AMIGO is Seeking Forum Moderators

Seeking Forum Moderators. Now 11 weeks-old the AMIGO site is so large in scope that it seeks moderators to take over forums and lend their own brand, style, and attention to their development and progress.

All Michoacan Info Group Oracle (AMIGO) was a huge concept, so large in scope that I can't give every area of it the attention it deserves. There are information forums for Local Events, Transportation, Marketplace for items to sell and trade, Hotels and B&B's, a Spanish Language forum, General items, and others.

There are discussion forums to discuss News Events, Cooking and Restaurant Reviews, Learning Spanish, and others. Regional forums covering areas of Michoacan and Mexico in general. Members-Only forums for more poignant discourse for registered members of AMIGO that do not appear to non-members or the web search engines. There are even private club forums that do not appear to the other registered AMIGO members that are invitation-only - an example of this is a special forum for its moderators to discuss board matters with other moderators and admin.

It is hoped and expected new moderators will contribute to their forum, stimulate discussion, and lend their own style and personality to their forum. Moderators will be able to re-name their forums, decide their direction, and set their distinct character and nature. AMIGO is a sophisticated design that permits photos to be embeded, videos, links, font changes and can be personalized for general appearance and for who and how it is accessed and whether it is public or private.

AMIGO will be expanding to include permanent stories and feature articles along with photo essays of local interest items. Any of a number of items can be linked to it, items I haven't even thought of myself can be added like someone's personal weather station to display local climate conditions. Whatever can be of informational value to the people and expats of Michoacán should find a place on AMIGO.

AMIGO is located at - https://amigo.forumotion.com Anyone interested in being a forum moderator or contributer to AMIGO may contact me, Peter, by e-mail, private message on AMIGO, or directly posting to the AMIGO board in any of its current forums. Some existing forums may be changed, combined, or discontinued in the near future and others will soon be created. Potential moderators with an idea for a new forum can have it created for them and added to the appropriate category, and new categories created. Those who may have a private club that desire web space that provides photo capabilities and other services beyond offerings availale at other sites should also contact AMIGO.

AMIGO has been promoted internationally and is regularly visited by guests in countries on all the major continents. At 11 weeks-old it is still an infant but is growing rapidly. My hopes are that soon AMIGO will be a major information site for all those who live in Mexico, vacation in Mexico, are curious about retiring in Mexico, and those who desire information about Mexico and most specifically about the very lovely state of Michoacán - and yes, AMIGO has sophisticated enough software it will accept accents and other diacritical marks without producing junk characters like on some message board formats.

I hope to hear from others that also have ideas about reaching a very large audience and creating something very useful and informative.

In response to questions I have received in private mail about the need for moderators on AMIGO:

That time has come. I have experimented with the various features of this board for several weeks and better understand now what it is capable of. It is essentially 23 (or whatever number I care to make it) Yahoogroup boards with expanded capabilities and less quirky software. Also it is a lot more private and customizable.

I do not want the AMIGO board to become solely my personality and dominated by my own contributions. That was necessary to begin with when the board needed to acquire a few postings to begin making it interesting but we are now approaching 1000 posts. Besides, I can't alone feed it the variety of commentary and interests our community deserves. More personalities are needed to give it a more complete view.

The idea is to assign particular forums to people who have an interest or talent in specific areas that can stimulate activity in those arenas. I hope to have members/moderators to take-on areas like the Events forums and other categories that they already contribute a lot to, though perhaps not yet on this board. Some may wish to have specific-interests forums, like one devoted to outdoor-activities, which I could create for them.

As mentioned in the OP, there are informational forums and discussion forums which offer current information and the latter to provide an extended look at important or popular issues. These forums necessarily function a bit differently in scope and thrust. There is also a need for some feature-length articles and photo essays that persons with moderator status would create and become the featured columnist, perhaps also with their own discussion forums to field questions and comments in their areas of expertise.

I intend to consolidate, remove, or add to the existing forums to give a more multi-dimensional look at our community as more talent comes forth to address these interests. New moderators will be given one or more forums or new forums will be created for them to moderate and guide as their own projects. Some areas would require more direct attention while other forum types are less demanding. Columnist/contributers can devote as much or as little time as they care to. I will still exercise administrative functions on the board but will have a larger group of moderators to offer ideas, suggestions, and make decisions about where AMIGO is heading.

Most of AMIGO is accessible by the public as guests and do not require being registered members. Most of AMIGO traffic are guests reading the board's content and frequently Google and Bing search-bots are scanning board material, the material which is open to public view, while member-only areas remain private and unseen except to registered members or to members who belong to specific groups. AMIGO provides space to some who have areas only accessible to those specific groups. These unregistered guests remain completely anonymous except that they do appear as guests viewing the board and a map can show the country they are viewing from. Since this weekend I have observed guests viewing AMIGO from countries such as Spain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Thailand, China, and Brazil as well as those viewing from here in Mexico, the US, and Canada.

Congrats on the success of your board Peter. It looks awesome. We do miss you over at Inside Lakeside though.......

Salud,

CanuckBob wrote:

Congrats on the success of your board Peter. It looks awesome. We do miss you over at Inside Lakeside though.......

Salud,

CB!! Thanks. How are ya? What an unexpected surprise. True, I don't get over there often enough these days, just like my visits to Lakeside. I need to be doing both more often. I'll be seeing you soon now, shame on me.

Truth is, I haven't been spending enough time here on my own board and have been mostly contributing on Above Top Secret site. And then there is my new board http://policysolutions.forumotion.com/ but that's mainly anti-prohibition, implementation of new policy type site. Old potheads like me can't stop prattling about legalizing weed and now it finally looks like people are coming to their senses about the subject. Don't know why the fuss, building and running web blogs is more addicting than any drug, except cigarettes perhaps.

OK, I have been properly shamed, done it to myself, I will be seeing you folks over there soon. Probably have to hang out in the Octagon and push my pot though.

See you soon, Bob. Thanks for dropping in. -Pete

Well, Peter, Dawg might take on the burden of moderating a forum on Southern Mexico including, say, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Tabasco and The Yucatan Peninsula (even though much of that peninsula is not geographically in Southern Mexico) the north of which is culturally akin to much of that region.

I do have one concern, however. In order to get to San Cristóbal da Las Casas from Lake Chapala we have to drive through Michoacan State in order to get to La Piedad or Atlacomulco to access the Arco Norte for Puebla yet Ex-Michoacan Aficianada Esperanza is quite adamant that Michoacan is so dangerous she fled to Mexico City to escape the wrath of La Familia and The Knights Templar, therefore Dawg seeks safe passage from the Jalisco/Michoacan state line to the Michoacan/Edomex/Guanajuato state lines from you as payment for said services.

This may be an historical first; fleeing to Mexico City for one´s personal safety and bespeaks how dreadful things must be over there in your chosen home territory.

I won´t bother volunteering to moderate a forum on Lake Chapala´s "Lakeside" area since every foreigner living here is already an expert on everything Mexican. Maybe CB will be available for that after he leaves the Land of Chipi-Chipi and joins us in paradise.

She claims to have left Morelia for Mexico City for TWO reasons, the danger and the traffic here. The traffic I can attest to though it usually is not all that bad and the city is quite navigable, and the danger can be seen in the news though from my perspective and having lived in the centro as well as in an outter colonia for over six years it seems fairly quiet to me for a city of this size.

I think she does us an injustice to Morelia and for some reason feels the compulsion to besmirch our fair city's reputation. Sour grapes perhaps?? I have asked others, Mexico natives included, what their opinion was about someone leaving Morelia to move to Mexico City to avoid the danger and the traffic. 100% thought that was ludicrous but suggested that if such a person had gotten in with bad company and made enemies here it might be to their advantage to leave the area. While I can speak for myself and have heard comments from others I know she can be a bit antagonistic but I never really considered to be a bad person.

As regards to moderating a regional section on this forum, I believe that would be an excellent idea for you to take the entire mis-named "Southern Mexico" region. Currently I have the regions partitioned to the various parts of Michoacán and a separate part for all the rest of Mexico. That really is not working well in that configuration so was thinking of putting all of Michoacán together and partitioning off other regions of Mexico into North, South, and Central while maintaining Michoacán in it's own classification in keeping with this board's focus. I would give great creedence to whatever suggestion you may propose in that regard if you were considering taking over a part of that forum.

I also have been experimenting with an alternative format that I think looks attractive and would be particularly applicable to the regional sections. In this format it has more the looks of a columnist's blog. that would be ideal for you and for a better presentation of the regions. You can see an example of this formatting in the Mexico News and La Comida sections on this site where I am trying them out. I will take some time right away to restructure the Regional Category then ask your opinion and see how you like it. Of course I will be open to other modifications as you may suggest. Thanks, Dawg.

Dawg:

Any of us that have followed the various Mexico forums would realize that the Dawg is by far the most prolific poster on topics related to Chiapas and that portion of Mexico. In fact, I have often wondered if other Gringos drawn to that particular area lose their ability to write after moving there? Or are they trying to keep it a secret? At any rate, the Dawg would be moderating himself which may be an impossible task!

Peter:

As you are aware, I was involved in a short lived administrative position with creating a Mexico forum. Coming up with rational defined sections for various parts of Mexico is a daunting task and is further compounded by just what others think should be included in a given area. Hell, many of them have no idea where they are and just where to place a post! Even MexCon with all of their longevity cannot be complimented for the manner in which they have it divided. For example, just this week they added a new section titled: Mexico City & Surrounding. While perfectly logical, I have to wonder why this just happened after all these years? I would have to speculate that probably the more commonly used corridor for Gringo residents to use when heading NOB is the one to the Texas border towns of Laredo, Brownsville, etc. but they do not have a regional section that even deals with that portion of Mexico. Good luck with figuring it out!

As long as someone knows they're in Mexico it should be OK the way I have it. If they can further figure out that they are on the Coast then we've made some further progress. If they know they're in Michoacán then we're cooking with gas.

I made the sections into Estados Unidos Méxicanos - the Whole Enchilada, La Costa, and a special Michoacán section, then US Consulate advisories for that category. Anything more specific can be done with the thread title and if there is some overlap that is OK too, Michoacán also has beaches and is likewise located in Mexico. If someone wants to post a Coast or Michoacán thread to The Whole Enchilada that is OK too.

I changed the formatting of the Regional Section to blog-style and even changed the name of the site, yet still retain Michoacán as the main focus - just not quite as myopic as before.

cheenagringo wrote:

Dawg:

Any of us that have followed the various Mexico forums would realize that the Dawg is by far the most prolific poster on topics related to Chiapas and that portion of Mexico. In fact, I have often wondered if other Gringos drawn to that particular area lose their ability to write after moving there? Or are they trying to keep it a secret? At any rate, the Dawg would be moderating himself which may be an impossible task!

Dawg moderating hissef. What a great concept. Actually, Neil, Dawg has always moderated hissef here and on Mexico Connect and Chapala.Com over the years upon awakening from bouts of alcohol indulgence and was at one time the major contributor to Mexico Connect both as "Bubba" and "Hound Dog" and those folks banned me three times later requesting my re-participation after the first bannings which came about when I called their then moderator - a lawyerly woman living in Morelia - a "pianista" which pissed her off incomparably. The second banning came when I took on another moderator who tried to pass off the redneck cuisine of outback Michoacan as a world heritage skill. What is Dawg to do? Sit there and read hokum as if it were presented on any even simple basis as fact? To allow some phony psuedo-chinese-sous-chef from the Texas outback speak of fine cuisine from Harlingen, Texas and Nueva Italia, Michoacan as if the world stopped spinning when passing these redneck havens? Many of the things I said over there later judged as inappropriate by the Vancouver based (for God´s sake) Webjefe were probably made under the influence of distilled agave as I think the sudden excision of BubbaDawg was by a perhaps inebriated Webjefe trying to ward of the foggy chill of Vancouver Island so, what the hell, it´s his toy bought and sold many times over at midnight hours of distress.

Dawg moderating hissef An absurdist concept but no less absurdist than Dawg being moderated by a Vancouver Island dweller who left Mexico years ago and, is depressed by the chipi-chipi and at one time, begged Dawg to re-enter his fold only to capriciously kick hime out again inexplicably.

Management of ongoing enterprises is best kept unvarying even when those managing consider themselves of extraordinary artisitic bent.

Well put BubbaDawg! Don't forget that I have been following you along that wordsmith path for many years!

Hound Dog wrote:

cheenagringo wrote:

Dawg:

Any of us that have followed the various Mexico forums would realize that the Dawg is by far the most prolific poster on topics related to Chiapas and that portion of Mexico. In fact, I have often wondered if other Gringos drawn to that particular area lose their ability to write after moving there? Or are they trying to keep it a secret? At any rate, the Dawg would be moderating himself which may be an impossible task!

Dawg moderating hissef. What a great concept. Actually, Neil, Dawg has always moderated hissef here and on Mexico Connect and Chapala.Com over the years upon awakening from bouts of alcohol indulgence and was at one time the major contributor to Mexico Connect both as "Bubba" and "Hound Dog" and those folks banned me three times later requesting my re-participation after the first bannings which came about when I called their then moderator - a lawyerly woman living in Morelia - a "pianista" which pissed her off incomparably. The second banning came when I took on another moderator who tried to pass off the redneck cuisine of outback Michoacan as a world heritage skill. What is Dawg to do? Sit there and read hokum as if it were presented on any even simple basis as fact? To allow some phony psuedo-chinese-sous-chef from the Texas outback speak of fine cuisine from Harlingen, Texas and Nueva Italia, Michoacan as if the world stopped spinning when passing these redneck havens? Many of the things I said over there later judged as inappropriate by the Vancouver based (for God´s sake) Webjefe were probably made under the influence of distilled agave as I think the sudden excision of BubbaDawg was by a perhaps inebriated Webjefe trying to ward of the foggy chill of Vancouver Island so, what the hell, it´s his toy bought and sold many times over at midnight hours of distress.

Dawg moderating hissef An absurdist concept but no less absurdist than Dawg being moderated by a Vancouver Island dweller who left Mexico years ago and, is depressed by the chipi-chipi and at one time, begged Dawg to re-enter his fold only to capriciously kick hime out again inexplicably.

Management of ongoing enterprises is best kept unvarying even when those managing consider themselves of extraordinary artisitic bent.

If worse come to worse and Dawg got hold of some real rot-gut Cuervo I could temporarily designate the Regional forums to members-only access, at least in his section until that raven said, "nevermore". Easy fix, no harm no foul.

I did a little sprucing-up for the summer. Merged some forums and deleted the empty ones, unpacked the forum hierarchy in its lighter form, and changed the presentation format in Regional to give Dawg a columnist's styling. Nobody mentioned anything about my previous changes, figure they didn't want to hurt my feelings. Don't know if anyone noticed but I changed the name of the site, less myopic and still keep my acronym.

Peter:

Not sure what you have inserted for the "keywords" for this forum but I just did a Google search for "Michoacan Forums" and it took until page 6 for this forum to show. That is a long ways down the list for someone to find if they are looking for a forum. While keywords are critical for the search engines, traffic does also play a part.

Not sure if should, if , or why that would be much concern. I don't make any money or brownie points for more traffic.

I guess the idea is to have traffic. Did this change from before? I mean, we're not exactly a blockbuster attraction here.

I realize that you don't make money from additional traffic but it is one of the keys to drawing new members. Just for comparison, do a Google search for either Lake Chapala forums or Chapala Forums and see the listing. That is a very common way that people who become interested in an area find these forums in the first place. Obviously, it is your forum and you can do as you see fit.


May I suggest that the logging on of any forum designating itself as "Chapala" oriented suggests a venue suited to finding a place to buy deeply absorbing reinforcing underwear or the most facilitating road to Ixtlahuacan de Membrillos in which membrillos have not been grown since Nuño Beltran de Guzman passed through in the 16th Century on his way to slaughtering countless indigenous slaves questioning his right to be there.

Perhaps you could incease readership by renaming the forum "Uncle Remus - Doo Dah, Doo, Dah."

Dawg

Naturally having traffic, contributers/posters, members would be desireable. I just don't know how to improve that any. Sounds like credit, you can't get any if you don't already have any.

What does it take to get a higher status, and did this change anything from before? Make it better or worse?

Congratulations to BubbaDawg for finally getting his name in moderator blue! I would be willing to bet that is a first!

Dawg is probably not yet aware of that. I just "purpled" it a bit to match his avatar better.

OK, Dawg, you are Moderator of two forums, "Estados Unidos Mxicanos - the Whole Enchilada" and "La Costa de México" both in the Regional section. As stated in the OP of this thread:

Quote :

"It is hoped and expected new moderators will contribute to their forum, stimulate discussion, and lend their own style and personality to their forum. Moderators will be able to re-name their forums, decide their direction, and set their distinct character and nature. AMIGO is a sophisticated design that permits photos to be embeded, videos, links, font changes and can be personalized for general appearance and for who and how it is accessed and whether it is public or private. "

So, you see that the names of your forums and the forums themselves can be changed, added, deleted to whatever you would care to call or have them. If the Whole Enchilada is too much to swallow it can be broken-up into more bite-size regional bits, or can consolidate La Costa into all one in the same, however you wish. Those are Admin functions to set those so you are going to need your keys to the Executive Washroom. On the homepage at the top of your Member's Lounge you will find, just for you, a Moderators/Admin Forum where you can tell me what regional divisions you would like to have set-up.

This forum will give us private communications and does not show up on anyone else's screen, it's for Moderators and Admin only. There will be some intructions about how to use your controls and how to embed photos, YouTube video players, or whatever enhancements you wish. Any of those things I can do for you while you learn how to use them for yourself. You will see that I have changed the appearance of the forum for you and gave it a distinct look and format.

At the bottom of the pages in those sections you will find a permission statement that reads:


That little underlined statement is the hot link to the moderators menu that makes it Rock 'n Roll.

No hurry getting things going, take your time and look things over. This will be your department to run as you wish. As a minimum all you have to do is show up for work every couple of weeks or so and post something new. There is no maximum to restrain you, you can become the foremost columnist in all of the Mexico Expat blog culture. You have a good following already and a lot of fans. This site is now just over four months old there is plenty of room to expand and become the leading site on the internet and has all the modern features available. Go get 'em, Dawg.

Any more takers? I would still like to get a live Chatroom Moderator to set some live chat hours for a couple hours at a regular time a couple days a week or more. Could get lonely in there if you don't invite some friends over, but at least I will be on-hand to chat - I don't have any friends.

I still would like some feature-length articles and/or photo essays to put on some seperate pages apart from the forums and accessible by the menu bar at the top of the homepage. Plenty of room for expansion here. I may eventully do all that myself but it could take awhile. This site needs to find or create some new celebrities.

Thanks, I think, for the seeming elevated status or should I be saying, a la Yosemite Sam, "¡Whoa camel, whoa camel! ¡When Ah say whoa Ah mean WHOA!

Please bear in mind that Dawg and his beloved bride are off to the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market in New Mexico to work with our friend Guadalupe Hermosillo Escobar, the San Cristóbal artisan who owns the Hermosillo Museo de Metalliseria in that city and we will only return to Mexico in August so please do not think any unresponsiveness on our parts indicates a lack of enthusiasm in joining with others to make this interesting forum a success. We think you guys are on to something here, especially if the brand invites a more widespread and intellectually curious readership so it pleases me that there is this attempt to broaden exposure.

Some other forums have become tired in their presentations with capricious or arrogant moderators and management so perhaps there is an opening in the market for a fresh face. We´ll see. Competition is good for the soul.

Perhaps, Peter, we can explore those forums in which Dawg might participate upon our return to Lake Chapala in August. Right now, La Jefa is not receptive to Dawg´s peripheral activities and, after all, she be´s in charge.

BubbaDawg

OK, this just gives you time to give it some thought. August is inside the timeframe of a couple months to post something, anything, on those forums. There have been inquiries about other forums but not yet the Regionals. Up for grabs there would be the Michoacán forum, which you would not be much interested in, and the possible slicing of the Whole Enchilada into Northern and Southern divisions of which you being a rebel would want the South. I see no conflict and no hurry. Post something about the South of Mexico or the Coast and your non-obligation is fulfilled - you don't have to tell the boss about that, just say you're posting for the fun of it.

In the meantime experiment around with the controls. You can create a temporary or experimental post or several in the Moderators Forum to test out without disrupting your public forums - I gave you mod powers within the Mod forum for that reason.

Please do let me know that you see the Moderators Forum OK and that it is operating for you, and that you see that permission line below the posts in your Regional sections. They should be there already or I can fix them if not. In the mean time it gives me a chance to leave some instructional material in the Mod forum. Plus you get to wear a purple name tag.

Quoting Peter:
"I still would like some feature-length articles and/or photo essays to put on some seperate pages apart from the forums and accessible by the menu bar at the top of the homepage. Plenty of room for expansion here. I may eventully do all that myself but it could take awhile."

You wish can be my command. As you know, we are planning to spend a couple of days in the area and I have made it my mission/obligation to take as many photos as possible on this trip. Assuming that I am able to get a decent representation of each area that we visit, I will commit to both a written report of our observations but also a slideshow of each location.

Very excellent. Having a website covering this area it is imperative that we cover these artisan villages that dot the landscape here by Vasco de Quiroga's plan. This is the only site in the are that has the capability to do this sort of thing and it is something that must be done.

There are so many specialty pueblos it could take years to do this right. Now I have to teach myself HTML coding so I can make these pages. This website project is one big education. I understand why everyone else here has Yahoogroup sites. They are just too easy and way too inadequate.

Thanks Neil I appreciate the commitment. You have already covered more of these places in your brief vists here than many folks have in the years they have lived here.

In a way, this forum may be lucking out. In the past, I always had your basic Canon point and shoot digital camera and mislead myself that I was doing a decent job of documenting our Mexico travels. It was after that I accepted the fact that I was nothing more than an amateur that I started whining about needing a REAL camera to get a real picture on our travels and picked out a nice new model of Nikon. Well that camera came under the Christmas tree and now I need to perform. Even though I went to college, I am not sure that I understand all of the features or capabilities but have been doing my due diligence trying to understand everything. If nothing else, I may end up with some lousy photos but hopefully some good ones. I am absolutely dedicated to the educational opportunities available on this trip!

Since the "old days" I have always had an SLR camera, typically Pentax or Nikon, from college days on. Throughout my career with DoD I have had the endorsement "Official Photographer" on my badge and travel orders with a number of years that being my primary job, video more specifically.

Now that I am retired and film cameras are a thing of the past I have not upgraded nor have had mre than the slightest desire to do so, not really caring ever to pick up another camera in my life. After retiring I even distanced myself from the internet for several years only getting back into it when I moved to the Centro while renovating the house and had wireless available. See where that has gotten me? Only then and after a long time did I decide I needed a basic digital camera.

That is what I have, a basic point and shoot Samsung camera in around the $200us price range, not expensive but not the cheapest either. It shoots clean and clear but there is some spatial distortion from the lens but I can live with that. These cameras are capable of so much higher resolution than I need - good for cropping down to a tiny piece and blowing it up when needed.

I set the camera on its lowest resolution then upload to internet size of 640 pix. The photos load quickly with even a slow connection, they are clean and crisp. Suits me fine. A good SLR would let me play with depth of field and, I am assuming even with digital, some control over aperture and shutter speed so I could get some artsy effects. Nice to have and for some people a necessity. For me it would pull me out of retirement, not unlike this web stuff that occupies so much of my time anymore.

Perhaps someday I will want a pro camera again but at this time that's not likely. I might even chuck this web stuff if I were not the only one doing what I do in this area - Ygroups don't count in my book. If I can find some enthusiastic mods I could maybe start living life again, though I'm not sure I remember how. Not likely though, when I'm not here or on my other two sites I am spending my time contributing to ATS.

Good luck with your camera. I envy you, but not that much.