I’m only one person and this site has so many impressive people, but I’m deciding if I’m going to stick around or not. I was thinking not and this thread isn’t moving me toward staying. I was a guidance counselor who specialized in helping students get into colleges. When my son got to the college search age I read most every book I could on everything to do with it and tons of websites and talked to tons of people. I hired a very reasonably priced (low priced compared to most) college counselor who has 30 years experience and was a dynamo at giving us great info. My husband and I went to a very highly ranked college and our son got into multiple highly ranked colleges and honors programs and got impressive scholarships. I am not bragging. I’m explaining that I’m someone who can give what might be helpful and useful advice to students here. I enjoy doing things like that. It’s why I work as a teacher now. Most everyone here knows as much or much, much more than I do about this topic. Most I would guess know more than me. It would be good to want us to stay around and work for free giving advice. I don’t know what the game plan is for keeping this site earning money. I don’t think overmoderation of threads that are popular with adults here is a good strategy, whatever the big picture plan is.
It might just be easier to have a boilerplate response to complaints from people who are in @Nhatrang’s #6 (dislike of someone else’s opinion), something along the lines of, “This post does not violate College Confidential’s terms of service.” Then don’t allow complaints. I know complaints about moderation and site operations in general used to be shut down pretty quickly. I think that may have changed when the upgrade happened and so many people had difficulty accessing the site.
Could you provide moderators with a few pre-packaged responses they could click on to make moderation easier? One for bad language, another for links that aren’t allowed, another to warn against political discussions, etc.? I know it wouldn’t cut down the time required to read through threads but. at least mods wouldn’t have to formulate a response except for more complicated or nuanced situations. There may already be something like this in use, but if not it may be worth doing.
Please please take your expertise and look at the other subforums here. Look at College Search and Selection, or the Parents Forum, places where folks ARE asking questions about college and would welcome your expertise. Lots of room in those places for helpful advice that you can likely provide. Or financial aid…and especially if you have insights on how families can find affordable college options. Very collegial group of posters on these subforums…a nice blend of new and old posters.
Different perspective than just the Cafe…or the Covid threads. My opinion.
I definitely think all personal put downs should be moderated. No one should be using foul language or dissing other posters personally (eg, you’re an idiot or you’re a fat slob, etc). However, it’s fair to call policies out for what they are as long as facts are involved (eg this is why this seems to be a bad idea for you to go walking on ice that is cracking). Sometimes it helps to have facts supported by data from other sites. Sometimes it’s obvious.
This is all common on the college threads - esp debt vs prestige where there is a diversity of thought and many post their personal data points as well as congregate ones from other sources. It should be allowed with all threads.
If there has been one sided deletion of posts I haven’t seen it, but I’m not always on long enough to see what has been deleted. I know on the Covid threads I’ve seen things deleted that I don’t think needed to be deleted at all - facts and theories with no dissing involved. That’s irritating. I like facts. I like theories to ponder.
If folks are complaining about threads because they don’t like what they are reading it seems a simple answer would be for them not to bother reading that thread. No one has to read every thread out there. There are many I skip. There are some I start on and drift away from because they take a track I’m not interested in. That’s ok. CC doesn’t have to be all about me. If the thread is of interest to enough posters it will stay active. If more are like me and don’t care for it, it will die a natural death.
I think most (all?) people reading on a college forum are intelligent enough to figure out humans are different and there will be some we’re not likely to get along with IRL. As long as they’re not using foul language or personally calling other posters names, they have as much of a right to be here as any of us.
I can say from my own personal experience it’s not that difficult to skim or skip over certain posts since it’s pretty much known what’s going to be in them. It might be a college related thread or it might be a covid thread. There’s really no difference though I’ve found I can agree with someone on one type of thread and be a polar opposite on another. That’s pretty much typical human too.
I have done that a little. You are right, there is a lot of neat stuff there.
@Creekland Absolutely one can skip threads and posts. I only follow a handful of threads these days. However, if the rules are “no politics” then I don’t want to see politics in a thread I otherwise would like to read. If the Admins decide politics will be allowed or want to loosen that up, then it’s up to me to decide not to follow the discussion.
I also skip posts from some folks who I don’t feel add value or have used the forum as a personal blog. That’s totally something I can control. I’m not paying money to engage on CC, so if it goes in a direction that doesn’t work for me, I can disengage. It’s been a lot of years for me (since 2004) and I did serve a niche role back in the day advising on a certain application pitfall and I’ve given some behind the scenes legal advice and referrals on occasion. We’ll see how things develop.
I do think moderation is sometimes needed when threads stray too far off track. Some digression is natural and sometimes interesting side conversations occur, but when a thread on the best routes for a summer trip to see schools in upstate NY turns into a debate as to whether Buffalo or Minneapolis gets more annual snowfall it helps to have a moderator step in with a gentle reminder to stay on topic.
We all pick and choose our threads. I avoid “Chance me” threads like the plague. The challenge, as I see it, is keeping useful threads from becoming less so. If posters feel disrespected or unwelcome or just find that the thread has gone so far astray that they end up wanting to leave it doesn’t serve anyone well.
I’ve seen a couple of references now about concerns about posters using CC as a personal blog. What would examples be (in general).
I do think that most threads should be allowed to run theIr course ( even if there are sometimes some twists and turns). Most discussions seem to get back on track with little to no moderation. There are some posters that do seem to want threads to stay very contained and I do wonder if some are reporting more than needs be. Spam, personal attacks should never be okay but some things may be best left to naturally work themselves out.
An example of a personal blog would be a post started by a poster devoted entirely to her or his own situation. Enough said. Add to that repeating a lot of the information from that thread in other threads or tying every topic to his or her own situation.
@sevmom I assume the personal blog comment was at me. But I have one thread that is easy to jump over. I don’t know anyone making multiple threads like it’s their own personal blog but ?
@MomofWildChild, If those threads aren’t of interest to the general community they tend to die pretty quickly. This is a social community for many of us, even as we strive to assist students and parents with the application process.
Some of the posts run far off track, but seem to come back on their own (What do you need to Retire is one I’ve personally enjoyed). If it stays away too long, perhaps the moderator can gently guide it back, but many of the side tracks were still valuable to those concerned about retirement.
If too many posts start to concentrate on a related topic (Making Masks), just start a new thread. Often this is done by a poster, but a Moderator can suggest as well. Better than closing a thread because it has veared off subject!
I also enjoyed the HUGE Covid thread. I would visit about 4x a week (ok, guilty… often more), but would simply scan most of the posts, and skip many. It made it difficult to respond to a question or concern, because by the time I read it, multiple pages were added. But that didn’t make it less valuable.
A LOT of us have loved your thread. It’s given us a wonderful positive spot in a time of horrible turmoil. No one has to read your thread if they don’t want to.
Aren’t many of the threads on CC about “help me make sense of XYZ in this journey” type, exactly about one’s own (or one’s kid’s own) situation? I love those posts! I was following one about a girl seeking a lot of merit aid with great stats and a sister with disabilities. I have little in common with that family but still really enjoyed it.
I thought people could just bookmark what they liked to read and just check for posts in interesting sub-forums - it’s not a gulag where you’re forced to read everything.
My thread has been up almost a year and it started off as me asking about personal experiences with infertility. The name change and the subsequent traffic was because people asked to follow my journey. I assumed if it was too far off, it would’ve been closed down. In the spirit of CC, I’m currently accepting tips on how best to prepare my 3 week old for HYPS 
But on a serious note, this is why I favor a COVID subforum. That way if no one wants to read the many, many threads on COVID, they can skip them.
Or would there be a way to make it so that we can hide certain threads from our own feed? I’m not sure why people can’t just skip over any they don’t care about but maybe that would be helpful for someone?
Some years ago we were told to not start personal threads in the Cafe. There were several wedding threads and some other topics relevant to a single poster and I guess it became too much. That’s what drove my comment about the individual blog thread. Clearly that rule has been relaxed.
To be fair, nearly all threads devoted to a personal situation have ended when all the advice was given and the situation resolved. They did not continue on indefinitely with references, comments, and discussions about personal photos and videos posted elsewhere. That is indeed a personal blog. Such blogs seems much more suited to Facebook or Instagram or such. That is where people usually follow “journeys” rather than a discussion forum.
If everyone who wanted to showcase their ongoing life started a personal thread with a fan club, the Parent Cafe would be overwhelmed.
Moderators - what is the official position? Can we each start our own blog? 
The thread has had mod participation so it seems ok
Don’t worry, we’re now talking about college stuff on there now
We’ve made a few exceptions. I can think of at least one person’s journey through a terminal illness, for example, and another person’s renovation projects. People enjoy @romanigypsyeyes’ thread and I don’t have a problem with it. @CCadmin_Jon can weigh in if he feels differently.
I guess I don’t understand what this means. I know it’s a no-no to “ask for a friend” so what could you post a question about that isn’t “personal”? Not trying to be snarky, I really don’t understand what the issue is.