Forum Updates

[Robert Williams]

[mention]Robert Williams[/mention] - I THINK I've fixed it. If you could test and let me know please.

Edit: no I haven't. Will keep trying.

Looks like it's sorted now, looks much better. Thank you.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Rob, I understand and respect what you are trying to do with the rule about "posts of a political nature", but it does leave us treading on eggshells with certain topics that probably ought to be legitimate. I'm reminded of this Electoral Commission PIF:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ame0j8jbMY4

Take for instance the mothballing of Studio B at NBH. Theoretically under the rules one shouldn't point out that it's as a result of funding cuts arising from the BBC license fee settlement, and the BBC taking on responsibility for over 75's free licenses from the government.

It is nearly impossible to discuss public service broadcasting without some reference to the politcal context.

Could the rule be given a bit more precision? Disallowing "posts expressing a political opinion" is, perhaps, more in the spirit of what I think you are trying to achieve and less open to interpretation than what the current very broad rule states.

[Rob]

Could the rule be given a bit more precision? Disallowing "posts expressing a political opinion" is, perhaps, more in the spirit of what I think you are trying to achieve and less open to interpretation than what the current very broad rule states.

That's exactly what I meant, I just couldn't find the right words. Thanks Steve, I'll edit the page.

[BBI45]

On the topic of rule clarifications, I'm wondering if the rule about potentially being banned for posting content that is not family friendly could be looked at. I understand that mainly targets explicit imagery and offensive language, but there are times where the news is not family friendly, but it's within the forum's remit to discuss the news and the presentation surrounding it.

Please do not post anything which would be considered inappropriate in a business or office setting, ie. NSFW (Not Suitable For Work) - or might be considered not "family friendly". This includes, but is not limited to, profanity, sexual, sexualized or illicit content, hateful, threatening, provocative or vulgar content, links and websites and discussion encouraging the use of piracy or warez distributions, or any otherwise illegal content.

For example, it could be argued that the following video is not suitable for a family audience and contains images of an illicit act and it's aftermath.

https://youtu.be/3hygPXxjj5M

However, it could also argue that it falls within the remit of the forum and should be allowed.

I'm not sure how would be best to phrase it, but I think there should be a clear distinction made between what is not accepted full stop and what may or may not be acceptable depending on the circumstances.

[Rob]

I'm not sure how would be best to phrase it, but I think there should be a clear distinction made between what is not accepted full stop and what may or may not be acceptable depending on the circumstances.

I do need to look at the wording of these guidelines a bit more. I think I've been a bit too basic in explaining things.

Basically, this rule simply refers to videos that could be described as of a "distressing" nature - for example, the video clip of the death of Tommy Cooper is an example of what NOT to post.

[Brekkie]

I do think the forum has found it's feet in that regard over the last week where the discussion of the editorial agenda of GB News, which whether we like it or not clearly has some political motivations, has generally speaking all gone rather smoothly and added so much to a thread which without it would just have been post after post laughing at them losing sound or video links and complaining about the clock on the ticker being a couple of pixels too high. And apart from some issues with a couple of individuals on Tuesday that thread has hugely benefitted from light touch moderation - it's barely been noticeable, which is exactly how it should be.


As Steve says there are other issues which are developing all the time which are clearly "political", such as the potential sale of C4 and today news about planned restrictions within the EU on the exporting of British TV, which could have huge implications on the industry.

[Mr Q]

I'm not sure how would be best to phrase it, but I think there should be a clear distinction made between what is not accepted full stop and what may or may not be acceptable depending on the circumstances.

I do need to look at the wording of these guidelines a bit more. I think I've been a bit too basic in explaining things.

If I might inject a note of caution: I'm not sure you would want to go down the path of issuing quite prescriptive rules. You're not drafting legislation, where you want to close off any possible loophole that some clever sod might try and exploit. At the end of the day, if you (Rob) think someone is behaving inappropriately, you can edit their posts, issue warnings and ban individuals -- regardless of whatever the rules/guidelines say.

While I accept there's a case for guidance on political commentary and on presenter rotas/personal lives (essentially defining what is in and out of scope for this forum), the key thing is that members here apply their common sense and behave with courtesy and decency, like normal adults. I don't know that you can (or should want to) define in black-and-white terms what that behaviour looks like.

[Gallunach]

That effect that was happening on the UTV thread is now happening on the main forum page

Still getting the effect on main page though haven't seen it in threads

Realised it is only happening on the Edge browser now

[JAS84]

As Steve says there are other issues which are developing all the time which are clearly "political", such as the potential sale of C4 and today news about planned restrictions within the EU on the exporting of British TV, which could have huge implications on the industry.

Looks like nobody made a thread about that?

[Rob]

I have this morning added another advertisement to the top of all post pages. It looks fine at this end, but please do let me know if you experience any issues.

[AlfieMulcahy]

I have this morning added another advertisement to the top of all post pages. It looks fine at this end, but please do let me know if you experience any issues.

When the page is reloaded (on mobile, chrome) it will jump once the advert has loaded.

[Rob]

I have this morning added another advertisement to the top of all post pages. It looks fine at this end, but please do let me know if you experience any issues.

When the page is reloaded (on mobile, chrome) it will jump once the advert has loaded.

Thanks for the feedback Alfie. I've removed it for the moment until I work out how to fix that.

[WillPS]

I'm finding the lack of consistency over boards frustrating, particularly with regards to service providers. Right now there is:

• a thread about the sale of VM Ireland in 'Presentation'
  
• a thread about the VM/O2 merger in 'Technical'
  
• a thread about NOW in 'Websites'
  
• a thread about iPlayer back in 'Technical'
  

The trouble is that none of them really fit anywhere any more, I would advocate going back to the TV Forum title including 'Mass Media', or if you want to be different then you could include 'Service Providers' somewhere.

[Rob]

I'm finding the lack of consistency over boards frustrating, particularly with regards to service providers. Right now there is:

• a thread about the sale of VM Ireland in 'Presentation'
  
• a thread about the VM/O2 merger in 'Technical'
  
• a thread about NOW in 'Websites'
  
• a thread about iPlayer back in 'Technical'
  

The trouble is that none of them really fit anywhere any more, I would advocate going back to the TV Forum title including 'Mass Media', or if you want to be different then you could include 'Service Providers' somewhere.

This will be reviewed at some point next week.

[Brekkie]

Will always be a few topics which either don't fit anywhere or fit into multiple forums. On the whole most things feel in the right place, and I think if in doubt the main forum is usually the best bet, especially for a bigger story.