A little behind the scenes of X Marks

[Steve Ashton]

Hi folks,

As there has been some discussion about the rules of the forum and about how those rules are applied I thought I would give everyone a peek behind the scenes and a bit of insight to how X Marks is run.

Please understand that I cannot, and will not, speak about any particular issue or case. That would be inappropriate.

What I can do is let you into how and why our current rules and policies were written, and how they are administered.

We currently have a staff of 9. The 7 Forum Moderators, myself, and our software wizard. Each of the Moderators were chosen because they had demonstrated that they were, in a word, moderate. We have 5 men and 2 women currently serving as Forum Moderators. For a listing of our Forum Moderators please click the "Meet the Staff" tab on the dark blue navigation panel near the top of every page.

Some of you who have been around X Marks for a long time may remember those early days when we were totally surprised when we broke a hundred members. We had no idea, not even a dream, that some day we would have close to 20,000 members who would be looking towards their one millionth post.

Hank Hanna (Highlandtide) was the originator of X Marks. Hank used to sell t-shirts and other small items at Highland Games. He was amused at the way some people would dress while attending Games and began to take photos of them. There was the guy with his kilt on backwards and the guy with the blue facepaint and huge sword. Hank thought it would be fun and informative to put these photos on the web.

Hank's primary supplier was a company that produced, among other things, a license plate frame that had the phrase X Marks the Scot using the Scottish Saltaire flag as the "X". Hank approached his supplier and asked permission to use this phrase as the name for his new website. That was granted as long as it included the .com portion.

And X Marks was born.

But perhaps a little history is in order.

Prior to X Marks going live on the 24th of January 2004 there was another site called Tom's Cafe. Hamish and a few other kilt wearers hung out there and would discuss their kilts. It was a heady time as the Utilikilt Company had just started up and there was a lot of buzz around this new style of kilt. (Hamish was actually the first international sale by the Utilikilt Co.)
Tom's cafe was not a Kilt specific site. It was more a Men's fashion freedom site. Any type of alternative male dress was allowed. Before long a very small and vocal group began to take over Tom's Cafe with photos of men in ladies dresses.

Along comes the site "Bravehearts" and a few weeks later X Marks. It was Hank who originally set the policy that X Marks would be dedicated to the Kilt. It was Hank who wrote the first rule of X Marks. No Cross Dressing. This was an attempt to prevent what had happened to Tom's Cafe.

Those in the world who wore the kilt had been looking for a place to go after the fall of Tom's Cafe and Hamish along with a few friends found X Marks.

But Hank was not really interested in running an on-line forum. He had a young family and another full time business. Hank soon found that the little picture site he had started was growing far beyond what he had the time and interest in running on a day-to day-basis. Hank asked a friend with computer experience to become the Administrator and take over the day-to-day operations. Some of you may remember those days.

This is when we had the first members banned from the forum. One person liked to wear this kilts at mid-thigh height and would post about how he loved to twirl as he passed construction sites.
We had another member who posted a photo of himself standing in front of a card table with the caption "How many weapons can you conceal under your kilt? He then posted a second photo of himself in front of the same table with 13 various guns and knives piled on the table.
Another member seemed to take delight in posting in a very confrontational manner. He stated he liked to "stir the pot" to encourage lively discussions.

About a year past. X Marks had grown to over 500 members. I think you can guess how frustrating it would become constantly putting out fires on a forum with no written rules and an absentee owner. The only tool the Administrator had at the time was to ban a member if it was felt that they were causing a problem. Approximately 50-60 members logged on only to find that they had been banned. No reasons were given and no recourse. One of these banned members was so upset that he started his own kilt forum.

The Brotherhood of the Kilt was the child of a bannned X Marks member. Other banned members found a place where a "Banned from X Marks" in your signature block was a badge of honor. Some of the members would come back to X Marks under another name and attempt to disrupt this forum just for fun or perhaps out of spite. This practice got totally out of hand very quickly. Those who were here in those years can remember some of this.

Finally Hank stepped in. Hank had visited his forum on a fairly regular basis although he no longer posted. Hank made a decision that X Marks was proving to be too much for just one person. A few other members were invited to the staff to help take the load off the Administrator.
And then Hank and his wife had a baby. From that point on Hank was too involved and busy to give any time to the forum and he had grown tired of the daily problems the forum was presenting.

In the years between 2006 and 2010 X Marks had many staff members. Some would be in charge of creating a post each day for each member’s Birthday. One took care of an X Mark map showing where we all lived.

There was no real plan for writing a set of rules in those days. When someone did something and were banned a new sentence would be added to the rules covering that incident. Before long the forum rules were a jumble of unrelated sentences. One sentence ran on for over 50 words. No one would read the forum rules nor were they understandable if someone attempted. The forum was still run by a small group that while very dedicated, received little guidance or direction and had no system of keeping track of what had been done in the past and why.

So how did we get to where we are today?