Stickied The Staff Query Thread

[Son of Cod]

With respect, you closed the thread because you wanted to have the last word. You know that, I know that, everyone reading this knows that. An infuriating act of feebleness mirroring a major factor in the demise of TFF. I'm only taking the piss with regards to this data loss stuff and to a lesser extent the Ian stuff, but if you want to really piss off the longstanding members then carry on chiming in with these soi disant affirmative conclusions and then exiting the thread in your personal lifeboat. You have been warned.

 

[Son of Cod]

Also...

a waste of bandwith and a provocative way to boost the likes

...1FF in a nutshell. Congratulations on the successful creation of a new slogan.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

Also...


...1FF in a nutshell. Congratulations on the successful creation of a new slogan.

He'll be calling us ungrateful cvnts next.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

Have to say I am disappointed that the following post was deleted...

TBH, mate, I don’t think posts like that are very helpful. Things are shitty at the moment, but we’re still a long way off Lord Football or Villa Boy levels of douchebaggery.

Those guys wouldn’t have tolerated 1% of the criticism that’s been posted (and left untouched) on here in the last 48 hours. They wouldn’t have apologised to users or expressed any kind of retrospective admission of error. They didn’t even permit the sort of discussion in which such things could be expressed.

People (rightly) blame Tom F for blowing up TFF without warning, but it’s worth remembering that a demolition was scheduled for a few months later anyway. The guys that ran TFF had no interest in improving the forum. They had given up. I think the Admin folk here (the two active at present, at least) want to make it work. They are trying. If nothing else, there is at least a conciliatory tone and an attempt to engage with constructive criticism. This alone make them better than the TFF lot.

Given this, I don’t think comments like yours – more snarky like-bait than constructive criticism – help very much. I understand where all this “it’s TFF all over again” stuff is coming from. I, too, have concerns. But I think the comparison is somewhat unfair. More importantly, I think there’s a risk of it becoming a bit of self-fulfilling prophesy. People are always less likely to try if they think it’s a thankless task.

I think some people want this place to fail. As such, I get them jumping on every faux pas, taking pot shots and never passing up an opportunity to shit stir. I don’t think you’re one of them.

 

[NorfolkWomble]

You say they are trying and then they act in these ways. There's a reason I've been on here once in the last week: because it is crap right now.

 

[T.A]

With respect, you closed the thread because you wanted to have the last word. You know that, I know that, everyone reading this knows that. An infuriating act of feebleness mirroring a major factor in the demise of TFF. I'm only taking the piss with regards to this data loss stuff and to a lesser extent the Ian stuff, but if you want to really piss off the longstanding members then carry on chiming in with these soi disant affirmative conclusions and then exiting the thread in your personal lifeboat. You have been warned.

London's changed you...

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

Scumbag has a point though.

As much as I am up in arms at TPP's banning and I think it's utterly stupid and I will insist so and tell TB as much when he is back, Oeuf hasn't been banned. Additionally as much as I have messaged Mark and given Saddler crap over it, if I'm in there shoes I'm probably not going to handle the situation any differently.

TomF was a dour, humourless, egoistical arsehole; Villaboy was an absolute fuckwit and as much as I did like LF, his ego was something else. The admin here aren't like that and I agree they're making an effort. Thing is, as much as Saddler has sailed off in his own lifeboat from that thread, he's opened up this staff query thread for all the landmines that will entail for admin.

Although, unban TPP.

 

[Martino Quackavelli]

Scumbag has a point, but then again he hasn't been banned or punished without explanation.

 

[Saddlerrad]

With respect, you closed the thread because you wanted to have the last word. You know that, I know that, everyone reading this knows that. An infuriating act of feebleness mirroring a major factor in the demise of TFF. I'm only taking the piss with regards to this data loss stuff and to a lesser extent the Ian stuff, but if you want to really piss off the longstanding members then carry on chiming in with these soi disant affirmative conclusions and then exiting the thread in your personal lifeboat. You have been warned.

Genuinely totally wrong on that front. I closed it because I wanted to leave my post as a reference point for anyone that looked at the thread later. I'm one of the most easy going, chilled out, non egotistic people you will find on this forum - that's just a misunderstanding. Hence my attempt to humour you after.

You say they are trying and then they act in these ways. There's a reason I've been on here once in the last week: because it is crap right now.

With respect, what do you come on to an Internet forum expecting when these are the 'constructive' suggestions flying around?

I think people are also forgetting that once the honeymoon period is over, there is a natural drop off/lull in members and activity on a forum, it's happened on a few forums I use. Some regulars stopped being less regular, once we were 6 months old.

Forums aren't as popular as they once were, certainly not to start from the bottom (unless we have a tight community such as this), to a degree though we could do/run virtually anything on the forum game/competition wise and people would still come and go afterwards as they pleased, so comments of 'its shit on here' whilst perhaps fair enough, the grass won't be greener on any potential 'other side' for long.

That being said though, im open and willing to listen to improvements. To re-iterate once and for all I will do my utmost to improve the day to day enjoyment of the forum, the modding team and the transparency/communication between admin/members.

It does become hard work in here though when people repeatedly make shots and digs on issues that are in the process of being rectified. Give it a month, then come back to this and question things again if it's not improved.

 

[Saddlerrad]

Scumbag has a point, but then again he hasn't been banned or punished without explanation.

You were warned yesterday, see below. That should have popped up, the next time you logged in as it associates with your account and can be seen at any time.

You spam posted references to another forum thereafter and was then banned for a month. If you didn't see that, then it's unfortunate but there's never been a problem with that system before (certainly not a recognised one).

The ban will stand and an explanation has been given, there's no specific issue between yourself and admin as far as I'm concerned. So get through the month and you will be allowed back into the shoutbox.

 

[smat]

I think the Admin folk here (the two active at present, at least) want to make it work. They are trying.

To be honest I feel like the jury is somewhat out on that. Do they want to make it work as a community, or do they just want a saleable asset? I do wonder if the customer care is just being skimped on because it's not the priority, money is. And I certainly don't want this place to fail.

 

[Martino Quackavelli]

Tell me, with the warning not showing up (and even if it had there's no way I'd be able to see it on the discouraged list, takes a year to do anything) was the hope that I'd go mad with how slow things were and quit? I don't see the point in the discourage feature, if someone is spamming give them a temp ban, or, and crazy suggestion here, maybe shoot them a PM first? I work in supported housing at the mo, with the long term homeless including people with severe mental health issues, addiction etc. It's important that we maintain trust, and we do so through a well-thought out warning procedure. When we do have to take action there's a verbal warning, then a written warning and so on. We don't just go straight for punishment with no communication. No-one who you've punished over the last couple of days seems to have any clue why, and in one unfortunate instance even you guys don't seem to know why. If I didn't have my very good friend Son of Cod to log on as me nothing would have happened. If I didn't do some digging and discover this awful discourage user feature I probably would have quit the forum that's how fucking annoying that feature is (also it's still incredibly slow are you sure you took me off it). The forum would certainly be the worse for it too, considering I am the two time winner of the coveted 'Best Shoutboxer' award, as well as being voted number 2 in the 'Good Guy List' (that also got second place in 'Feature of the Year').

 

[smat]

I am the two time winner of the coveted 'Best Shoutboxer' award, as well as being voted number 2 in the 'Good Guy List' (that also got second place in 'Feature of the Year').

In fairness the latter is sort of like Steve Coogan boasting about a National Television Award.

 

[TheMinsterman]

TBH, mate, I don’t think posts like that are very helpful. Things are shitty at the moment, but we’re still a long way off Lord Football or Villa Boy levels of douchebaggery.

Those guys wouldn’t have tolerated 1% of the criticism that’s been posted (and left untouched) on here in the last 48 hours. They wouldn’t have apologised to users or expressed any kind of retrospective admission of error. They didn’t even permit the sort of discussion in which such things could be expressed.

People (rightly) blame Tom F for blowing up TFF without warning, but it’s worth remembering that a demolition was scheduled for a few months later anyway. The guys that ran TFF had no interest in improving the forum. They had given up. I think the Admin folk here (the two active at present, at least) want to make it work. They are trying. If nothing else, there is at least a conciliatory tone and an attempt to engage with constructive criticism. This alone make them better than the TFF lot.

Given this, I don’t think comments like yours – more snarky like-bait than constructive criticism – help very much. I understand where all this “it’s TFF all over again” stuff is coming from. I, too, have concerns. But I think the comparison is somewhat unfair. More importantly, I think there’s a risk of it becoming a bit of self-fulfilling prophesy. People are always less likely to try if they think it’s a thankless task.

I think some people want this place to fail. As such, I get them jumping on every faux pas, taking pot shots and never passing up an opportunity to shit stir. I don’t think you’re one of them.

Having been involved in TFF too and had a day or so to settle into the staff area here, I have to say it is honestly different. I moderated on TFF for several years, yet I was never told about the plans they had and suddenly logged on one day to discover the forum was been shitcanned, here I've seen genuine attempts to try and figure out how to solve some of the concerns that have been brought up, for one they hired me for the Politics section to try and address the many issues people had with it (if they're just waiting for a sale they have zero reason to even bother appointing me, let alone actually listening to and acting on some of my suggestions).

I'm not just sucking up to them because they promoted me, I won't pretend I don't agree with many of the things people here say as I was just a member myself too before yesterday, but they don't compare to TFF by any stretch.

 

[MagpieBee]

Is a discourage feature even legal? I would think not if anyone who was on it had paid to be a supporter of this site?

Most of this stuff passes me by, but it does seem that most decisions are taken on a "protect the value of the asset we are trying to sell" basis, particularly by some admins, and the discourage feature is just one example of that.

I do feel a little sorry for Saddler at times as his job largely seems to be apologising for the crap everyone else does.

 

[Son of Cod]

TBH, mate, I don’t think posts like that are very helpful. Things are shitty at the moment, but we’re still a long way off Lord Football or Villa Boy levels of douchebaggery.

Those guys wouldn’t have tolerated 1% of the criticism that’s been posted (and left untouched) on here in the last 48 hours. They wouldn’t have apologised to users or expressed any kind of retrospective admission of error. They didn’t even permit the sort of discussion in which such things could be expressed.

People (rightly) blame Tom F for blowing up TFF without warning, but it’s worth remembering that a demolition was scheduled for a few months later anyway. The guys that ran TFF had no interest in improving the forum. They had given up. I think the Admin folk here (the two active at present, at least) want to make it work. They are trying. If nothing else, there is at least a conciliatory tone and an attempt to engage with constructive criticism. This alone make them better than the TFF lot.

Given this, I don’t think comments like yours – more snarky like-bait than constructive criticism – help very much. I understand where all this “it’s TFF all over again” stuff is coming from. I, too, have concerns. But I think the comparison is somewhat unfair. More importantly, I think there’s a risk of it becoming a bit of self-fulfilling prophesy. People are always less likely to try if they think it’s a thankless task.

I think some people want this place to fail. As such, I get them jumping on every faux pas, taking pot shots and never passing up an opportunity to shit stir. I don’t think you’re one of them.

While I agree with almost all of that, I still stand by my decision to flag up the whole getting the last word in and then slamming the thread shut method. That's the only thing I'm saying is on par with the TFF meltdown. I do think that the admin here are generally more approachable and open than they were on TFF, however that is gradually starting to change and I felt it needed highlighting. The snarkiness was merely a vehicle for that, admittedly a rather abrasive one.

Genuinely totally wrong on that front. I closed it because I wanted to leave my post as a reference point for anyone that looked at the thread later. I'm one of the most easy going, chilled out, non egotistic people you will find on this forum - that's just a misunderstanding. Hence my attempt to humour you after.

But if that was genuinely the case, a short "Okay, this has run its cause. Any further issues, PM me." would have been sufficient, surely? Instead you wrote four paragraphs, albeit short ones, addressing some of the issues raised in the thread. If you're gonna do that, then leave it open.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

To be honest I feel like the jury is somewhat out on that. Do they want to make it work as a community, or do they just want a saleable asset? I do wonder if the customer care is just being skimped on because it's not the priority, money is. And I certainly don't want this place to fail.

Ok so one share of the site maybe for sale, which may or may not actually come to anything. That doesn't mean that the only reason the site exists is to make money. SaddlerRad has recruited and will recruit more staff, he's always thinking about the site and tweaks, and once you get him going you can't bloody shut him up. TB has time and time again bailed us out with his expertise, it's a shame but probably a fact of the internet that a site with solid traffic will get attacked on a semi regular basis. For my part I actually own / am entitled to nothing whatsoever from the site, I just happen to actually like and take pride in this community and like you guys in it. Yes all of you, even the awkward buggers.

That might come across more 'just be grateful' than I intended. Basically my point is that areas in which things could no doubt be improved aren't because we don't care, have no interest, or are just waiting around to milk money. I think at times we're too reactive and not proactive as I'd like - that's a fair comment. It's probably because 'real life' happens to all of us at times.

As said, forums in general aren't a massive thing anymore, social media and suchlike have put paid to that. They certainly aren't a way to riches. And it's very hard to grow and gain further traction these days. But that doesn't mean we a) can't try to do that, or b) can't make what we've already got here - better.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

To be honest I feel like the jury is somewhat out on that. Do they want to make it work as a community, or do they just want a saleable asset? I do wonder if the customer care is just being skimped on because it's not the priority, money is.

I don’t know the answer to those questions. Only they do.

FWIW, though, I do think the two things you mention – making the community work and maintaining a saleable asset – go hand in hand.

Like most businesses, 1FF’s saleability is directly proportional to its profitability. Its profitability depends on its attractiveness to advertisers. Its attractiveness to advertisers depends on there being certain levels of activity. So, regardless of TB and SR’s medium-to-long term intentions, it’s in their interests to avoid another TFF-like debacle where a complete breakdown of relations leads to a mass migration elsewhere.

In the case of, say, TB selling his share, the same basic logic applies to the buyer.

Some anxiety about a potential sale is understandable, and there's always room for uncertainty when you’re dealing with a “saleable asset”, but generally the folk running 1FF need it to work for reasons that simply didn’t apply in TFF’s case.

The 1FF chaps haven’t done themselves any favours of late (to put it mildly) and the point here isn’t to make excuses for them. The point is that I see certain things that reassure me they haven’t descended to TFF levels of “not giving a fuck” wankery. I wanted TFF to fail because the Admin folk there (with the possible exception of Pags) demonstrably didn't give a fuck. I'm not at that stage here.

 

[Dave]

Ok so one share of the site maybe for sale, which may or may not actually come to anything. That doesn't mean that the only reason the site exists is to make money.

I don't buy that at all.

If the site didn't make the money it makes from the advertising then TB wouldn't be selling the site for the price he's put it up for as he's selling it as a profit making website.

Then if you drill into the profit loss attached to the sales pitch you could see that the site could run pretty comfortably on the Header Text Links and Sponsored Threads.

Spend a week or so viewing the site as a general member and see how these adverts impact your viewing of the site. On mobile the site closes and a pop up takes you to either a porn site or the app store to download a game when clicking the forum or conversations page regularly. The in-browser adverts take up the majority of a phone screen and take longer to load.

Earlier threads when the site was created stated the site was for the users and adverts wouldn't be intrusive etc. If the site wasn't existing to make money and was for the end user then the adverts would be removed completely. The only sites I've been on with adverts similar to this are torrent websites.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

While I agree with almost all of that, I still stand by my decision to flag up the whole getting the last word in and then slamming the thread shut method. That's the only thing I'm saying is on par with the TFF meltdown.

I understand why SR doesn’t want to fire-fight on multiple threads. Closing that other thread but continuing the discussion here (a thread set up for discussion regarding bans, suspensions, etc.) makes sense. I would have done the same.

He wanted to close the other thread with a message explaining why, which is standard. You snuck in a cheap shot before he could close it. Leaving it would have looked silly, so he deleted it. I would have done the same.

I understand your frustration, but I'm also struggling to cast you in that martyr to free speech role because you got your dig in anyway (re-posting it here along with another whinge) and we’re now having this rather tedious conversation about it.

I have no axe to grind. You and I have got on fine for years. Hell, you were the one who guided me here when TFF was blown up. My opinion, FWIW, is that you’re being petty and have blown things out of proportion. On TFF we wouldn’t be having this discussion. We’d probably both be banned.

 

[Hurrikeen]

I don't buy that at all.

If the site didn't make the money it makes from the advertising then TB wouldn't be selling the site for the price he's put it up for as he's selling it as a profit making website.

Then if you drill into the profit loss attached to the sales pitch you could see that the site could run pretty comfortably on the Header Text Links and Sponsored Threads.

Spend a week or so viewing the site as a general member and see how these adverts impact your viewing of the site. On mobile the site closes and a pop up takes you to either a porn site or the app store to download a game when clicking the forum or conversations page regularly. The in-browser adverts take up the majority of a phone screen and take longer to load.

Earlier threads when the site was created stated the site was for the users and adverts wouldn't be intrusive etc. If the site wasn't existing to make money and was for the end user then the adverts would be removed completely. The only sites I've been on with adverts similar to this are torrent websites.

This is pretty much my opinion at the moment.

Used to really enjoy this place, made a donation which was purely to help the site rather than to avoid any pop ups. Since then, I've discovered that this site is making an absolute mint on a monthly basis, to the point where I feel slightly stupid for making a donation in the first place (regardless of whether you believe it to have been made clear at the start, I still feel we were asked/invited/encouraged to donate for the upkeep of the site, not to avoid popups).

I also see popups pretty much everywhere now and its bloody annoying. I refuse to believe that the main reason this site exists is not to make money - my aforementioned points explain why.

Then you have the needless banning of long-standard members who are accused of something that numerous other members do on here on a all too regular basis (whether they have received 1 week bans or not in the past).

Oh, and finally, can someone explain what this discourage feature is, and the aim of it?

 

[Madejski]

Without naming names, is this the first use of the 'discourage' feature? Have other members been discouraged before/currently?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Renegade]

I don’t know the answer to those questions. Only they do.

FWIW, though, I do think the two things you mention – making the community work and maintaining a saleable asset – go hand in hand.

Like most businesses, 1FF’s saleability is directly proportional to its profitability. Its profitability depends on its attractiveness to advertisers. Its attractiveness to advertisers depends on there being certain levels of activity. So, regardless of TB and SR’s medium-to-long term intentions, it’s in their interests to avoid another TFF-like debacle where a complete breakdown of relations leads to a mass migration elsewhere.

In the case of, say, TB selling his share, the same basic logic applies to the buyer.

Some anxiety about a potential sale is understandable, and there's always room for uncertainty when you’re dealing with a “saleable asset”, but generally the folk running 1FF need it to work for reasons that simply didn’t apply in TFF’s case.

The 1FF chaps haven’t done themselves any favours of late (to put it mildly) and the point here isn’t to make excuses for them. The point is that I see certain things that reassure me they haven’t descended to TFF levels of “not giving a fuck” wankery. I wanted TFF to fail because the Admin folk there (with the possible exception of Pags) demonstrably didn't give a fuck. I'm not at that stage here.

Not sure I buy this after the Nintendo giveaway. To maintain a forum as a saleable asset, you need to have active members and a stream of discussion, but to me the giveaway was an artificial means of improving the appearance of the forum to prospective buyers. The giveaway was used to increase the number of 1FF social media followers and unique visitors to the website, but pretty much no new active members signed up. This along with the notable increase in prominent advertising (seriously, without AdBlock this website is pretty much unusable) doesn't fill me with confidence in their intent. With the loyal community already in place from TFF, not much has to be done to keep us talking amongst ourselves. Even if the TFF guys didn't give a fuck, our community still ticked along fine.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

On the questions re. 'discourage' - SaddlerRad has already covered some of it on the first page. Briefly it's an out-of-the-box feature on the forum software this site basically runs on. All forums using the same basic software will have it. It's designed to make accessing the site hard work and slow. Some forums use it as a half way house punitive measure before a ban. Others forums use it as an alternative to a ban to get around a banned member just signing back up as someone else. Personally I don't think it's a very effective tool, as why discourage someone when you can just ban them, if indeed it's gotten to that point.

As a result it isn't used often at all, though I don't have historical numbers there's no others current - because it's a crap ineffective feature/tool IMHO.

Regards Ads, their frequency and content etc unfortunately I'm not well placed to answer, I simply don't know enough on that side to talk with any authority. But all I would say to Renegade is that even if all the admin didn't "give a fuck" in terms of actively getting involved in the site - we still need to pay the various bills that keep the site running at the end of the month, every month. If all admin truly didn't give a fuck and did nothing, the site wouldn't tick along very long before it's plugged got pulled - not by the admin, but by one of our suppliers!

 

[smat]

On the questions re. 'discourage' - SaddlerRad has already covered some of it on the first page. Briefly it's an out-of-the-box feature on the forum software this site basically runs on. All forums using the same basic software will have it. It's designed to make accessing the site hard work and slow. Some forums use it as a half way house punitive measure before a ban. Others forums use it as an alternative to a ban to get around a banned member just signing back up as someone else. Personally I don't think it's a very effective tool, as why discourage someone when you can just ban them, if indeed it's gotten to that point.

As a result it isn't used often at all, though I don't have historical numbers there's no others current - because it's a crap ineffective feature/tool IMHO.

I think it's fairly obvious why it would be appealing to an admin. Because you don't then have to face the consequences of actually banning a user (i.e. other users asking for justification) and you can claim it's just technical problems. AFAIK Ian still hasn't been able to find the notification he was supposedly sent about him being put on 'discourage'. They would have gotten away with it as well, if it weren't for us meddling kids.

Regards Ads, their frequency and content etc unfortunately I'm not well placed to answer, I simply don't know enough on that side to talk with any authority. But all I would say to Renegade is that even if all the admin didn't "give a fuck" in terms of actively getting involved in the site - we still need to pay the various bills that keep the site running at the end of the month, every month. If all admin truly didn't give a fuck and did nothing, the site wouldn't tick along very long before it's plugged got pulled - not by the admin, but by one of our suppliers!

That is an extremely weak argument. If they didn't pay the bills and lost the site, they would lose the handsome profit the site apparently generates.

So what is it they "give a fuck" about? The community, or using the community to make money? The latter is sort of fine as long as no-one is under any illusions about where their money is going, and the forum itself remains a decent place to be. That is very, very important though, and shouldn't be taken for granted.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

I think it's fairly obvious why it would be appealing to an admin. Because you don't then have to face the consequences of actually banning a user (i.e. other users asking for justification) and you can claim it's just technical problems. AFAIK Ian still hasn't been able to find the notification he was supposedly sent about him being put on 'discourage'. They would have gotten away with it as well, if it weren't for us meddling kids.

It's a fundamentally poor feature IMHO, because a discouraged user can still do whatever on the site if they are simply persistent. I don't think that's appealing to me as an admin in the slightest, rather it feels pretty impotent.

 

[Gladders]

I've mentioned the ads thing before, I don't know how many new users this place gets, but its very rare that they stay if they do I don't see them in the foruns I read on here, how many truly active users (visit and post several days a week) do we have that have signed up this season?

This site is a joke for people not logged in due the amount of ads and pop ups it has, its bad enough for a normal user like me with over a thousand posts.

I just seen the sticky in here about making 750 posts to reduce ads by 75%, if people under 750 posts have 75% more ads than me I wonder how they can even post without just saying forget it.

 

[Dave]

we still need to pay the various bills that keep the site running at the end of the month, every month. If all admin truly didn't give a fuck and did nothing, the site wouldn't tick along very long before it's plugged got pulled - not by the admin, but by one of our suppliers!

As you probably saw on the advert:



The yellow highlighted lines are all that really matter for hosting the site I think. These total £781 for the year.

The green highlighted lines are money coming in to the site which don't affect the users as much. £2805.89 from sponsored threads and the advert bar at the top along with the small bit coming in from amazon (which I believe would be more if advertised better or if the users were treated better, many have said they have refused to use this due to certain things).

The final £625 is from the user memberships which I expect will decrease since this was published.

So the not tick along bit with a potential £2649.89 profit which could be put aside for any issues of which seems a lot of money for an issue as only £781 was spent in the year?

The site is being run to maximise profit via adverts which aren't required to but are making this a business for saddler and tb. You can see why someone would make another site on seeing these figures as they could cut the big adverts everywhere, just have a few affiliate links and a small ad bar for various gambling sites and take home £2500 a year.

(I know a lot more goes into running the site including hours etc, but do you really need to fuck everyone off with adverts in an attempt to get them to pay a fiver membership

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

That fiver membership is still kind of gross.

 

[Abertawe]

The reds have ruined this place and they can't even admit it or even worse recognise their errors. So sad.