Is Court TV having financial problems?

Is CTV in such financial constraints they can not support the message board they advertise?

"Bandwidth" is evidently a problem for Court TV. Often referenced by the administrator "Coldwater" at Court TV message boards who is frequently seen posting warnings about "bandwidth waste"? By simply following the standard procedure and quoting the post you are responding to, you are wasting bandwidth!

If Court TV didn't or can't build a workable system or are lacking financial backing to handle the traffic, why do they advertise to generate new traffic?

Court TV Message Boards

Want to register for CTV message boards and chat with Crime buffs and Trial watchers? GOOD LUCK! CTV message boards are so poorly managed, new registrations are often not possible. Every weekend registration is closed and you will receive a message: Sorry. Registration has been disabled by the administrator. Don't be surprised if you are a week night wanna be and receive the closed registration message. When can you register? Beats me! There is no rhyme or time connected with the limited availability. Howl at the moon or Wish on a star and you would have better luck than trying to guess the mood of the unprofessional and questionable administration of this corporate lost child.

Should you suddenly become as talented as one of Court TV's Psychics and find you can register during some magical time frame; you will be required to accept a Terms of Service agreement. A document someone was probably paid to develop but appears to have little to do with the message board operations. Don't expect rules to be applied evenly without bias. Be on your best behavior, don't have strong opinions, be sure to not go against any banded groups and whatever you do ... DO NOT QUESTION the powers that be, namely Coldwater.

Who is Coldwater? The code name for the moderator(s). Is there more than one? Rumors vary on this question. Some claim there is only one while others (logically I might add) state there is no way one person could display the different temperaments often experienced in this board's life.

Board Look and Feel

The software application Court TV uses for offering this free community of chaos is vBulletin. A popular and powerful software application with features that are available anywhere but at Court TV's board. Scaled back and lacking updates; several features have been 'turned off'. An appropriate phrase for the members! Some of the modern features on most any other message board apparently have been deemed to complicated or costly by the corporate giants that bring us: People Magazine, Sports Illustrated, HBO, Warner Bros, Turner Broadcasting, AOL and many more money takers. (see the Time Warner link for a list)

What you will find is a grey and white color scheme with outdated limited icons selections, and features such as calendars, atvars, signatures, attachments, emails, event reminders and more GONE. Why are they missing? Is their hardware is so minimal the system crashes and freezes when even the most basic features are used? Is the administration or system support so unskilled they can not support this application? These are questions only Court TV / TW could tell us for sure.

Suffice it to say, Like it or Lump it! Unlike the new Court TV television makeover, do not expect the value of customers to flow over into message board life.

Poor Me!

CTV's moderator is frequently whining and complaining about time constraints and being "too busy" to deal with the basic functions of managing this CRIME board. Is this a declaration of being unable to handle the job? What is so difficult? Message boards are a fascination of thousands of internet addicts. Crime interests are on the increase and targeting this group is a source of advertising to generate capitol! Advertisements, by the way, were a recent addition that CTV suddenly found the funds to implement on the boards. Most message boards are presented the same challenges and successfully carry on without this whimpering. But at CTV it appears this common task of moderating is exasperating the self stated over worked employee(s).

Coldwater blames management in her posts with claims that her pleas for improvements and upgrades have fallen on deaf ears. Is this not typical of most whining to any corporation, much less this goodwill gift from Time Warner and Liberty Media? (Goodwill meaning the second hand shops of unwanted junk, not the kindness of hearts) If somehow TW and LM suddenly found this lost child of a message board; emails and icons would not FIX the administration problems! Eliminating the constant malfunctions of white pages, server overloads and enhancing the software features would be like buying a Porsche for someone that can not drive! It is the total package: presentation, operation, and administration that is in need of being examined. Don't hold your breath though; Time Warner obviously does not value these consumers.

Coldwater's poor me attitude reminds me of the criminals caught in the cases CTV likes to present. By their own doing, they put themselves in a position they are not prepared to handle. Such is the case with Coldwater and the poor administration of these boards. Advertised and represented as a Trial and Crime discussion community, yet these very topics often take a back seat to nonsensical chats! Games were given their own board! Open court has been taken over by chats which have absolutely no value! These only take admin time away from the intended package when repeated vulgar cyber parties break out or someone's toe nail hurts. Useless forums and threads created or approved by Coldwater! Unable to make appropriate judgment calls alone, Coldwater submits questions as to how these forums and threads should be laid out and where would the limited users like to see them placed. Talk about time constraints! If Ms busy bee wants to compete with yahoo, what are they doing here at a Trial and Crime board?! Obviously there are some serious misconceptions about what constitutes crime buffs interests! These common practices not only create extra work for this 'poor me' moderator; they sabotage the millions spent on corporate goals to guide consumers to the sponsored television programs, cable investments, etc. They further fail to draw consumers towards their vast financial investments of print and televised media outlets. Who wants to buy and read People Magazine or order cable TV to view CNN and CTV programs when there is a word jumble game diverting their attention?!

Gangs

Board Gangs not only exist, but are encouraged by CourtTV's board moderator. Ablow might say the MOD's childhood doomed them to this profession. Hidden behind a faceless name, feeding off a position of cyber power, the moderator becomes an extension of the problem playing the role as ' gang guru'. Banning is decided by the number of complaints received with knee jerk reactions to these known gang complaints which they methodically selected the victim for their targeted slaughters. In reality, it is a demonstration of laziness and lack of professional skills for a simple job of moderating a message board. With the self imposed harried chaos; little verification takes place before 'banning by numbers' takes place. This is often the # 1 reason given by the moderator her/his self if some poor soul unknowing questions the great guru. This is nothing but the lazy man's way of managing the board with knee jerk reactions to a plotted slaughter. You would need to be blind or incompetent to not see this game being played out regularly with great success. Often the same 'style' of post can be witnessed left standing as the "target" of the kill is eliminated one by one.

On crime boards, there are mainly two gangs: The Guilty and the Not Guilty. These groups are identified with gang letters of the "G's" and "NG's". There is a third group which might equal "bystanders" referred to as "fence sitters". Fence sitters consist of a group that has yet to make up their minds which side they fall on as far as guilt or innocence for an accused. The G's (Guilty believers) generally hold the largest membership and by such, strong arm the boards control by manipulating the moderator's 'by numbers' approach administration. The NG's (not guilty) believers by human nature are the minority. NG’s by sheer numbers alone, reinforced by the poor moderation, lends to the NG's constant need to reinvent themselves by registering under a new "nic". On rare occasions when a G is so blatantly guilty of repeated infractions of bashing, they will finally get the long deserved ax! However, this is such a rare occasion that when reincarnated with another nic, they are befuddled as to what happened. Threads will quickly turn off topic and many can be seen spewing shock and disbelief over the demise. This further supports the evidence of the moderator's bias by numbers.

As with all gangs, each has a gang symbol. In this cyber-board the G's icon is the beer mugs slamming together. Quite appropriate for their "slamming together" as the largest group to create havoc and elimination of posters they deem a threat or that refuses to loyally support their side (whether right or wrong). The NG's symbol icon is the laughing motion icon known as the "Hardy har har”. For this minority group it is used as an irritation to the G's who will spend pages complaining about this 'in your face' gesture. Hours go by while the gang wars are allowed to be played out. One member is dissed (issued disrespect) to the rival gang and all hell breaks out! Pages and pages wasted in this board riot, preventing any case discussions to occur. Somehow the moderator is nonexistent. Possibly they are too involved with the many but useless chat and game threads to be of any help in maintaining a crime thread. I will speak more to this issue in an article titled " Poor me!"

Banned

The MOD will gladly remind you it is a private board created by Court TV, and as such is not subject to the constitutional rights to free speech. This is one area of the TOS the finicky force does like to present. When you are ZAPPED by the power hungry moderator at Court TV; there is no trial, no defense, and no recourse to undo the silent hatchet job. You are locked out and all posts are deleted.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do
She gave them some broth without any bread
She whipped them all soundly, and put them to bed

Unlike most board moderators that might take a second to offer a word of caution when they see a pending storm brewing; at CTV board the MOD is usually silent. As cyber-brawls break out; I see a mental image of there was an old woman that lived in a shoe. Wildly waving arms saying; oh! Let them kill each other for all I care! Is this a way to job security perhaps? Although often heard whining about time constraints it seems they chose to bypass the shorter warning method for a wait until it is really a mess of bashes and fights. This, of course, is a self fulfilling prophecy since it then takes the clean up efforts similar to that of New York City sanitary engineers.

It is not uncommon to get banned or lose posts by "mistake" in these haste makes waste sweeps. At least that was the explanation given to some unfortunate members. They are also told it is impossible to be reinstated. Now, not only do we have incompetence delete a member without cause, but a liar comes into the mix! I have personally read posts where some were in fact reinstated after being banned!

"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad." "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be, said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."