Interview with PolishForums owners

I like reading interesting stories and never cease to look them up. Recently I have come across an interview with the creators/owners of the Polish forums. I couldn`t find its English version. The date in copyright footnote suggest 2017.

I translated almost the whole text, leaving parts I deemed less important.

The forum was set up by a webmaster and a programmer in 2005. Initially, it was meant as an experiment. Later it developed into an official site.

A few people are constantly responsible for running the site. The admin is a Polish person living and working in the USA.

Its primary aim is to become the biggest source of information about Poland, Poles, Polish culture and tradition available in English.

The forum wasn`t established purely for commercial reasons. That is why advertisements are almost non-existent here. Most costs are covered by people who own the site, while about 25% by members and supporters. Admin and mods work for free, spending from a few to a dozen hours in front of the screen daily. The forum isn`t sponsored by any "group of influence" , owners try to keep it as objective and flexible as possible.

Sometimes users complain about the quality of moderation in the forum. They react negatively to threads like: "Why are Poles always gloomy and never smile?" or "Do most Poles like stealing?" or "I hate you Pollacks." Members claim that forum owners aren`t patriots, but they believe that through reasonable discussion it is possible to blow false stereotypes about Poland and Poles. It has happened many times that people who initially believed these stereotypes were true, later on changed their point of view after reading sensible counter arguments. Thanks to such open discussion on poignant issues an agreement might be reached for the common good of both Poles in Poland and abroad.

Freedom pf speech is treated very seriously here. Some users would like to read only positive opinions about Poland and Poles. All unfavourable ones should be removed, according to them. However, the owners want to avoid censorship which prevailed in Poland from 1945 to 1989. Of course, the content which doesn't conform to the detailed TOS is regularly edited or removed.

The following things are the most time consuming for the forum keepers: moderating hundreds or even thousands of new posts every day, keeping them in proper order, helping to solve users` problems in private mode, working on innovations for the forum .

Taken from: zielonakarta.com/about-poland.html

"Who is the owner of the PolishForums?" - has been the most intriguing question on the PolishForums for years.

The question has never been answered satisfactorily with many having been suspected at various times. It is best to leave this question unanswered.

I think Johnny Reb & Rich Mazur.

Johnny told me in PM that he isn't, but Rich Mazur, yes, he is quite likely to be one...

I think Rich is the Admin and JR is one of the Mods.

I wish!

LOL!!!!!

I thought you were a Mod also Milo??I almost was gonna PM you and ask for your account number for a donation.

You are a funny man.....but at least I can see that you are a true Pole!

Of course it has, if you knew where to look. There was a time when a WHOIS returned the real name and address of the owner. It was changed a few years ago when he activated domain privacy.

As far as I know, the forum owner's identity is not a secret...

Never really was.

Guys, you are talking about the most irrelevant thing, skipping other important info from the interview. Who really cares who/what the Admin is? Does it in any way influence the quality of the forum? It doesn't; admin is not here to discuss.

Well yes, you never really bothered to hide that fact.

Did you ever get that tap fixed?