Dead Boards, Why and Planned Strategy
OK, let's try this again. I already responded to this post once, but my message was apparently lost in the recent transfer to the new servers.
You are absolutely right, we do have a number of agencies with little or no postings. LEOAFFAIRS.COM(tm) originally started with one (1) Message Board for the Tampa Police Department. We then added Board #2 for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. It spiraled from there to around 50 Message Boards, most of which were located in Florida.
We then went to the National FOP Conference in New Orleans (July/August 2005) where we added around 100 agencies. Tripling the size of our agency Message Boards as well as Moderators was something we had a hard time keeping up with. It took weeks to add all the agencies and there was no one dedicated to train new Moderators on how to be good Moderators or how to keep activity on their Boards. So, while all those new agencies have Moderators, their activity has been slow.
We recently added new positions for Mod 1 and Mod 2. They are in charge of all Moderators and Training. This has also helped free me (and Admin) up for other responsibilities. They are "fixing the problem" with low producing Message Boards and will replace Moderators as needed.
Police Week in Washington D.C. this month was a huge success and we added approximately 100 additional agencies and Moderators (again). Activity on these new Boards will be low simply because they are brand new and we are still in the process of contacting the Moderators.
So, to answer your question, we are aware of the problem and hopefully I explained on how we got here. The good news is that we took steps to correct it before we went to D.C. and now a system is in place to handle it.
In reference to a lack of postings due to the HCSO Sheriff attempting to obtian IP addresses, I would hope by now that no one would question our commitment to keep this information confidential. We pay approximately $2,000 a month in attorney fees to protect the HCSO deputies. That's not something we have to do, but we do it because we think it's the right thing to do. That's also why we have Moderators on every Message Board. Apparently the Courts agree with us because we've won 3 major battles in front of 2 different judges against the HCSO Sheriff and we are currently scheduled to appear before the 2nd District Court of Appeals for Oral Arguments on June 20th. Thanks to Luke Lirot, the First Amendment and prior case law, we are now creating New Case Law that protects You!
It all comes down to how you do things. We don't have to have Moderators and police ourselves, but we do. We'll continue to act professionally and do the right thing, deleting inappropriate content that violates our Terms of Use and Banning abusers when needed. This helps set us apart.
Thanks for your support!