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 - http://amigo.foroactivo.mx 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,

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.

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

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