Rule breakers

[Ellabella]

No lessons were learnt from the departure of Ravingdoll or Manuela.  There has to be a better way of dealing with transgessions of the rules other than a public dressing down.

Surely Ravingdoll left because she got caught telling porkies and I thought Manuela was upset with the actions of an individual member.

[StitchinTime]

We have an admin account for official posts, which have been generated after much careful discussion. Hope this clears up any lingering misunderstanding 

Thank you for the clarification, @Lowena. I will know in future that all posts from members who are administrators, moderators, etc are made in a personal capacity.

[Lowena]

  

[Celia]

Please no falling out

I can’t tell you how much help this forum has been to me over the last few months since I lost him in doors, there have been times when I just needed to know there was someone out there in the world who I could “talk to”  when I couldn’t cope.

Thank you to everyone for being here

[Bill]

If I may, removing/editing offending posts and a pm to its author regarding why would need no evidence of said post. Neither the post or its moderated content or the pm would be public. The removal/editing of such material would I hope be understandable to anyone who'd seen the original post.
This is how indiscretions are dealt with in the workplace. The employee is called into the managers office for a polite word/warning. Not shouted across the factory floor.

If you want people to take on the onerous and often horrible task of running the forums, it would be good to bear this in mind and show the team some courtesy.  Otherwise you may find that there is no forum here at all.

Completely unnecessary.

[Acorn]

Completely unnecessary for me to express my feelings?  Well thank you very much.  It's time to start looking for another Admin.  I quit.

BTW, it is entirely necessary for there to be evidence of posts made - if a member continues to break the rules and claims they nhever said something for which they had received a PM warning there would be no evidence.

But that's by the by.  As I said, I quit.

[UttaRetch]

And there we have it.  Moderation has proved to be the poisoned challice I knew it would be.  It's bye from me, too.

[Bill]

Completely unnecessary for me to express my feelings?  Well thank you very much.  It's time to start looking for another Admin.  I quit.

BTW, it is entirely necessary for there to be evidence of posts made - if a member continues to break the rules and claims they nhever said something for which they had received a PM warning there would be no evidence.

But that's by the by.  As I said, I quit.

I apologies if that came across wrong @Acorn
What I meant was that I thought it unnecessary to make the threat that without moderators the forum would be taken away/offline. If that was indeed what was implied. Just how it looked.
I don't pretend to know how things are done here but I do know that on the Cycling UK forum, moderated posts are backed up unedited for future reference. I was the author of a shall we say, "less than polite" post several years ago. During a heated argument with the mod, he pointed out my earlier indiscretions. 
I and I'm fairly certain a large number of the members here would be sorry to see both you and @UttaRetch go over something silly as having different points of view on how the forum should be run.

[Diane]

Please don’t fall out over this, i love this forum and would hate to see anyone leave over a silly comment thats been made. It’s the best sewing forum I’ve ever come across and it would be really sad if it disappeared.

[Iminei]

What people here are blissfully unaware of are the changes that our Hosting company are insisting be made. This is very stressful both to myself, who also has other stresses ongoing, and to Acorn who takes the majority of the tech horrors on her shoulders.

We are at a point where without Acorn, or myself in an extremely limited capacity, this forum might not exist unless we fight and work very hard ... and both of us are tired of the lack of support we have recently been getting.

I personally hope that Acorn changes her mind as I know I cannot run this forum on my own.

[Diane]

Well I’m extremely grateful to all that help run this forum and i can imagine how much work goes in to it. I personally rely on this place to keep me sane and have a chat with like minded people. Please come back @Acorn @UttaRetch @charley we need you all to keep this forum going.

[Bill]

I don't think I speak for myself when I say that @Iminei and @Acorn are very much appreciated here.
I love the folk on this forum as without them I wouldn't have progressed as much as I have and you're all basically part of the nicest, friendliest bunch of interweb folk I've had the fortune to share my interests with.

I fact, and I've just thought of this, but within a matter of weeks here, @Mr Twingo had offered and proceeded to send me several cuts of leather (that stuff isn't cheap!) and a few spools of thick thread to practice with. Wanna know how many times that's happened on any other forum? Go on, have a guess. That's right. Never. Not once. I was made to feel like one of the gang within a month of being here. How's that for warm and fuzzy.

[sewingj]

@Iminei we are "blissfully unaware" because noone has told us there are problems. I am very sorry that you feel you haven't been getting enough support, but we can't know this or try to do something about it if we are kept in the dark.

[Diane]

I don't think I speak for myself when I say that @Iminei and @Acorn are very much appreciated here.
I love the folk on this forum as without them I wouldn't have progressed as much as I have and you're all basically part of the nicest, friendliest bunch of interweb folk I've had the fortune to share my interests with.

I totally agree @Wayfarer , how many would want to take on an admin job on a forum

[dolcevita]

I'm really sorry that you, @Iminei and @Acorn feel unsupported, and would like to publicly express my thanks for all the work you do for the forum. I know from experience that the harder someone works behind the scenes, the easier those in front of them think things are, especially when we see so little of what you do and you don't complain.

Moderation isn't an easy task but I think these days, it's a necessary one. Better a moderated forum than one that descends into a bear pit of differing strong opinions on which neither side will give, which can ruin a forum for the majority of other users. I fully understand all the freedom of speech arguments, but this is primarily a forum about sewing and if you have strong views on matters such as politics that you want to discuss, there are other, more appropriate places for this.

I didn't pick up on Charley's post at the time it was made as I'm not interested in Eurovision. Having read it today, it's clear that she holds some strongly felt views and these seeped into the post. FWIW, I thought that it was an inappropriate post, regardless of whether I agree with the contents or not; even for an off-topic post, it wasn't the place for those comments and I thought the moderation was fair. The question of leaving it public is a thorny one and, again, we don't get to see everything that happens in the background. Whether other members feel it was fair or not, I think it is the moderators to whom we should be giving leaway to as much as the OP. The moderators are the ones who are stuck with trying to make judgement calls on these posts every day and it will never be possible to please everyone. To expect a highly nuanced, consultative and please-everyone approach or solution is simply unrealistic in an environment such as this, and especially where the moderators are voluntary and doing a good job as best as they can. If anyone thinks that they can do better, as well as dealing with all the technical issues, participating in the forum as a member and continuing their normal daily life, then please step forward and offer your services - I'm sure the mods would welcome the assistance with open arms.

Until then, please can we get some perspective on this and stop taking pot-shots at people who make this forum function. None of us are perfect and there will be slip ups along the way, but these can be solved (or compromised upon) in a non-aggressive manner.

@Acorn  - please come back. We need you.