Suggestions for forum

I can't believe I need to say this despite all the disclaimers- but I am not John Walsh and this forum is not AMW. I received a forum registration asking for help with an unsolved murder- the person included their personal phone numbers along with a relatives and it was a claim about all the corruption involved in the case and who's covering it up and how the body is in some family's backyard and all.

The problem is I couldn't find the case anywhere on the internet. Not to mention, no way in heck I'm personally calling anyone I don't know off this site. I don't doubt the person's claim and I felt guilty rejecting the (very long) registration since it was desperately asking for help but I felt this wasn't the appropriate forum for it. Not sure what the appropriate forum would be, but we deal with cases already known in the media and can't post murder cases here without proof that they actually happened- regardless of if they were covered up or not. I hope the person finds help and if they come across this my suggestion would be to go to the media or contact the Unsolved Mysteries website.

I think the difference between say Nancy Grace and AMW/The Hunt/Unsolved Mysteries/Cold Justice etc. is that Nancy Grace is a live news broadcast program while the rest I mentioned are more pre-filmed news/documentary shows. So I feel it's fine to keep them in the missing person exclusive section, unless they say ended up on the new Unsolved Mysteries website.

Alright the person tried to register as "victormanuelgerena" and an hour later they tried to register as donaldeuegenewebb

And this my friends is the reason for the screening process as this person was an obvious troll and their ip has been banned.

I suspect I know who it is too. I told this former member I can't guarantee they won't slip by one day but that they would be banned as soon as they were found out. Why they continue to try nearly two years later is beyond me. They're more than welcome to read the message board if they want but I cant have them as a member anymore. False registrations may prevent even accessing the board (I think) so I suggest to this member that they not try again if they still want to read it.

Ok. This would be a MAJOR change and may fall into the category of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" but this is just a question of if any member is intrigued by the possibility. When we first started, HeadMarshal suggested we break the fugitives down by decade. I thought I couldn't do that many with the old set-up but I've now learned I actually can. So instead of what our forum currently looks like, the fugitive cases would be broken down into decades. Unsolved and Missing I'll currently keep on it's own (once it gets to 10 or more pages, perhaps I'll consider changing that too).

Below is what the forum would somewhat look like, except with content and probably somewhat lengthier descriptions it would probably be a little longer and would look more extensive. P.S. The link below is a side-project forum if I ever have the free time, but at least I can experiment with it right now:


crimeshows.freeforums.net/

Remember, this is ONLY a suggestion. I'm not going to do this unless other members really like the idea. Don't worry about the amount of time I took and think it means I'm seriously contemplating it, I was simply bored and it was just an idea I thought should be looked into. And this would not be instituted until 2015. (Unless the idea is so well liked we want to do it sooner). I do plan on changing recent to 2005-2015 and cold cases to 2004 and back regardless.

I guess that's my reason for contemplating this change as I feel things have gotten a bit too cumbersome and even cold case is a bit crowded. Even making it 2005-2015 might be a problem. One solution would be to make a 2000-2010 or 2005-2010 and 2010-2015 section. People may also be find to cases easier looking up by decade. But yeah, as you said, right now things are sort of okay. But remember, we're adding more fugitives day by day.

As far as Exclusives go, the most recent section can include the site dirty dozen and public enemy list. But yeah, I'm going to continue tinkering with my guinea pig site and by January at the latest I'll probably change it.

I like it and that's pretty much the way it was going to look! (I put my guinea pig site in maintenance mode so unfortunately you didn't get to see it), with USMS and FBI under those categories and forum-exclusive fugitives below those. 2000-2009 may actually wind up with more pages in their own section which is ironic considering the problem I mentioned earlier but from a finding fugitives by decade perspective it would be easier. OK, I don't know WHEN I'll do this, it might be this month but will be no later than January but I will work on it.