TES Community

[Scumble]

Where the dickens has it gone? Is it gone gone? Has it been renamed and I just can't find it?

@Neededabreak
"It is the age old adage, if you have done nothing wrong you should not have to worry."

The adage people should heed is that a fool and their money are soon parted.
However slick this proposed site it will still be run by unidentified people of unknown motivations, without any recognised authority in the educational professions.

@Neededabreak
"Not all businesses are "for profit", but I guess you know that, you should and well you do now if you didn't."
Those are called charities.
Do you want to set up your forum as a charity?

@Neededabreak
"If anyone has any positive suggestions for the new initiative they should feel free to message me here and they will be given due consideration."

Make a business plan.
Do not rely upon others to make it for you.

@Neededabreak
"If that is your true belief you have no option than to try to start and run a forum yourself where you can promote your own beliefs, that should settle it."

I do not seek to promote anything but it is interesting that you should imagine that forums are a tool for its owner's ideological evangelism.

@greenbeetles websites need to be paid for, nothing is absolutely free in this world. Websites have to be moderated. If an individual is doing that out of the goodness of their heart, then that isn't fair on an individual and should be avoided for the wellbeing of that individual. What if that individual gets a promotion, or became ill etc.? That individual should be paid for their time as they could be using their free time to make a profit.

Websites should have an insurance package that will ensure all the data of all its users are safe. Websites that do not pay for a monthly insurance premium, that contain sophisticated algorithms that detect and prevent hacking and trolling, are putting its users at risk and will in time generate more and more unnecessary work for its moderators. Free websites without insurance attract trolling and trolls can purchase loads of ISP addresses, create various email accounts and infiltrate's websites, wasting many manhours.

Websites, if they expand and have hundreds and hundreds of users, will need to pay more for cloud space to store data and the larger the number of its users and the posts that are generated, the more costs and time it will incur.

So what I am saying, is that people who believe a website, that is not affiliated to a newspaper or any other income source etc. being able to run free are misguided and totally selfish. Such a proposition is unsustainable. The TES had money from other sources which funded their chat website. Any website attempting to do so, without needing funding will soon have a need to request funding from its members or incur the site owner further personal costs.

Once funding is requested, a whole set of issues arise with regard to taxes etc.

[quote staymotivated]@greenbeetles websites need to be paid for, nothing is absolutely free in this world. Websites have to be moderated. If an individual is doing that out of the goodness of their heart, then that isn't fair on an individual and should be avoided for the wellbeing of that individual. What if that individual gets a promotion, or became ill etc.? That individual should be paid for their time as they could be using their free time to make a profit.

Websites should have an insurance package that will ensure all the data of all its users are safe. Websites that do not pay for a monthly insurance premium, that contain sophisticated algorithms that detect and prevent hacking and trolling, are putting its users at risk and will in time generate more and more unnecessary work for its moderators. Free websites without insurance attract trolling and trolls can purchase loads of ISP addresses, create various email accounts and infiltrate's websites, wasting many manhours.

Websites, if they expand and have hundreds and hundreds of users, will need to pay more for cloud space to store data and the larger the number of its users and the posts that are generated, the more costs and time it will incur.

So what I am saying, is that people who believe a website, that is not affiliated to a newspaper or any other income source etc. being able to run free are misguided and totally selfish. Such a proposition is unsustainable. The TES had money from other sources which funded their chat website. Any website attempting to do so, without needing funding will soon have a need to request funding from its members or incur the site owner further personal costs.

Once funding is requested, a whole set of issues arise with regard to taxes etc.[/quote]
I have no issue with anything you've said here.

But you did state 'It is better to join a website knowing how much of a contribution is needed to keep it running, rather than joining a website on the premise it will be free, and then being asked to make voluntary contributions.'

I repeat: no one has been asked to make voluntary contributions to the running of the Staffroom site.

@greenbeetles I remember someone saying something about a request for voluntary contributions were made but due to the large volume of posts deleted, it may have been in one of them. If a request for money has been made, it is to be expected: as the site grows, more and more time and £££ will be needed.

I believe in paying people for the services they provide, if I am using them and if they are benefitting me, and I would feel uncomfortable, a. using a website I knew or felt an individual was paying solely for and b. which I suspected was using up too much of their free time.

Even if they volunteered to do so, I would advise them not to and find an alternative activity and seek funding for others to support the work of that site, so as to give themselves some much needed 'me' time.

Many exTessers have stated that they would categorically never pay to use a teachers' chat website and therein lies the problem: the something for nothing brigade, which forms a largest part of the teaching population.

So, to anyone using a free website where an individual is putting in all their free time and using up their own personal wealth to maintain it, do the decent thing and make a voluntary contribution now. I would, if I were using such a site. But from stories I have heard, I have decided I do not wish to.

I make one off payments to many Youtubers whose content I have used for various things. My usual contributions is around $30. Many people do this.

Everybody who gives a quality service for free, deserves this and many Youtubers have a Paypal link for subscribers to do so.

[quote DrLinus]@Neededabreak
"Not all businesses are "for profit", but I guess you know that, you should and well you do now if you didn't."
Those are called charities.
Do you want to set up your forum as a charity?[/quote]
There are other types of not for profit organisation, much depends on their aims and objectives... consider if you will those with social or ethical aims.

The idea that profit maximisation is the single goal of non chartable businesses is fairly limited these days.

I think if you have followed any of my posts here and on TES you will know that troll avoidance was a key aim and the idea has developed from there.

[quote DrLinus]@Neededabreak
"If that is your true belief you have no option than to try to start and run a forum yourself where you can promote your own beliefs, that should settle it."

I do not seek to promote anything but it is interesting that you should imagine that forums are a tool for its owner's ideological evangelism.[/quote]
You deliberately misinterpret me and for some reason I am not surprised.

We all have choices, there is no compulsion to support my endeavours and no compulsion to try the new platform when its launched, there are others that suit your needs and if there aren't I suggested that you can create one. My needs are simple since I don't have a lot of time to post on these sites, while my inclination to play devils advocate for no reason is no existent and my career dev't in teaching is not my priority... nor is income generating for your information, your apparent premise that all businesses are set up to max profit is clearly flawed as already pointed out but of course you are entitled to your view.

[quote DrLinus]@Neededabreak
"If anyone has any positive suggestions for the new initiative they should feel free to message me here and they will be given due consideration."

Make a business plan.
Do not rely upon others to make it for you.[/quote]
I have, you may have noticed from my posts, it is a work in progress as it should be and I have simply offering forum users here the opportunity to have an input into the design of a different platform market research is key to any venture you know, and some very interesting suggestions have been made but thank you for your contribution.

[quote DrLinus]@Neededabreak
"It is the age old adage, if you have done nothing wrong you should not have to worry."

The adage people should heed is that a fool and their money are soon parted.
However slick this proposed site it will still be run by unidentified people of unknown motivations, without any recognised authority in the educational professions.[/quote]
The motivations have been made clear and will be in the mission statement and as already mentioned there is no need for site ownership to be anonymous, I also outlined potential partnership potential.

@staymotivated it's not for you to make decisions on behalf of others choosing to set up a website and moderate it.
If you choose not to engage with a service which is now available that is of course your decision. Others can choose otherwise and without your input.

[quote ilovesooty]@staymotivated it's not for you to make decisions on behalf of others choosing to set up a website and moderate it.
If you choose not to engage with a service which is now available that is of course your decision. Others can choose otherwise and without your input.[/quote]
I appreciate that things are done differently in Mordor but everywhere else it is not considered polite to tell people that they may not air their opinions.

@ilovesooty If I were a member of a website, set up by a teacher, that I benefitted from, used daily and made loads and loads of posts on, I would definitely make regular contributions to that site and I would actively encourage others to.

It's probably just as well that I've never used that site, as there are so many teachers adverse to the idea of paying for a teachers' chat website and therein lines the problem of the concept's sustainability.

Too many teachers struggle to find the correct work live balance.

We talk of the sisterhood, the brotherhood, let's talk to the teacherhood.

Let's stop expecting teachers to do time consuming things for nothing and let's never encourage it.

[quote staymotivated]**@ilovesooty* If I were a member of a website, set up by a teacher, that I benefitted from, used daily and made loads and loads of posts on, I would definitely* make regular contributions to that site and I would actively encourage others to.

It's probably just as well that I've never used that site, as there are so many teachers adverse to the idea of paying for a teachers' chat website and therein lines the problem of the concept's sustainability. [/quote]
That is different from your claim that people joined the site and were then ASKED to make voluntary contributions to cover costs. Which is not the case at all and never was.

As you say, you have not joined the site, so can have no real idea of what is happening on there.

I don't think there was a request for money on the staffroom site either, as I recall people were asked to try to find different ways to post pics as it would use storage which would cost, and that is obviously true and a perfectly reasonable request... several posters then offered to contribute to costs and there should not be a problem with that. I too will contribute and do not have an issue with that, it is a service I use and if there are associated costs I don't see why the site owner/manager should have to fund it alone, I use electricity and pay for that too.

I would add that I am not over there as often as I used to be on TES but it seems a lovely place to be.

@staymotivated if you're signed up and know what's going on there you're a member, whether or not you've posted.

If you haven't signed up you can't view the forum and have no idea what is posted. Which is it?

So that was it, there are costs that need to be met with a site and I have said that already. I remember someone mentioning something about voluntary contributions.

The issue is the same, voluntary contributions have to be met as it is the decent thing to do. As a site becomes bigger, more storage is needed and you pay for the storage allowance monthly, so people hopefully are volunteering to contribute regularly, whilst I suspect others, who may use the site a lot more, won't or don't.

But in terms of creating a better, safer site, that involves less man or woman hours' to maintain and provides effective strategies against hacks and trolling, it would cost a whole lot more.

I would be willing to pay for the cost of a websites' administration that I was benefitting from.

And that's the key thing being, that I would benefit from it.

[quote ilovesooty]@staymotivated if you're signed up and know what's going on there you're a member, whether or not you've posted.

If you haven't signed up you can't view the forum and have no idea what is posted. Which is it?[/quote]
Does it matter?

Yes it does. Either you have the facility to view posts or you don't. So are you speaking as someone who can see posts or are you speculating on what might have been said?

Asking me that is akin to me asking you, 'Have you made any voluntary contributions to the site and if so, how much?'

And the answer I would expect is: 'None of your business!'

Oh I see, looking back, on 24th you made it clear you had joined. In which case you will know that there has been no expectation that people will pay to use the site and no request for them to do so.

@staymotivated

Asking me that is akin to me asking you, 'Have you made any voluntary contributions to the site and if so, how much?'

And the answer I would expect is: 'None of your business!'

No it isn't. In any case I've discovered the answer. You have chosen to sign up and are a member, or at least you still were a few days ago.

Oh @ilovesooty, that's the oldest trick in the book. State that my account has been deleted, in the hope that I rush to the site to sign in, if I have ever been a member, and then find out who I am, and then delete the account.

For your information, not everything you read on the internet is true.

Supposing:

a. I have never signed up and stated that I had. Therefore you've deleted the wrong person.
b. I have signed up, and you have deleted the wrong person or
c. I have signed up, and you have deleted me.

Again:

Does it matter?