[dirtmidget33]

I was looking at Facebook forum for WT&T a few mins ago. Someone made a post about all the obscene comments and belittling of those asking questions. I do have to agree with the O.P. that the facebook forum has became a free for all. Overall it gives a bad view of WT&T if someone was to just find the Facebook page and have no knowledge of the real forum here. I joined WT&T cause Jody has made some great learning videos, forum has a good conversations and answers people's questions respectfull, Jody has a unique TIG finger he sells that is quite handy, All good qualities of this board. However I wonder though if the facebook forum might scare off possible new members thinking the regular forum follows the same protocols allowing this kind of behavior. I was hoping that maybe Jody might consider trying to clean up Facebook page. I realize it is a daunting task for one person and few moderators we have here. Perhaps the Facebook page needs more moderators to deal with rift raft. Just my opinion

[Braehill]

I think Facebook and other "social" media sites are a reflection of how far down a wrong road we've gone as a society. There's really nothing social about them as long as there is a safe distance of cyberspace between the players. Things that people say to each other on these sites would more than likely never be said in a face to face encounter. It's hard to see the consequences of things said to a stranger through a computer, there's no feelings being exchanged, good or bad. There's no consequences for insulting someone like a good old fashion punch in the face. Most of the fools making disparaging remarks towards others on these sites wouldn't have the stones to say these things face to face.

I might be speaking out of place here, but I personally think that the Facebook page should go away, because of the reasons you've stated, it doesn't reflect the true nature of Jody's intentions and his selfless nature to teach people. He's spent a lot of his time building something good only to have a bunch of ill-mannered jackasses turn it into something ugly.

That's my opinion, for what it's worth.

[Superiorwelding]

I appreciate your concern and bringing this to our attention. We have been working on cleaning up the Facebook Forum so a while but it is hard to keep up with the activity. Facebook, and social media in general, is very fast paced especially campaired to what we are used to here. There is also almost 18,000 members there and when we approve membership there is no way to look at all profiles to know if they are a good or a bad egg. Know that we have banned hundreds of members for various reasons. I do not agree with how some act and when we find offensive posts we try our best to remove both the comment and the member. Know that the moderators cannot be there 24/7 to babysit what is supposed to be grown men and women. While we might have signed up to help we do have lives too. Facebook groups in general are also full of trolls looking for a fight and they succeed many times. If we would just step back and treat others as we want to be treated a lot of these problems would disappear, however such is the world we live in today. More moderators might help but again remember that we would still be out numbered. There are good questions and posts on the Facebook forum and it has quite a following with many members being thankful for the help they receive. It would be a shame to remove the group on account of the good that is does do for some. But it only takes one bad apple.....

I want to be clear, although this forum and the Facebook forum group bears Jody's name and company image he cannot be responsible for all actions there or here. Look at some of the stupid posts that Steve, Sam, Len and myself put up here. He may not necessarily agree with our "fun" here and cannot necessarily control what we post. The same applies for the Facebook group. Since you brought this to our attention we will change back to all posts requiring approval. This will elimate some of the problem posts by letting us screen them. Note that this is only effective for the posts and not the comments on a given post.

I did go through the last few days and do some house cleaning actually before I saw this post so it should be a little better, at least for now. You also mentioned that the Facebook forum might turn members there off from joining here. As a note of interest most members there do not know about this forum. All the members there that I have talked to had no clue that there was a actual forum. You can thank Facebook for broadcasting the group well through their suggested groups.

If anyone has further questions or concerns please submit them in a private message to Steve S (Otto Nobedder) Matt (mcoe) Mick (weldin mike 27) or myself (Superiorwelding).Thank you.
-Jonathan

[AKweldshop]

Never should you take any statement on the internet personal.....

Being a weldor in real life, is much better then trying to be a internet weldor.

IMHO,

~John

[dirtmidget33]

Oh yes I know monitoring facebook sites can be a nightmare. I don't have an easy solution for the problem, just concerned about the image of WT&T and noticed some comments on the FB page of people complaining of the garbage comments. Thought I would bring it to attention to actual members here, maybe we can come up with ideas to improve the situation to help out Jody. I am a member of several closed FB pages where you either have to know someone or if not a member of certain othere groups you don't get in. It has its advantages and disadvantages, some boards might take a person over a month to be approved like stated above Admins have lives too. Tottally understand that. Even with these measures in place once in awile get a spammer threw.

I think the Admins do a great job here at WT&T. Thank you guys great forum. I lurk for awile on forums to see if I really want to get involved there are some I read but never join. haha one of them is our sister site WW

[AKweldshop]

haha one of them is our sister site WW

Nothing wrong with that forum.....

If you like fast paced excitement ....

[weldin mike 27]

If I can offer an insight to the facebook page. I made it, with permission, ages ago as away to post pictures when the forum had an (almost impossible) upload limit. It was almost dormant for a long time, almost 12 months with only 100 members. The new invigorated forum ditched the upload limit, so there was no need for the facebook page, but it still ticked over. Sometime around the middle of the year, it went viral, with hundreds of new members a day. I have pulled away from facebook for personal reasons, but the page keeps steaming on. I have heard of the nefarious people on there and have tried to change the name, but facebook has a stupid policy stating the name of a page can't be changed once you are +500 members. So other than delete it completely I have to rely on people to play nice, and the kick ass Admin team to try and keep order. At this point, it does more good than bad, but should the scale tip to the negative, I will not hesitate to detonate it.

Mick

[jwright650]

If I can offer an insight to the facebook page. I made it, with permission, ages ago as away to post pictures when the forum had an (almost impossible) upload limit. It was almost dormant for a long time, almost 12 months with only 100 members. The new invigorated forum ditched the upload limit, so there was no need for the facebook page, but it still ticked over. Sometime around the middle of the year, it went viral, with hundreds of new members a day. I have pulled away from facebook for personal reasons, but the page keeps steaming on. I have heard of the nefarious people on there and have tried to change the name, but facebook has a stupid policy stating the name of a page can't be changed once you are +500 members. So other than delete it completely I have to rely on people to play nice, and the kick ass Admin team to try and keep order. At this point, it does more good than bad, but should the scale tip to the negative, I will not hesitate to detonate it.

Mick

The members could also help police it,... when someone gets out of hand, let them know that the negative or abusive comment wasn't necessary or appreciated.

[newschoppafowah]

Another good reason not to let ol' Zuckerberg mine your data. No FB activity, no problem.

As for abuse, I've seen newbies ask perfectly reasonable questions in a respectful manner and get HAMMERED on WW. I don't even look over there anymore, it's like a nasty wreck.

[Otto Nobedder]

I tend to let the FB forum move as it will... It's an ocean, and moves in waves.

The best we can do is knock down the abuse when we see it.

Mick fears it will damage Jody's name. I don't think so. The cream always rises to the top, and we get folks who WANT to share and participate moving over from FB. As far as FB welding forums go, our drama level is relatively low. Jody likely has the best reputation on the web, and the handful of d!ckheads on FB are not going to change that.

Steve S

[mcoe]

There are a lot of brave souls on Facebook because there is a lack of respect. I love this site, I love welding and I show that love and share it by respecting the founder, Jody, and the fellow members who are there looking for advice and showing off their work. If you really love welding and you really love Jody's videos and products then the least you can do is respect the ones sharing the page with you. Like Steve said the cream usually rises but there are a few flies that rise every once and a while that need to be scooped out.

John, I don't think this time of year anything is fast paced in your world I know the cold has me slowing down