As you know, I'm not located in the UK, at least not permanently, and I think UK only is a mistake. It's so old-fashioned to to classify people by geographical location, especially based on IP address. Would you exclude a Cockney from a forum about London just because he happened to have found a job in Wales? Not to mention telecommuting - these days, there must be any number of UK designers working out of the north of France, Ibiza, or wherever. Plus, you are barring students at universities outside the UK, those gaining work experience abroad, gap-yearers, British designers working abroad, British academics teaching abroad, and so on, apart from non-UK visitors attracted simply because you have a forum which works dedicated to graphic design (as you point out yourself, you are excluding a lot of Indian/Asian design talent - can't be a good thing). I feel you are missing the chance to establish this forum as a point of reference in the field.
Neither do I think the forum's success, seriousness, good behaviour level, lack of spam etc., can be attributed to it being restricted to the UK. Rather, I feel forum members find a high level of professionalism here, and behave accordingly - it's peer pressure that is keeping standards up.
I do know, though, that it is hard work running a successful forum, and that spam accounts are a damned nuisance. So I have a couple of suggestions:
- Boss Hog, you work too much. Delegate. Some of the forum vets must spend hours a week here anyway, I'm sure one or two would be delighted to act as moderators (and if not, to hell with the whole thing).
- CAPTCHA.
- Spam accounts can be pretty well eliminated by a 'minimum contribution' quota (there may well be a routine built into the vbulletin software for doing this, if there isn't, I expect someone would be able to hack it for you). Essentially, for an account to remain active, that member would have to have posted x messages per y length-of-time, 1 message a month, for example. Inactive or less active accounts woud be deleted. Most forum members would be understanding about the need for this, though a few would protest. The protesters could be told that, if they have nothing else to post about, they can always post a portfolio critique or something equally undemanding. So as well as largely eliminating spam accounts, this would encourage participation.
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