As most of you know, James Patten, museum Webmaster, BOD member, doer of many things, and all-around nice guy started this forum as an offshoot of the museum web site a few years ago. I offered to help him moderate it, as I also moderate a discussion forum at work (among many other far more important tasks) as well as spend a fair amount of time posting and participating in other railroad online communities. His response was a hearty and enthusiastic... I'll think about it.
Eventually, he needed some help and I was asked to step in while he was away in Wales, enjoying the 2ft'rs of that country. A few months back, we "swapped" roles and he assigned me principal moderator. He timed that perfectly: as our forum membership began to swell, we got a severe spambot attack, which was promptly followed by some mild quarreling amongst ourselves.
While he and I never discussed it, I'm sure he was glad that he didn't really have to deal too much with that nonsense.
Today I received notification that James has "demoted" himself from "Moderator" status so that he can concentrate on more pressing issues at the WW&F.
While we don't do a lot of patting ourselves on the back at the WW&F, I thought it would be a good opportunity to publicly thank James for all his hard work. He shows a great deal of dedication to our organization and often does things "behind the scenes" to get things done. We are all the beneficiaries of his labor and I am privileged to follow in his footsteps.
I also wanted to share a comment that someone posted about the WW&F forum on another railroad discussion site (that sometimes discusses the WW&F.)
The [WW&F forum is] obviously a pretty tight community and [their members] have a great sense of humor. It's definitely a different flavor from [another discussion forum].
We have something special in the WW&F and our online community. Perfect? No. However, let's keep up the good work together.
