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How do you contact the owners of East Dulwich Forum?

languagelounger

By languagelounger
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languagelounger

languagelounger

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I received a private message which was signed "The Administrator". I replied but received no response.


The way you operate is turning out to be rather confusing. People are invited to use the East Dulwich Forum to promote local events. Obviously, with events there will be occasions when, due to illness, or other events beyond the control of the organisers, eg the riots, weather conditions, last minute changes/cancellations have to be made.


We posted one such message on the 27 April, and received a private message from "The Administrator" objecting to this message - which simply advised that one of the groups had been cancelled - saying that going forward, we could not post any updates. You also without even advising me removed all our mesaages back to 23rd April, which was very confusing to individuals who had posted on the thread asking for information, and obviously caused them inconvenience.


If you are in fact only offering the opportunity to mention an event once, this effectively renders the message board useless for event organisers, since people who have been attracted to an event cannot be advised of unforseen changes. Also, the poster cannot control whether other people post on the thread - even if they ask them not to.


You have effectively told us that people are banned from posting perfectly normal messages and enquries (approved under your own rules) on your message board. Hence I hope you understand that your message was totally baffling.


Would you not inform people in advance, that if anyone replies to their post, of if they update it with essential information, that you are going to remove all the postings, without warning? This would make more sense than inviting them to start using the site, and then tell them, after they have posted, that they are unable to update outdated information.


It's baffling, and hence, I have enquired who owns the East Dulwich Forum, so that I at least know who to try to communicate with. The messages we receive from "The Administrator" are from different people (this is very obvious from both the content and the tone of the messages, which vary strikingly and puzzlingly from one message to the next). I can't see any information anywhere which says who the owner of the site is. Is that information available please?


I would mention, that LL does not bump up messages at all, and specifically asks people responding to postings, to reply only by private message, so that the thread is not always rising to the top of the list with queries which might only be of interest to the individual poster. Language Lounge runs twice a week and as there are several groups for different languages, there are often changes to the details of the groups that have to be notified. Most often, this is when one of the teachers can't make it because of illness or child care issues, etc. This is the only reason additional messages are posted - apart from messages from enquirers, over which, very obviously, I have no control.


We did start out with separate threads for Mons and Weds, but you asked us to consolidate into one. LL is completely non-profit making, we organise free classes and swaps, and in some cases teacher shares (where the teacher is paid, but allowing people who couldn't afford individual fees, to share the cost between them). I started and organise it - all the history on the EDF, right from 2008 - and make no profit of any kind from it.


If you in fact want people to pay to advertise on the EDF then please say so openly. But you do say that you are offering a free service and invite people to use it, so it is very baffling, that you would then object to them doing exactly what you have invited them to do. Please could you explain how people are supposed to know what the "rules" are, or if you in fact want people to pay for posting on the EDF, if you are open and clear about this, they will be able to make a decision accordingly. Thank you.

Huguenot

Huguenot

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I'm sure it's simply a misunderstanding.


It can be very difficult when using free local message boards, especially those run by a collective, for 'critical' communications.


I tend to think of the EDF as a valuable, but limited, community chat resource. Once you need to coordinate large numbers of people to rapidly changing events it's rather too much to ask of local, mostly non-technical well wishers to be able to run a customer relationship management programme for you on what is quite an old and inflexible message database.


Perhaps this is worth recognising as your own responsibility rather than theirs?


The Language Lounge is a great idea, but maybe you really need to set up your own small website to which you can guide people, whilst using the EDF as a noticeboard to attract and highlight the serivce to attendees?


Perhaps we are a little bit spoilt by the kind of services we appear to get from free from Google, Facebook and other Silicon Valley mega corporations. They're not free of course, they receive billions from venture capital and sell your private data to repay them.


That's a far cry from the EDF which gets a few hundred quid a month that barely covers the serving costs.


Users of the EDF become very agitated when the website doesn't work quite right, but often forget when they request interactive calendars and such like that the creation of these facilities may require ?10k or more to create, launch, troubleshoot and maintain.


I build and design websites as part of my own company, and fees are charged to my own clients of between ?100 to ?300 per hour depending on what work needs to be done. This isn't because they're being overcharged, this is because this is what it costs when you take into account salaries, taxes, hardware, software, training, holidays, administrative overheads and all the rest of the associated costs.


The amateur administrators sometimes slighted on these pages are delvering an estimated ?20,000 worth of free labour every month just to keep this forum working.


I think that the suggestion they're messing with you to try and get advertising cash out of you is a bit cynical, petty, and more than a little bit ungracious.

languagelounger

languagelounger

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Mark -


For information, the message in question from "The Administrator" was sent to us at 22:27 on the 30th April and said:"


You can post once a week frmo now on, no more. I will check again in a month and I may change that to fortnightly if you break the rule."


There is nothing in what you post in Terms of Use that says that event organisers may only post once a week. Hence we found this message rather baffling. As you may recall, we have received similar messages out of the blue previously, on one occasion saying that because we were a business, our thread had been moved to the business section. This was done without any warning. LL is not a business, and you (personally) moved the thread back to the Events section at my request. I have noticed that the baffling messages of a similar (and rather strange) nature always seem to be posted late at night. Perhaps this will help to identify the person who sends them? Thank you.

  • Administrator
Administrator

Administrator

Posted
  • Administrator
Posted

Hi


You sometimes post too many times, you've been asked before about reducing the amount of posts you do so now you've had a reminder. For example you posted on the 29th March, 1st and 2nd April the same message that you're away until the 16th April, there was really no need to do that.


I apologise that you think my message "You can post once a week from now on, no more." is baffling, I try and be direct with no ambiguity with users but will try harder with you in the future. I'm not saying don't post and I have not said "that people are banned from posting perfectly normal messages and enquries".


I've asked other frequent event posters to reduce the amount of times they post and they've just said "ok, no problem, and thanks for the the forum it's great.". See what they did there?



ps In the past I've helped you with your weirdo character incidents, apologised for incorrectly moving your posts and have asked you nicely to simply reduce the 'bumping' posts you put up. Please don't give me more unnecessary work as I do have better things to do.

languagelounger

languagelounger

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Hi


There were posts on 29 March, 1 snd 8 April, and the reason is that people get confused about when we're taking a break. We were taking two weeks off from regular weekly events and if I handn't posted reminders of that, there would have been more messages of the "I turned up and there was no-one there" variety - that's what has happened in the past.


Today, there are multiple threads running from the Nun's Head (two); The Great Exhibition (three) - including 4 pure bumping posts just today on one of their three threads; a dance teacher (three) and flapjackdavey (three). These people are all running separate threads for different classes or events they run. Is it okay therefore, if were are running different events on a Monday and a Wednesday, to have two separate threads, like the Nun's Head and The Great Exhibition, and the dance teacher have separate threads for different events they are running? That would mean that the separate threads each had fewer posts. Thanks

KalamityKel

KalamityKel

Posted
Posted

lanuagelounger how many clients of yours are solely from the forum? are you not able to contact your clients yourself or have other avenues for advertising?


Seems using a free tool like the ED you're spending too much time concerning yourself with petty issues.


IMO

Huguenot

Huguenot

Posted
Posted

I see what you're saying KK, but I don't think it feels trivial to languagelounger.


I think the problem is that languagelounger's organisation has grow to the scale that it can no longer be accommodated by a bulletin board like the EDF.


I think really s/he needs to look at a simple website solution with basic CRM (emailing) facilities.


For free emailing and event bookings try eventbrite? The event could be linked to the ll postings.


That way the EDF could be used to just to post 'news and events' and not to try and administrate languagelounger's groups.

languagelounge

languagelounge

Posted
Posted

Am doing website, and yes indeed, Eventbrite.


Even more puzzled now though, as The Administrator (Administrator Jeckyl?) has ceased our old log on, but this morning we have been sent a message by The Administrator (Administrator Hyde?) which of course cannot be accessed, due to the actions of The Administrator (Jeckyl/Hyde). And of course, people who see our Event thread and send enquiries, will just get a bounce back message. If the EDF can't accommodate this thread anymore, and is not going to restore the log on, can Administrator (Jeckyl and/or Hyde) please delete the entire thread, otherwise it is going to cause a lot of people to waste their time sending messages which cannot be accessed, and just bounce back. This will of course also damage our reputation. Thank you!


PS We have always (prior to latest) offered profuse appreciation the the EDF for the facility they provide, even on the occasions when our thread has been moved without notice in the past, and even when this was accompanied on one occasion, by a vdry brusque message stating that we would need to pay if we wanted to use the EDF in future, because we were a business. Which we're not. I don't want to go on but it isn't easy to keep up with the Jeckyl/Hyde thing, really. Still don't know who Jeckyl and Hyde are, either... someone must know. Is it caused by nipping into one of those kebab shope on Lordship Lane on the way home. We should be told.

gedwina

gedwina

Posted
Posted
What a selfish response to a free service, fundamentally the website is the owners "trainset" and they are free to play with it as they see fit. Even as a charity / free service you have achieved an awful lot of advertising without having to pay a penny. If you don?t like the way you have been treated then vote with your feet and set up your own website.
  • 2 weeks later...
Huguenot

Huguenot

Posted
Posted

That's very flattering, but you'll be reassured to learn that as early as 2006 the mods made clear that they have absolutely no intent to let me anywhere near the admin tools.


I'm simply too badly behaved.


There's been noises about a ban on at least 2 occasions ;-)

MunDanity

MunDanity

Posted
Posted

Hugenot explaining that he is the Administrator


But Hugenot, you replied on the thread in this section "My missus the leper", saying that you would register someone who was having problems doing it themselves. So you clearly do run the site. Are you also the owner, and why would you say that you aren't one of the people who runs the site, when you are?

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East Dulwich Forum

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