Last word additions to closed thread by 'The Management'

[french frank]

There is one other thing that I would like to say (apart from thanking the above, where appropriate), and that is that unlike other forums (including r3ok), this forum was started under the aegis of an existing group - FoR3. Raise your eyes to the address bar and you see that the forum occupies a portion of cyberspace rented by FoR3; and from time to time we have to increase the amount of space allotted to us, purely on account of the forum.

In this respect, it differs from 'cooperatives' like r3ok. To be grandiose above our station that puts us (FoR3) in the same position as the BBC was vis-à-vis the BBC boards. We obeyed their rules and if we didn't like the rules, we were only there by our own choice and could leave at any time. Or we could share our attention among several forums.

I have felt a bit tempted, sometimes, to try to point some members towards … another forum … but I do feel our ability to absorb the occasionally less welcome aspects of their presence is better than that of forums with smaller active memberships. So I think we must just rub along as well together as we can and overlook the faults on both sides.

[ahinton]

As for "the Management" - AFAIK, that is Frenchie, on her own (with assistance from Hosts) unpaid and in her own time. Therefore, we have to play the game by her "rules" - I suspect that those are her own conditions for continuing to provide the rest of us with her work. I accept those conditions, because the Forum offers considerably more than it niggles.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I wouldn't care to try to do this myself even were I to receive a thumping great salary for the privilege and, since FF does not, as you point out, receive a penny piece for her troubles (and sometimes troubles they can indeed be!), I think that we can all count ourselves pretty fortunate in our administration, notwithstanding occasional possible differences of emphasis.

[Roehre]

Every year at the Proms, and sometimes elsewhere, I meet a wide range of listeners who love to discuss music. While we are waiting to get into the hall there are livelt discussions about the works being played, plus spirited discussions on many other topics.

What marks these conversations is that they are face to face and completely without rancour or arrogance. Join this forum and you are immediately assailed by so called smart remarks, opinions touted to deliberately cause offence, and in jokes. Time after time an interesting subject degenerates into meaningless drivel, like the boys at the back of the class throwing paper darts.

I'm not suggesting that there should be no humour, we always need that, but it should be the dressing on the salad.

Can we please break away from what sometimes appears as sheer nastiness and pomposity, and get back to friendly encouragement and exchange of views?

The worst thing about all this is that so many outlets for musical opinion are rapidly disappearing.and we need the opportunity to share our enthusiasm with others, that's getting very difficult on these boards at the moment.

Thanks ff, you do a difficult job.

wholeheartedly seconded

[gradus]

Some people enjoy being rude to others but imv nastiness is self-defeating. It must be a pain having to deal with the perpetrators as well as some of the, possibly needlessly, offended. For the little it's worth, FF and co-mods have my support in their often thankless tasks.

[Historian]

At the risk of making this thread repetitious, I would also like to put on record that I am happy with how things are run here. Other people are not and they are, of course, at liberty to express their feelings.

[mercia]

I probably shouldn't need to ask this, but I'm going to anyway. When a thread is ultimately closed and padlocked is it out of a sense of embarrassment - that, perhaps, high-ups in the BBC might be looking in and pointing a finger of ridicule at the low level of discussion - or is it a fear that a law might be about to be broken .......... or is it something else ... ?

I often think .... just let those two or three 'culprits' get on with it, ignore them, they'll soon get bored. I appreciate that when two children fight in the playground it is necessary for the supervisor to intervene, but is this really a comparable situation ?

[french frank]

I probably shouldn't need to ask this, but I'm going to anyway. When a thread is ultimately closed and padlocked is it out of a sense of embarrassment - that, perhaps, high-ups in the BBC might be looking in and pointing a finger of ridicule at the low level of discussion - or is it a fear that a law might be about to be broken .......... or is it something else ... ?

I think I've touched on this in the past. It's really because outsiders like the press (sometimes with quite high profiles who write about Radio 3) take it for granted that the Forum IS "Friends of Radio 3" whereas, as far as I'm concerned, the vast majority - usually about 80% at any given moment - are simply members of the public who use the forum.

It doesn't seem fair to have FoR3 publicly branded as barmy/extreme/ridiculous/contradictory/narrow &c just because people who merit those descriptions 'honour' us with their presence. That's why we/the management/I want the forum to look civilised and intelligent. It's in FoR3's interest to be taken seriously - which would be hard to do if people just engaged in idiotic insults. And that kind of posting seems to attract the largest number of short posts so that they're always the most highly visible.

No matter how hard I try to make it clear on the home page that forum members are mostly NOT FoR3 supporters, the mud sticks.

To be clear, I'm glad if the forum provides a number of people with some fun, education, friendship and the rest. But it means nothing to me compared with the campaign to get Radio 3 back to being a station for intelligent adults 24 hours a day - which is what FoR3 is about.

Ed: It's become a bit of an obsession to check how many members are online and how many are registered FoR3 supporters. Nine times out of ten it's 1 in five - as it is at the moment: 55 forum members, 11 FoR3 supporters]

[Nick Armstrong]

To be clear, I'm glad if the forum provides a number of people with some fun, education, friendship and the rest.

This hints at another aspect, for me. My sense is that the majority who click on a thread looking for those things, only to have to wade through pages of petulant, petty and repetitive point-scoring between a tiny argumentative group, find it off-putting, time-wasting and downright boring. I think it deters people from posting, or even from being members. To my mind, closing that sort of ding-dong down (sounds like a Vaughan Williams folksong setting...!) is part of ensuring "that this forum is not disrupted or abused" (to quote the rules). And since I believe it represents the preference of the majority, I reckon it's the opposite of dictatorial.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This hints at another aspect, for me. My sense is that the majority who click on a thread looking for those things, only to have to wade through pages of petulant, petty and repetitive point-scoring between a tiny argumentative group, find it off-putting, time-wasting and downright boring. I think it deters people from posting, or even from being members. To my mind, closing that sort of ding-dong down (sounds like a Vaughan Williams folksong setting...!) is part of ensuring "that this forum is not disrupted or abused" (to quote the rules). And since I believe it represents the preference of the majority, I reckon it's the opposite of dictatorial.

Perfectly put. I only wish I'd thought of writing it so succinctly.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I often think .... just let those two or three 'culprits' get on with it, ignore them, they'll soon get bored. ?

If only that were the case. Those "two or three.." never seem seem to tire of it.

[eighthobstruction]

....

[vinteuil]

...since I believe it represents the preference of the majority, I reckon it's the opposite of dictatorial.

... bl**dy dictatorship of the majority grumble grumble grumble grumble


[... an antinomian speaks. ]

But seriously - whatever Fr Fr rules is good for me...

[mercia]

I take on board everything that has been said, though if its the press we're 'worried' about, I would have thought they're well used to un-civilised, un-intelligent, idiotic insult throwing - one only has to look at the public comments under some online newspaper articles, I wouldn't say those comments reflect badly on that particular newspaper, they just tell you something about those particular contributors.

[french frank]

I take on board everything that has been said, though if its the press we're 'worried' about, I would have thought they're well used to un-civilised, un-intelligent, idiotic insult throwing - one only has to look at the public comments under some online newspaper articles, I wouldn't say those comments reflect badly on that particular newspaper, they just tell you something about those particular contributors.

That isn't how it works. Lebrecht, for example, was describing Friends of Radio 3 when he said 'a less friendly bunch you'd struggle to find this side of the Islamic State … ". When I wrote to - gently - point out that he can have had no experience of any members of the Friends, and appeared to be speaking of the online forum, he confirmed that he was not aware that they were separate entities. But people read Lebrecht's blog and form their conclusions.

On other occasions the press have quoted what they've read here and attributed it to the Friends. And that's another problem: I have to put up with people expressing their Humble Opinions here if we're running a forum for the public: but I don't want every GongGong, BeefOven or ahinton taken to be the official spokepeople for FoR3. And I'm not very happy about people slagging off presenters here, when it's FoR3's policy not to do so. Those with longer memories will remember the (admittedly malicious) accusations that FoR3 was orchestrating a 'hate campaign' against Radio 3 presenters when we were trying to prevent it.

It's not an advantage to FoR3 to run this forum .

[mercia]

well I'm not a particularly bright person but I've never confused FoR3 with The Radio 3 Forum, so I think that has told me something about "the press". (Perhaps the link provided from one to the other should be removed, so that no connection can be assumed)