[Jimmy Van]

Okay, this is the campaign thread in which the ten candidates can explain why they deserve to be the Administrator of the Open Forum. The candidates are:

TJ Spyke
Inogenius
thirty7
Daredevil
Crocker
J-M
stonecold3:16
Blitz
Reilly
Y2joey

The election will commence on January 2nd.

Note: As a suggestion by Simon, discussion should only occur after a candidate has posted their campaign speech.

[Y2joey]

Just wanna say good Luck to all yall.

IF IM ELECTED ILL RATTLE A FEW CAGES, RATTLE EM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( HOMER SIMPSON, MY IDOL )

[Inogenius]

Hello my fellow JVN'ers,

On a somewhat funny note to start off my campaign, right now I have this visual of George W. Bush giving a speech. Luckily for you all, I'm going to leave out words like Nuclear, Tryants or the dreaded phrase "Axis of Evil." To get started, I think it'd be somewhat best to introduce myself, as a few posters expressed their concern over not having a clue as to who I am. Understandable, I hide in the Off Topic forums most of my time, and only occasionally browse the WWE forums. First off, the name is Terry. I've lived on the Lake Erie shores in Ohio, USA for almost my entire life. At the current time I'm employed at a small financial company as the CTO, where my main job is helping people figure out how to add attachments in Microsoft Outlook. When I'm not doing that, you can usually find me here browsing JimmyVan.Com. Before I was the CTO, I ran my own website hosting company for 2 years. As I'm sure you've assumed already, I'm pretty good at dealing with things on the internet. I'm able to program in a couple different programming languages. Usually I don't do that though, as it's awfully boring and it makes me feel even nerdier than I want to be. I'm apparently still in denial. I grew up a wrestling fan, idolizing the likes of Bret Hart, The Ultimate Warrior, Ted DiBiase ... the usual likes. I always hated Greg Valentine though. Whenever my Mom wants to embarass she always like to pull the halloween picture when I dressed up like The Ultimate Warrior. She seems to think it's real funny.

- Why I am the person for the job ...
As someone who has been a forum assistant for 3 administrators, Miakal, Simon, and IdaMan/Phoenix, I've seen and experienced 3 different types of moderation. While I never necessary actively used my role as an Adminstrator at the forums, as I didn't feel it was my position since I was mainly the "tech guy", I was however an active poster in the sacred moderator forum (Yes, I'll admit it; it actually does exist!) giving ideas, and suggestions when I felt necessary. As I mentioned above, I'm fairly technically proficient with the internet. I've hosted this particular website, and forum for a short period of time with my hosting company that I ran before, and as well I've actually converted the forum software a couple different times to provide for a better experience. The good part about the forum software we're using now, is that I run a couple of my own personal sites with it, and I've become pretty familiar with it, being able to install numerous modifications to it to even better the software further.

To go along a little further with, I consider myself to be a fan of each topic discussed on the forum. Wrestling, Women, Sports and Video Games. It's basically what my life consists of. We might be a little better off naming the Water Cooler forum to the Pub, as it'd go along even better. Perhaps we could just say the water cooler has been spiked though. As I said though, I'm a fan of all the topics discussed on the forum, so as an adminstrator you can expect to read almost every thread in each forum, and do my best to raise the quality of posts in each one.

- What kind of changes can I expect with you as administrator?
I have a lot of unique ideas floating around in my head to do with the forum. The first, and most likely what will be the biggest is the moderation setup. I'm an extremely laid back and relaxed guy. I'll expect my team of moderators to be as well. I don't want to see anyone jumping down anyone else's throat. It makes me feel dumb, but enough of that. To go with the moderation change, the biggest change I plan on making is that there will no longer be "individual forum moderators." Instead, I plan on having 2-3 Super Moderators, which will have moderation privledges forum wide. This will allow for considerbly more efficiency on the moderation end, but also create for a better experience for you. As a moderator myself on some other forums, I tend to stick to the forums that I moderate, rather than float around to each individual forum. By having Super Moderators, it will effectively end that cycle of thought. To go along with the Super Moderators, there will be a lower level moderator team that will consist of another 2-3 people. These people will have individual forum moderator permissions, but their main job will be to essentially promote quality posting, and help out new users ... etc. By doing this, it'll encourage much more intelligent discussion, and end the days of the one word wonders that spam the forum with worthless comments and thoughts. I don't know about you, but I absolutely love a good debate/discussion. The moderator setup that I want to do, should promote this.

Likewise, as I saying above, there are a lot of hacks that can be installed for this particular forum software. There are numerous ones out there that I feel would benefit this forum greatly. Some of them that immediately come to my head is the "Points hack." With the points hack, each poster receives points for the amount of referrals they said in, the amount of words per post, how many posts they make, and then how many threads they make. With each point you earn, you can gain new access features, or purchase products such as movies from JV's movie list or JVN clothing wear if you're that big of a fan. Basically JV, sorry bud, but I'm going to be bugging you for contest prizes and new cool toys to give out on the forum.

- What about contests?
You want a contest? Oh we're going to have lots of them! I have a lot of ideas floating around for various contests such as "Thread of the Week" in which someone can expect a basic prize for creating it. The highest number of referrals for the month. We could even go all out and have "Best Forum Poster" for 6 months. Those are just a few ideas that I have for creating some contests. The great thing about those ideas, is that it further enhances the community even more, as it promotes good, quality posts and threads. As asked in the Feedback forum, about whether or not I have a problem putting some of my own personal money into the forum, I don't. As JVN Administrator, I want to create a place where there is quality discussion taking place, in a relaxed atmosphere. If it means I have put down a couple hundred bucks to get us there, that's fine. The overall enjoyment that I'll get from it is enough of a return.

- The Summary
Overall, I want to create a forum where I enjoy posting and each visitor feels comfortable posting and enjoys it. I don't like the tense atmosphere where users are beligerant towards one another. It makes posting boring and just awful. The goal is to create an extremely relaxed atmosphere where users can post what is on their mind that day in our off topic forums, and enjoy themselves in some discussion on the wrestling.

[K Jay]

That was a wonderful opening statement and now that the format has been set I can not wait to see the other candidates rebuttals/campaign points. The one thing that I am uneasy about in this election is the fact that "most" of the runners have access to forum that the regular posters do not. I motion that the mod forum is opened to the public for the duration of these electorial proceedings. I feel it will help the healing process and create the neccesary transparency that these procedings need.

[Inogenius]

I actually thought about that earlier, or the other idea I had, was if I became administrator I wanted to create a whole new moderator forum as part of a "fresh start" and then allow other regular easiers read only access to the old forum. I think by doing that it would definitely clear the air on a lot of the issues that existed earlier. As the acting administrator since IdaMan has left JVN, I'll bring it up with the other candidates and current moderators.

Originally Posted by K Jay

That was a wonderful opening statement and now that the format has been set I can not wait to see the other candidates rebuttals/campaign points. The one thing that I am uneasy about in this election is the fact that "most" of the runners have access to forum that the regular posters do not. I motion that the mod forum is opened to the public for the duration of these electorial proceedings. I feel it will help the healing process and create the neccesary transparency that these procedings need.

[K Jay]

Thank you Ino (I would say Terry but I don't want to seem like I know you when I do not). I hope that the other candidates are as open.

[Joseph T. Cool]

I'm all for that idea as it will clear up a lot of issues.

I'm interested to hear the other nominees speeches now that this one was so well done.

[Dakstang]

Very well done indeed. You seem like you really care about the forum and have put a lot of though into how to make it better Inogenius.

I think opening the mod forum would be a good move to expose everything and let everyone see what all the fuss is about since a lot of accusations have been thrown around as to what was said in there.

[Inogenius]

My concern about opening the moderator forum is that, a lot of the moderators/previous administrators have posted a few things that deal moreso with their personal and family life. I don't know how many want to have that exposed for anyone to read.

[K Jay]

I feel that you are a fair judge Ino. I am happy that things like that be vetted/removed. But I feel that all users should know about the "politics" if you will of the board. I'm sure we are all mature enough to accept criticism that has been doled out, and as I stated before I feel it will encourage the healing process.