Removal of Commercial Forums and overall Changes.

[JonathonAG]

Read the post properly. He says he might be getting rid of some of the forums (possibly two) and rethinking the site moderation

Cheers

Hope he doesn't get rid of the BATS forum, it is one of the only ways to get our BATS reskins on UKTS. Anyway, I just hope that it would be sorted in a short timelength from the date stated

[saddletank]

The BA forum, being one of the commercial forums, will indeed be one of those closed. As Matt says this is a very hard decision to make and one he's spent a long time agonising over but the issues as to why have been made clear.

[Neptune50006]

( I bet my constant chatter has caused this )

You do have a lot to say but you've never caused a problem as far as I know, and if your attitude was to rub off on some others here, perhaps none of this would be needed. So don't stop posting, just try to cut it down to under 400 a day

[JonathonAG]

The BA forum, being one of the commercial forums, will indeed be one of those closed. As Matt says this is a very hard decision to make and one he's spent a long time agonising over but the issues as to why have been made clear.

That is very ashame as it has been great to visit on these forums. Just hope Mike can set up another BATS forum elsewhere. This is indeed a sad day for news

[ca55ie]

I am in total agreement with Matt's decisions on this topic. This forum needs to be turned around, and I think the mods should be given more of an ability to do so. I have said before many times, I will never publically criticise the moderation on these forums, they do a wonderful job of it, and I believe, for the most part, they are still part of the community while doing so. I'm also quite upset at the loss of John, he was a good moderator, and a good bloke. Oh, and also, I find it quite sad that Matt has to deal with this forum from the other side of the world.

Damn... In my experiance, Mr Dibben was a damn good moderator, allways fair, and with a very good sense of humour too... Hope he continues to contribute...

Sam

[basildd]

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 413#416413

[petermakosch]

Note to Commercial Forum People:

I have the webspace and bandwidth to set up a brand new forum if anyone cannot/does not want/any other reason want to host their own. Same software as this one. If anyone is interested, drop me a PM.
Pete

[pdeee]

I am in full agreement with Matt on his decision on the commercial front, written guide lines for Moderators and only a limited banning period to be given out by them, with a final decision by Matt.

A links page for commercial and other useful sites, have felt this was needed for a long time.

Go for it Matt, your the man.

[johndibben]

Damn... In my experiance, Mr Dibben was a damn good moderator, allways fair, and with a very good sense of humour too... Hope he continues to contribute... :

That's very kind of you both Not all share your sentiments, in private though, of course I know of three who've wanted rid of me for some time. They only contributed to this announcement and so have no grounds for complaint.

I would like to say this though.

I've seen much as a mod and would urge members to support Matt in his decision. Asking questions about individual groups could be devisive. The commercial groups have co-existed with the site and one another in varying ways, attitudes often varying within the group.

It's safe to say Matt has good reason for his decision and has done it in the least devisive way possible. Matt keeps the mod forum well informed and often consults when he has no need and so they act in an informed manner.

Despite resigning, I've no problem with Matt or the other mods and I'm happy to be an ordinary member under the system of moderation HE chooses. The authority of the moderator panel has been undermined since it was formed by a refusal to accept decisions, challenging and ignoring them.

Problems are infinite and a set of rules to suit every possiblilty can't be made. Mods know more of the situation than the members, have been given authority and should be able to exercise it.

I was always aware that if my actions reflected badly on the site, I would be removed. Others decided it wasn't up to Matt and their wishes should prevail, although in private.

Members see only that which is within their interest in the site. Mods see more of the issues and the way they're interwoven. Some things may appear confusing. That's probably as only part of the picture is seen. You really have to 'let go' of the idea the site can be run by narrow self-interest and realise that the whole picture is far larger and therefore only site admin can make the neccessary decisions. Bad decisions will result in a drop of income for the site. That is surely the greatest incentive to achieve a balance which benefits most.

The hobby itself, specifically MSTS, on UKTS is the most important consideration outside administration of the site.

I'm aware there's more fantasy than fact at the moment and support any action to redress the balance.

Personally, I would suggest a paid up only members available to post forum. The ability to read it should be free and might encourage more to use the search function.

One member, one username, that is the only way to beat the trouble-makers. That would build up trust. At the moment it's clear that all is far from what it appears.

If you are not out to cause trouble, one username is sufficient and I trust no one discussing trainsimming in a reasonable manner would ever be banned. If they are, it will undermine the site and therefore would not be in Matts interests.

I hinted the bad behaviour would cause changes and advised downloading what was required, in case the private threats turned into reality.

Couldn't say much as a mod and posts appeared enigmatic but I was only attempting to warn the majority of members on this site who simply want to enjoy trainsimming.

Having more spare time,I also hope to be contributing something more substantial but had better not make any promises

I'll be back

[mickoo]

Err, right ?

Ok l'm going to admit to being slightly confused here, l can see what Matts going to do and understand why...though l havent seen any of whats been mentioned in his header post, but will take it as it stands, no person writes that without conviction !.

It worries me that what appears to be a minority ( commercial ) have spoilt it for the rest, there has been and always will be the stigma of commercial guys using the UKtrainsim forums as a free ride, that cannot be avoided and in some case's l think untrue ?.

One of the reasons commercial forums were set up was to remove commercial in your face posts to a discreet place, on occasion this in your face was generated by said teams, more often that not it was posted by the community.

With the removal of the commercial forum l can easily forsee those posts migrating back to the general forums...or is there going to be a ban on posting anything in any form or shape concerning commercial wares. If so then how is the low down on whats good or bad be diseminated to the enquiring community.

A possible scenario to muse, member A asks what everyone thinks about product XYZ, members B and C and others reply, the thread goes along and at some logical point there is every chance someone from said commercial team will reply or member A is redirected to the relvant forum

Under the new guise, there being no commerical forum then posting such commercial questions cannot be posed, if they are then you are allowing faction A ( freeware consumers ) the right to speak freely but not allowing faction B ( payware vendors ) the right to reply for fear of rebutal from the community.

To my mind if you remove commercial forums you have to remove post's pertaining to said items, you also have to do it to all persons, if not then the above applies and is unjust.

Figure into the equation, that some post the majority of there posts in a commercial forum then closing them down will loose there voice and thus there prescence.

Think also how members who have feet in both camps will now have to act, there posting and comments will have to be doubly guarded.

I think the action has been well thought out by Matt but my gut feeling is that the baby is being tossed out with the bath water, l honestly dont see anything good coming from this. There is no half way house in this issue and l personally feel it will rip this community to pieces.

For once l would gladly like to be proven 100% wrong in my views .

Deepest regards

Michael

PS, final thought, how do the likes of UKfinescale and Xtracks fair when there items have been used in a commercial product and are available as freeware.

[3DRailHound]

Matt, I doubt that any of our guys will want you to take down any freeware files they have up on your server because of this action. And I for one applaud your decision to take the commercial forums down from here, if companies want a forum let them put it on their own site. And if they can't afford it, maybe they should try raising their prices

Personally, I saw our sales go up by about 35% to 40% after I took down ours a couple of years ago, and I asked alot of customers about having the forum, and many said they often found many of the threads and posts confusing, or distractive, especially for the many newbies out there.. this is also not good for a company that is trying to get that spontaneous sale from a visitor to your website.

And yes, I for one thought that some of your actions over the past 18 months were showing favoritism towards some of the other commercial outfits out there. And to be honest, its been disappointing to me and most of the guys as we had let you sell our cd's with a %40 cut going to UKTS. UKTS made quite a bit of money off the sales of our stuff which has helped UKTS keep this site and the freeware community growing here.

And how are we repaid for sharing that revenue with UKTS, that our hard work has generated? From our point of view, you basically made a big stink about our prices and then attached it to the bottom of the last press release we sent to you. Of course that created a huge distraction from the new product we released, which seems to me was your intent all along. Not to mention, you then immediately start a thread on your forum, with a title that had a nice hatchet job done on our products name in it, where you then proceed to make more stink about our prices, and forcast our impending demise because of it.. geesh Matt. What happened to supporting us?

After all, we too have made many important contributions to this community as well.. and lets not forget who it was that went to Microsoft and got some halfway decent tools for ALL OF US to use, it was 3DTS, I have the documents right here that we sent to them upon their request. Still, to this day many people out there don't know what we did for this community behind the scenes.. the reason is simple though, its because we don't have huge egos that need to be constantly fedlike some members of the MSTS community that I know of.

Oh, one more thing before I go, let it be known that 3DTS gave you an early copy of the AC Cabforwards, after you told me that your father was very interested in them and wanted to run them very badly. And Martin aka SaddleTank was also given permission to use them as well.. and then you repay that courtesy by making the stink you did about the price when we finally release them..

ok, stepping down off soap box now.

Best regards,
Brad

.. always to the point, and sometimes in your face, but hey, thats just me, that darn yankee..

[jbilton]

Well I have to say I'm reminded of something..............Beeching.
But only the future will tell.

[JonathonAG]

Err, right ?

Ok l'm going to admit to being slightly confused here, l can see what Matts going to do and understand why...though l havent seen any of whats been mentioned in his header post, but will take it as it stands, no person writes that without conviction !.

It worries me that what appears to be a minority ( commercial ) have spoilt it for the rest, there has been and always will be the stigma of commercial guys using the UKtrainsim forums as a free ride, that cannot be avoided and in some case's l think untrue ?.

One of the reasons commercial forums were set up was to remove commercial in your face posts to a discreet place, on occasion this in your face was generated by said teams, more often that not it was posted by the community.

With the removal of the commercial forum l can easily forsee those posts migrating back to the general forums...or is there going to be a ban on posting anything in any form or shape concerning commercial wares. If so then how is the low down on whats good or bad be diseminated to the enquiring community.

A possible scenario to muse, member A asks what everyone thinks about product XYZ, members B and C and others reply, the thread goes along and at some logical point there is every chance someone from said commercial team will reply or member A is redirected to the relvant forum

Under the new guise, there being no commerical forum then posting such commercial questions cannot be posed, if they are then you are allowing faction A ( freeware consumers ) the right to speak freely but not allowing faction B ( payware vendors ) the right to reply for fear of rebutal from the community.

To my mind if you remove commercial forums you have to remove post's pertaining to said items, you also have to do it to all persons, if not then the above applies and is unjust.

Figure into the equation, that some post the majority of there posts in a commercial forum then closing them down will loose there voice and thus there prescence.

Think also how members who have feet in both camps will now have to act, there posting and comments will have to be doubly guarded.

I think the action has been well thought out by Matt but my gut feeling is that the baby is being tossed out with the bath water, l honestly dont see anything good coming from this. There is no half way house in this issue and l personally feel it will rip this community to pieces.

For once l would gladly like to be proven 100% wrong in my views .

Deepest regards

Michael

PS, final thought, how do the likes of UKfinescale and Xtracks fair when there items have been used in a commercial product and are available as freeware.

I agree michael, for example, I will talk about the BATS forum. Through this forum on UKTS, this is one and probably the only way BATS can issue news to their customers freely, and this is one of the only ways people can contact Mike and his team easily. I agree that this will disrupt the MSTS community on a wide scale and cause chaos. I am 100% against the idea of removing the comercial forums and in protest I may take off both my uploads that are currently on UKTS

[johndibben]

With the removal of the commercial forum l can easily forsee those posts migrating back to the general forums...

A concern of mine and closure of all but technical support forums would be an option. That's for Matt to decide.

We discuss commercial products and services on these forums from Windows to ISP's . Most with equal contempt. Criticism, often unfounded, is the harsh reality of the commercial world. OK when it's not us involved, of course

I hpoe anyone stepping outside the bounds of decency would be moderated.

PC Games forums are some of the worst I've visited but they appear to ignore it all and rise above it.

[Neptune50006]

I am 100% against the idea of removing the comercial forums and in protest I may take off both my uploads that are currently on UKTS

Well that's really going to help isn't it By doing that you're just adding to the current problems. Anyway, where you going to put them then?