ampfixer
I'd rather talk about forum options rather than crime and punishment.
 
Like, how about the forum makes it easy to post pictures in support of our posts. I have lots of cool things that this crowd would find interesting but posting pictures is a pain right now.

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+1. Please allow uploads. There was a reason but I can't remember why. Maybe forums software didn't optimize images or something...

One thing's for sure - I personally don't want to relive the nightmare of how the previous (and thankfully, now departed) regime at MF screwed up Harmony Central (twice!!). But in this case, I think Cakewalk as a company is very respectful of the community. They know it's a huge asset for users. Keep in mind the first two sentences that kicked off this thread:
 
"Today we'd like to share with you our first round of ideas for some changes to the forum and get your feedback. We understand that many of you call this home so we want to give everyone time to provide input or point out any horrible ideas we may have conjured up." 
 
It really doesn't sound to me like they want to establish a police state, nor would they want any moderators to do so on their behalf. 

If you want to see an example of bad moderation go to the ZoneAlarm forums. It is supposedly a community forums but in effect all community discussions around the product are deleted unless it is a user error issue that they can give a simple answer, and moderators feel they should be the only people answering posts. They did have independent mods once but a lot of them left in disgust.

 
I'm all for moderation, but I think fixing spelling mistakes is a bit much.
 

Lol... Agreed...

CakeAlexS
If you want to see an example of bad moderation go to the ZoneAlarm forums. It is supposedly a community forums but in effect all community discussions around the product are deleted unless it is a user error issue that they can give a simple answer, and moderators feel they should be the only people answering posts. They did have independent mods once but a lot of them left in disgust.

Yeah but, it IS ZoneAlarm. They don't want anyone to know just how terrible the product really is.
 
Regards,
Dan

Most likely...

Anderton

jm24
Forum moderators should NEVER be allowed to mark any response as an answer. ONLY the OP should be allowed to identify what actually was useful.

The problem with that is there's no guarantee that after the problem's solved, the person will come back and mark it answered. Sometimes they'll even say in the thread "thanks, that solved my problem" but not indicate the issue was solved or answered. This makes it more difficult for the people who need to find answers to the same problem.
 

How about (Moderator Suggestion) vs. (Solved or Answered)? The reason I suggest this, is that even the best Moderators are not directly connected to the OP, and therefore still subject to an incorrect assumption in the solution.

I'm ok with the changes, and btw, thanks for asking! I love to see a Welcome of Feedback. The only three things I would like to ask are:


1) Bug Reporting: The Problem Forum should no longer discounted as a great place to turn over rocks and find new bugs. For example, if a user has a problem who (especially in my case) doesn't have access to Support during Business hours can begin a dialogue with others or at least post a potential buggy issue in the forum as a dialogue instead of having to perform rigorous testing to submit an actual bug report. I'd like to see these posts host a Q&A WITH internal CW notation that such an occurrence of the issue has been seen by a user. It doesn't have to be a bug report, but my perception is that with all the reports in the Problem forum, some good reports may go unnoticed. I would challenge the Moderators to acknowledge such reports and decide from there to send the issues on to CW on behalf of a user, or help the user submit a co-operative bug report. If a Moderator knows the bug-reporting tool well, he/she can help the submitting user provide a better report.
 
2) The Bug Report Tool also be revisited. Some things in a bug report which are required may not apply to intermittent issues, or issues where every detail simply cannot be re-documented. Just because it can't immediately be recreated doesn't exclude such an occurrence from being a bug, and should at least be reviewed. There's typically little to no (or very late) feedback on bug reports. I'd like to see a little more Q&A from support in a bug-report submission. It would at least give the perception that the bug-report was or wasn't useful. Feedback in our direction is valuable, too. 
 
3) User feedback. It would be useful to see what our own temperature is. There's no real measurement for how trolling a person is, although, we'd hope everyone can self-govern. I'd personally like to see added to the "Helpful" selection, a "Not Helpful" selection. For example, a post that the Moderators may find normal, but a user might find unhelpful, offensive, or simply unwanted in light of the discussion. When the thread is closed, or 'Moderated' those posts marked 'Not Helpful' and revisited as such by the Moderator, and can then be removed. If a specific user is being abusive, or relentless, etc. a warning and expulsion may be in order. However, a way to gauge this is by User feedback reviewed by a Moderator and acted upon, when necessary. It certainly would clean up trolling in the forum as well. Personally, I've felt at times, "Oh geez, these users want me out of this thread". I'd rather know that vs. feeling that way.
 

Paul P
I'm all for moderation, but I think fixing spelling mistakes is a bit much.

I fix them only in the topic headlines. It just doesn't look good to scan the list of topics and see misstykes. People might think the person doing the post is stoopid insted of understanding English is not they're native language.