Where's Alan?

[Susie]

I don't think he will be back in a hurry, which is a shame cos I miss him.

[Rainbowmum]

Originally Posted by Susie

I don't think he will be back in a hurry, which is a shame cos I miss him.

Me too

[speckled wood]

I have just had a look on Birdforum
BirdForum - The Net's Largest Birding Community, Dedicated To Wild Birds

Looks like he may have been amongst yesterday's visitors there.

[John]

Originally Posted by speckled wood

I have just had a look on Birdforum
BirdForum - The Net's Largest Birding Community, Dedicated To Wild Birds

Looks like he may have been amongst yesterday's visitors there.

How do you know that. What is his user name in that forum because it certainly isn't Alan. The Alan on that forum comes from SW London and as we know our Alan comes from Lincs.

I am just wondering why this thread is being continued. If Alan wants to reply to it he is free to. The fact that he doesn't speaks volumes.

John

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by John

How do you know that. What is his user name in that forum because it certainly isn't Alan. The Alan on that forum comes from SW London and as we know our Alan comes from Lincs.

I am just wondering why this thread is being continued. If Alan wants to reply to it he is free to. The fact that he doesn't speaks volumes.

John

I have probably got similar reading abilities to yourself and had also observed that the "alan" you mention on that forum was different however some people do use different names on different forums and I had another identity in mind for WAB's Alan.

Perhaps you believe that we should not enquire after people that have been missing from the forum for a while.

[Beryl]

That is true Speckled wood. this is the only site I use my real name on because whaen I joined I didn't think I would be alowed a handle for some reason. Don't know why.
I do hope Alen and Kev are well and happy.

[John]

Originally Posted by speckled wood

Perhaps you believe that we should not enquire after people that have been missing from the forum for a while.

Enquiring yes, carrying it on past its sell by date, no.

Alan is free to post on the forum. If he doesn't wish to do so then doesn't that say something, or are you privvy to something we don't know.

Why carry on a thread about someone who can post but doesn't wish to do so. I can't see the sense in that.

John

[honeybee]

So long as he knows he is missed by a lot of us if he should want to come back. He was a very valued contributer and a nice bloke.

[StuartDH]

OK, I’ve resisted the temptation to post on this somewhat farcical thread, but I guess the time has come to set some of the record straight.

In early December a number of members were put in the sin bin or warned that they would be banned from the site for repeatedly creating problems behind the scenes. Despite presenting a fairly respectable front on the forum, they appear to have taken sport in creating problems via PM. In most cases, these problems continued for many months.

In essence, they were trying to see how far they could push the boundaries, wind up other members, swear in posts, continually bump their threads to the top of the forum, collude to create or sustain problem threads, encourage other members to break the rules or ignore and antagonise the moderators etc. The list goes on and on, and there is a lot more that I could add, but I’d have to sift through hundreds of PMs in the backup drives.

I’m not suggesting that any one member did all of the above, but it should go some way to explaining why half a dozen members haven’t been around for a while.

Of course, this should come as no surprise to some of the members who have posted in this thread, as they have been in contact with some of the above by PM/email for a long time, including very recently. Some have also been part of the problem and have been warned or been on the receiving end of complaints by other members, moderators and ‘unofficial moderators’ as they put it.

However, as they’re not the ring leaders, I’m willing to accept that they are largely innocent and unaware of what has really been going on. I would guess that they are probably unaware of how they have been used by the above and at best I think that they will have only heard one side of a very long story.

To this end, and partly because I’m far too busy to deal with this sort of thing, I’m willing to let it all blow over and just get on with the real subject of this site, but clearly that's difficult to do if this thread keeps being bumped up again and again.

It’s a great shame that, despite having so many fantastic contributors on this forum, a select few have chosen to try and wreck the site.

Most members are well aware that they can contact other members via PM, even if they haven’t posted for a while. So I think it’s time to stop the pretence that this thread needs to remain to contact friends that can be contacted/or are already being contacted privately.

I’ll now close the thread, but you’re welcome to contact any missing members by PM. Hopefully this will finally put a stop to the ridiculous situation, if not then I guess that sin binning and banning will have to return.

Here's hoping that we can now see the site get back to wildlife and the environment and say goodbye to the politics, egos, conspiracies and arguments that a few members have consistently tried to create.


Stu

Edit - this post isn't in reply to any particular post in the thread.