I was PM'd by a friend who said "their talking about that website you like on TF" so I thought I'd check it out. And all I can say is how childish this all seems. I'm gonna start with the first post - "Idiots on AI" This thread must have had at least twice as many replies as remain, and those that remain have been heavily edited. It is amazing that the owners (or franchise holders, or whatever) allow this to happen. Don't the contributors to AI resent being made out to be a bunch of brown-nosers? Perhaps nicktrollope didn't spend as much time as I did on AI Brittany over the weekend (I was following a different thread, but kept up to date with this one, cause it was there, hey?). I saw posts being made and being deleted by the admins. Were they posts that kncked AI? No. They were posts that knocked AI's "competitors", generally in a kinda trite way (and comments on those posts, which made no damn sense once the first post had hit digital dust). Had the posts been left, AI's contributors would have seemed far more like brown nosers than they do with the edited verson of the thread, and far more bitter about other sites (this one? I think not - it was clear that most of the comments were targetted at a different one, but anyway, WGAF?). Now I'm going to skip to near the end of this adolescent tripe: but we have a code of conduct that is enforced. Rubbish. Here are a few examples from the code of conduct: Please do not advertise your products or services on the message boards. Any advertising without permission will be removed. How many of the posts contain clear adverts for businesses, such as "2gites" (and I can't find a link to his/her website on any AI forum, whatever they think - checkitout). Please choose your words carefully when posting a message. It is diffucult to obtain the tone of written messages unlike when speaking to someone. This clearly isn't happening, bwana - Ty Korrigan, whoever he/she is? There is to be no 'naming and shaming' on the site. If you have any complaints about particular individuals/companies then contact the relevant parties or authorities. The phrase "duh-uh" is hard to resist. Are insulting, abusive, racist, sexist, or derogatory in any way to others, whether they are individuals or companies, users of the Forum or not. This includes material sent via personal e-mails through this forum. Have I missed something, or is there some insulting going on here, children? Make libelous comments about individuals or companies, including Living France magazine and FRANCE magazine. Ditto. Maybe you guys don't know but libel is a CRIMINAL offence in France, not just civil. I only found this out after discussing a matter with the AI admins where I was sure I was right and wasn't (and, yes, I checked it). And it's no excuse to be based in the UK as the case is based where the harm is "deemed" to have taken place - if you libel someone in France then the French courts own it. 100%. That scared the living wotsits out of me when I found out, I can tell you! (And I closed down my blog, too, after a very heavy letter from a French company that I didn't like expressed its, er, dissatisfaction with the way I, er, expressed my dislike) Contain explicit language or vulgarities (whether written in French, English or any other language) Hmm. I think that one's been tampered with too. TK, (again), if nothing else. In other words (not wishing to use explicit language or vulgarities, you know) you've just proved why I like AI over websites such as (well) this. It doesn't just talk the talk, but it also walks the walk. In other words, it really does implement its rules. It really doesn't allow busines to push thenselves or people to by obscene or whatever. And it jumps hard on off-topic posts that are allegedly banned here but seem to make up most of the content. Its rules are RULES. I can't be bothered with no-nothing blowhards believing that they can use shared spaces to make their irreleveant statements about nothing at all. That's not freedom of speech but just vandalism. If you feel the uncontrollable urge to say what you gotta say then do what I did and get yourself a blog rather than bothering other people that have more important things to do than listen to your whines (but don't, I wanna tell ya, do what I did and use that blog to inadvertenly libel people - the www is not a lawless frontier, especially in France). AI is the goods, because it gets rid of the rubbish like "do they quack" jokes (and I can't find another "do they quack" joke either, Will the "Conqueror", perhaps you misread somothing or failed to notice that, like yours, someone else's irrelevant drivel had been culled forthe benefit of the rest of us). I post to topics that really interest me, whatever forum I use. I then tick the "tell me when someone replies" box, because I want to know if someone's posted something useful. If I'm asking about shoes I don't wanna find my topic has turned into a discussion of the best way to feed sheep. AI is the only site that treats me with enough respect to protect me from that drivel. I've joined this forum to make this point. But I'll be monitoring this thread now to see if there's any reason to contribute further. At the moment, I feel like I expend most of my efforts in the right place, which isn't (for a long-term resident of France rather than a UK-based magasine reader), here.
