"We are talking about maybe opening up the VT forum, but we first have to put a better system in place. Maybe with the help of the members, we can come up with some ground rules and make it work." - Spike

Just a wild hair kinda thought, Spike, but ya'll might try looking at other existing Bar/Tavern forums that seem to function quite well and copying what makes them work might do it for you. On second thought... that'd require being able to look at them with something that resembles an understanding of how forum dynamics work. You've only got two mods on staff that are actually capable of doing that - kbennet and Rimrunner - and they're not in the policy making loop. You're screwed. Or, there's always the other option: new management from the top down, starting with the admins. Not an option. You're screwed. ;] shrug As long as you keep trying to top down manage the personalities, and keep driving away all of the members that aren't forum weasels, you're going to continue having this situation. And you'll continue having problems from being overrun with forum weasels, because that'll be the entire posting population of your site. Your biggest problem on it is that a site like this needs someone who actually knows Community Building, not PC Comunity Theory, and you sir, are no Jack D. Kammerer. ;] No offense intended to the rest of the old Virtual Tavern regulars who might read this, but I don't think it can be done. Might be best to just leave it dead. Anything that you "redesign" under your new system and ground rules is going to end up plastic and lifelike, but it won't have a great deal of life to it. Nor much personality. I say leave it dead. That way you won't end up with a TGIF trying to be a Virtual Tavern.

"I am a good person now and it feels... well, pretty much the same as I felt before (except that the headaches have gone away now that I'm not wearing control top pantyhose on my head anymore)"

• Monkeysmell