leaving the forum

[Herestandsaman]

Nice of you to defend yourself Dai, though, like you say, some of the posts here are shocking.
Can't believe mods don't take action.
If someone does wrong, they need to be held responsible.
I can only speak for myself. I have no issues with Dai & he is a great asset to the LPG forum

[strbryan]

Thanks for your uplifting response Dia BUT I would like to point out that YOU are NOT a trader on this forum (so number 7 has NO bearing on you)NOR are you a paid up member (which was also removed from you)and for good reasons.I was a paid up member but have decided like others not to contribute financially towards the VOC and its tea partying BoD's with their behind the scenes hand shacking shenanigans..

PS It was your girlfriend why has mentioned that others where in the proses of taking you to court..I only know of one, but I'm not saying which one it is..

[Dibble]

Originally Posted by simon marsh

Nice of you to defend yourself Dai, though, like you say, some of the posts here are shocking.
Can't believe mods don't take action.
If someone does wrong, they need to be held responsible.
I can only speak for myself. I have no issues with Dai & he is a great asset to the LPG forum

I agree with what you have to say. I cannot understand how this individual is permitted to continue using such abusive terms. Time he was removed as far as I am concerned. He and his pal Bongodave are well suited and there is no place on this friendly Forum for people like them.
If there is a problem with Dai then that should be dealt with using the proper channels and not using this Forum as a vehicle for their abusive remarks.
Come on Mods get him fixed.

[migrator]

This thread was locked earlier and I believed that common sense had put a stop to all of this new name calling and offensive language.

Now I find that it is open again. Just some posts have been deleted (possibly others edited but I can't be bothered re-reading this to find out). The foolishness continues but now there is no continuity in the postings so the overall sense has been destroyed.

[volvo145]

Originally Posted by Dibble

I agree with what you have to say. I cannot understand how this individual is permitted to continue using such abusive terms. Time he was removed as far as I am concerned. He and his pal Bongodave are well suited and there is no place on this friendly Forum for people like them.
If there is a problem with Dai then that should be dealt with using the proper channels and not using this Forum as a vehicle for their abusive remarks.
Come on Mods get him fixed.

But is it wrong for someone to highlight a problem with a forum member.
It is wrong if it ends up getting personal and strays from the facts though as a forum is for advice and sensible banter.

Proper channels do not always work as I personally found out but I wont go into detail on here.That to me is why some info on forums is useful for finding out about problem traders and there will be a few about, licenced or otherwise.
It is then up to you whether to use them or not.
One dissatisfied customer telling friends can turn into lost business, that is why its better not to get into that situation in the first place if possible.
But then again some people will always find faults with other peoples workmanship no matter what you do even Dia or strbryan would admit to that.

[rippedoffagain]

Originally Posted by volvo145

It is wrong if it ends up getting personal and strays from the facts though as a forum is for advice and sensible banter.

Yes. How can it not be? If you were having a problem at work and your adversaries were to stray from the facts just so they could destroy your career, would that be ok? Sensible banter, to me, means a bit of harmless tongue in cheek mockery where it is reasonable to assume that the recipient knows its all just tongue in cheek. For example, one of my mates likes to call my car a 'heap o sh1te'. That's ok. That's banter. I respond by mocking his french baco foil car. If my mate was to start telling other people that I'm a dodgy it that should not be trusted, that wouldn't be banter, that would be malice.

One dissatisfied customer telling friends can turn into lost business, that is why its better not to get into that situation in the first place if possible.
But then again some people will always find faults with other peoples workmanship no matter what you do even Dia or strbryan would admit to that.

Exactly. So knowing that means that any public attempts to discredit the business owner is like knowingly trying to destroy their business. Most likely their business is also their livelihood, and their means of putting food on the table for their families. This is why even though I don't know the man, I get pretty upset when I see blatantly malicious threads like this one where there is a witch hunt where half the mob, by their own admission, have never even dealt with the target.

I also find it disturbing for another reason. I've done business with people on this forum (always as the buyer rather than the seller) and I've always been happy. But what if I wasn't? I bought a 15 year old car off one forum member, and as such, there were things wrong with the car but I expected that given the price I'd paid and what I was buying. What if I'd taken a different stance? What if I'd not been entirely happy, but rather than taking it with the seller, I'd decided to publicly tear the seller apart on here, and then stood back and watched while some members jumped on the bandwagon. Would that be ok? I'd suggest not.

(for the record, I am entirely happy with the deal I got, I'm just using it as an analogy)

[pettaw]

Originally Posted by rippedoffagain

No they wouldn't. The mods don't assume all legal liability for the rantings of the forum members.

Thank goodness we don't.......

However, we are responsible for enforcing the forum rules....Rule 1: Be courteous to others...... We have been guilty of letting this go for far too long.....This is not an arena for venting of spleens and self-righteous indignation.
Thread locked.

[The Thong]

Originally Posted by david philips

any chance of a big padlock for this thread?

Agreed......

[foggyjames]

I discussed this subject with Andy (pettaw) on Sunday, and said I would follow it up by having a tidy-up of the thread. Apologies for the slight delay, but I was away from a computer over the weekend. Rest assured nothing is being ignored, but instant action cannot always be taken, and not all raised concerns are necessarily considered actionable.

Some points for everyone to consider...and I do not expect to see either PMs or new threads in response!

1) girlracer, strbryan and gudgeonpin - you are free to make your points, but all of you have been sailing far too close to the wind in terms of tone, both in this thread and others. Other members have noted this behaviour, and have reported posts. Kindly wind it in, or you will be banned! In case you are in need of clarification, we're talking about Rule 1:

Originally Posted by The Rules

1. Be courteous to others. We do not tolerate any abusive behaviour. We do not tolerate any obscene comments or images. We do not tolerate derogatory remarks directed toward a particular member or group of members. If you are not sure, either ask a member of the moderation team or don't post it.

In case further clarification is needed, we don't want to see the following:

• "******s"
• Anything that does or should end up as ****, regardless of whether an i is replaced with a 1
• "FFS"
• "Prat" (when not meant humorously)
• "Welshie", etc - this might be acceptable banter for squaddies and builders, but we get enough reports about this kinda thing to tell us that it's not acceptable to a lot of our members, so leave it out, please.

You can't take advantage of Rule 7 (re: traders) whilst ignoring Rule 1! If you can't see that you are not obeying Rule 1, we have a problem.

2) Tony has already been reprimanded for his comments towards Brian in a thread some months ago. That's dealt with, as far as I'm concerned, and although a chalk-mark has been left on the tally for a perma-ban, it's not for dragging up again. There has been bad-tempered comment on both sides (now mostly removed!), so I think it would be unfair to punish an individual in relation to this thread.

3) As we have said a number of times, both privately and publicly, the matters of Dai's problem LPG installations (and it should be noted that it is a very small number out of many...but nonetheless too many) need to be sorted out. I agree that Dai is an asset to the forum...but this is business that Dai gained via the forum, and it will be seen to be sorted out via the forum. We are far more concerned about that than we are about the abrupt tone of some contributors, and I very much hope that all members feel the same way. It's a sad day if we're more concerned about the tone of discussion than sorting out a problem in our midst.

Given the mandate the forum team was given back in 2008, I think a frank discussion about the issues at hand is exactly the right thing to happen if it isn't being resolved quietly. We have a proud history of hosting robust debate when there are problems, and we firmly believe that is the right stance for an owners' forum to take. There will certainly be no "hiding away of unpleasantness". However, that has to happen in a polite and reasoned manner.

4) It may well be that various parties legal advice in relation to ongoing cases is not to comment publicly. They should not be criticised for heeding that advice (other than to state that they will not be commenting, and why) while action is ongoing, nor goaded into making further comment. The information I have to hand on the case I know of appears to be conflicting, so I'll comment no further at this stage.

In a nutshell, our job is to make sure everyone can have their say - but you can't do that if you're going to break the rules. Being rude works in no-ones favour, weakens arguments, and sours the atmosphere of the forum. We can confront situations that aren't right, but this is not going to be allowed to descend into a free-for-all.

cheers

James

[pettaw]

Thanks Foggy,

I just would like to add one more point. I have NO wish to stifle brisk discussion or reports of bad customer service/faulty workmanship, but I see no need for rudeness or personal remarks.

I agree with James that if people seek to advertise on this forum but then don't give customers the service they deserve then they should be called to account ON this forum, but that does NOT mean that anything goes. This has been made explicit in the forum rules since this forum's resurrection in 2008, but we (the moderating team) have been guilty of being too lax in enforcing them for some time.

If you see people being rude then I want you to use the 'report post' button rather than the 'reply' button please.

We do this as volunteers in what's laughably called our 'spare' time but its not endless so if there continues to be rule breaking then we will simply start removing whole threads rather than individual posts.

Andy.