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oh, what a massive surprise


dave21478

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Surprise surprise, he deleted the whole thing.

Well Mr "Americans are scum", have fun MODERATING a forum that generates three posts every two days or whatever the current average is. Assuming you find the time between demanding all Amercians be castrated and moaning about the bloody fuzzywuzzies getting uppity.

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I was also rather surprised at Quillan's robust expression of his opinion of Americans, especially coming from a moderator who is continually on the watch for any suggestion of prejudice against his own race.

His website doesn't appear to mention that Americans are not welcome as he stated.

The post seems to have disappeared, must have been moderated, or is the search facility a little bit selective?[8-)]

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What was also surprising that the outburst was triggered by the fact the word "nite" was used. Now while I become grumpy at misspellings I do not allow them to condemn an entire nation. After all we all make mistakes in our written English from time to time as a critical perusal of this forum will reveal so perhaps it is for the best the thread has been deleted.
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I actually feel sorry for the poster of the original thread that got deleted.  A light hearted post about TV programs on a Staurday night (nite ?) provoked such an unnecessary and disproportionate response.

Anything else like that and I'm out of here, which is a shame as over the years I've gained so much information and had a lot of fun on this forum

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[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]I actually feel sorry for the poster of the original thread that got deleted.  A light hearted post about TV programs on a Staurday night (nite ?) provoked such an unnecessary and disproportionate response.

Anything else like that and I'm out of here, which is a shame as over the years I've gained so much information and had a lot of fun on this forum

[/quote]

Maybe the way to increase the popularity of this forum and make sure new members can make more than a couple of posts before beating a hasty retreat from immediate criticism and attack would be to do a little weeding?

Does anyone know how many new posters have left after making less than half a dozen posts during the last year?

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Not really a surprise, although I do understand Dave's tongue in cheek comment. What saddens me is that as Pierre says the original guys perfectly innocent post gets obliterated, and then nobody from the admin side of this forum has the common decency to put up an explanation to the members. Individuals posts have been removed before; but to remove the whole shebang I think is a liberty, especially without explanation. So come on Moderators how about it, or are there special rules for Moderators that don't apply to the great unwashed. [:D]

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Oh dear, time to come clean.

 

There was a reason for the post which sort of worked. I wonder how many of you have contacted Forum Admin and more to the point how many have received a reply which if I am right is zero.

 

I sent a PM to one of you and I see no reason why I should not now make it public. Basically after so many emails etc. over the last six months or so about problems with the forum software, extreme advertising and other forum issues and getting absolutely no reply to anything from Forum admin through to Tech Support I decided to wait for something to come up that could be used to get people to complain and perhaps something might get done.

 

As to the comment (adlibbing a bit) about Americans being forcibly sterilized, well I apologise although there was a reason. The rest is based on factual data available all over the Internet. Anyway here is a copy of the PM. The very first line of a few words has been removed because I do not wish to make the forum member 'known' to the rest of you. If he or she wants you to know who they are that's up to them.

 

"Line deleted so as not to identify person concerned.

 

There are so many things wrong with the forum now. Problems with browser compatibility for a start. Adverts covering the pages. No information to the users or moderators when changes are made. No support from Archant at all for the members which is really disgraceful, let alone no support for the moderators of which it appears I am the only one left. Even direct contact with the IT support department about forum technical problems go unanswered (not even a "we will look into it") and absolutely nothing from the Administrator who I don't even know who it is these days.

 

I strongly believe that the reason Archant bought the forum was because it was very active years ago and they used subjects discussed as the base for many articles they wrote in their magazine because basically they were running out of ideas. The dramatic fall in magazine sales in recent years has now led to it becoming an Internet magazine. If I look at all the other "French" forums they have all become much the same now, a few interesting subjects here and there (Pickles stuff abut CSG was really interesting and helpful) but the rest are usually rubbish (UK TV on a Saturday "Nite") (ed - sorry about that) plus the number of posts have dwindled dramatically.

 

Paragraph removed due to personal information and not relevant. Part of it did however confirm that forum posts have dropped a lot over a period of several (4 to 5) years.

 

As you said it has been a long time since the forum actually needed moderating resulting in me putting my "Moderators Hat On" not being needed. The only thing that needs doing is removing spam these days but even that has dropped off dramatically.

 

I shall stay keeping an eye on things even if my attempt to get Admin to say something to me and remove the thread resulted in a big fat zero. It has certainly proved to me they are totally un-interested so I have deleted the thread now."

 

So as you can see it was an attempt to get some notice on the members behalf and I apologise for any offence caused in the process. Just a shame it never worked but at least we all know where we are with regards to Archant and the forum.

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It was I who was contacted by Quillan, the message was in my inbox first thing this morning, the only bit missing from what he has posted here was the first line:

 

Well you almost hit the nail on the head.

 

I had been contacted by another forum member on the subject, I had posted that I thought it may have been a last cry for help before putting the keys through the letterbox while leaving, I'm usually miles off but not in this case.

 

I am making no comment on what was written or why, I already expressed my opinion when the thread was still open, the first posting "hate them with a vengeance" and the subsequent "sterilisation" was not acceptable, Ithe remainder after reading it again last night was in the absence of the provocative bits as Quillan says, no more than alleged facts reported in the media.

 

I hope that Dave21478 may reconsider now he has all the info at his disposal, I'd love to hear the final chapter of the restaurant saga.

 

Editted, this part was also removed from the PM:

 

As a moderator I do have access to the rate of posts history and the rate of posts (which only goes back 5 years) shows a gradual decrease to where we were today. I remember looking a few years back when I could see the data going back to 2007 and the crash in 2008 coupled with the massive drop in exchange rates afterwards is a definite link. Looking at my own business data the drop in Brits coming down here as house hunters has dropped about ten fold, if not more and lets be honest, if not repetitive, most of the posts were all about buying property in France. Indeed if you look at all the posts over the last two to three years regarding moving most have been about selling and going back to the UK compared to those coming here.

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So if I understand the rambling correctly, a two page hate-filled assasination of an entire nation starting with "I wont have one in the house", via "should all be castrated" and beyond that was definatly "not racist" was actually some kind of ploy to provoke a response from the forum owners?

I.....I'm honestly not sure if thats better or worse.

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Ok fair enough. This forum takes up to much of my time. The rubbish software means it takes me over 30 minutes (at one time it took over an hour) to perform a simple administrative task that should take two minutes at the most. I have to use three different browsers to do several moderator functions on software that is 10 years old and not compatible with anything newer than IE8. Pages that take ages to load due to adverts. Can now only really be used anywhere near properly with IE11 in compatibility mode because neither Edge or Chrome will support the old format properly (neither have compatibility mode) so really I just can't be bothered anymore. Sure I can install and use yet another browser, download some add-ons but why should I just for this forum when all the other forums I am on simply work with any browser with no problem. Why should I spend my time writing PM's and Emails drawing attention to members threads of many pages with people complaining about the software and never get a reply, heck they (tech support and Admin) don't even post to the forum. I would simply leave it to the other 48 (yes really, 48, I just counted them) Archant moderators of this forum to do the job but only one has ever posted (probably many have left Archant but nobody revoked their moderator rights which as anyone in IT will tell you is very dangerous) so that's really not going to work and the two administrators do not even answer PM's or emails.

 

So I need three people to step forward NOW, don't be shy, and I will make you Moderators after which I will walk away and you can simply get on with it and very good luck to you because you will need it. If I don't get any volunteers (you don't even get a free copy of the magazine anymore by the way, we lost that several years ago) I shall walk anyway and there will be no point in complaining about spam etc. because nobody will be listening. By the way, and I don't mean to put people off, there is no forum manual but moderators have access to the moderators section of the forum (not seen by normal members) from where reading all our posts to each other you should be able to work it out which is better at least than when I started.

 

Yes this is a whinge but it is no threat I can assure you. I have my family to think of and really I no longer have the time to deal with this junk and no I am not looking for sympathy nor do I expect any.

 

So come on people, I give you till 18:00 CET tomorrow night to come forward after which I will have gone and your on your own. Once I have left I can't make moderators because I will have lost my 'super' powers.

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Quillan, I shall say this politely, but get lost! How dare you do that, it was disgraceful and uncalled for and just plain nasty!

 There were other things to do other than wind every body up and you certainly have.

I have had replies recently from Archant, so there, they do reply, well to me at least.

If you are leaving, well tant mieux. And create moderators, well, as Chancer said, we have not really needed any for ages.

And it is only my opinion ofcourse, but some good posters have left, nay were banned because of zealous moderators and that was a big shame and I for one have not forgiven some of these ejections from the board, even though some were years ago. Made me highly suspicous of our 'prefects' and I will ever remain so.

I do hope that the board continues.

Vive France Forum

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Idun I don't really care other than you seem to have done the impossible, get a reply. It seems at least one person did what I wanted. Will they be fixing the forum? They never even posted when people complained about forum problems and they certainly have made no contact with me although seeing as I 'moved' the thread and not deleted it they can read it all themselves plus my apology for one comment placed here. You will be pleased however to know that I will be taking your advice. I just hope you don't have to eat your words about not needing another moderator. Perhaps you would consider taking on the job?

 

Edit - If by any chance anyone from Archant does read this, which I doubt, please, please, please look at the Technical Support section of this forum and read the complaints about it's performance etc. try and get the problems fixed and keep the members informed even if it is a one liner telling them your looking into the problems.

 

http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance-forums/cs/forums/308/ShowForum.aspx

 

Also please give the members notice when you carry out updates (not to mention testing them before going live) and/or take the forum down for maintenance.

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Well, the only thing that I can say on all this little spat is "Sad".

Quite frankly, I only saw last night's 'FUQ' post and hadn't bothered to read all the preceding stuff.

It strikes me that everybody should take a deep breath and settle down. Maybe the holiday break is the time for it.

Many who view on here gain valuable information whilst remaining essentially incognito. It would be more than a shame if this Forum 'dived' over such a disagreement. Many (incl Quillan) give good advice.

In short - knock this one on the head. Come backin the NY?
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This is the letter I received at the end of November. The response was fairly quick, cannot remember when I wrote to them, but it did not take long for them to act upon my email. I got in touch as there was a post that was all over the page.

It only took an email, not insulting a whole nation or upsetting every last person on here.

Thank you for getting in touch again and

bringing this post to our attention. We have spoken to the digital developers

about the post and the reason the format was affected is because a long

word/link was included, it has now been edited and the format has been sorted

out. You will see it is now readable. The developer is looking into how to stop

this happening in the future but in the meantime we will keep an eye on the

forum and try to sort out any individual instances as soon as possible.

 

We are currently undergoing a restructure

of the France

portfolio team and as part of this we will have more people concentrating on

the website which includes monitoring the forum. We are aware there have been

some technical glitches with the new format and we are looking into them,

although we apologise that it has taken so long to address the issues. We also understand

that a number of users are unhappy with the new format and we are looking at

ways to address this and to encourage users to become engaged again.

 

We are sorry that you are unhappy with the

forum and we are trying to address this.
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Well checking you never reported any post having a problem in, indeed the last time you reported anything was back on the 24th June to tell us about fake dollars. I can't sit here all day checking every post to the forum but this is a known problem that goes back many years. The fix was to have the URL link function added (that was done ages ago) so that users can connect a URL to just a few words which stops the problem. Because this forum is not HTML5 compliant it cannot deal with these things automatically. In truth there are many things technically wrong with the software as somebody pointed out when they run a diagnostic on just one page a month or two back. Unless the specific post is pointed out and dealt with immediately it is a little difficult (but not impossible) to find which one individual post causes the who thread to get 'over sized'. If I do see one I deal with it but as I said I don't have the time to look at every post and rely heavily on members reporting problems. I wonder why they never replied to the posts in the Tech Support Function or posted in the Moderators section?

 

Still it is excellent news you got a reply, you should be a moderator as clearly you can get things done.

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idun wrote :

I do hope the board continues.

And so do I. It has been a source of pleasure, amusement and reliable information for me since I became Internet connected in 2000.

Quillan said :

Still it is excellent news you got a reply, you should be a moderator as clearly you can get things done.

I second that ... !

Sue
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I apologise for coming so late to this thread.

Can I appeal to everyone to use the Report button when offensive posts are made ? At the moment it seems that people only report obvious advertising.

The report button sends an email to moderators who can then deal with things quickly. If the offensive post is made by a moderator he/she will not be the only one to get a report.
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