This off topic forum is provided for the benefit of members and is intended to allow civil discussion of non-hobby topics with fellow hobbyists. In order to maintain the forum as one which is utilised by those with an active interest in R/C a rule was implemented some time ago which required that for every 10 posts made in the off topic forums the poster had to have made at least one on topic post.

At the time this rule was implemented it was subject to a grandfather clause, allowing considerable leeway for those existing members who were not in compliance with the required posting ratio at that time. That was over a year ago and that grandfathering period has now expired. Some members have amended their posting practices and now make a contribution to the on-topic forums, where they did not previously do so. Other members have not and have accrued hundreds of off topic forum posts with only very few on topic posts in that time.

Following discussions between the forum moderators and administrators it has been decided that from today the on topic : off topic ratio will be determined based on members' most recent posts. There will be some flexibility shown, but, if on making a search of a member's posts, the moderator sees a whole search results page (25 posts) of mostly Off Topic posts without at least two On Topic posts then action may be taken.

That action will most typically be a warning that the member is in violation of the posting guidelines, followed by the temporary removal of that member's off topic discussion forum access for a period of one week if a further Off Topic post is made whilst not in compliance. Repeated failure to post within the guidelines may result in subsequent removal of OTD forum access without any further warnings. The member's on topic forum access will be unaffected.

It is hoped that this action will go some way to restoring the harmony in this forum by preventing both the tit-for-tat bickering which has become so prevalent here relatively recently and the use of the forum purely as a political soapbox by those with no apparent interest in the R/C portion of this site.

Brian Cullen
Ric Duley
Don Sims
Forum Moderators

In order to remove any ambiguity whatsoever regarding the implementation of the member's posting ratio from now on this will now be handled automatically by the bulletin board software.

The settings selected by the adminstrator will allow members to make up to 10 concecutive posts to the off topic forum. If a member attempts to make more posts than that then they will not be able to make that post until after they have made at least one On Topic post. An automatically generated message will advise the member of that when they attempt to make the post.

This will remove any arguments over whether a member's on topic to off ratio is in compliance or not and will further ensure that the ratio is applied to all members posting in this forum. The number of members who may be affected is likely to be extremely small and the solution is very simple and easily dealt with by the member themselves.

Brian