Active Topics

[relocated]

the website works quite well now

Is that speaking as a defrocked moderator, or as a civilian? ;-)

Well I know I can log in quite simple now, and post quite easily, I can do pictures, I can link stuff, what else more could you want from a forum? *smile*

Which has nothing to do with what I have highlighted here.

I also only, bust the chops of people who deserve the attention. I abhore people who, should have the answers and power to change things, but hide away and only come out when forced to; yet bound out of the shadows to chat about trivia.

Spiny is absolutely correct. Even though there used to be a lot of organised and state sponsored bullying on this forum, I still felt that I was a part of something - a 'Community' if you like. That has completely gone and I can't help thinking that WHF are waiting for a numbers trigger point to stop supporting the Forum. How often do we have any involvment in any threads?

Sad to see you go 'Corporate', Matt.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

the website works quite well now

Is that speaking as a defrocked moderator, or as a civilian? ;-)

Well I know I can log in quite simple now, and post quite easily, I can do pictures, I can link stuff, what else more could you want from a forum? *smile*

Which has nothing to do with what I have highlighted here.

I also only, bust the chops of people who deserve the attention. I abhore people who, should have the answers and power to change things, but hide away and only come out when forced to; yet bound out of the shadows to chat about trivia.

Spiny is absolutely correct. Even though there used to be a lot of organised and state sponsored bullying on this forum, I still felt that I was a part of something - a 'Community' if you like. That has completely gone and I can't help thinking that WHF are waiting for a numbers trigger point to stop supporting the Forum. How often do we have any involvment in any threads?

Sad to see you go 'Corporate', Matt.

I am not corporate mate, I just think you do at some point enjoy winding them up a little. I doubt there is any point.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

It sounds like you want to be on AVForums Norman.

Have no interest in AV whatsoever, so why should I? You really don't understand...

I personally like the new WHF website and the way it's run.

Is it being run, or is it just running away?

Moderation all the time is crazy and who benefits from it

Those of us who are tired of the constant effing and blinding, of the people who post abusive or offensive content for effect or their own twisted amusement, and of the inability of newcomers to post a simple, perhaps naive, question without being jumped on by the pompous wavers of their own appendages.

All the ones who did moderate for WHF are gone now too.

Are they?

I doubt the job role of being a moderator even exists anymore.

Was it ever a 'job role'? I thought it was done by some secret clique of members – and John Duncan, who also doesn't seem to be around here too often – on some kind of voluntary basis. That's why I was a little surprised when you declared yourself to be one of the moderators: I thought only JD was upfront about it, being ex-WHSV staff.

No point asking for things that are never going to happen too.

Why shouldn't they happen? Most of the technical points I raised are available in just about every 'off the shelf' forum package you can get to build into a site, and many of those packages are either free or of negligible expense, so there's no reason why they shouldn't be incorporated if there's a will to do so.

I don't see no f words being used, I saw you once trying to belittle me, but can't say I was bothered. Andrew's job was to moderate but I guess he left, so no need for moderators, I only did it as a joke, Andy knew that. The reason I suggested AV Forums because it sounds like just the way you like websites run, I guess you are more into your HiFi though. This thread was only started because the website was running slow, now look how many posts it's got. Bit of an overkill to say the least.

 

[Andy Clough]

So WHF, how about a response or will you hide away as normal when asked about the unchanged sub-standard performance of the site?

As I've said before, we have to share dev resource with all our other brands and yes, up until now, Autocar and Stuff have taken priority over us as they had to be moved over to the Drupal 7 platform.

Yes, the Active Topics page does take longer to load than other sections on the site due to the volume of pages on the Forums, but we did make some tweaks at the end of last year which helped a bit. However, I appreciate it is still slower than we would all like. I'll keep pushing for further improvements.

 

[Andy Clough]

the website works quite well now

Is that speaking as a defrocked moderator, or as a civilian? ;-)

For the record, gel and Anderson were never 'moderators' or 'administrators' of this site. Which is why I asked them to stop pretending to be.

 

[spiny norman]

For the record, gel and Anderson were never 'moderators' or 'administrators' of this site. Which is why I asked them to stop pretending to be.

Had assumed that to be the case, but thanks for the clarification – however, I think 'pretending' is very diplomatic language for 'passing themselves off as for disruptive purposes'

 

[Andy Clough]

Which is why I have added the following to the House Rules:

16. It is forbidden for members to pass themselves off as moderators or administrators of the site if they are not, nor must they pretend to be other posters on the Forums.

And on the issue of moderation, it's always a balancing act. In the past we were accused of being too draconian and heavy handed. So we deliberately adopted a lighter touch. But there are some good points here, well made, so I'll take them on board and discuss with the team.

 

[spiny norman]

I don't see no f words being used

I do – and worse (hi, BBB)

Andrew's job was to moderate but I guess he left, so no need for moderators

Interesting...

The reason I suggested AV Forums because it sounds like just the way you like websites run

Having just had another look, they do seem to run quite a tight ship, and a very busy forum/site, with lots of features (inc sales and wants, a clear distinction between trade and civilian members, and private messages) I have seen members here asking for.

 

[spiny norman]

But there are some good points here, well made, so I'll take them on board and discuss with the team.

Thanks, and good to see you here, Andy. ;-)

 

[Andy Clough]

No problem. I appreciate the ongoing frustrations with certain aspects of the site (believe me, I share them), and keep raising them internally. I wish I could wave a magic wand and fix them all, but it isn't quite as simple as that

 

[Anderson]

Oh, let's see: a forum search that actually works; private messaging; the ability to tag and follow threads in which you're interested; the option of email alerts when a thread in which you're involved receives more posts; a spam filter that stops spam and doesn't stop genuine posters from starting threads; consistent handling of 'active topics' and other headings; better moderation to keep in check those who think it's big and clever to swear at every opportunity; more involvement from the forum owners beyond a token answer to the odd very simple question; more sense that we belong to something and are not a nuisance to the proprietors; more community and less conflict; that sort of thing...

You know, all the stuff other forums seem to manage so well on an 'enthusiast' budget and yet this one with the resources of the best tech magazine in the known universe (or whatever) doesn't seem to be able to

I absolutely agree with this post.

 

[Diamond Joe]

more community and less conflict;

That'd be nice, it feels something like a war zone on here some days. Well said *good*

 

[Anderson]

the website works quite well now

Is that speaking as a defrocked moderator, or as a civilian? ;-)

For the record, gel and Anderson were never 'moderators' or 'administrators' of this site. Which is why I asked them to stop pretending to be.

See, this is the thanks you get. I was fighting tooth and nail for additional resources, they called me a maverick. Andy I gave my blood and sweat to this place!

Guys, do you know how he let me go?.. An email, thanks for the hard work but we gotta let you go. :-(

For anyone reading I'm joking! I have never been employed by WHF, if I had I would have got the forum sorted

@Andy for the love of all things holy can you please push for the forum software to be changed to either XenForo, vBulletin or iP boards anything but Drupal it is not pleasant . I know the decision might not totally in your hands but you could certainly make it an agenda? As spiny has pointed out every other site out there offers more user friendly functionality on an enthusiasts budget. Come on!

 

[relocated]

I am not corporate mate, I just think you do at some point enjoy winding them up a little. I doubt there is any point.

[/quote]

Just for the record, I don't "enjoy winding them up". I ask pertinent questions or highlight failures, to be helpful. In return, I expect the good manners of a reply. When that doesn't happen I follow it up until I do.

 

[spiny norman]

Andrew's job was to moderate but I guess he left

Doubly interesting – I'm not sure that's what you said first time round, gel.

How did you manage to edit both your original comment and my quote of it in my response? Perhaps you really are a moderator in disguise... ;-)

 

[cheeseboy]

Which is why I have added the following to the House Rules:

16. It is forbidden for members to pass themselves off as moderators or administrators of the site if they are not, nor must they pretend to be other posters on the Forums.

And on the issue of moderation, it's always a balancing act. In the past we were accused of being too draconian and heavy handed. So we deliberately adopted a lighter touch. But there are some good points here, well made, so I'll take them on board and discuss with the team.

with all due respect. What's the point of adding more house rules if the current ones don't get enforced?

i personally enjoy a good bit of banter, but can't stand personal, abusive insults, which are seemingly allowed at the moment. I did try the report button but nothing happened, so I'm guessing there's a mailbox somewhere with a load of unread reported messages.

 

[The_Lhc]

I am not corporate mate, I just think you do at some point enjoy winding them up a little. I doubt there is any point.

Just for the record, I don't "enjoy winding them up". I ask pertinent questions or highlight failures, to be helpful. In return, I expect the good manners of a reply. When that doesn't happen I follow it up until I do.

Which is probably what winds them up, it certainly winds me up, I just don't know why you bother so much, it's only a website. The way you go on it's like it's the end of the world that a menu doesn't have a particular category in it.

In a way the worst thing you can do is keep coming back to talk about it, it pushes the numbers up, if all the people that really had issues with the site left that would be noticed and then maybe things would get done. The constant nagging is futile though, WHF know exactly what the problems are, as they (Andy) keep pointing out. If they could have done something about it by now they would have done.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

I am not corporate mate, I just think you do at some point enjoy winding them up a little. I doubt there is any point.

Just for the record, I don't "enjoy winding them up". I ask pertinent questions or highlight failures, to be helpful. In return, I expect the good manners of a reply. When that doesn't happen I follow it up until I do.

[/quote]Fair enough. *smile*

 

[relocated]

So WHF, how about a response or will you hide away as normal when asked about the unchanged sub-standard performance of the site?

As I've said before, we have to share dev resource with all our other brands and yes, up until now, Autocar and Stuff have taken priority over us as they had to be moved over to the Drupal 7 platform.

Yes, the Active Topics page does take longer to load than other sections on the site due to the volume of pages on the Forums, but we did make some tweaks at the end of last year which helped a bit. However, I appreciate it is still slower than we would all like. I'll keep pushing for further improvements.

Thank you for turning up. I and probably all regular forumites know that WHF has to share with other publications.

At the back end of last year I seem to remember that you promised WHF would be more towards the front of the development queue, so has that not materialised? I've waited 2 months to highlight an ongoing failure, to give you time to pitch in on our behalf.

There may still be a certain ''volume" of pages but there is not the relentless flow of posts to keep up with, like there used to be. So there is much less chance of delay because of being swamped by posts.

Is it not possible to have a 'drop-down' menu of Forum categories, like in Reviews and News, because that would at least take one slow action out of the equation? I've never understood why it wasn't craeted in the first place.

Over to you Andy.

Edit: Can you also enlighten me on the seemingly purposeless "Your comment has been posted" banner/pop-up, that I asked about earlier and soon after it first appeared when the 'Upgrade' was done?

Thanks.

 

[The_Lhc]

I abhore people who, should have the answers and power to change things, but hide away and only come out when forced to; yet bound out of the shadows to chat about trivia.

Really? Really really? You "abhore" them do you?

Get a life mate. I mean seriously, take a long look at your life and work out where it all went wrong because if that's something that seriously troubles you then there is something very wrong. That's worrying, seriously worrying, borderline nutter in fact. That kind of comment scares me. If this website causes you that level of angst you need to leave, for the sake of your mental health if nothing else, WHF isn't worth that level of emotion.

It's a bit of a rubbish website, that's all, it isn't important on any level whatsoever.

 

[relocated]

I am not corporate mate, I just think you do at some point enjoy winding them up a little. I doubt there is any point.

Just for the record, I don't "enjoy winding them up". I ask pertinent questions or highlight failures, to be helpful. In return, I expect the good manners of a reply. When that doesn't happen I follow it up until I do.

Which is probably what winds them up, it certainly winds me up, I just don't know why you bother so much, it's only a website. The way you go on it's like it's the end of the world that a menu doesn't have a particular category in it.

In a way the worst thing you can do is keep coming back to talk about it, it pushes the numbers up, if all the people that really had issues with the site left that would be noticed and then maybe things would get done. The constant nagging is futile though, WHF know exactly what the problems are, as they (Andy) keep pointing out. If they could have done something about it by now they would have done.

BOLD - Why on earth would expecting people to conduct themselves with good manners, wind them up?????

Underlined - I have no idea what you are talking about.

Italics - Asking relevant questions over 2 months after WHF was supposed to get to the front of the queue of site development is "constant nagging"??? You crack me up.

 

[relocated]

I abhore people who, should have the answers and power to change things, but hide away and only come out when forced to; yet bound out of the shadows to chat about trivia.

Really? Really really? You "abhore" them do you?

Get a life mate. I mean seriously, take a long look at your life and work out where it all went wrong because if that's something that seriously troubles you then there is something very wrong. That's worrying, seriously worrying, borderline nutter in fact. That kind of comment scares me. If this website causes you that level of angst you need to leave, for the sake of your mental health if nothing else, WHF isn't worth that level of emotion.

It's a bit of a rubbish website, that's all, it isn't important on any level whatsoever.

Firstly, as we have spoken before, I am not your mate. Any time I need life lessons from a complete hypocrite I'll happily put a gun to my head.

Do you really have such miniscule values and sense of proportion that you actually believe the tripe you've just posted? Still I suppose you do have the odd entertainment level in your skewed vision of the world.

 

[Anderson]

Look, can we get back to hating on the state of the boards and not each other?

 

[spiny norman]

Look, can we get back to hating on the state of the boards and not each other?

You have much to learn about the way of the curmudgeon, young Jedi... ;-)

 

[The_Lhc]

I abhore people who, should have the answers and power to change things, but hide away and only come out when forced to; yet bound out of the shadows to chat about trivia.

Really? Really really? You "abhore" them do you?

Get a life mate. I mean seriously, take a long look at your life and work out where it all went wrong because if that's something that seriously troubles you then there is something very wrong. That's worrying, seriously worrying, borderline nutter in fact. That kind of comment scares me. If this website causes you that level of angst you need to leave, for the sake of your mental health if nothing else, WHF isn't worth that level of emotion.

It's a bit of a rubbish website, that's all, it isn't important on any level whatsoever.

Firstly, as we have spoken before, I am not your mate. Any time I need life lessons from a complete hypocrite I'll happily put a gun to my head.

Do you really have such miniscule values and sense of proportion that you actually believe the tripe you've just posted? Still I suppose you do have the odd entertainment level in your skewed vision of the world.

Do I believe what? That a website isn't worth working yourself up to the levels of emotion such that you "abhore" the people that run it? Yes, very much I believe that. What "values" am I missing out on here? Whose sense of proportion is so out of kilter here, yours that prompts you to use (and presumably feel) such strong emotion as abhore towards Andy and the rest of the staff or mine that understands that sometimes we don't get everything we want in life, that just because we visit a website it doesn't give us the right to personally criticise the people that run that website at every available opportunity, that if a website is a little slow or doesn't have all the menus that we want, it *really* *doesn't* *matter*.

I just don't understand why this is so important to you. It's just a website, it's not even YOUR website, why do you care so much?