oh what a panic is thy breestie... to see thy comments oot tae feastie.

Burns-etic license.

We haven't decided whether we'll keep all of the existing forum posts, or start over again. I'm liking the idea of keeping the old ones, but the format doesn't quite fit the new one, so I'll see if there is a clever way of brokering all the messages over.

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW

xxx

Why has S/s consistently put up with bullying on its forum? Suely the 'let people rip into each other survival of the fittest' policy is just another form of (otherwise seemingly reviled) PC?

Once upon a time there was an incredibly creative deity, and it said, let there be light! And there was.

Then it said, let there be a website! And there it was, and then it had a forum. But, rather than risk unpopularity - you know, by seeming to ‘parent’ things, get hands dirty pre-60’s style -.instead, good liberal that it was, it said (to itself), let the forum rule! And that forum was peopled. And though it could have been good (despite the obligatory ass saving covenants) the forum was largely timid at first and even fairly boring, as a result of which it seemed to increasingly became extremely bitchy. But the website refused to intervene because it had much better things to do and, well, who wants to make themselves unpopular? Hell, let the little people do that for you!

So the poor people in the forum were left to their own means. Which, possibly though a mixture of boredom, envy etc resulted in some people ganging together and harassing anyone considered not-the-norm, all sniping and growling instead of exchanging ideas/information. And gradually some other people got more and more pissed off and had a go at policing the damn thing in absentia, and found themselves very isolated but hey, some people do actually have principles, and the balls to do something about them.

But no matter what, the website clung to it’s ‘no way we’re going to get involved because that would just seem so uncool!'’ policy.

So the forum is a disaster. Cynicism rules. Thus, unsurprisingly, hardly anybody of any interest ever contributes. Useful criticisms of the website’s projects are quite rare. And supporters are minoritised, oddly (a la Groucho Marx?)

Shame.

I don't get this, F:lux, by & large from your statement you seem to imply you were/are policing this forum? By my recollection the only form of intervention I can see is to aid Chris' battles - equally, in doing so, you end being just as vitriolic & supercilious as those same perpetrators. Whilst your defence of Chris is commendable, it ends up becoming a means to an end, almost, for you.

It isn't about me NFFE. I've been openly kicking around this forum for a lot longer than you and I haven't been the only person to defend Chris in all that time, and Chris hasn't been the only member to come under attack.

It's become fucking sniper alley in Sarajevo in here, it's a mess!

S/s set this forum in motion. Is this the forum it wants? Fine.

Stop the self-important shit. Who said that you were the only one defending Chris on here, eh? Further, why does he need you to come to his battles; I don't particularly care either way, but it's like you can't see the wood from the trees. Acting like it's all about "us" against Chris. Incidentally, one of the reasons many don't post on here is probably because of Chris clogging the board with inconsequential ramblings. Regardless, I don't wish to incite an argument with you, but I do think you need to appreciate the reasons why people are peeved with his postings.

The reason we aren't policing the forum is, as stated before, we don't have time to do it. We're here, managing a number of other things, and not able to come in and act as diplomats. It is not possible for our small team to come in at every opportunity and say 'calm down'. We've stayed away from stating an opinion on particular posts because, well, we don't generally have an opinion on them - or the time to spend developing an opinion. This forum is an area for our viewers opinions, not ours.

We'd prefer not to have 'off topic' discussions, and so we are working on a set of topics that you can talk within, which will all become available soon - however building these things, like any process, takes time, and we appreciate you patience whilst we get there. We're looking at increased moderation, but it's not a task that anyone here wants to do - any volunteers?

It might seem stating the obvious, but the more time we spend policing this the less time we have to spend on actually developing the site, and ongoing projects, which are really what our focus is.

We aren't going to defend any individual's actions on the forum, but at the same time that means we aren't going to enter into openly criticise them - NFFE being the exception to this, who I have criticised and has come back from it, and in many ways taken on board that criticim - though he still seems to get a bit hot under the colar from time to time, as do some of the other users.

This forum is not intended to be a place where people can post any old ramblings, it's intended as a place for discussion about SHOWstudio, it's projects, and the areas which it covers: Fashion, Photography and Art. We'd like our viewers to post messages which start conversation and debate - however heated.

We try to let our users establish what ground is relevant to that, and whilst there are off-topic posts the best thing to do is for everyone to guide what is on-topic, not to end up self referentially compalining that its not going one way or another.

If there is a consistent reaction to a certain type of posts then rather than defending the original posts the poster needs to consider why that reaction was taken and how to avoid it in future - just as you would if someone reacted to your actions in the real world.

OK Dorian. I haven’t visited S/s much lately but old habits die hard, don’t they. So recently I popped in on the off chance that something was happening, realised that Chris Summerfield had been successfully drummed out of the forum after an extended campaign to get rid of him, and despite promises to rework and better regulate (if not actually 'police') it, absolutely nobody had intervened. Despite Penny’s call for moderation, which is what this whole thread is about, the mobbing was permitted unhindered, and it shouldn’t matter who the victim of it was. When Gareth Pugh came under attack plenty of people leapt to his defence – obvious difference in his case is that he was collaborating in a project initiated by S/s but even so, is it fair that anybody else should be relentlessly harassed unchecked? Especially someone as essentially harmless as Chris. In the real world it wouldn’t be tolerated, so why should it be OK here?

It annoys me intensely that Chris’ detractors blame him and him alone for lowering the tone of the forum when in fact it’s mainly their unremitting bullying that’s largely at fault. The really stupid thing is, if they’d let him be he might have got bored and left of his own accord well before now. When Chris’ topics have seemed to me like non-starters or totally off the wall, I’ve ignored them. It’s not that hard! But I’ve always liked him and on occasion his contributions have opened into interesting territory – or had the potential to do so until the discussions were disrupted, of course, which they increasingly, systematically were. The forum has become less meeting place than schoolyard/battleground. Far too many forum users are far too busy shouting down Chris etc to discuss Fashion, Photography & Art anyway, so that argument doesn’t quite wash. Who the fuck are they to decide what’s normal and acceptable? And since when were creative people supposed to be fucking normal??

I can’t argue with ‘have no time and better things to do’ but if, as you’re elliptically suggesting, S/s would have preferred Chris to adapt his approach to the forum or even quit altogether, wouldn’t it have been a good idea to explain this to him privately? You know, a short email, one adult to another perhaps? Because instead, allowing him to be publicly abused and harassed for well over a year is really shabby. What about the responsibility inherent in hosting a public forum? Anarchy, in the proper sense, would be ideal but it’s stupidly utopian to expect it to occur naturally, especially when the evidence of this forum’s history consistently proves it unlikely to happen. If I do nothing to my garden it doesn’t spontaneously become a Chelsea flower show contender. If I do nothing to my garden, weeds take over.

I apologise for losing my temper about this issue, yet again. But I am still pissed off and I’m not impressed. What choices do forum users have right now? Those currently on offer by the mob actually running it for S/s are:
1. Shut the fuck up (continue to visit the site and its forum but lurk like the majority of registered members and admire from a safe distance)
2. Fuck off altogether (and die…)
3. Or speak out when you want to, even at the risk of being consistently treated like shit by a bunch of bolshy intolerant asbo-wits who don’t know the difference between criticism and bullying, and whose stiflingly narrow world view leaves no room for discussion anyway.

That said, I still hope S/s finds a way of dealing with the forum that doesn't involve moderators.

No doubt I’ll get a load of abuse myself now, though in my case it’ll be because I can spell fairly well and know how to use big intimidating words in coherent sentences. Whoop-de-doo.