General Chat... IS BACK!

[#1]

@JonoH 

Well you can reactivate the General Chat forum section and 'return it as a clean slate' (whatever that means) but if you are going to kick this ball back into the air for a new game, unless you tighten up on the way one retread poster in particular of late has been allowed free rein with, as it seems to many, the endorsement of the moderator that has been quick to thank your post, then the ball is going land in exactly the same place and game over.

[#2]

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@JonoH wrote:

Finally there is currently no work going on with the forums, they're not being tinkered with, nobody is doing anything and our moderating team, who seem to be catching a lot of my blame here don't have the access to be able to do the kind of tinkering inferred. 

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Yet i've posted the evidence to show the contrary. You've seen the error message and it was not an access denied page that is normally displayed so someone somewhere HAD tinkered with something - because now the access denied page is back again.

Moving on..

You know i want GC reinstated. I don't particularly like the antics that have gone on in there however there are trolls that keep returning with the same ambitions - to argue. They know they do it (and i'm not talking about Laegen although he has pretty much openly admitted he wanted it gone). I'm talking about the likes of MinnieWoke, rEUnite etc. They are there for one reason and one reason only - controversy.

Given that you guys have threatened to close GC many times over the last couple of years and you're BT in disguise, you should try and see it from our point of view - BT is not forum chat friendly and we think you want it gone - a troll being the perfect way of achieving this. If you genuinely want it to survive then why do you let these trolls stay when they even show their intent with their usernames? - why let them stay and cause trouble?

So for what its worth, if i'm wrong i'm sorry however you took away my general chat - a forum that i've been on since 2007 - and i'm annoyed.

You also said you'd removed two users and yet we didn't see any extra annonymous posts anywhere and you couldn't even tell us the usernames - yes, from our POV it looks very suspicious.

However the big one that many people have an issue with IS the moderating team. When a troll is brought to their attention, they ignore it, protect it, nurture it and then blame us for the hassle of it all and frankly, it's put me off taking part in the forum quite a lot. Others are just as fed up of being attacked by the mods and have attacked back.

But lets face it Jono, even if you do reinstate GC with a clean slate or let us keep our years of history, there are not many left that even use it these days as your company showed most of them the door when moving everything to this lithium forum from the old SMF one - loads of old-skoolers got the hump and left as they found the new forum a menace. We've tried to keep it alive and ticking but it's been hard and at one point, i did ask for you guys to reinstate the old SMF version - although it was old, it was functional and everyone had worked out how to get the most out of it. 

One final thing, recently with your suggestion of closing GC down you did say you'd try to give us all notice so we could make other arrangements. That did not happen.

I look forward to General Chat being reinstated but you and the moderators do NEED to deal with the new members trolling problem or else we'll end up in the same boat again. Us old-skoolers don't want that, we just want the forum the way it was once moons ago - thriving. Yes spats broke out back then too (human nature and it happens on most forums) however we managed to bumble along for 14 years like that.

[#3]

@JonoH  As the "man in charge" so to speak... or "community gaffer"  as you wish to be known in the heirarchy, Perhaps you should consider reviewing the moderation team members activities over the past couple of years

( there was a couple of years, when you decided to be no longer active as gaffer... and nobody else wore your shoes or hat.... this seems to coincide with the downturn in the quality of the General Chat board ) ..

. It would be a good idea to advertise for some "fresh meat" in the moderation team, and , dare I say it, enlarge it, so that there can be a more wider view, and "reasonable" discussion between the TEAM, as to what action to take... rather than the situation now, where it appears the only action to take is NONE, until it is obviously too late.  The key word there is TEAM... Moderation TEAM is often used... but that never seems to be the way it is in actual day to day working of the forum.

. A moderation team should be chosen by the members... It USED TO BE DONE THAT WAY,... but someone has told me that option has been removed from the forum administration processes. Is this correct ? 

. I know that moderators do have another life, besides scouting the forum, and currently, we do have a very depleted number of moderators, so there are quite a few periods when no moderators are "live".. which brings up the point mentioned before, that we need to vote in more moderators to the TEAM, which would relieve some of the work on the few who are still there. .

. To get the forum running properly, I suggest that you instigate a voting system, that is private to yourself, to vote for new members of the moderation team... and also to replace any moderator who is no longer respected or trusted to be fair in his actions towards members. This should be done on a yearly basis ( if General Chat is re-instated, and lasts long enough.... )

. Another point about moderation.   When members contact moderators (by PM, or by "report to moderator" ) about their action/inaction on any subject that the moderator has with that member, why do they IGNORE it. This is most rude... No acknowledgement, no response.  Surely, "good manners" have not been removed as a consequence of being a moderator, by PN ? ? ?  

. Many times, in the past year or so, it has become obvious, that certain moderators, have "something against"  non PN customers using the forum(s) ... and have often referred to a poster as  "you are no longer a customer".... ( or words to that effect)   intimating that they have less, or no, right to be posting, or giving their opinions.

. This should not be allowed, and is tantamount to "official" bullying and baiting,  by a moderator, which ( according to the rules of the forum ) would be considered to be worthy of a ban to an "ordinary member" should they make such statements.  In other words, there seems to be "a set of rules for the masses" and another "set of rules for the moderators". 

. There are two types of "non PN customer".... 

      1st...those who have never been a customer, and just join the forum for "something to do"... or to cause trouble, because they can, and can get away with it.... ( as mentioned by other members ) . 

      2nd the long serving ( and long financially supporting PN ) ex- customers,  who want to keep in touch with old friends, and also who provide a much needed technical support platform, due to the inefficiencies of the "official" support platform.

. In the 1st case.. I think a minimum of 10 moderated posts should be allowed, before a new users to the forums can be fully integrated as a "member".. ( if you want to add a "moniker" to the avatar .... newbie  up to 10 posts,  then  ... member  after 10 posts... and continue with the existing monikers from that point ) ..  this should weed out any potential trouble makers, or trolls, or bots.

I have not belonged to many forums, but it seems to be the general way of running them, to do this... why is it not done on PN forums  ?

. In the 2nd case... Moderators should show a bit more respect for those members, bearing in mind the valued ( financially and technical ) support they have given in the past, and still do,  rather than denigrating them, when it is the only way they can "get" at them, by saying "you are not a PN customer", to make a point and display their macho image of being a moderator with POWER... 

. As a procedure for taking action against "misdemeanours" on the forum... it was mentioned that warnings would be given. and "three strikes" and you are banned, was also mentioned... However, this does not seem to be what happens. 

In the case of the last "mass ban" NO warnings were issued to those unfortunates...  something may have been said in "general warning" on the thread involved, but that was not a "specific warning" to them. Warnings should be sent by PM to the person involved.... commencing with... This is your FIRST WARNING..... then detailing what and why the person is being warned... followed up by a second, and if necessary, the third should be the BAN, or restriction period decided,.

. Warnings should be annotated with ALL the moderation TEAM names, to show that they are all in agreement with that decision, and not just the single mod who is sending out the final warning. An appeal procedure should also be in place, where the person being warned/banned can contact you directly by PM.to appeal the decision and put their side of the story.

Once upon a time, the moderation TEAM were respected, they were generally fair in their actions, and also they took part in many of the threads, contributing as a customer, rather than just appearing from time to time, threatening to have GC closed down.  With  ( some or all ) of the above suggestions taken into consideration and acted upon, I think that General Chat, and the PN forum boards, would benefit greatly, and ( as you would wish) improve the image of PlusNet through the quality of the board(s).

[#4]

I agree with most of your points above @7up but not all....

Regarding wiping all previous threads, well, that'll be akin to re-writing history like some countries do (I think it's called Historical negationism ).

Or perhaps, although I admit to knowing nothing about how the forum software works, it occurs to me that all those locked threads which we could see by using an Incognito browser window cannot be easily unlocked without unlocking the ones which were previously locked before this all happened, if you get my drift, without going through them individually, in which case the easy option is being taken, i.e. to delete them?    I guess that'd also be a convenient way to get rid of all those padlocks discussed by some.  

As to the spotting of that latest re-incarnation of the troll MinnieWoke, well I said in an earlier post in the General Chat thread that I'd rumbled it as soon as it appeared, ... I'll now add that I thought at the time about PM'ing the mods of my suspicions but then thought "What's the point, they never reply, and certainly in the past have ignored such warnings", so instead, I just made a remark of "I spy with my little eye ... " immediately after its second post, just to get something time-stamped on the record to show how early the troll had been recognised.  I suspect that clue probably wasn't even recognised by the mods, BICBW. 

[#5]

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@7up wrote: Given that you guys have threatened to close GC many times over the last couple of years and you're BT in disguise, you should try and see it from our point of view - BT is not forum chat friendly and we think you want it gone - a troll being the perfect way of achieving this. If you genuinely want it to survive then why do you let these trolls stay when they even show their intent with their usernames? - why let them stay and cause trouble?

I'ts difficult to see why I should, and how I could look at it from a point of view that's so routed in mistrust for us that  they believe that instead of spending the 90 seconds it would take to turn off GC, write a post saying GC is no more, locking deleting the board and nuking any reference to it anyone tried to make we'd actually employ people to take the chat to a place we didn't want it to be? 

Whilst BT don't have a general chat I can assure you that in my hundreds of conversations with my counterparts in BT we've had precisely zero conversations about our GC board, they're not interested in it at all, although if it kept causing controversy I could see that changing.

I'm also not going to police peoples usernames, feel free to call yourself pro-EU anti-EU anti-vax anti-science whatever you want, we're just policing peoples attitudes to one another, and sadly, because grown up, civilised, reasoned debate wasn't possible on some subject's we've had to stop them being discussed here. The next step will be to start permanently banning users who aren't able to speak to one another in a civil fashion, who round on other users as part of their clique.

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@7up wrote:

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You also said you'd removed two users and yet we didn't see any extra annonymous posts anywhere and you couldn't even tell us the usernames - yes, from our POV it looks very suspicious.

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It's more than 2, in fact its more than 2 in the last 2 weeks, and I could tell you names, I'm just not sure if I should, or how it's relevant. some will likely be pleased they're gone and think that hounding users out is a victory, it's not. It's what will get GC closed.

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@7up wrote:

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However the big one that many people have an issue with IS the moderating team. When a troll is brought to their attention, they ignore it, protect it, nurture it and then blame us for the hassle of it all and frankly, it's put me off taking part in the forum quite a lot. Others are just as fed up of being attacked by the mods and have attacked back.

The moderation team have my 100% support and backing. I'm sure they make mistakes, and that is why we have the ability for you to refer to me after, however it's important to remember that just because a noisy minority don't like a person or their positions, if they're being civil and within the rules we will side with them, especially if the other group are all perceived to be pilling on the user.

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@7up wrote:

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One final thing, recently with your suggestion of closing GC down you did say you'd try to give us all notice so we could make other arrangements. That did not happen.

It's because it was a temporary take down and not ever intended as a permanent one.

@shutter 

I hate the term Community Gaffer, it's fake Yorkshire speak but the roles have been inherited from my predecessor, I've never heard anyone called Gaffer in my entire life, apart from perhaps in jest.

The couple of years that I was off refers to the 9 months shared maternity leave that I took, plus outstanding holiday owed, I must be doing something right if my absence was felt to be over twice the duration that it was   there was someone who stepped into my role for the period, they just weren't as active as I am on the forums.

My job description is to interact with the Mods, Superusers and the technology vendor. The team, who each have their own Team Leaders are supposed to address customer, and day to day forum concerns and provide feedback to me if and when it's required, I just feel like I should be active on the forum I operate and that I it's difficult to manage a thing and assess it's health and sponsor improvements if you're not a user.

I'm really sorry that you feel like you can no longer respect our Moderation team, however as I stated above I stand behind them 100% 

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@RobPN It would be super easy for us to put it back in the state it was previously. It's actually harder for us to provide you with a blank slate, especially one that lets you keep your post count and likes.

Also, why does it matter if someone who left decides to return with a new name? Why start off with cryptic in-crowd pleasing posts? Why attempt to poison others against this person? it's precisely what I'm talking about trying to stop. Firstly they may be genuinely new and secondly just report posts that break rules, otherwise you might find that the ban you seek doesn't go where you'd like it.

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[#6]

Is it not possible for the Mods to remove an offending post rather than lock the whole thread ?

[#7]

@Champnet 

Yeh, but that would be the easy way!

Gonzo: I’m going to Bombay, India, to become a movie star!
Fozzie: You don’t go to Bombay to become a movie star. You go where we’re going, Hollywood!
Gonzo: Sure, if you want to do it the easy way!

😂

[#8]

@JonoH 

                          Nice one !.... sidestepped every issue raised....and ignored all points raised. ( not just by me, but by others too )...

and proved that there are two sets of rules, with absolutely no redress against anything the mods do or say.

The moderation team have my 100% support and backing. I'm sure they make mistakes, and that is why we have the ability for you to refer to me after, however it's important to remember that just because a noisy minority don't like a person or their positions, if they're being civil and within the rules we will side with them,

so ... " official bullying and baiting" by mods is o.k. and has 100% backing ..

..as for the minions complaining to you about it, then there is absolutely no point.    you give them 100% backing.

(even if they make mistakes - which you admit they do ). you will still give them 100%backing

Plusnet claim to be Open/ transparent and honest but it does not ring true very often when situations like this occur..

It seems to me, that despite all the complaints about the way the moderation TEAM work, INDIVIDUALS still have the power to do as they like, and you blame the users of the forum for complaining about trouble makers, and they do nothing about it.  they do not even answer PM`s... and you are 100% agreeing with them being so ignorant and rude...   ( because they can ) ....

The main problem, which you still cannot see, is that this situation is CAUSED BY THE MODERATION TEAM   being not respected... You can change the moderation team...but you cannot change the users.( what you can do , is deny them the use of the forum board, instead of doing something more positive... you will take the negative action) ..

To make General Chat a more "user friendly place"... the police need to be respected by every one of the users.  They need to be able to call on them, when/if they need to,  when trolls and trouble makers abound,.  in just the same way as community policing works for neighbourhoods... If the people don`t trust the police to be impartial and fair,...then they will not respect them. but you will still give them 100% backing.

As for the "noisy minority"... well now... how else will you be able to know there is something seriously wrong with the Moderation team ...if you don`t listen to "the noisy minority".... ... or are you just expecting everyone to be the silent majority.... and  ... as you have said in other boards... if you don`t like it, you can go elsewhere...   

What kind of person can say that ?    I tell you... one that refuses take action to address the concerns, but who can stick his head in the sand, and hopel it all blows over. 

By the way... how many voices would it take, to change the "noisy minority"  into the " noisy majority"..... 

would it make any difference to your attitude that the mods can do no wrong?    ( 100% backing )   

No...it would not... 

[#9]

Deleted - posted in error before complete.

[#10]

Well I am pleased someone has seen sense and reinstated it.

I can well understand it is not easy, we're all different people, and have different views. Life would be boring if we were all the same wouldn't it? As I said before, we all have different views and I try to be civil and calm as if I am face to face with that person and taking to them. Some people wouldn't dare speak in person to others as I've seen it go on in here.

As for being a customer (well I am sort of one). My sisters house - (back where I used to live) is our PlusNet connection but I've moved and live on my own and I got the fastest internet I could get. I have cable where I live, my sister doesn't. She doesn't live far from me so I am often over there and looking after it. If something is not right I will get a big telling off from her and have to go over there.

This happened around a week ago and of course it is always my fault. Thanks to this forum I sort of knew where to look, got it sorted in the end. Did a bit of a bodge fix (disconnected the landline for now) and I think it is a dodgy filter. Doesn't look as if it was a fault outside the premesis as the speeds now are good - and I am getting no complaints from the end user.

Which is always good 🙂

[#11]

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@RobPN wrote:

Deleted - posted in error before complete.

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Leading by example, impressive….

[#12]

Comment from @Champnet 

Not very impressive.

Reading earlier that the newly appointed deputy leader of the Labour party has refused to apologize for calling the governing Conservatives "scum".

Just as well she does not post on the Plusnet forum, she'd have been banned for life.

And Starmer, well he's reported as saying he's "going to have a word with her".

Non partisan by the way as I'm 100% sure some in the Conservative party have said far worse, but it just goes to show who can say what and get away with it - well seemingly anyway.

Love to discuss more about the Labour party conference, but you know how it is. 

[#13]

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@Champnet wrote:

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@RobPN wrote:

Deleted - posted in error before complete.

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Leading by example, impressive….

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I'm not quite sure I understand what you're getting at @Champnet 

If you need an explanation, I started typing a reply to JonoH, but something more important came up and I realised I'd better put my reply on hold for a while.  I accidentally hit the 'Post' button and rather than leave the incomplete reply in place, I deleted it.

I'm still otherwise occupied and don't think I'm going to have time to finish it today, so it'll probably be done tomorrow. 

[#14]

I've PM'd you your edit history and drafts, if it helps  

[#15]

Thanks @JonoH , I was about to reply to your PM when I noticed this post, so I might as well reply here. 

I've got the small amount of the reply I'd composed saved to a text file, but what you've PM'd me might be useful to save me starting from scratch.  

I haven't got time to finish it today though for the reason I gave above.