francof wrote:Sorry Barfly, must disagree. This highly conservative site has a history of being quite suspicious towards new potential members who are judged as "eccentric" or God forbid, veer away from anything that isn't purely to do with Leeds. The most recent example of this (SpiritBoxAlan not included) is JonLeeds who contributed some excellent threads but seemed for some reason to irritate certain members. Where is he now? This site should welcome and embrace new members, not put them off . Lord knows it needs them.
Hello Francof.
Just a couple of points
Firstly with regards anything that isnt purely to do with Leeds,can i refer you to the opening line of the Secret Leeds "About" stanza-
"SecretLeeds is dedicated to investigating quirky, unusual or mysterious aspects of the built environment of the city of Leeds, both past and present."
So as you can see it is about Leeds and we try and keep to Leeds and its environs otherwise things can, and have in the past got out of hand and, way off topic,with this thread being a case in point
Secondly Its one thing embracing new members but its another thing where you get new or current members forcing their philosophy/views/beliefs down other peoples throats and then they start berating, or as has occurred in the past physically threatening others because their views are either challenged or have an innocent joke played at their expense.
We have had many many instances in the past where there have been huge disagreements that have blown up form nothing more than a casual comment or an aside.
Quite frankly we (the Mods) have wasted enough weekends trying to sort out petty squabbles and even downright online wars and as in the past its normally me and Chameleon who have to deal with it on a day to day basis, calling in Duncan where necessary, then we try to nip potential trouble in the bud,hence my message to SpiritBoxAlan,which i believe was a reasonable message .
As for Jonleeds well i cant speak for why he no longer posts, a long term member indeed,with some great contributions,but as you say he did upset some people with some comments.Though Jon assured me those comments were tongue in cheek they could on occasion verge on inflammatory if not read in the context which he stated he had posted them.
I hope Jon comes back but he is not alone in no longer contributing to the site. There have been a number of members leave for various reasons but probably the biggest one is when there has been what was tantamount to All in Wrestling on the site, who on earth wants full blown arguments?
Im sorry if you think the site is conservative, and quite possibly to a degree it is, but at least its not some mud slinging shambles of a website with draconian moderating.
This site belongs to Duncan Scobie, and the Moderators do their task based on his guidelines which Duncan has posted and reposted on numerous occasions,these are his rules on his site.