grizzle_hen

The thing is, everyone has a bad day, its just how we deal with it, and its does happen where members will mouth off, uncharacteristically

Debate is always a tricky issue here, say the ETS debate or the recent SHU vs. RPRA thread, we would let these debates go on without locking topics, if people could keep it on topic and not let it get out of hand, with the usual slagging matches that ensue. Also members have to realise that we all have different opinions, whether you believe they are right or wrong, but we have to accept this and not result to abuse or a slagging match of "you so and so, you know nothing you ***********". And its true that some members will spoil it for others, which is a shame. However, sometimes you get one member being abusive on a thread, and its completely out of their character (I can think of one recently) which is sometimes due to drink, now we can't outright ban them, because looking through their posts this type of behaviour has never been seen, more we need to find out why this happened, fair enough if they had a crap day and decided to take it out on the forum. My point here, is that you don't see any of the behind the scenes work that we do we there is an out-of-hand thread or an abusive reply, we need to pm members to try and understand what has happened and to see if we can stop it from happening again. We need to go through the Code of Conduct, find the relevant parts and highlights these to the member, and normally we'll get an apology and explanation, like 'I had a really bad day at work, saw something on the forum that I didn't like and reacted badly, and just typed without thinking'. Chriss, if you get the feeling that a thread has been pulled, without explanation, because it's not towing the party line as you say, then pm Richard, the fifer, or myself and say why you think its been wrongly pulled, then hopefully we'll be able to find out why and give you an explanation. And anyway, I don't want to see locked threads everywhere on the forum, and I'm sure all you don't want the same

Here's the correct link http://s384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/TERRI1827/PLAQUES/ The plaques look really good

I have just replied to your pm joe. I need to leave the house now, so I will deal with this when I get back but if another moderator comes on whilst I'm out I'm sure they look over this and you can pm them about. I am not sticking my head in the sand or passing the buck, I genuinely have to be away from my computer now, I'll be going to help out in a primary school and won't be back til around 4.

Sorry I don't understand your comment, was the fifer got to do with this now?

The statement was made under advise from lawyers and we would be appreciate if you could respect the legal nature of this matter. I will be making no further comments on this.

If it is a legal matter, then it shouldn't be discussed on here. If you have received a threatening pm then you should notify one of the moderators or Richard for it to be dealt with.

As I have already said, due to the legal nature of this matter, this is not the place to discuss it

I was responding to the member 'stunner' someone who is hiding behind a name and wants to talk to myself and Richard, and I would rather talk to this person than have a back and forth with them on here. No-one is influencing our judgement calls regarding this forum, not sure why you would think that, but maybe your just wanting to cause trouble? I'm not sure. Regarding .net and the legal nature of this matter, this is not the place to discuss it

I thought you weren't going to post until you spoke to either myself or Richard on the phone?

There has already been a statement made about pigeonbasics.net

I've just looked and your motorbike thread is on chit-chat, don't know who moved it but I'm sure they had a good reason, remember you need to subscribe to chit-chat to view it. I can move it to members photos if you would prefer? Richard is still here, remember he is at work all day so looks at the forum in the evening. Also he has others things to look after on the site, for example the mini-sites, people who are having trouble logging in or joining the site etc... so these things can take up his time sometimes. No-one is pulling any strings, Richard runs the site and he trusts me and the other moderators and The Fifer as admin to look after the site too. The issue of insults etc is being dealt with as I have been saying, what some people don't understand is they dealing with these things takes time, as we need to contact those involved, go through posts and decide the best course of action. There are no third-parties involved or those that have their fingers in the pie, as you say. In relation to appointing Vallance Lofts as a global moderator, he is a good member of the forum, we don't see his forum as a rival as we are all the same and should aim to work together. And with Vallance's experience of running a forum he will be a great help to this site and offer his own insights into how to deal with problems etc. Also the point of nominating a moderator, has been raised on the welcome topic and someone quite rightly said that if we nominated who to be a moderator should we then nominate who can be a member of the forum.

Stunner, I suggest that you wait until you have to spoken to myself or Richard before you continue to post on whatever issues you have, so that we are not all hiding behind a screen.

I like the phrase "trigger happy" but in terms of locking topics I can see slightly where you might be coming from. The one thing you have to remember about threads, say those which are quite politically or where a couple of members are having a heated argument with some abuse thrown in, we have to try and judge when its the best time to lock a topic, and there might be sometimes where we lock it too late, either from not noticing the topic or from no moderator being online. But still, we have to try and decide if the topic is going to get out of hand and whether to jump in and be "trigger happy" as you say or leave it and then it does get out of hand. Sometimes if a thread is locked quickly (and we will try to put up an explanation) we may have received various pms or reported threads that members won't know about and from these 'complaints' we may decide to lock the thread. But its like I always say, you can't please everyone, we may lock a topic, say the one on which is best SHU or RPRA, clearly a political thread, now as mods we were aware of the thread and realise that it could cause problems, the fifer posted a couple of times to remind members to keep it civil and lets not turning it into SHU or RPRA bashing, members seemed to ignore this and it was locked with an explanation. And there will be some members that will accept this and be 'good on you' but then there will be others, who will be annoyed that the thread was locked. So remember if something is removed quite quickly there will be a valid reason, probably x number of pms and reported threads complaining about it.

If we locked this topic, then we would get complaints of sweeping it under the carpet, so I would rather it stay open to show that we are not hiding anything and are dealing with things

Nothing has been swept under the carpet, we are dealing with these and need to go through postings of members to check complaints and have been in touch with some members to get more information on what has happened.

Thats other people's opinions, not mine or Richard's.

We are not blaming anyone, at the moment we have no idea who it is. But I'm sure whoever they are, they will let us know.

what do you mean by but it looks at moment that others are in fact truthful who are the others?

moved the questions thread onto introductions board if you wish to reply to it and to show that we are not hiding the thread http://forum.pigeonbasics.com/m-1237318409/

ok then, feels very mysterious then, we will wait for your call then

fair enough but I would rather sort this out now, I'll even ring you if you wish

actually if you wish to talk to us, you are more than welcome to ring us now

the questions thread is on the notice board, which is open for everyone to see, so we are not hiding the thread, and I dont know who you are, but if you wish to ring us then let us know the time as Richard works and I'll be at a primary school tomorrow afternoon

We do have a list of the "aliases" but we need to investigate them ourselves to make sure