*** ANNOUNCEMENT 3RD SEPT - ALL MEMBERS PLEASE READ **

[LauraB]

We are aware that members are currently being contacted by a small group of ex-members regarding a new forum that they have set up.

In view of this, I thought I would set the record straight so that anybody who has been told stories over there about myself and/or this forum during the past week can make their own minds up.

Their new forum has been set up because Wobbles was de-modded. The reason that Wobbles was de-modded is that, unbeknown to me, last Sunday afternoon she made a thread in the TTC forum which left an extremely bad taste in the mouth, as it was both very upsetting and abusive to two of our members in particular. Some of you may have seen it, others may not. I won’t go into the details but trust me, it wasn’t pleasant. This issue also caused me personally a huge amount of grief spanning two days.

Since then, various people connected with that new site have retaliated by trying to contact as many of our members as they can, in order to gain as many sign-ups to their own forum.

Trust me – I don’t de-mod people for no reason. I don’t ban people for no reason. Personally I regarded Wobbles as a good TTC buddy of mine. I am as fair as I can be when it comes to dealing with arguments and other unpleasant issues on the forum. Along with our moderators, I work hard to keep this forum friendly at all times. But the nature of Wobbles' thread, and the trouble and bad feeling it subsequently caused, made it impossible for me to keep her on as a mod.

Diverting slightly, and for the record – I don’t advocate the ‘spamming’ of other forums in order to gain new members. All of our own members have been gained through paid advertising, search engine listings, my own commercial website and word of mouth. I am proud that we have never had to resort to such underhand tactics in order to gain new members.

People will always join a number of forums – but when administrators and members of other forums have not lifted a single finger in order to obtain their members – aside from reaping what they can from other people’s hard work and efforts – then it just makes me even happier to know that I have no intention of ever operating in that manner on this forum.

Thanks for listening. I hope we can all move forward now and start enjoying the forum again as we always have done.

 

[LauraB]

I want to add to the above post, as it was written just before I had to go out.

I have never wanted to get involved in inter-forum wars – I am a peaceful person and doing a post like the above goes right against my grain. I shouldn’t feel that I have to explain my side of things and give details of issues that should be kept private between the persons involved, however on this occasion I have been driven into going against my principles because I know that untruths are being spread, both on MSN and elsewhere, and for that reason I WILL stand up and make myself heard.

Wobbles is a great moderator and, as I said above, I regarded her as a good friend. However, she put me in an impossible position that I did not deserve to be in, and I had to make a choice. I honestly don’t think people realise how hard this decision was, I really don’t. It took me two days to come to my decision – what does that tell you? I was in tears more than once – maybe I shouldn’t get so personally affected by it, but that’s just the kind of person I am and I won’t apologise for it, or be embarrassed by admitting it. I still stand by my decision, but that doesn’t mean I am not completely gutted about it.

I realise that some members have already left here and won’t return. Other members may choose to use both forums. Despite what people have always implicated, I will set the record straight right now - I DO NOT have a problem with people using other forums, but what I do have a problem with is people promoting other forums via mine.

Something else I want to set straight - yes I do have access to private messages - this is stated in the Forum Rules. I am the administrator and as such have full access to the database. Private messages have to be stored somewhere, otherwise they do not exist and cannot be sent or read. They are stored in the database - therefore, as the administrator, I do have access if need be. Our moderators do not have access to private messages. However, rest assured I have much more pressing things to do with my time than sit and read every PM that goes through the system - suffice to say, I know who's messages I am looking out for, and if I have reason to believe they are sending something which is derogatory to the forum then yes, I will read them and take action where necessary. Quite unusual for an administrator to declare this, however I have nothing to hide and if you read the technical explanation above, you'll realise that almost any other forum you visit will have an administrator who can read private messages. Whether they are aware of it, or whether they choose to declare it, is an entirely different matter.

I hope all of this can settle down now.

 

[LauraB]

And finally.

We found out last night that multiple, identical posts had been made on another forum (not the one mentioned above) advertising Pregnancy Forum and inviting people to come over here. At the moment I do not know if this is connected to the issue mentioned above - I may never even find out.

Obviously this goes completely against my principles which have already been explained above. I have absolutely no idea who has made these posts as yet, but it goes without saying that I would prefer it if people did not to post multiple threads on other forums on our behalf because, as you can imagine, it only serves to cause us trouble in the end. Thank you.