Dear Rats,

[ramAnag]

It seems inappropriate and confusing to have what is effectively the future of this forum discussed further on the 'O/T Barcelona attacks' thread and the matter seems to warrant it's own thread so here goes.

There has been an enormous amount of dissatisfaction with how this board is being run lately which resulted yesterday in three long established and respected posters - Roger, Rob the Ram and mista - all quitting.
As part of a response to this and the events of Thurs/Fri there was a request for more pro-active moderation of the site and Andy Faber's name was suggested. Andy has said he would be willing to do it but not as part of any attempt to remove you which appeared, to me at least, to be eminently fair and responsible.

Your response to this was then as follows;

'Three completely neutral sets of eyes have looked at it and have all come to the same conclusion and they are not what you want. None of these have been aware of the campaign against a specific poster. But all have mentioned pack mentality and bullying. Which is exactly what has been suffocating the board. As far as I am concerned the matter is closed.'

From this and with respect a number of questions have to be asked.

1) Who are the 'three completely neutral sets of eyes'? Presumably yours and Bloomer's are two of them but one would hesitate to describe your view as 'completely neutral'...quite the reverse in fact...and no other 'mod' has been present on the site for ages which is kind of the point as regards the need for a new addition.

2) Not at all sure what 'none of these have been aware of the campaign against a specific poster' implies but where is this 'pack mentality and bullying' which is 'suffocating the board'? Okay, maybe things went too far with regard to the 'specific poster', from three posters in particular, but that has been addressed and things had moved on until the very regrettable and disrespectful Barcelona comments at the end of the week. Only one person was responsible for that...the same person who has since attacked Roger on the basis of his age, abused me for suggesting he needed to apologise, told mista to '**** off' and accused KCG of talking 'out of your own arse'. Yet all that, along with the original comments, goes completely unpunished.

3) With respect, who are you to describe the matter as 'closed'? You are a moderator, who I accept has a difficult 'job' to do, but nothing more. The response to the 'specific poster' has been a mixture of fair and unfair, I accept that, but something is seriously wrong when so many posters are repeatedly upset/enraged by one particular poster's actions. Roger offers an admittedly curious mixture of mischief and 'nail on the head' comments and has been on the forum for longer than most, mista sees more of Derby than most and appears more knowledgeable about football than many, while Rob the Ram is a fountain of common sense and as unlikely to bully as anyone on the whole forum and yet they all walked away in disgust yesterday. How can the matter be 'closed' in such circumstances and how can you not recognise the need for change as far as improved moderation is concerned in the light of recent events?

Hopefully the three who have 'left' can still be tempted back after a rethink from 'above'. If no such change of heart is forthcoming I fear many more will follow their example.

[Rattea]

Without going into detail we have been. Monitoring the board for a while and from feedback it had almost become a closed forum as new posters with different opinions were not allowed to post by way of bullying and pressure on top of other tactics. Feedback from. Some who have tried proved this. Other feedback was it's been a clique for the few for quite a while.

I'm not going to ban a member to appease others unless there is a fully valid reason. Not showing what others believe is the required response is not valid. Direct abuse is. When posters can't take a step back and look objectively sometimes it's time to take a rest. On the said thread a certain poster did not go on to disrespect or create an issue but the same pack turned and rounded on them and refused to acknowledge it was a simple error.

Threats of leaving or else are never going to work and those that have apparently "left" have done so before on several occasions. That's their choice but if they cant objectively discuss with other posters then maybe a message board is not the right forum. The board had become a playground and we have stepped back in to stop that. I can give you a list of truly great posters over the years that don't post anymore as open discussion has been killed.

If certain posters want to take their ball home because they can no longer control then that is their prerogative. It's happened before and others who can discuss subjects come into replace them.

It's clear to anyone without agenda a simple misinterpretation happened. It's as simple as that. If some can't let go and move on then sadly moving on may be the best thing for the good of everyone. Bullying and threats won't win

[macstheman]

Shame!!

[KingCharlieGeorge]

"Only one person was responsible for that...the same person who has since attacked Roger on the basis of his age, abused me for suggesting he needed to apologise, told mista to '**** off' and accused KCG of talking 'out of your own arse'. Yet all that, along with the original comments, goes completely unpunished."

Rattea you have completely ignored this very relevant point. Why?

As I have said, we would never have got to this point if R4J had been warned about his spamming (You banned a female member for "apparently" spamming. Personally I thought it was you bullying her.) and inappropriate comments.

The membership has dwindled to only a few people and it seems it will shrink even further now.

[macstheman]

Apparently, what you alluded to in your opening paragraph KCG is not 'direct abuse', so you can tell a mod to **** off without being reprimanded!!

[ramAnag]

Sorry Rats...just don't understand it. Who are these 'new posters with different opinions' who have been chased off...and who are the bullies? The only three relatively new posters I can think of are DCFCArmy who copped some stick for his negativity and constant use of 'ffs', R4J (who I'm not going to comment further on) and Fishing Rod who was warmly welcomed but sadly doesn't post very often.
Honestly can't think of anyone else.
It's always a tad intimidating when anyone joins a new forum. I remember two or more years ago now thinking of Ramondo as the kindly headteacher, Ella as the clever one and you, Triz, Swale and Angry as the ones to be a bit wary of. Then you have your first 'encounter', give as good as you get, try not to deliberately offend and go from there.
You say 'bullying and threats' won't win. Roger, Rob and mista aren't bullies and they're not making threats...they've gone, more's the pity...but it seems to me that mindless abuse and an inability to ever apologise or be held to account is winning.
How can that be right and seeing as the number of moderators seems to be in as great a decline as the number of posters, why is it such a bad idea to appoint Andy as a fair, articulate and unbiased mod to help you out?
Genuinely puzzled.

P.S. No one, to the best of my knowledge, was asking you to ban anyone...but a warning as to future behaviour would, as KCG suggests, have surely been warranted and appropriate some time ago and certainly on Friday.

[macstheman]

Some fall on stoney ground, rA!!

[ramAnag]

Some fall on stoney ground, rA!!

Know what you mean mac, but I do think some answers should be forthcoming...especially about all these 'newbies' who've not been 'allowed' to post by 'bullying and pressure on top of other tactics'. I just don't recognise that...do you? Who are they and who are these 'bullies'?
I abhor bullying and obviously had quite a lot of professional involvement in counteracting it...it is a fact of life though that, although genuine bullying is always indefensible, the behaviour of some will lead to recrimination and a small minority of alleged 'victims' are very proficient at winding people up before running off to teacher/daddy/moderator/whoever to cry 'wolf'.

[StensonRam]

I still have my suspicions on who R4J actually is, I'm certain it's a duplicate account used to stir up controversy to increase traffic, I have a good memory and remember one of R4J's first posts if not his very first post talked about noticing this site was dying and needed bringing back from the dead so to speak, well he certainly has increased site traffic, currently he posts 11.56 times a day so it probably explains why no action is deemed necessary against him, trouble is most of them are just links and a header.

I've also noted rats has told R4J to refrain from the practice of posting immediately after himself multiple times but clearly this has gone unheeded.

[macstheman]

Totally agree rA!! I had wondered who these mysterious newbies were? As for ganging up and bullying, yes many disagreed openly with one poster but that was accompanied by sensible arguments as to where and why such disagreement existed!! Normally, such counter arguments were met with derision even if compulsive evidence was presented. Now if a significant number of people disagree with you and give good reasons why they do why is that ganging up and bullying?? Mind you, the same argument can be applied to moderators 'they are not necessarily right' and perhaps a significant number of posters disagreeing with them is evidence of that!! But perhaps that is bullying mods!!