Are you unsure ?

[Cerise]

Hey jim,

We understand it must be disappointing for you and your friends not being able to chitchat about Adelle on here anymore, and we appreciate this - But the system was changed for a reason, and those reasons were

[.] - People stopped discussing couples/characters and started chitchatting about them and Home and Away.

[.] - They started Spamming, using one word posts and saying pointless things.

[.] - People were using net speak and deliberately not using correct SPAG.

[.] - Pro people started abusing Anti people and vice versa.

[.] - The forum became a war zone.

We all knew we had to do something and this was the best thing - make the forum Moderator Preview and enforce the rule that we were only to discuss couples. The Moderator preview enables us to edit SPAG, filter out spam, and stop people abusing others (which was also the reason for the merging of the two discussion types). It seems a little unfair but it's best for our members, the staff, and the board as a whole.

If we were to re-open the Adelle thread, we still would have to monitor it and people would get carried away again, and maybe they'd start abusing other people once more, which isn't on. It would also be unfair to just open that thread, people would feel cheated, like Adellites were getting preferential treatment.

We will review the system in a few weeks, and if we feel people are discussing things well without our help in filtering and editing, we may lift MP for a while and make minor changes, but the system will remain, because it makes the board run smoother, and all members will be happy, and we're running this for the benefit of all of our members, and although some of them may not agree with all of our decisions we feel it's what’s best for all of us.

Thanks,

Cerise.

[jim6600]

i just dont get why they dont open up a new home and away chat section

[Cerise]

We spent a long time deliberating about this new system, it wasn't an easy decision, but eventually we came to it and we feel it's best for our members. We don't take pleasure in taking away your chat thread and making you upset, but can you undersatnd that people were afraid to say anything negative about Adelle? The old system created a hostile atmosphere and now people are discussing things! Voicing their opinions! Next time you reply to me, answer this simple question: Do you want to take away the right for people to voice their opinions?

[Slade]

A question to the Mods but do you not think the SPAG rule is a little unfair? Of course people shouldn’t be writing one word posts in text message format but you can’t honestly expect every single person to spell every single word correctly every single time. Come on, that’s ridiculous. There are often quite a few words that I misspell and it’s not as if there’s a spell check facility built into the website. Also with grammar it’s very easy to confuse things (you’d be surprise how many people actually confuse “its” with “it’s” - two different words). Also people can make various grammatical errors in sentences relating to words for example such as whose, who, whom etc.

[Cerise]

A question to the Mods but do you not think the SPAG rule is a little unfair? Of course people shouldn’t be writing one word posts in text message format but you can’t honestly expect every single person to spell every single word correctly every single time. Come on, that’s ridiculous. There are often quite a few words that I misspell and it’s not as if there’s a spell check facility built into the website. Also with grammar it’s very easy to confuse things (you’d be surprise how many people actually confuse “its” with “it’s” - two different words). Also people can make various grammatical errors in sentences relating to words for example such as whose, who, whom etc.

Slade; That's not what the SPAG rule is - of course we don't expect everyone to spell everything perfectly! Nobody's perfect! We only ask people to do their best and not post in text speak, use capital letters and punctuation appropriately and as best they can. If people have specific problems like learning difficulties (I actually have dyslexia myself) they can contact a mod and we'll know why and we won't be giving out for something beyond your control. If your very bad because of these problems and would prefer a mod checked your posts, you can request to go on MP and we'll check everything to make sure you get the full benefit of discussing here with us

This is the rule:

1) Please try your best to use correct spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG) when posting on the Forum. This makes your posts easier to understand and readable by all. Please don't post in all capitals (LIKE THIS), as it is considered shouting and is hard to read. Also, talking in txt-speak is strictly prohibited. The personal pronoun 'I' is written with a capital I. After a full stop, like . (period), ! (exclamation mark) and ? (question mark), please use a capital letter in the next sentence.

Proof reading your post works wonders. There's a "preview post" button you can use, and once posted, an "edit"-button, so if you've spelt something wrong (etc), you can go back and edit your post!

WE have this rule because a) not all of our members have English as a first language, and b) our older members would not understand posts written in text speak. We aim to ensure that every post can be read and understood by everyone who comes on to the forum.

Edited November 8, 2008 by Cerise

[Eli]

The issue with the SPAG rule is that we have a lot of international members, and to have as correct English as possible will make it easier for everyone to read the board. English is not my mother tongue, so I have first hand experience here; it can be hard to keep up with a foreign langauge if people use txt sp3ak n poor SPAG That being said, we're not as fanatic about this as some people seem to think. We never warn people if they misspell a few words (I sure do misspell a lot of words. It took me ages to learn how to spell "necessarily" ) or if someone constantly uses "there" instead of "their". What we do look into regarding the SPAG rule, are members who use text speak, never ever uses a capital letter (or always uses caps, but in both cases they will receive unofficial warnings before we do anything more about it) and just generally doesn't seem to give a crap when people tell them to use capital letters or stop using text speak. Like with the spam issue, it's all about context. No one will arrest anyone for struggling with spelling "hypocrite" (I had to look it up. I always have to.) or not knowing whether to put "is" or "are" in a sentence.

Basically we have to draw the line somewhere, and it would be a little too unclear just saying "Just don't use horrible SPAG" because that's such a relative term, especially when we're dealing with members of many nationalities and languages.

Hope that cleared things up a little

[Cerise]

And if it makes you feel any better, I always thought it was spelled 'hypocrit' until Eli mentioned it.

[Slade]

Cerise/Eli,

Many thanks for the clarification.

P.S. - I can’t even spell “necessarily”.

[Eli]

No problem, the English language is full of words that are impossible to spell, trust me

[Posy]

My point, which seems to have been lost in the discussion about SPAG, was that the chit-chat problem has moved to the spoiler section. Some threads there are no longer discussing spoilers, they are (at best) discussing current episodes, and in many cases simply spamming to get page counts up.

Is there a plan to do anything about this, or should I just not bother going into those threads anymore?