Are we all sheep?

[Paul C]

 

There are also good reasons for keeping possibly controversial managerial discussions confidential. I agree it can lead to problems, but if every word that is said or written under an expectation of confidentiality is published then most people will keep their opinions to themselves, and that's a poor way of running an organisation.

 

Actually there's a good argument for making all managerial discussions completely open. Then those who are expressing those views, would need to duly consider, and be able to justify logically, any of their formative viewpoints which later go on to affect decisions or future policy. An easy comparison is that we now have TV cameras within Parlaiment; and the Freedom of Information Act.

[Alan de Enfield]

 

There are also good reasons for keeping possibly controversial managerial discussions confidential. I agree it can lead to problems, but if every word that is said or written under an expectation of confidentiality is published then most people will keep their opinions to themselves, and that's a poor way of running an organisation.

 

We are not talking 'commercial secrets' of big business, patents or financial information - its a 'discussion forum'.

I would in fact suggest that 'open ness' would in fact be beneficial as the members (many of them actually having a financial stake in the forum) would feel as if they have a better understanding and would probably support decisions if they understood the underlying reasons.

 

All this 'cloak and dagger' stuff just breeds resentment and frustration, which is not helped by the 'apologists' working on the assumption that 'management can do no wrong'.

[Athy]

 

I'll risk it - Thunderboat?

 

Richard

I just had a look on that forum (for the second time ever) but couldn't find this story. Perhaps it has been deleted. I was surprised to find some familiar names amongst the participants.

[Alan de Enfield]

I just had a look on that forum (for the second time ever) but couldn't find this story. Perhaps it has been deleted. I was surprised to find some familiar names amongst the participants.

 

It is up to 22 pages now and still running.

[Laurie Booth]

 

I'll risk it - Thunderboat?

 

Richard

http://thunderboat.boards.net/

[nicknorman]

I just had a look on that forum (for the second time ever) but couldn't find this story. Perhaps it has been deleted. I was surprised to find some familiar names amongst the participants.

No it's still there. CWDF section, thread called "will Matty40s get sanctioned too?" page 19.

[carlt]

http://thunderboat.boards.net/

An ECHELON satellite has just positioned itself over your house.

[Arthur Marshall]

 

When the (alleged - now proven ?) list was 'brought to the table' by a 'newly appointed moderator', was discussed by the team (as evidenced by both PaulC and AnO) and led to PaulC's resignation I fail to see how you can suggest that Admin had no involvement.

Going back to this nonsense for the last time. GoodGurl posts that a list was indeed "brought to the table". However, there is no detail as to how the list was responded to by everyone else at that meeting. Without that, the whole controversy is pointless. If I go to a meeting and make a ridiculous suggestion, it's only a problem if my suggestion is taken up. If the other people at the table tell me to grow up, treat every case on its merits and behave like a rational human being, then damning everyone for one person's approach is, I'm afraid, just stupid. You need the full minutes of the meeting before you can act as judge and jury. And you haven't got it. Or if you have, you're keeping quiet about it. Of course the list was discussed, that's what meetings do. What the result was neither I nor you have any idea. It's a bit like the repetition of £350m (or whatever it was)for the NHS - keep repeating these things (such as mentioning Thunderboat getting you banned), and sooner or later they become accepted facts, even though they aren't. And trusting social media to give you gospel truth is just silly.

It strikes me that a lot of egos have got into a flounce. Unfortunately for those egos, very few people on this site are actually more important that any others (Nigel's about the only irreplaceable one!) and the fact that some shout a lot is a bit irrelevant. As time goes on any forum, you lose some with interesting views and knowledge and gain others. Some you lose because their point of view is essentially a "one trick pony" and they get tired of being told to shut up about it if they can't talk about anything else and they go off to somewhere more congenial, as I have said before, and fair enough. And some break the rules on a regular basis and get told if they don't like the rules, go somewhere else and make up their own. And they do, and fair enough. There's room for everyone on the web.

 

No doubt this thread will carry on for ever until we all lose interest in it, and beyond it the forum will remain as interesting and helpful as ever, with discussions occasionally drifting into acrimony and having to be sorted out. The usual subjects will come up and, outside this particular thread, everything will carry on as normal.

[Mike Todd]

I hope other members have stuck with this thread as I think Nigel Moore's recent post is very revealing.

 

Up until this point I was in the "what's all the fuss about" camp but assuming Nigel is to believed, I now think there is something more worrying about the degree to which the forum is being controlled/censored with no apparent justification.

 

For me it puts the issue in a whole new light.

 

 

What would help enormously is if there were an 'official' declaration that as and when there is something new (and legal) to report on any case currently in progress would not be automatically deemed unfit. There is clearly both a desire and a need to have such discussion, provided that they do not exceed the very wide bounds of normal social acceptability. This would be much preferable than relying on someone starting a thread to test the water and then have themselves risking being 'banned' as a result.

 

As said once before (I paraphrase), I may disagree with you fundamentally but I will defend more vigorously your right to state your views. That is what 'proper' debate is all about. Without it it the progress of society will be stunted.

[Alan de Enfield]

Going back to this nonsense for the last time. GoodGurl posts that a list was indeed "brought to the table". However, there is no detail as to how the list was responded to by everyone else at that meeting. Without that, the whole controversy is pointless. .........................

 

Let me make another suggestion :

 

The subject was discussed and a conclusion reached :

 

1) The list will be implemented, resulting in Paul's resignation as he disagreed with it and felt the whole concept of a 'hit list' was wrong, or,

2) The list will not be implemented, resulting in Paul's resignation as he felt it should be implemented and those members listed should be sanctioned.

 

Which is the most likely scenario ?

[gazza]

Sorry Arthur. That's a lot of typing that sums up to the square root of nothing.

 

Questions have ben repeatedly asked by several of us to the site staff, questions that have gone unanswered.

 

Like others, you'd do well to remember this isn't ICI.

[RLWP]

And that's the problem isn't it? Several long standing members have been punished for mentioning it, while several others haven't and their posts remain.

 

Which only suggests it isn't anything to do with the number of posts a person makes

 

Richard

[Arthur Marshall]

 

All this 'cloak and dagger' stuff just breeds resentment and frustration, which is not helped by the 'apologists' working on the assumption that 'management can do no wrong'.

Here we go again. Try "some posters" instead of "apologists". Try "confidentiality" instead of "cloak and dagger" The use of language designed to denigrate those you are discussing with devalues your argument, should you actually have one. It's no better than referring to those who constantly post anti-CRT sentiments as the "usual suspects". And don't make assumptions about other people's assumptions. That's one of your problems - you're defining the other person's argument without bothering to try to understand it, or even think about it. You've already made your mind up - I haven't because I haven't the information, and as neither has anyone else..

[nicknorman]

Which only suggests it isn't anything to do with the number of posts a person makes

 

Richard

No, but I feel it is to do with the quality of posts a person makes ie how much of an overall asset they are deemed to be.

[dogless]

Going back to this nonsense for the last time. GoodGurl posts that a list was indeed "brought to the table". However, there is no detail as to how the list was responded to by everyone else at that meeting. Without that, the whole controversy is pointless. If I go to a meeting and make a ridiculous suggestion, it's only a problem if my suggestion is taken up. If the other people at the table tell me to grow up, treat every case on its merits and behave like a rational human being, then damning everyone for one person's approach is, I'm afraid, just stupid. You need the full minutes of the meeting before you can act as judge and jury. And you haven't got it. Or if you have, you're keeping quiet about it. Of course the list was discussed, that's what meetings do. What the result was neither I nor you have any idea. It's a bit like the repetition of £350m (or whatever it was)for the NHS - keep repeating these things (such as mentioning Thunderboat getting you banned), and sooner or later they become accepted facts, even though they aren't. And trusting social media to give you gospel truth is just silly.

It strikes me that a lot of egos have got into a flounce. Unfortunately for those egos, very few people on this site are actually more important that any others (Nigel's about the only irreplaceable one!) and the fact that some shout a lot is a bit irrelevant. As time goes on any forum, you lose some with interesting views and knowledge and gain others. Some you lose because their point of view is essentially a "one trick pony" and they get tired of being told to shut up about it if they can't talk about anything else and they go off to somewhere more congenial, as I have said before, and fair enough. And some break the rules on a regular basis and get told if they don't like the rules, go somewhere else and make up their own. And they do, and fair enough. There's room for everyone on the web.

 

No doubt this thread will carry on for ever until we all lose interest in it, and beyond it the forum will remain as interesting and helpful as ever, with discussions occasionally drifting into acrimony and having to be sorted out. The usual subjects will come up and, outside this particular thread, everything will carry on as normal.

None of this is life or death, it's just a forum.

 

But think how frustrated you would be, wishing to say the above and being unable to because you have been banned, because a Mod here did not like something you wrote elsewhere.

 

Some people were arbitrarily banned, apparently, without actually having posted for sometime.

 

If you wish to take the view that this 'culling' didn't affect you, you are entitled to.

 

But at least allow those who find these actions, at best distasteful, to protest them.

 

Rog

[RLWP]

No, but I feel it is to do with the quality of posts a person makes ie how much of an overall asset they are deemed to be.

 

Which puts us back into the 'trust' thing, I guess

 

Richard

[Athy]

No, but I feel it is to do with the quality of posts a person makes ie how much of an overall asset they are deemed to be.

One could substitute a not dissimilar word in some cases.

[RLWP]

a Mod

 

Really? You think a single moderator holds views that are not shared by other users here? That the people banned were universally accepted by everyone except a single moderator?

 

Richard

[hounddog]

But don't forget you've only just started mentioning it, now when all the mods are hiding under the duvet hoping the storm will pass. If you'd mentioned it a month ago at the very least some R-swipe would have reported it and it would have been deleted by a mod, at the worst you'd have got a warn or ban. We saw this over and over again at the time. I guess you had something better to do!

We haven't heard Graham Davis' views for a while.

[dogless]

Really? You think a single moderator holds views that are not shared by other users here? That the people banned were universally accepted by everyone except a single moderator?

 

Richard

I was trying to suggest how frustrating an 'unjustified' ban would be in a hyperthetical scenario. Arthur has not been banned so obviously I was not relating facts.

 

Rog

 

I am intrigued however, by the facts that

 

suddenly we can freely mention Thunderboat forum

 

suddenly we can introduce political debate (your Theresa May post)

Edited October 18, 2016 by dogless

[RLWP]

I was trying to suggest how frustrating an 'unjustified' ban would be in a hyperthetical scenario. Arthur has not been banned so obviously I was not relating facts.

 

Rog

 

Then stop trotting out this 'a mod' nonsense. You've heard one persons experience of being a moderator, you haven't heard the experiences of all the other moderators

 

Richard

[Geo]

What would help enormously is if there were an 'official' declaration that as and when there is something new (and legal) to report on any case currently in progress would not be automatically deemed unfit. There is clearly both a desire and a need to have such discussion, provided that they do not exceed the very wide bounds of normal social acceptability. This would be much preferable than relying on someone starting a thread to test the water and then have themselves risking being 'banned' as a result.

 

As said once before (I paraphrase), I may disagree with you fundamentally but I will defend more vigorously your right to state your views. That is what 'proper' debate is all about. Without it it the progress of society will be stunted.

 

In my opinion there was nothing in any of the "legal" threads that broke the Defamation 2013 Act nor the regulations to the same act. In all the posts that I read, and I read the majority, there was a defence as laid down by the Act of Truth, Honest Opinion, or Publication on matter of public interest.

[hounddog]

Nigel's about the only irreplaceable one!

In your opinion. In mine, I think this forum has lost far more than a handful of it's more valuable members.

 

I've snipped this from your post but the rest of your post is incredibly biased towards "if I don't have the full facts I'll make my own assumptions" which you then go to complain that this is what everyone else is doing. I am afraid, to avoid hypocrisy, you have to either say "I know very little" or acknowledge that someone else's conjecture is just as valid as yours. As some of those have been directly affected, their views do carry a little more weight.

[Arthur Marshall]

Sorry Arthur. That's a lot of typing that sums up to the square root of nothing.

 

Questions have ben repeatedly asked by several of us to the site staff, questions that have gone unanswered.

 

Like others, you'd do well to remember this isn't ICI.

Maybe you too should remember it isn't ICI!

I've not seen any questions myself that I see as so crucial they need answering, just a lot of accusations and hot air, with a extremely tiny bit of alleged (and probably true) fact finally turning up after several days which by itself is essentially meaningless.

It's quite difficult to insist on someone answering questions from those with entrenched positions which are phrased to force you into a guilty response - as per the old chestnut of "Have you stopped beating your wife".. It is also frustrating being the questionee when you know well that any answer you give will immediately be either misinterpreted and another row started, or just called into doubt. Sometimes it's just better to shut up, pull up the drawbridge and wait till the besiegers go away and life can go on as normal.

It's my opinion for what it's worth (bearing in mind I have no idea whatsoever of any of the real facts of the matter, but having served on many contentious committees in my time) that by the attitude of the questioners, the questioned have been forced into a position where they are better off simply keeping schtum.

And my final contribution to this thread (I shan't reply to any more postings, either interesting or insulting) is that I do accept that the vast majority of parties on all sides of this discussion believe that they are right in what they are saying and I respect them for it, whether I agree with them or not.

[dogless]

Then stop trotting out this 'a mod' nonsense. You've heard one persons experience of being a moderator, you haven't heard the experiences of all the other moderators

 

Richard

I'm sorry, but could you explain.

 

I haven't heard from any of the Mod's or from the site owner either, and I know none of them personally.

 

I have heard from one ex Mod and one ex Tech.

 

Rog