| Under New Management...
For some time there has a bit of uncertainty about Chronocentric's Open Moderator position...
First off, well... It's a Bad News/Good News, Better News, Best News situation...
First the Bad News. Which all the regulars have been keenly aware of...
Chronocentric has needed a moderator, at times desperately, since Derek Ziglar's death. The bad news is that we are not going to get a new moderator...
The Good News is we're going to get TWO new moderator's to fill Derek's moderator's role here on Chronocentric / Forum Discussion forum...
The Better News is neither of those moderator's are me! And that's better news for a couple of reasons...
I have never been a huge participant over here on the Forum discussion forum. I felt it was much more important to have, well, an insider -- a regular within the forum who had a good feel of the personality, atmosphere and flavor of FORUM as a moderator. Frankly, that wasn't and isn't me.
Jeff and I wished to preserve a sense of continuity with the existing Chronocentric Omega Forum. However, we didn't want the forum to stagnate either. We want Forum to be equipped to grow as needed, have moderation with a strong and solid interest in modern and Vintage watches (Omega and other brands), an established background of providing valued information to the greater watch community and skill with HTML skills would be helpful as well. We didn't want to "loot" other sites of their moderators, because we're good neighbors.
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly Jeff and my goals were simply this: Keep the forum something that Derek would have enjoyed participating in, fun, informative, open, noncommercial, polite and family friendly with relatively few rules and obstacles to people's participation.
As you can see that's a lot of bases to cover...
When Jeff asked me... 'Who's the best choice to moderate this Forum?'... Two names were at the top of my list.
The BEST news is that we got them both of them!
The new moderators of the FORUM Omega Discussion Forum are: (in alphabetical order) Keith Downing and Steve Waddington.
Keith Downing is likely well known to most if not all of you in the Forum forum. Keith has been a long time participant here at the Chronocentric Omega Forum, also at TimeZone, and other watch discussion forums elsewhere. Keith is mainly a modern Omega collector, has a long established record of participation and assisting on queries of all levels. Keith recently relocated from Southern California to Texas and is in many ways the perfect candidate for a moderation position.
Steve Waddington is also likely well known to most if not all of you in the Forum forum as well. In addition to his regular participation within various watch discussion forums, Steve has his own website Old-Omega's.com, which has it's focus (mainly) on posting scans of older Omega catalogs and instruction manuals. Steve's interests span more towards the Vintage than modern watches. Steve has a good working knowledge of HTML and hosting content/process. Steve is a Briton living in Germany, and speaks/writes fluently in both English and German.
As you can see, with both Steve and Keith we cover a lot of ground in terms of expertise, geographical region (we will have better "clock coverage" should spam be posted in the middle of the night somewhere someone will more likely see it quickly to remove it) and we have backup... something we didn't have with one moderator. I think the team is a good combination for the forum, while they complement each other and the forum's needs well.
Jeff and I have not been regular participants in this Forum, and so perhaps we should apologize in advance if anyone here feels slighted or that they have been overlooked. Jeff and I do plan to become more active participants, and more frequent visitors. Over here, I'm expecting Keith and Steve to keep us in line! =) If someone has issues with our choices, or has suggestions for future consideration, please feel free to contact either Jeff or me. We'd have an open mind about the future...
Jeff and I also want to take this opportunity to state for the record…
It is absolutely amazing, and a real tribute to Derek and the participants of this Forum that for six full months there has been essentially NO moderator at all and save for a few Spam messages that are no one but the poster's fault you've conducted yourselves in a manner to be proud of. I sincerely doubt the same could be said of any other watch discussion site, including OnTheDash's Heuer forum!
Two words: Well done!
With the regaining of control of the administration of the Chronocentric site, Jeff and I retain moderation control of OnTheDash, we'll also add moderation privileges on ChronoTrader, CounterfeitWatchers, Forums. Jeff and I see our roles will be primarily in the role of oversight moderation... Day to day, or "Tactical" moderation will be Keith and Steve's call, while Jeff and I will be overall "umbrella"/Strategic moderators who for the most part stay out of daily administrative affairs of this Forum, except in obvious/extreme cases or we see obvious Spam begging to be deleted.
Our goal, is to keep Forum something that Derek would have enjoyed participating in, fun, informative, free, polite and family friendly. And further continue this discussion forum and hopefully to build and expand Chronocentric as needs and interests direct.
Please welcome Steve & Keith to their new position and take good care of them!
-- Chuck Maddox | 
