Global Banning of all customers on General Chat

[#1]

It was a shock to me yesterday evening to come back in from hours of car tinkering to discover the general chat forum in lock down over activity that i had no idea had even kicked off.

What on earth happened?

Whenever I post something that the mods frown upon they PM me and inform me - not something that happens often but it has happened. Moons ago I was also banned a couple of times for 30 days and to be honest, I do feel that is the best route to take with users who repeatedly cause problems.

Locking down the entire forum was inappropriate. As a result I am taking into consideration my future membership of this board - which is always the first one I visit of the many I'm a member of. I've been here over 10 years now and feel like this is a part of my life. I've become rather well acquainted with many members here and feel annoyed that this has happened.

[#2]

@Townman Interestingly..... you seem to be the only one on the forum, who disagrees with my postings..

My phrasing of "shutting down General Chat," referred to the 48 hour ban on ALL USERS... not as a permanent (non) facility for members.

You miss the whole point of my posting on here,  preferring, instead, to do exactly what you claim others have done, by accusing me of posting argumentative posts, in other words you are "flaming" me into a response. 

You may consider my posting to be argumentative,...but it is posted with all good intentions of standing up for others who may feel that they do not have the nerve to speak up, when some others ( the mods , in this case ) have done them wrong... in other words,... I speak my mind... and I hope,  I speak for the silent majority.

My point in posting here. for clarification to @Townman and others, is to draw attention to the extreme measures that the mods have taken AGAINST A WHOLE COMMUNITY, of which only a handful have caused the probllem(s) on certain threads....

It is those miscreants are the one`s the mods should be tackling,.

. not disrupting the use, of General Chat,  by other users who are innocent of any wrong doing on the threads concerned.

other threads have not been affected,... so they should not have been locked .

..

You say it is more "time efficient" to BAN EVERYONE,... than to discuss the individuals concerned,  I fail to see how that can be effective.... a 48hour BAN ON EVERYONE means that the mods consider EVERYONE has committed the same "crime" ...

at the same time...

on ALL the board threads. 

which is RIDICULOUS... 

The mods have made a BAD DECISION...probably losing a lot of credibility that everyone HAD for them for  DEALING FAIRLY with all members....

Just because I have stood up for myself, and for others along the way, does not give you the right to accuse me of posting argumentative posts.  I am sure that the same mods will consider my posts and , as @7up has pointed out, they can send me a PM. or they can take action directly against me...  ( strangely , they have done neither, and so your view is of no consequence) my posts have been acceptable to them, under the forum rules. 

If you wish to discuss your point of view, on a personal level, may I suggest that you, also, use the PM system and speak directly to me about it.

Further posting on this particular subject, is taking the route of "going off topic"... and should cease immediately.

[#3]

---

@happihijabi wrote:
I would like to add my view as a relative newcomer here.
As far as I can see, the Chitchat board is dominated by a handful of longer term members who seem to think they own the board. They love nothing more than agreeing with each other and awarding each other ‘thumbs up’, but heaven help anyone who dares to put forward a view that doesn’t meet with their approval. When that happens they gang up to make personal attacks and generally bully the ‘outsider’, and when he or she tries to defend themselves the long term members claim that the outsider is disrupting the smooth running of the forum and start demanding that the Mods take action - action against the person they have been bullying!
The saddest thing is that some of those bullies have posted in this thread as if they are the injured party. One of the posts in this thread agrees with the criticisms of the Mods, and yet is written by someone who yesterday started a thread which was solely about attacking one of the victims of their bullying and making it clear that they were not welcome on the forum. That thread was removed, but why on earth are they still able to post here?
Another of the main protagonists of the bullying culture is still at it on this thread, trying to pin the blame on one 'bad apple' of a newcomer. Victim blaming at its most obvious, but he still seems to get away with it. Why?

---

I don't really know how to take your post, you're a newbie here but seem to think you're in a position to judge and provide serious insight..

Sometimes newcomers do break the mould and point out the obvious which makes existing members of any organisation (forum, employer etc) feel uneasy. The problem though is you've literally posted ONLY about your views on chit chat, nothing else - at all. Signing up for a forum account but then not posting seems suspicious to me, it's as if you have no real interest in taking part other than to pass judgement.

However some of what you've said about newcomers being bullied does ring true. When I first joined I experienced it myself as did many others. There were (and still are) certain members here who seemed to take great pleasure from giving others a hard time however they seemed to have calmed down over the years - that or they've just learnt to accept that we're not going anywhere.. who knows.

What I have also noticed though is that some of the newbies join up and seem to have a deliberate intention to keep posting annoying / frustrating codswallop - eg about the brexit / remain thing. They get peoples backs up and then wonder why they're not welcomed and then claim to be being bullied - after having tried to force their opinions down everyone elses throat!

We had one member years ago who did nothing but give plusnet a hard time - over everything. He was a genuinely nice guy.. but he just couldn't see that what he was doing was wrong. It got to the point where he ended up slating their website code and telling them how to fix the html etc... yet his own website was very amateur looking and full of dead links etc - but he was telling a company that do this thing for a living how to fix theirs! Naturally that got peoples backs up too and he got a permanent ban (it also didn't help that he kept saying plusnet were hiding the truth etc etc and yet when asked what this truth was he had no real answers for it).

Ultimately if you join any group of people and start throwing your weight around you're going to upset that group and they'll turn on you. Best thing to do is to just try and get along with them instead.

I make no secret of the fact that I've often ended up in disputes with some members - new or old it makes no difference to me what is important though is their attitude / facts / logic. Some folks just seem determined to talk junk. We had one member a while back who is a genuinely nice guy but full of conspiracies and false facts and when evidence of him being wrong is pointed out he just won't accept it and continues bleating his false propagnda. Obviously that is going to wind people up too.. yet he's one of the nicer members we have who would never deliberately try to offend anybody and I have huge respect for that side of him while others would dislike him based purely on the content he posts.

Hopefully that gives you some sort of insight into the way things tend to work on this board.. although I must say the daft amount of political correctness this board carries does cause problems too.

[#4]

@shutter

Clearly there is no point in pursing this further - no opinions other than yours seem to be permitted here.

This is not so much "standing up for others" but finding yet another soap box to stand on; however it is your topic, so I guess you've every right to control what is said within it. Frankly I believe that the mods have taken a brave, albeit unpopular stance here.  May be in future those feeling hard done to will help stamp out the poor behaviour of those who cause the problems? 

[#5]

To be honest @Townman I do have to disagree with you regarding the views of and replies from @shutter.

Much of what he says does make sense although admittedly I don't think he always posts it in the most rational way possible. I used to get on well with shutter moons ago but as of late our friendship has been on very rocky ground and i personally think he's become a grumpy old git in the last few years and we have not exchanged PMs for ages so I am not agreeing with him out of bias but because I think he has valid points.

You don't seem to post in chit chat yourself so from my POV your view is already biased as you don't enjoy the benefits that it offers and so means little to you however many of us do use it regularly just to have others to communicate with socially. I have quite an isolated life so for me chit chat provides some limited relief to that in allowing me to have contact with other people. To me it is an important part of my online life and so like shutter says, I feel that I have been unfairly punished for the actions of the few. A recent PM that came my way suggests three members were the main cause - two of which were no great surprise and the third who is known to flare up but had been a lot calmer lately once they had managed to fit in and be accepted.

So why am I being punished? Why are other regulars of the general / chit chat board being punished? We have had no involvement in the recent actions and I hadn't even seen the threads concerned to even form a judgement of the content in them but apparently because I did not even read the threads, I am guilty as sin and have had my posting privilege removed like many others. The mods know who is responsible for the latest feuds and what it was about, they could have banned those particular members but instead have punished everyone.

[#6]

Hi @7up,

A better argued POV. 

Whilst I do not post in Chat I do visit from time to time and wince at some of the back biting which takes place and therefore care not to post therein.  I understand the sense of isolation - I live alone too - and understand the merits of social interaction via the forums.

However every time there is an issue around here Shutter seems to have to make a song and dance of it and only his views are thought worthy of airing.  The mods have been moderating here for a long time and do a thankless job.  I therefore take a POV that they must have had good grounds for the action they have taken.  I know from personal experience how reluctant they are to take action against individuals who have repeatedly sailed too close to the rules, so I can only conclude that there was activity (possibly only known to them) which merited the board being locked down.

May be the break will help everyone appreciate more the value of what we have.

Now since you've rattled my cage ... I think that you leaving this space over this matter would be detrimental to both the forums and yourself.  You've been one of the notable contributors over the years; to leave over what at worse could be seen as heavy handed moderation (is that a contradiction in terms?  ) could be considered to be a bit of an over reaction.  As far as "being blamed / thought at fault" is concerned, then "if the cap does not fit", there's no need to pick it up, let alone wear it.

[#7]

I am not taking anyone’s side here, I am balanced perfectly well on this virtual fence, nor do I really care, if I’m not on here I can easily do something else, life for me doesn’t begin and end in General Chat.

In a past life my job made me look at the physical and circumstantial evidence and to read between the lines, so applying that here it is my interpretation that maybe that the Mods no longer (i.e. post SMF) have the tools to ban an individual, and if they do they’d be ineffective since the ban could be defeated either by signing up again and or changing your IP address, so maybe the only option was a blanket ban on the forum.

I may be speaking out of turn here but I suspect what is winding @shutter up is the fact that no one has provided a credible response to his opening post justifying the action that he sees unfair.

[#8]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

nor do I really don’t care.

---

 So you do care? 

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I may be speaking out of turn here but I suspect what is winding @shutter up is the fact that no one has provided a credible response to his opening post justifying the action that he sees unfair.

---

 The mods won't reply to this topic, I am certain of that. They have no need (in their eyes) to justify their actions and so shutter will not get the credible response he seeks.

If anything I'd be keeping an eye on the service announcements for updates from the mods regarding this.

Oh and yes they can ban individual members, I'm certain of that as a few have mysteriously vanished after causing uproar in the past so quite why they locked down the entire chit chat board is still beyond me.

[#9]

@7up

I fully agree with most of the points you make which have been well put.

There is no doubt a number of us get close to or even over the line regarding what is acceptable and I include myself in that but what I cannot understand is that in recent months there has been one person in particular who has constantly crossed that line by the way he has replied to a number of posts using caustic or scarstic comments which have resulted in a block of posts being removed or the action taken today in which all of chit chat has been blocked.

Had this individual not been on the forum I would suggest the action taken today would have been unnecessary and indeed achieved what his main aim was in the first place. ie: To disrupt the forum.

I accept the mods do a good job, certainly not a job I would volunteer for but I wonder how hard it is to ban someone on the forum as clearly some users have been banned in the past.

[#10]

@7up - The result of pre-post edit. So just to clarify, I don't care.

[#11]

@Anonymous said...

what is winding @shutter up is the fact that no one has provided a credible response to his opening post justifying the action that he sees unfair.

True... to a point... but what is , as you put it ," winding me up ", is that I have been BANNED from using General Chat, along with others, who have committed no crime. 

Tthe mods have made an error of judgement on this, and so,  to regain their credibility, they should say so, and apologise to the community, for their blanket ban..( they are, after all, human, ) .   Take the necessary banning action against the individuals concerned, and then we can all move on, and hopefully,  trust the mods to be fair in their future actions to all members of the community.

[#12]

Thing is we have to abide by the Mods , decision .

Tomorrow it will open again and this thread will be locked or removed

[#13]

Hopefully the mods are not reading this topic and are enjoying the two day break. They deserve it with having to read all the sniping and bickering in chit chat, can't be good for anyone's health. Just a shame this thread has been started and aimed at the mods who are doing their best. Chit chat seems full with wise and mature souls so It always staggers me when I see ' a few ' of them behaving in the way that they do. 

Moderate yourselves and the Mods won't have too

[#14]

@Steve

---

@Steve wrote:

 Just a shame this thread has been started and aimed at the mods who are doing their best.

---

This thread was started, not "aimed at the mods"... but at their decision to BAN everyone from General Chat, by locking ALL the threads on it...

This thread was started, because that decision is UNFAIR to everyone who was not involved in the problems that created the situation.

This thread was started to try to regain the mods their credibility, as an unbiased group of customers, who, as you say, do a difficult job. but in this case they have spoiled their own credibility by their action.

They should have banned the individuals for 30 days... as I was ... many years ago.  Why am I banned now  ?

Why should I, or you, or anyone else, be banned  ?   We have done nothing wrong.

Would you agree to being banned from your local Pub or restaurant or whatever place, because some individuals have created problems there  ?   ( no need to answer ...  just saying... )

[#15]

Easy answer, just EVERYBODY STOP posting for 48hrs from NOW. Lets see how they like their empty forums. No answering calls for help etc.
I also feel a blanket ban is very heavy handed, and I know of NO forum that doesn't allow of individual banning. But since I don't use CC all the time or even post every day this doesn't bother me too much.