TES Community

[Scumble]

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

The above message is the one I have just received from TES in response to my enquiry about the TEs community forums

I have received a reply in line with information posted earlier in this thread. Community is a separate platform needing critical work to make it compliant with the rest of TES and they are currently trying to gauge the timescale. They apologise for any inconvenience.

@Murs

I participated in a few Tes threads regularly- My Horrible Day being the main one but I lurked and occasionally posted on lots of other threads including Well, well, well and How are you doing? I hope Lara, Pepper, Peakster, Ian, Dunty, Jesmond, Sparklepig etc find their way here. I used another name on TEs so won’t be recognised here even though this name is slightly related to my TEs name.

... and Nomad...

Definitely Nomad.

@Murs

The above message is the one I have just received from TES in response to my enquiry about the TEs community forums

An interesting response... not giving much away, they used to communicate about upgrades did they not?

@stamfordbridge

'Personal' for me, as a retired teacher, living alone, was a chance to debate, to agree, to laugh, to inform and be informed about a whole range of things. They did not need to have an education focus, though sometimes they did.

If you don't talk to many people in a day - especially now - a forum such as Personal becomes part of your social life. There may be other places to discuss non-educational issues, but the closing of Community has just destroyed many relationships. It needs restoring in some way.

If trolling is an issue, then admin need to be more proactive in dealing with it. Mumsnet -despite being a bigger and more open forum - seems able to do so. It wasn't unusual for trolls posting on both sites to be banned by Mumsnet whilst TES did nothing.

Hi sorry I was thinking of the new venture and avoiding trolling, so a general news feed with the ability to start threads linked to them and other wider issues will still be useful. Clearly there will be a role for mods as well as explicit and enforced t&c's. I agree about personal playing a big part in peoples lives at various times so will take on what you have said.

Neededabreak, you just posted:

I was just PMing someone about Personal because from what I can recall it was invaluable but the key concerns usually came about when discussing extreme views, politics, and sometimes religion. These themes seemed to often cause offence so I am trying to figure out a way to ensure it doesn't reoccur within a new network that is a closed member only group, stays within legislation, allows discussion but not offence... it is a fine balancing act, I will look into a report button that immediately removes posts pending MOD review and a way to discourage those behaviours but keep things user friendly, useful and professional.

I don't think the issue is with discussing these things - but some people do so rudely and unpleasantly, or in ways which are deliberately set to wind people up or upset them, or attacking the posters rather than what is said.

Many of us who enjoyed such discussions posted politely although robustly. It's not the subject matter which is the problem, it's the attitude & style of those posting. I disagreed completely with Dumpty about Brexit, for example, but exchanges remained polite and civilised.

Oh - by the way, my username here is connected with my TES name - I'm clearly a Chelsea fan.......

This is the Facebook page I'm on. Diddydaves real name is David Fountain and he posts on here sometimes with retirement/pension issues.

@stamfordbridge

Neededabreak, you just posted:

I was just PMing someone about Personal because from what I can recall it was invaluable but the key concerns usually came about when discussing extreme views, politics, and sometimes religion. These themes seemed to often cause offence so I am trying to figure out a way to ensure it doesn't reoccur within a new network that is a closed member only group, stays within legislation, allows discussion but not offence... it is a fine balancing act, I will look into a report button that immediately removes posts pending MOD review and a way to discourage those behaviours but keep things user friendly, useful and professional.

I don't think the issue is with discussing these things - but some people do so rudely and unpleasantly, or in ways which are deliberately set to wind people up or upset them, or attacking the posters rather than what is said.

Many of us who enjoyed such discussions posted politely although robustly. It's not the subject matter which is the problem, it's the attitude & style of those posting. I disagreed completely with Dumpty about Brexit, for example, but exchanges remained polite and civilised.

Oh - by the way, my username here is connected with my TES name - I'm clearly a Chelsea fan.......

That's very true (I thought of Frank Lampard when I saw your post :) - the issue I seem to be faced with is while trying to improve the situation is how, do you think the closed system with close moderation will help?

I guess making sure that sales and recruitment is not acceptable should stop certain types of behaviours... do you think we would be able to deal with the fallout if things go awry? Others who find the site useful could of course ignore the "cafe/bar/personal/staffroom" whatever... it's called, I do think that the term personal should actually be for personal issues not opinion however, I managed to avoid Opinion for a fair old while when I was a busy f/t teacher, mum etc and enjoyed Personal and Ent but found Ent went quite quiet and old personal was completely lost when Opion went.

The Colonel is still locked in the Dungeon!

Yay, Dunty made it! It’s like being shipwrecked, waking up on a beach and searching for other survivors and finding them. Stamfordbridge I knew exactly who you were on TEs when I saw your mumsnet name.

Hey Dunty, Jude has become a mother of eight! I think he will need lots of advice!

Just started watching Death to 2020 on Netplace, so far it is quite funny :)

So, tried entering my tes name and it was taken! And here I thought I was being original 🤪 I’m a committed lurker on tes and read it most nights before going to sleep. I hope it comes back online soon. I wondered the new forum NAB is talking about will allow us foreigners to join?

@Murs

Don’t leave Jude, I have always loved your rants and ramblings. I think you suit being a mum - it will be the making of you!

Jude leaving already? Good grief man you've only just got here you cant be going anywhere else, think of your sanity... and all those imaginary children you've created who need a sane mother.

Hi Chuckleb, I don't see why not it's currently a dot net domain (seemed to fit with the network idea and was available) so you should be able to access it when it goes live. We will need some Beta testers at some point so I'll be asking for interested parties :)

@Murs

Hey Dunty, Jude has become a mother of eight! I think he will need lots of advice!

... and therapy...

Dunty's here!

I want to like all your posts. Why is there no like button on here!

@stamfordbridge

Neededabreak, you just posted:

I was just PMing someone about Personal because from what I can recall it was invaluable but the key concerns usually came about when discussing extreme views, politics, and sometimes religion. These themes seemed to often cause offence so I am trying to figure out a way to ensure it doesn't reoccur within a new network that is a closed member only group, stays within legislation, allows discussion but not offence... it is a fine balancing act, I will look into a report button that immediately removes posts pending MOD review and a way to discourage those behaviours but keep things user friendly, useful and professional.

I don't think the issue is with discussing these things - but some people do so rudely and unpleasantly, or in ways which are deliberately set to wind people up or upset them, or attacking the posters rather than what is said.

Many of us who enjoyed such discussions posted politely although robustly. It's not the subject matter which is the problem, it's the attitude & style of those posting. I disagreed completely with Dumpty about Brexit, for example, but exchanges remained polite and civilised.

Oh - by the way, my username here is connected with my TES name - I'm clearly a Chelsea fan.......

Nice to see you here, stamfordbridge, and other fellow TES posters! I was also on TES forums. My username sounded metal-like

nt going to say who I was in another realm but several issues here. I was on a very popular site and it went down mysteriously about 15 years ago. Years later I heard a rumour that there was a suicide allegedly prompted on by some trolls on the site. It, like the TES had a lot of bullies that grouped together, ganged up and chased individuals around, the gang members liked each others' bad behaviour thereby encouraging more of it. Let's pray to God that is not what happened on the TES Community website. When faced in such a position, websites have to immediately lock down and worry about facing legal action from relatives. Members that were alleged to have bullied the individual's details are given to the police and it could lead to criminal action taken against them and the site. There is usually a process of looking at the history of such behaviours to see whether a case can be made. The TES Community forum never had live moderation and what went on, in all its various posts, only God knows and a lot of it was never reported. What encourages these bullying behaviours is the ability to like posts, for people to be easily identified and to create numerous personas and having moderators that do not read the posts.
So back to the notion of setting up another website, whoever is the owner of that domain could be in court if anything like what happened on that site I mentioned, happened there. Therefore what will be needed are totally reliable people volunteering to moderate for at least 4 hours at a time. And this is where everyone states in tandem, 'Oh,I'm too busy.' And if not enough people comes forward, then moderators will have to be employed or some poor soul is going to have to be spending a good 16 hours a day manning the site and weeding out all alleged trolling activities. On some website there is no live feed, all the posts have been read and approved by the moderator/website owner before being posted. On the site I mentioned, the moderators were voluntary and they allowed and participated in the bullying behaviours as well. So the question is, who moderates the moderators and will the moderators be unbiased and impartial?

Having a live feed was what made the TES Community forum interesting, but what also made it extremely dangerous and potentially damaging to vulnerable individuals' wellbeing. Stopping a live feed, in the event of someone reporting a post, will drastically alter the dynamics.
Let's face it, if the TES Community forum ever comes back, it will never be the same, it will have to change dramatically as there are very few websites that have such facilities nowadays. On facebook one is supposed to give their real name, although many don't, and one can not hide behind avatars and what goes on, on facebook is still alarming.
Sorry to have to devil's advocate, but someone had to address the terrible elephant in the room. And sorry, I haven't got the time to act as a voluntary moderator. Let's hope others keen to get the new website off the ground offer to do so and very soon.

Happy to see some familiar posters finding their way here

I'm starting to work out who is who amongst those who have a new name on here. (On TES, my avatar is casting a spell and I have a really long name.)

^That's very true (I thought of Frank Lampard when I saw your post smile - the issue I seem to be faced with is while trying to improve the situation is how, do you think the closed system with close moderation will help?

I guess making sure that sales and recruitment is not acceptable should stop certain types of behaviours... do you think we would be able to deal with the fallout if things go awry? Others who find the site useful could of course ignore the "cafe/bar/personal/staffroom" whatever... it's called, I do think that the term personal should actually be for personal issues not opinion however, I managed to avoid Opinion for a fair old while when I was a busy f/t teacher, mum etc and enjoyed Personal and Ent but found Ent went quite quiet and old personal was completely lost when Opion went.^

Why can't I quote your posts, neededabreak?

That was always the danger when Opinion went!
I think if it is effectively moderated, with the T&Cs made very explicit, then there shouldn't be too much of an issue.

It got very silly latterly, as moderating seemed very reactive to certain posters reporting posts which upset them, without the mods reading what had led up to this - quite often the one 'reporting' had begun the unpleasantness.

Hi there, huge thanks for that input to the new network you are actually addressing some of the concerns I have that will be addressed. During discussions on TES we had mentioned how to deal with such things and the resolution started therein.

It's clear the forum cannot be self regulatory moderators are necessary, volunteer mods may not be adequate as you say so I envisage paid staffing with associated on costs and insurance, there are of course other costs to be covered not least the domain itself. A way around this could be the closed site as I mentioned, with registration posters will have to verify their real ID in order to create an avitar and user name, one way to do this is via normal ID referencing. When we talked about it on TES a few people including myself said they'd pay to access the site, someone mentioned £20pa as agreeable, so depending on usage (remember it's not just Personal) it might be doable/scalable, discounts and offers for people who post regularly or recommend new users. To this end I'm looking at costings and Kickstarter as a means to proceed further... I'm thinking along the lines of a legitimate verifiable website, membership and user areas in a user friendly format for teachers. Any thoughts?

Or perhaps £2.50-5.00 pm possibly based on a sliding scale to support those on the lowest income. (Much depends on costs/servers etc and users which have not yet been calculated).