www.robic.ca/publications/Pdf/032E-LC.pdf

jdobbin, B. Max, no one really cares to read your snippy two word postings. Take your banter out of the forums and in the PM or email.

The Landover Baptist Church website is fiction, you'd think that was obvious ...

For someone who has just arrived at this forum, you should seem to think you know the rules. Here's a tip, head the advice of forum veterens like M.Dancer - they know what they're talking about. blackascoal's post was an obvious copyright infringement - if you read the rules you'd know that. I suggest you take a hard look before posting again.

This is a case where the forum member needs to exercise some judgment about whether it is better to revive the original thread or to start a new one. Of course, if the original thread is only a few weeks/months old, you would obviously revive the thread. However, if the original thread is old enough that many of the issues have changed, and or the thread is so long that the original issue isn't even being discussed anymore, then by all means start a new thread. It is everyone's responsibility to check to make sure the issue is not already being discussed - and so you'll need to do a quick search of the forums to make sure you have not missed anything. However, I'm not entirely sure the problem here is duplicating older (out-of-date) threads, but rather members starting multiple threads on the same topic. Charles has pointed this out, and I think we all have to do a better job at avoiding muddying the forum with duplicate discussions. I do understand that the search function of the forums is a bit wonky - I'm doing my best to find another solution. In the mean time, try your best to make it work and in a month or so when the new forum is up and running you can search to your hearts content.

This thread is abit off topic - not sure what everyones sports preference has to do with politics? Anyways, I'll let it go this time - all that Christmas cheer has put my in a good mood

I'm the Project Director for Maple Leaf Web and our sister website, Policy.ca. I'm been moderating the MLW forums since early 2000, and I do NOT own Maple Leaf Web. As Geoffrey pointed out, I hope this helps, Greg Admin

I will at some point. We're in the final stages of a redesign and I'm not going to be putting any more effort into modifying the templates (of this forums), just so I can change then in a few weeks/month (to match the new design).

I can look into it, I assume a module/plugin could developed. But that isn't really the point. I personally don't think the forum software should have to enforce etiquette. Proper posting etiquette is vital to any online community, and the overall quality of the community is usually determined by how much effort its members contribute towards producing high quality content. Just trim your quotations and quotes - that isn't too much to ask, is it?

Done - enjoy!

Some members have simply been hitting reply without first trimming the previous comments and or quotation. Take one look at this thread and you can see the eye-sore that not trimming replies and quotes can create. I'm a member of a few mailing-lists that strictly enforce the trim rule and the penalty for not trimming is banishment from the mailing-list. The reason for being so strict is the untrimmed postings can wreaks havoc with email clients (particularly for those receiving the mailing-list via a digest) and that can severely reduce the readability of the mailing-list. So in the interest of readability please trim your postings. If you spot someone not trimming their postings, feel free to point it out to them. If it continues, report the post to me and I'll follow up. Thanks!

Hey, lets trim our postings! No one wants to scroll down page after page of improperly structured replies.

This thread is downright ignorant - and about as ignorant as some of you are behaving towards each other. I've already banned one member today, and suspended another. Perhaps if some of you keep this up, more will be joining them.

Gladly, abcon99 you are now banned from this forum.

Alright, we get it - there are a number of different opinions on media bias, that doesn't mean you all have to act like ignorant little know-it-alls. Cut the self-righteous banter out and treat each other with a bit of respect (even if the media and or politicians don't do that same).

OK, I've added an additional field to the registration process, which is extremely simple to do for a human, but very difficult for a spam-bot to complete. This is similar to a few suggestions made by a forum member (thanks Riverwind), and hopefully it will cut down on the automated spam-bots registrations. This will not stop the manual registrations, however, I've enlisted Charles Anthony to help with the removal of spam postings and threads. Charles Anthony is the first forum member to be elevated to the role of "Forum Facilitator". Forum facilitators will responsible for monitoring the forums and responding to any reports relating to spam. Facilitators do not have any other moderation roles and are solely responsible for spam removal. However, with the new registration requirements, spam may not be as large of a problem as it was - we'll just have to wait and see. In the future I would like to have the Forum Facilitators take a more direct role in the forums, possibly providing forum members with advice as to how to correctly use the many feature of the forums, and to encourage civil debate. This does NOT mean I am allowing volunteer moderators in these forums. Forum facilitators will have NO formal moderation capabilities - other than spam removal. However, Charles Anthony and I are going to work out the details of this new role, and after a month or two I may invite a few more members to participate. I will keep everyone notified of the progress on this front, and I hope you enjoy the changes I have made. Thanks Greg

Report it and reply, its the best method to ensure that the spam is removed quickly.