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Old 26th May 2012, 10:58 am   #101
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I agree with Jeffrey, all posts should be saved apart from junk and spam. I was disappointed to read that 1000's of posts have already been deleted. When I think of sites like You Tube which store massive amounts of data I think our forum is a minute drop in the "cloud"..
Reading this forum a few times a week has somewhat helped allay the loss of no longer receiving "Television Magazine".
I do not mind paying either by donation or fixed subscription.
As some of us are members of BVWS perhaps an extra charge on the membership fee to pay for this forum. The forum could still be open for guests to read, but maybe with some restrictions on guest use.

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Old 26th May 2012, 11:06 am   #102
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Good principle - but there would have to be then a system for detecting people from registering under a new user name every 2 - 4 posts ad infinitum, and getting effectively free membership.
Crickey, although of course technically possible, someone would have to be a seriously "sad Muppet" (IMHO of course ) to engage in such a thing - Life really is too short.......
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Old 26th May 2012, 11:11 am   #103
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ppppenguin's concerns about loss of information are valid - the problem is that we as ordinary members just don't get to se wha is being junked. However, on the basis that the moderators are sensible folk, I do rely on their discernment. It's not much different from magazine editors wo prune and discard info at their discretion.
The net is qualititatively different to paper. It costs money to publish paper books and journals. Hence one of the needs to editing though there are others. The marginal cost of all those "valueless" posts is negligible. Hence the points a I made acouple of posts back.

However sensible and wise the editors are in culling posts at UKVRR I make the point that it's waste of time and effort which could be usefully spent on other things. Remember that one of the consistent problems expressed by Paul and the moderators is that they lack the time to do this or that.
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Old 26th May 2012, 11:34 am   #104
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My OP was going to be my last here; so I think the mods deserve credit for taking my comments on board.

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However sensible and wise the editors are in culling posts at UKVRR I make the point that it's waste of time and effort which could be usefully spent on other things. Remember that one of the consistent problems expressed by Paul and the moderators is that they lack the time to do this or that.
To quote ppppenguin (above); I just wanted to say that I think we're both singing from the same hymn sheet.

My OP is somewhat terse and vitriolic; however not, without reason.
It was borne out of frustration with the management; and focusing mainly on the fact that they complain about their workload, and yet, their ever-increasing workload is of their own creation!

diyaudio is ten times ++ the size of UKVR; and the mods only delete what requires to be deleted, **EVERYTHING** else remains.

I would guess the life of a mod at diyaudio is somewhat more tranquil than the life of a mod at UKVR; none of this nonsense of archiving, vetting and sifting.
Just leave it all there, and let people find it if they want to search for it.

I dare say no-one here gives a flying if I stay or go; and so be it, but I just wanted to underline my reasons for my OP.
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Old 26th May 2012, 11:42 am   #105
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I'll make this a separate post because it's subject is a little different.

I've been impressed by the level of debate and civility in this thread. A recent deleted thread on spelling etc descended into ad hominem attacks and general unpleasantness which IMO are totally unacceptable.

I would ask that if a post has to be edited, other than for trivial reasons, that it is marked as such. This is often done already , for example when, phone numbers are removed. I know that editing for spelling etc is too controversial so perhaps we should just leave that subject alone for now.

If a post has to be removed (for harrassment etc) then please leave a note to this effect in the thread. I've been referring to post numbers in this thread and others may do so too. Removing a post destroys such references.

Both of these requests are part of a plea for openness. If you must cull threads, don't leave us wondering what we've lost. Please tell us the basis of the editing process. Give us some idea of what has been discarded. The only thing that shouldn't be open is "naming and shaming". That's just nasty.
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Old 26th May 2012, 11:48 am   #106
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Perhaps this should all have come to a head sooner, but it seems that the cull was done to make time for this very discussion. Speaking personally, I download interesting data on sight, as any or all of it may not be available later for various reasons (including my inability to remember where I saw it).

I'm a member of the BVWS for the same reason I'm a member here, but it seems to me that with a few exceptions the worthies in the "Other Place" (to quote Parliamentary etiquette) have a completely different subset of priorities and interests. I doubt that they'd be interested in running or funding this Forum in sufficient numbers.

My suggestion is a "Suggested Donation" amount, calculated to ensure solvency. However, if we were to trickle it in, cash-flow problems would arise. Whether you are philosophically opposed or not, some mechanism has to be in place to handle free-loaders if and when changes happen.

Last edited by AC/HL; 26th May 2012 at 11:52 am. Reason: change in emphasis
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Old 26th May 2012, 11:50 am   #107
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I'm with evingar here- we've all encountered pathological freeloaders in our time but surely such people are merely a minor source of irritation/amusement on the margins of human behaviour, the rest of us are getting on with life.

I'd be happy to pay, say, a tenner a year to subscribe- as has been pointed out, it's only 2 or 3 beers or a couple of magazines or a fairly minor re-capping. I've only been a member of this forum a few months but the depth and breadth of knowledge I've witnessed has been extraordinary, invaluable- and precious. Please let's not lose it. Just one problem solved or work-around suggested could be worth that tenner,

Regards, Colin.
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Old 26th May 2012, 12:17 pm   #108
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Originally Posted by ThePillenwerfer View Post
As for emptying The Skip, given that the contents weren't accessible to most members or the public I can't see how it can be regarded as a loss. It seems odd that rubbish was being stored anyway as if these threads had been deleted immediately the hysteria about a mass cull could have been prevented.
The main reason for doing things this way was to maintain the vBulletin member post count - the emptying of the skip has caused considerable grumbling from some members about this. A secondary reason was to maintain deleted information so that it could be accessed by mods and potentially undeleted if required, but this has only happened a handful of times in 5 years.
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Old 26th May 2012, 12:18 pm   #109
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I will be very disappointed if the only changes made at UKVRR are to the funding method. I am not opposed in principle to a subscription, whether voluntary or compulsory though I'm not convinced it's the right approach.

But if that's all that happens, without proper attention to the other issues that have been raised in this thread then, with great regret, I would expect to be leaving UKVRR.

I would urge Paul Stenning and the moderation team to contribute fully and openly to this thread, making their own views clear. We may disagree but that's all part of normal and civil debate. So far Paul has opened this thread for debate - I sincerely hope that this marks a real change of approach. Darren and Brian have given useful but limited insight into the moderation process. But that is all. We still don't know the real costs and burdens of running UKVRR, we still don't really understand what's being deleted. We are left speculating.

UKVRR is a valuable resource and needs to be funded somehow. Members' indications of generosity have been impressive. But raising what I think is a few hundred quid per year isn't the real problem and doesn't go very far towards resolving the issues raised by the OP, nor those that I raised in a now closed thread that was effectively intgrated into this one.

PS: Written before Paul Sherwin's post #108. Thanks for the new information. I would just like to raise the commonplace point: How often have we thrown something away as useless, only to discover the following week that we wish we'd kept it. There's no landfill tax for skips on the internet
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Old 26th May 2012, 12:24 pm   #110
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I joined this forum because of what it is and the way it is run. The only thing wrong with it is the load it is now putting on Paul's prime business.

I still consider an anonymous donation scheme is good and would like to see it tried to see if it works. There are certainly people who would find it difficult financially but I am also sure that out of 1,000 or so members there are enough who would not have a problem.

Regarding the Moderation approach, I have started looking at on-line newspapers and comments posted on various topics. I am frustrated by the amount of garbage and unpleasantness that appears.

With regard to lost data I remember a time when Archivists were appointed as well as Moderators. For various reasons this did not work. If there is some more formal organisation with the skills and facilities to archive, would it be possible for them to purchase a copy of Paul's raw data so that it can be archived and catalogued?
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Old 26th May 2012, 12:47 pm   #111
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Jeffrey, you seem really hot and bothered about emptying "the skip"

I was a moderator, and the sheer amount of rubbish stored there is beyond comprehension.

Old for sale and wanted ads are of no real use to anyone, nor is any of the personal stuff that lives dotted around here.

Simple facts, server bandwidth costs money, it isnt just a case of bunging it on a cheap hdd, it needs to live on a server, with a decent bandwidth connection, the traffic this forum generates causes the issue.

Sure if we had Google's funding then we could store all sorts of rubbish, just like you tube, but this isnt the case.

BVWS ownership?

Not for me thanks - I like this place for it's indiviuality.
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Old 26th May 2012, 12:47 pm   #112
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Originally Posted by wireful3 View Post
I remember a time when Archivists were appointed as well as Moderators. For various reasons this did not work. If there is some more formal organisation with the skills and facilities to archive, would it be possible for them to purchase a copy of Paul's raw data so that it can be archived and catalogued?
There seems to be a widely held misunderstanding of what material is deleted and why.

When the archival system was in operation, mods would periodically go through old threads identifying stuff worth keeping and moving it into the archive areas. The rest would be deleted. We no longer routinely delete old material just because it is old. Posts are moved to the skip and/or deleted because they don't have any meaningful content, are completely OT, are illegible, are abusive etc. This is done as the posts are made and not as a retrospective process. There is absolutely no point in trying to preserve this stuff, and there are significant costs in doing so. The more material is preserved for no reason, the bigger the mySQL tables become and the slower the server becomes because updates and queries take disproportionately longer.
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Old 26th May 2012, 1:25 pm   #113
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There are a couple of things that I would like to add.

Firstly perhaps with a look back to the dial-up days would be of some value. I did run a BBS for a couple of years. With the slower line speeds of the day the vast majority of data transfer was done in slack periods. What I am thinking of is to have a catalog of occasionally accessed archives on line all the time with a topic by topic request system.

Secondly it may also be of some value to consider those of us whom were educated in the days when electronics was not offered at school so that we had to gain our know-how by sticking our heads in the backs of radios and TVs while we were supposed to have been studying English language as I did. This would help those whom may get upset from just giving up when they would otherwise have posted useful content.
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Old 26th May 2012, 1:31 pm   #114
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the traffic this forum generates causes the issue.
I was thinking only recently that the volume of posts has increased out of all recognition in the last couple of years. I try to at least flick through all the posts and missing a day's worth now produces three or four pages.

Last edited by AC/HL; 26th May 2012 at 1:32 pm. Reason: Repetition
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Old 26th May 2012, 2:09 pm   #115
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Posts are moved to the skip and/or deleted because they don't have any meaningful content, are completely OT, are illegible, are abusive etc.

Clearly this happens, but equally clearly it's not a full account of what's just been deleted: the members who have shown concern about their diminishing post counts haven't been conspicuous for such posts, nor (I hope) have I, nor has Paul Stenning himself. Something approaching a third of the ordinary posts made by responsible members of long standing seem to have been wiped. It's not a make-or-break issue for me, but I'm still in considerable sympathy with Jeffrey's position. With the best will in the world, I doubt that any of us has enough of a grasp of what may be of use or interest thirty or fifty years hence to be entrusted with such sifting, unless technical and cost considerations make the process absolutely necessary. It doesn't seem at all evident that they do.

It's difficult ground, though, I can see that much. By name this is a "repair and restoration" forum. Some would be very happy for its scope to end there, but many of the members attracted to it will be in more or less fervent sympathy too with the historical and conserving aspects of the BVWS' remit, and some at least among those will feel that the forum's own unfolding history is a part of what we might and should conserve. Frankly if this were strictly a repair and restoration forum there would have been little purpose to my own presence in the last few years, as my mediocre abilities in the field have gone largely unexercised of late and would have furnished me with few answers and fewer questions to bring to the table.

Ah, I don't know. I once took a break of a month or so, vexed by a particular development in the forum's rules. Came back as I still valued the opportunity to impart and receive information about various of the topics and equipments that fascinate us, resolved just to observe whatever the conditions of membership were to be, whether I cared for them or not, and to continue my infraction-free existence. If there's to be a change in the forum's administration, I expect I'll still be around, endeavouring to abide by whatever rules the new administration sets, whether with less difficulty than at present or with more. Meanwhile I would join in with the plea that everything be saved: I'd lay a pound to a penny, for instance, that even in obsolete For Sale and Wanted ads there will be references to and photographs of items recorded nowhere else on the 'net. Not. strictly, "repair and restoration", but of potential interest to many of those who repair and restore.

Money? Put a box in the corner and see what comes in. Could be enough to endow the forum for the next few years. Administration? I'll wait and see what happens, my chief hope being that if anything much is to change then the baby doesn't get mistaken for further bathwater

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Old 26th May 2012, 3:07 pm   #116
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At the end of the day the proof of the pudding is in the eating and this forum hasn't got as popular as it is by tasting bad.
Not necessarily true. You're overlooking the fact that until relatively recently UKVRR was the only UK based vintage radio forum. Without an alternative people are often prepared to put up with more of a 'bad taste', as you put it, if nothing else is on offer.

Quote:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
Posts are moved to the skip and/or deleted because they don't have any meaningful content, are completely OT, are illegible, are abusive etc.

Clearly this happens, but equally clearly it's not a full account of what's just been deleted: the members who have shown concern about their diminishing post counts haven't been conspicuous for such posts, nor (I hope) have I, nor has Paul Stenning himself. Something approaching a third of the ordinary posts made by responsible members of long standing seem to have been wiped.
I agree with exactly Paul_RK concerns here, but when I raised the issue in another thread recently I was dismissed as "grumbling" and "bitching about trivial matters" and the thread locked.

On reflection I think I have gotten off lightly with the loss of around 160 posts from my total. But I can assure Paul Sherwin that none of those I have had deleted were 'illegible', 'abusive' or 'completely OT'. I'll leave it to others to decide whether my posts have been deleted because of lack of 'any meaningful content'!

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Old 26th May 2012, 3:33 pm   #117
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Quote:
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Posts are moved to the skip and/or deleted because they don't have any meaningful content, are completely OT, are illegible, are abusive etc.
Clearly this happens, but equally clearly it's not a full account of what's just been deleted
I give up. Are you really accusing me of lying? Why would I do that? Where's the benefit to me? It's responses like this that make me just want to walk away from the whole business.

I won't be posting again in this thread.
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Old 26th May 2012, 3:36 pm   #118
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I think the anticipated annual cost of running the forum should be calculated and then we all pledge an amount towards that cost. If enough is pledged then we pay up probably into a PayPal account and the forum is saved for another year. I would have thought that most regular contributors could afford say £5-£10 ?
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Old 26th May 2012, 3:51 pm   #119
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Quote:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
Posts are moved to the skip and/or deleted because they don't have any meaningful content, are completely OT, are illegible, are abusive etc.
Clearly this happens, but equally clearly it's not a full account of what's just been deleted
I give up. Are you really accusing me of lying? Why would I do that? Where's the benefit to me? It's responses like this that make me just want to walk away from the whole business.

I won't be posting again in this thread.
I thought I was only stating the obvious. Paul Stenning has said in another thread that he's lost around 2500 posts from his count. Are you saying that those had no meaningful content, were completely OT, were illegible, abusive, etc.? I apologise for any offence caused, but I'm blowed if I can see how my observation was in any way controversial.

Paul

EDIT: Paul S's posts, in a great many cases, I can see will have been made in the course of his moderating the forum, and in response to other posts meeting the criteria you list, and as such preserving them without keeping what occasioned them would of course be pointless. Other members without responsibilities for moderation may well be completely at a loss for how and when they might have made hundreds of meaningless, irrelevant, illegible or abusive posts, or participated in such threads.

Last edited by Paul_RK; 26th May 2012 at 4:18 pm.
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Old 26th May 2012, 3:52 pm   #120
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A couple of posts in this thread are looking a bit like ad hominem attacks, including one by a moderator. This demeans us all.
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