Banned from the other SE23 forum

Just wanted to let everybody know that I was banned from the other forum for a post I made. My posts no longer appear on the other site.

The offending post I made can be seen here:

image.png1013×616 197 KB

Since most users of the other forum also use this forum (and often copy and paste my posting onto the other site), I thought I should offer my apologies for no longer being able to post on the other forum.

Hopefully others will continue to copy and paste my contributions on this forum to other forums (just as happens when I post something interesting to other forums and they get copied here). I find all the duplication rather frustrating, but clearly not as frustrating as being switched off.

Being banned from TOSS (The Other Similar Site) is frustrating. I’m also banned from TOSS, as are a number of key SE23.life members who are deeply involved in the local community.

Their admin made a big mistake, banning you, @Michael.

Just can’t understand why it is okay to post a link to:
http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1796604
but not to se23.life

Perhaps I will get banned from this site if I mention that I posted on this thread:
https://www.se23.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=13218

If I could get myself banned from all forums I could probably save quite a lot of my time.

I assume you breached their terms… was this habitual? or one strike and you are out?

The other site needs competition anyway - the ‘PM only’ responses on small ads does nothing to build a community and they wanted to charge me £50 for one of my ads (instead I successfully posted it on EDF, which has far greater traffic and didn’t charge).

Regarding the censoring of TOSS-links:

We’re always happy to post links to other local forums and resources. In this case, the admin of the other forum asked us not to make any mention whatsoever of him or his forum on here. As a courtesy we obliged and set up automatic redacting of the site name.

You can see exactly how I breached their terms, after somebody copied what I posted on this forum into another forum (no problem with that), and then somebody else pointed to an inferior discussion on EDF. At that point I felt that others on se23-dot-com had the right to see the discussion and the post in context.

I don’t deliberately set out to breech terms, but it is possible that the terms have changed since I joined the other forum in 2003 and made 3.5k posts - apparently ending today.

His loss Michael, I’m banned again too for no reason whatsoever!

I’ve got no problem with other people getting banned
I think it is probably safer that you can’t contribute to se23 dot com given some of the nasty personal attacks made on you on that forum, that the owner finds more suitable to leave than a link to another local site.

And yet my comment remains. ???

@Michael - you may be in pre-mod rather than outright banned. So your posts may just be queued for approval.

@Beige You don’t need to break any rules to get modded over there. Just post something the admin doesn’t like.

I actually managed to comment on another thread, so I think I’m in some type of pre-moderation setting to ensure I don’t say anything ‘wrong’.
But I have no intention of continuing to post to a site where everything I say needs to be ‘approved’.

Interesting should there be a special section for TOSSers?

When I read that post I went oooooh. That is goinfg to get him banned. The cats nodded back in agreement. Molly had got banned recently for some comment about Trump and abuse.

So what is the difference between posting a link to EDF and se23.life?
Seriously, I don’t get it.

And he is happy with your Brexit post but not a local issue post??

What an intriguing idea, Wynell

That whole place gives me the creeps. Its like no one has told them that GeoCities isn’t a thing anymore. Get with the program people, MySpace is where it is at.

But that’s what hillview always does. The only posts that she/he hasn’t lifted directly from this forum are when he is attacking @Pauline.

I guess it is okay to copy, as long as you don’t mention the source (something I asked @anon5422159 to avoid many months ago).

Surely you do see the difference, @Michael. Or am I missing something?

Well, there are lots of reasons, but on a purely commercial level, forums generate income for their admins if they have advertisers (which the other site does). Any serious competitior is a threat to that income. As a business, you have several options when faced with that situation: up your game; carry on as you are and hope for the best; try to run your new competitor out of town.

I think all the sites mentioned have advertisers, including this one.

Well yes, but presumably regulars on the other forum who are not here are not aware that most of the posts are lifted verbatim from here. You posted evidence that he does. The fact that he deleted your post shows he doesn’t want readers on the other forum to know he is doing that.

So the next question is: why does he not want them to know?

And the answer would most likely be: he copies from threads here that are active, in the hope of kicking off an active thread over there.

Next question: who has a vested interest in driving traffic to that place and not here?

We have paid-for commercial posts, but not advertisers. They are not quite the same.

In presentation terms perhaps but it is still advertising. ETA and an income.

And now all comments on that thread have been removed. So much for creating conversation over there…

Sure, but when I mention adversing, I mean the tickers that generate ad income from across the internet, not just local businesses.

In any case, I wasn’t saying others don’t have advertising. Just pointing out what some people don’t realise, which is that forums generate income for their owners.

Yes appreciate that but the way it read was that TOSS was a commercial site but this isn’t. Just thought that should be clarified.

I can’t see how my post read that way.

Which I think justifies the point I make about there being no difference between linking to EDF and SE23.life. I just hope I haven’t got samuelsen into trouble over there.

I also think it justifies my sense of grievance at being prevented from posting for making an equivalent post to the previous one.

Oh @Michael, so innocent. A link back to this forum was added to the EDF thread. That’s why the post was deleted.

And yet I’m still unable to post on t’other site.

That’s so funny!

If you place a ‘small ad’ and you want to remove it (lets say you sold the thing you were selling) you need to message the administrator to request it…

I’m fairly amazed you’ve been banned outright, or had the approval setting put upon you.

That said I’m surprised you thought they would leave a link back to this forum in view of all the animosity there appears to be towards this site from the admin of the other site.

I’m not surprised the your post was deleted, but I’d have thought they would just have emailed you to say no links to this site (clearly they are banned which is why you edited your link and explained how to get around it).

You might not agree with no links to here however the choice would then have been yours as to whether to keep posting on that forum with those rules. I’m still staggered after all your input on there it’s been done like this. Certainly that site’s loss more than yours.

@oakr - the admin of the other site never responds to an email, and never provides an explanation for his modding decisions. Nor has it ever been stated as a rule (as far as I know) that links to this forum are banned.

Hi Rachael - I’m aware of that, and have had my own posts there deleted (and occasionally re-instated) though I did get a response once to a thread I started that was deleted, though generally deletions etc seem to occur without warning or reasons given. I understand that sometimes from a mod perspective people have their lives to live, and don’t want to spend all day justifying why things have been deleted etc.

I’ve no idea what the actual rules are in general over there, but in view of that fact it can’t be even referenced on here, it’s not surprising links to here would not go down well.

Banning or limiting post from arguably the best and most informative poster on the site however is certainly odd, and not a great show of loyalty either. Strange.

I’m quite happy in principle for people to discuss TOSS and link to it from here - as I mentioned above, it is actually possible to link to TOSS from here at the moment, despite the redaction of the site name.

If I get an email from the admin of TOSS withdrawing his prior threat of defamation charges for mentions of his site on SE23.life, then I’ll happily stop redacting mentions of TOSS.

One of the differences here is that there is a team of mods, anyone can see who the mods are, and we are always accessible. We discuss all decisions as a team (beyond basic housekeeping) and aim for complete transparency.

For those that don’t know, the mods can be magically summoned by tagging us in a comment with @moderators.

Man, you lot are so quick and so clever… I’m still scratching my head over this MySpace thing.
In fact I’m just about to giggle, no, goggle, no, google it now!

Ask Jeeves.

YES!!

And I thought the childish honeymoon period was over.
Apparently not.

sigh

Nice reference to the latest episode of Big Bang Theory. Even if you didn’t mean it.

Having read through this thread twice, I still don’t understand it. Why was Michael’s original link to SE22.life rather than to SE23.life? (I also don’t get the later references to Myspace, Ask Jeeves and Big Bang Theory, but no doubt that’s my age, and I assume anyway those references are light-hearted.)

On the face of it Michael has been very discourteously treated. I hope very much that he is given an explanation (an apology even) for his banning from the other site and is speedily reinstated. As I’ve said before, I have hoped to continue reading and posting on the other site, but will be much less inclined to do if Michael no longer contributes to it. An SE23 site from which someone who has done , and continues to do, so much for Forest Hill (as chair of the FH Society and otherwise) is excluded, or excludes himself, will struggle to maintain its credibility.

Very well said, @robin.orton.

@robin.orton: The reason Michael changed his link from SE23 to SE22 was that when he typed in the SE23.life link it didn’t work as an active link in his post. The admin of the other site may have put in automatic software to stop such links appearing.

It’s common practice where things like that happen to post the link with one letter changed, and tell readers what was changed so they can manually copy the link, correct the change and use the link. It’s a way of getting around automated redactions.

Thanks, Rachael.

Wow this is really gripping, I have even missed Home & Away to ensure I follow the machinations and intrigue. Will there be a body under the patio or the revealing of a long lost illegitimate child can’t wait for the next instalment will there be a box set

Completely agree Robin, Michael does so much for our our community as chair of FHSoc & I’m astonished that anyone would have the cheek to ban him as he does so much.

I had my own conversation with @Michael this evening & he’s such a good & responsible person for our community, we don’t always agree on everything but when it come to our community he’s top of my list.

@Michael xx

I hear it’ll be cancelled after season 1.

Well due to the action of the mod banning Michael the only outcome is that it set this forum alight with 50 responses just on this thread alone today so in a strange way the mod in question contributed greatly to this forum today and achieved the reverse what he set out to achieve, let’s celebrate

Duff, duff, duff, duff-duff-duff, duff-duff-duff-duff…

Hi Michael, how do you know you’ve been banned, did someone tell you? In my own case I had posts deleted and my login no longer worked, but no-one communicated with me so I had to guess at what offence I might have caused.

In a way I’m glad it happened to you, an upstanding pillar of the community, as it demonstrates how ridiculous it is for the other forum to claim itself “the official forum” for SE23. I hope the Council will stop linking to it from their website.

I hope if Michael is offered reinstatement, that he refuses it.

I wasn’t aware they did. Do they link here too? Just calling yourself ‘official’ doesn’t make you so.

They link to both SE23 forums on their Forest Hill info page:

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/neighbourhoods/foresthill/pages/default.aspx

And only to TOSS and South East Central on their Honor Oak info page:

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/neighbourhoods/honoroakpark/Pages/default.aspx

Good to know. And to be fair to the council, it’s not their job to vet the quality of experience to users of the forums. People can work that out for themselves.

Well i had my post deleted and could not post further. Apparently i can post but only once my message has been approved by the admin. So apparently I’m not entirely banned.

Sorry to hear you were so naughty you were properly banned. What was your crime - posting a positive comment about a local business?

Anyway, I’m not impressed with the idea of everything i say needing to be vetted, so i just won’t post any more. Fortunately the other forum has contributors who are able to copy anything useful i say here and post it on the other forum, so i don’t really need to post there any longer.

I really don’t know, because I was never told. I did post some questions about the ownership and management of the forum, so I assume that was unwanted.

I think they do have responsibility not to be complicit in false claims - and claiming to be the “official” forum I regard as entirely false. So I think the council should ask the forum to remove that claim, and stop linking if that request is not complied with.

Oh well fair enough. I would have hanged you from the nearest tree for that type of behaviour. What do you think this is - some sort of free country?

No advertising of free local events for the whole community either guys, that would be shocking

Sounds like the original site is purely for commercial purposes, so linking to the only other local site for FH would be a risk of losing traffic for him, while EDF only has a tiny crossover with FH.

That’s true. A forum admin can run it however he or she likes and is under no obligation to give free advertising to a potential commercial rival. Of course we wouldn’t still be discussing it here if the other admin had given Michael a reason for why his post was deleted.