Fixing the Have Your Say fault (2)
Post categories: BBC News website
| 16:37 UK time, Thursday, 7 May 2009
Since the problems with Have Your Say first arose last week, we have been doing everything we can to identify the causes and bring the service back online. Sadly, despite these efforts we are not yet in a position to say with certainty what caused the downtime. As such, we have now decided that the priority is to bring Have Your Say back online as quickly as we can, even if this means offering a slightly reduced service.
So that is what we are doing. We are publishing a new debate and you should be able to contribute to it via the usual Have Your Say index. However, though you will be able to log in as normal, we can't yet provide you with access to old debates or old comments. We are, however, continuing to investigate the issues that are preventing us from making this archive content available.
As we are effectively running a backup service, we're going to build up a full list of new debates gradually. It's possible that there will be some downtime in the future, but we are doing our best to make sure that this doesn't happen; we will provide updates on this blog if it does.
Matthew Eltringham is the assistant editor of Interactivity
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~57~RS~)
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Thanks for the info :)
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I'm so glad you decided that the priority was just to bring the site back quickly. Otherwise, who knows what would have happened? Maybe we'd have had to wait a whole week or something crazy like that.
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you haven't left it all on a train have you, just because it's ok for politicians to leave our personal data laying around doesn't mean it's ok for the bbc or the rest of us to do so!!
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You've lost the backups, haven't you?
Errrmmm...
What do you mean, there weren't any backups? Nobody would run a system like that without backups, would they?
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OK, I'm a techie. What's the problem? Something packed up?
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Matthew:
Thanks for the information....
~Dennis Junior~
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Sounds as though it's been a bit of a nightmare!
Hope it all gets sorted out soon, and thanks for keeping us informed.
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you're doing a fine job, ignore the detractors, i reckon we've all experienced long term mystery IT problems in our places of work at one time or another.
as to the accusations of bias, well, if your'e managing to annoy the whole political spectrum, then you've probably got it about right.
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The update is appreciated. However, I am still not clear what the problem is!
I have a reasonable level of techie know how. So what happened? Why is it taking over a week to fix and where are all our comments from HYS?
What controls were in place? Who was responsible? Will someone be apolgising?
I guess these are all questions the Beeb likes to ask politicians when things go wrong so I would expect them to respond very promptly.
Let's see shall we?
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I can only reiterate the comments made by other members of the IT programming world, it seems strange that after this time you still can't ascertain what the issue is. "Nothing can survive in a vacuum", they say, well speculation as to why the HYS is still not running is proving the exception to this rule.
How the BBC, and more importantly how will the thought police - sorry moderators - cope when all is back and running. Posters, you know who you are! Will have a field day speculating as to what the reasons are. I won't be naive enough to suggest that this is all politically based, i mean how could it be, this is the Beeb isn't it?
Seriously though my lunchtimes at work are proving to be less interesting now, no right/left (delete where appropriate) rants accusing/applauding the government of inaction/nannying are sorely missed. Come back soon please...
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I bet Gord is behind this...he doesn't want us to comment on his 'U' turns!!!
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It is, at least, gratifying to find that I am by no means the only person to be completely lost as to the vaguearies of the moderators. To have you comment rejected it is said it has to break the house rules. I have had many comments rejected but I am wholley convinced that they break no house rules so I have come to the conclusion that the only rule they break is that they do not conform to the received wisdom of the BBC or the moderaror who has picked it up.
I include in this contributions in which I have just said, for example, that killing people is fundamentally wrong. Whilst I appreciate that is a highly contraversial statement, one that a vast number of people disagree with, I would have thought that I should have the right of free speech to allow me to express my somewhat misguided opinion.
BBC moderators disagree so it gets rejected.
My view, along with so many others is that moderation is more than just moderation, it is censorship
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Wot!! still no progress in getting out posts back on line. Surprisingly I never had an answer as to how I could get a disc with my comments on here since 2006. You are not convincing me this is just a technical problem. We got to the moon quicker than this. Watching you.
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So what's going on then..? Installing the necessary identity collection software are we..? Putting in the communist governments spyware?
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I can see how serious the problems are, and I believe you are doing your best. Thanks For the Information. My old comments aren't important, I hope that we could again recommend the comments which will be left on the old HYS.
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I'm not surprised it's taking over a week to fix this. Judging by the time it normally takes to get a comment moderated, I guess there's only one person running the whole HYS section of the BBC.
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the british people wouldn't mind paying he licence fee if the bbc represented their views instead of the views it wants us to have. It's a bit hard to believe it is taking over a week to resolve this problem and why is it texts to Question time are repeated over and over as if only a handfull are received when we know that loads are received is it because only a handfull represent the bbc's viewpoint. Everyones views are supposed to be heard in a democratic society it is up to the individual to make up their own mind as to their view so all views should be aired/printed however offensive we don't need the bbc to nanny us in the same way the government want to! Its not the soviet union yet!
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I am reminded of an early Monty Python episode in which John Cleese states, "I wanted to work for the BBC but unfortunately I have a very good university degree."
I guess all those degrees in computer technology are really paying off now. You could have rewritten the code for the entire site by now.
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The software clearly rebelled. It couldn't cope with the name "Have Your Say", when the actual result was "Second-Guess The Viewpoint The BBC Endorses And All Dissenting Views Will Be Deleted Even If They Are Within The So-Called Rules".
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just another way of the BBC police........ sorry moderators controlling what they want to see published and no one being able to check if their comments are. Waiting to be published. Not published. maybe someone should open up a page on blog spot for comments then we the people who have something to say can read all of the comments and not just the ones that the BBC decide to publish. and as one person commented its funny how the HYS went down during one of Gordon browns worst weeks. you could catch swine flu quicker than your tech guys could fix this page.
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25. At 10:39pm on 07 May 2009, meltonmark wrote:
"So what's going on then..? Installing the necessary identity collection software are we..? Putting in the communist governments spyware?"
You really don't get it, do you? This government is deeply committed to unrestricted capitalism, possibly even more so than the Tory opposition. Admittedly, it is using the methods of communism (and/or fascism) to entrench the control of the bankers and money men. A commmunist government would have taken out and shot those who were responsible for the sub-prime scams that have wrecked our economy. A socialist government would have taken control of the banks to ensure that the country was never again ravaged by senseless greed. Ours won't even take away their multi-million payoffs.
Even Obama has determined to drag the money back from these criminals by punitive taxes. Here, they get away scot-free.
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#28. At 11:39pm on 07 May 2009, budmischief wrote:
"I'm not surprised it's taking over a week to fix this. Judging by the time it normally takes to get a comment moderated, I guess there's only one person running the whole HYS section of the BBC."
Actually, there's two, but one of them has been decimated by swine flu - think about it ...
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Something fishy in the works and the explanations given for the problem are lame. Guess Have Your Say as I knew it (long moderation waiting and all)is no more.
I find the whole situation highly suspect. You can't tell me that there isn't a team of techies somewhere that can fix this problem. Too bad, I enjoyed this site...
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There are so many talented IT professionals that subscribed to the BBC. Can't you put your IT problem out there and let them fix it for you.
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It's a disgrace.
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Thank you for the update on HYS. The temporary fix is OK.
I have read the comments of others and have o agree with some of the statements about moderation/moderators. I accept that racist/sexist should be moderated, but who decides what is sexist/racist, surely an honestly held view, abhorrent as it may seem to some, is nevertheless a view and in a democratic society is capable of being stated. My main issue with moderators is that there is no way to appeal, believe me I have been moderated, have asked for an explanation via feedback (there is no other way) and had no reply. Please, when the new HYS goes up can we have an appeals system.
Sanity Sam
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With all that is happening in Current Affairs at the moment this failure is at best unfortunate.
As part of any restoration of Service, can more consideration be given to easier (timely) posting with less pro-active intervention?
Any "moderation" could be reactive regulated after readers bringing to attention rather than the simple stifling of one view by another.
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By the looks of it there's been a good deal of updates done recently, ie connections to Twitter and there's been critical files overwritten or deleted somewhere on the production server. These things can easily be prevented by using version control, because if the new, updated on doesn't work you can roll back to the previous working one and start again. It forever amazes me that many, many big websites don't do this since it can save money, time and an awful lots of headaches.
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Well Matthew,just read your update,but it dosnt tell us much does it? There
has to be someone,somewhere,that can fix the problem with HYS surely? You
have read I hope the comments made about the moderators,as in my view they
stifle debate unnecessarily.Its crazy to hold hundreds of posts in line,and
then to publish them all at once,and very often then close the thread.It is
infuriating!!
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I see my account still works but all my posts have been lost. So, the database is not that corrupt then ? Funny that.
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I suspect the problem with HYS was a blocked bile duct.
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Sounds like a corrupt database.
Still, not a problem, your daily backups should sort it in seconds.
What, you don't have a daily backup?
Strict rule with web applications; if it was working yesterday, then yesterdays backup will be fine.
So, one of two things have happened:
1. Database corrupted, could not be repaired using repair options (I hope you are using MySQL - wouldn't want to be wasting licence fee on unsuitable, clunky commercial DB), and no one has bothered backing the database up in ages.
2. The lawyers have browsed Have Your Say, seen that it is stuffed with racist propaganda and personal, libellous statements, realised that as the publisher the BBC is liable and panicked. They picked up the phone and told the IT department, "We don't care what you do, pretend it is a technical fault, anything, just get that thing OFF the web!!"
Which option would you vote for?
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#41, yes I notice that it's still not been fixed. But I don't see any evidence to start thinking there must be something "mysterious" about it.
Sure, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Sure, conspiracies happen, and the BBC is not above committing them. But I think an awful lot of people want to believe there's something mysterious about it, because they have a fairly set opinion of the BBC that they want to see confirmed.
In fact if they stopped to think about it calmly and objectively they would realise that the BBC offers a truly enormous amount of functioning content and services every single day, people get to whinge every single day - about the government AND about the BBC. Frequently.
If a messageboard being down for a week is viewed as a conspiracy to favour the government, then it stands to reason that a messageboard being up for several years could be viewed as a conspiracy against.
That's saying nothing of the fact that almost every other week seems to be Brown's worst week, as is the case for any outgoing Prime Minister of a long-in-power government (I don't say that because I support them - I don't.)
The point is, I didn't hear people whispering about conspiracy in the other direction when HYS DIDN'T go down during the 10p tax "fury", or the humiliation over the non-election that dominated for several weeks, or the northern rock nationalisation, or the Damian McBride story broke, or Daniel Hannan completely obliterated the PM at the European Parliament, or any number of other stories that were deeply damaging at the time and would have provoked cries of "conspiracy!" had HYS happened to develop a fault at that particular juncture.
Given the way the BBC is routinely portrayed (/caricatured) in the Mail, Sun, et al (with their vested interests in doing this), it's not in the least bit surprising to me when someone here extrapolates about this "conspiracy" - from the rigged Blue Peter phone vote!
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To Matthew Eltringham I would say erm ... "Look here mate - Just expalin what the problem was." - It wouldn't arf save some time. I am a techy with philosophical delusions of grandeur - just tell us the facts or if you really don't know "take full responsibility and sack someone else (hehe - below the belt eh!)" Have you just 'been on government communications course' (You know - the one they send Sir Humphreys on(no - not John Humphreys).
As Sir Humphrey said ... "We dare not allow politicians to establish the principle that senior civil servants can be removed for incompetence. We could loose dozens of our chaps. Hundreds maybe. Even thousands."
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So does that mean my collection of Rejected comments are lost forever, permanently rejected so I can't even view them for a laugh and wonder why they got rejected the first time but published the second time?
Seems most odd. I'll have to write some more things containing less than gushing praise for all things Left so I can accumulate some more Rejected tags.
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I think you also need to FIX the Moderation so comments do not sit in a que all day!
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Oh dear, doesn't look like it's fixed yet. There seems to be some terrible fault that is not allowing moderators to approve posts in a timely manner. Latest stats for the HYS on MP's expenses:
Published comments: 59
Moderation queue: 458
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#52:
Basically, I agree with you. Even with something as dodgy-looking as this, cock-ups are so much easier to believe than conspiracies.
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As a public service broadcaster, I think we deserve from you (in return for gigabytes of lost 'archive material', that we generated) two things: (1) a clear explanation of what happened, including an apology to everyone who contributed material to HYS over the years. (2) assuming it was lost/failed backups, I think a feature-length article on the subject of corporate data loss and how to prevent it would be a fitting apology to all your contributors.
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Have really missed not being able to Have a Say, and it is obvious that you are doing your best to correct this serious fault. The amount of comments must have overloaded the system but glad that you are partially functioning again. Mind you it is curious that it should have 'gone down' during a week of controversial issues, should we all be concerned about this?
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So what is the backend for this ? Some form of Windows no doubt. Should have used open source.
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How come so many posts are 'moderated' into the blue, never to be seen again? Do you not think the BBC has the responsibility to actually publish what people take the time to contribute? We are all becoming convinced that the UK is becoming a political/police state and the BBC should be allowing free speech/comment, rather than editing/deleting it. Uless of course you are all as corrupt as the new political 'robber class'?
Hopefully the BBC will return to it's roots.
Dave, UK (just)
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Here is what i think should be done to HYS. Since it is down, why not have a total rethink
1. Allow users to start their own discussions and topic agendas. So instead of having one at a time, lers have more.
2. Users be allowed to comment directly to other users comments, like on youtube.
3. Moderaors should be fired, since it takes them forever to check all the comments. How long does it take to read a paragraph?
4. There should be a computer designed moderator. A software which can detect racist, homophobic views. You get the trend. And this can be done. I mean is the BBC can catch a snow leopord on camera (planet earth last week amazing), spending 3 years finding this unique animal, it can surely do this.
5. A new design for HYS. It looks terrible compared to other places on this site.
P.S a prize for the comment which has the most reccommendations. I have never had the honour. And i think if you reward those who have achieved this milestone( greater than the everest challenge itself), perhaps a refund of the fee, or a year supply of chocolate.
Thanks
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Are you sure that the BBC isn't under instruction from the NeoLabour police state control freaks to censor Have your Say?
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I would like to ask who decides which stories to cover and what level of importance to give each story .
I assume the story editors' well i would like to discuss or talk about these choices and importance placed on certain stories and not on others this is the worst kind of censoring because it's done in the dark, so please can we have an open debate about this because it would go a long way in deciding if i am wrong about undue influence from certain quarters;
if we do not talk about it (in the open) we' I" will think that we are correct in our assumptions.
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Having discovered that all members have gone back to zero as far as previous comments goes including my 1200 or so. I will not post again on HYS until all my previous published comments reappear. I am sorry but it now feels too fragile I don't trust this fix. I have no idea if this will help but applying electrical switch and breaker theory to the fault? Have any of the repair team tried removing the 'load' from the circuit before switching back on or deactivating all RSS feeds from HYS in order to enable it to reset to a previous state then re enabling RSS?
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Hope the moderator (as there can only be 1, as it takes so long to get published) has enjoyed his weeks holiday.
Maybe next time you'll get a colleague to moderate, instead of having to close down the 'have your say' site!
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Why are people so upset at not being able to view their old posts? I simply do not understand the mentality of those who demand the reinstatement of the archives and, in one case, a disc containing old posts be posted to them. Why do you want them so badly? So you can smugly marvel at your razor-sharp wit? Or so you can calculate the amount of times you've referred to Nineteen Eighty Four or moaned about being 'gagged by the moderators?' You couldn't make it up!!!
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Well, regular updates are something so can't complain at that.
I have, however, noticed that more and more of my comments are being rejected and when reviewing can't see what the problem is so if this carries on, and my own freedom of speech, although edited to not break the house rules, I will be forced to bow out of what is a potentially interesting forum. Shame......
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I was wondering, who owns the intellectual property rights to HYS comments? Have you considered the possibility that all the past comments have been stolen by a government or opposition 'think-tank'. No, seriously, I think it more likely they have been stolen by someone who intends to published them in an Xmas stocking filler so the general population can howl in laughter at the more idiotic and inane comments posted on HYS.
The conspiracy theorists here who claim they are being censored by the BBC are really quite a hoot. Do they actually believe they are worthy of a muzzle? Their inane drivel only discredits whatever political faction they belong to.
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66. At 12:35pm on 08 May 2009, LifeofReilly wrote:
Having discovered that all members have gone back to zero as far as previous comments goes including my 1200 or so. I will not post again on HYS until all my previous published comments reappear.
####
Promise?
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64. At 12:26pm on 08 May 2009, supaCurryking wrote:
Are you sure that the BBC isn't under instruction from the NeoLabour police state control freaks to censor Have your Say?
####
Since that does not exist, Quite sure.
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#68
I am sure that there are those who "smugly marvel" and why not? It isn't the loss that bothers me it is the sheer incompetence of the BBC to manage/direct/instruct its contractor in running an orderly and working ship. We do not know the terms of the "HYS" Contract but I am sure it must have a part dealing with outages and/or data loss and penalties relating thereto.
It is quite an irony to learn that whilst our views are "so important" to the BBC they can be "disposed of" without so much as a twitch of an eyebrow. No you don't need to make it up - this IS the BBC after all.
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I'd just like to add my voice to those regular contributors who really don't care whether the beeb find their old comments or not, i can't be the only one who finds some of his own comments embarasssing for reason or another.
Contary to the feeling in some comments i don't feel the bbc owe me anything, i pay my license fee, they provide TV & radio (of variable quality)and one of the best english language news site on the web, as far as i'm concerned , that fulfills the contract they do not owe me or anyone else a HYS site.
As for conspiracy theories - gordons been in crises from the moment he came into office, ok its been a bad week for the government but the the bbc would have had to have been psychic to predict the events since HYS broke down.
If HYS was really as crooked as some people claim, surely it would have been shut down during ross/brand fortnight when the sheer volume of anti-beeb comments overwhelmed the site, but they still carried on publishing as much as possible.
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70. At 1:14pm on 08 May 2009, tom_cripin51 wrote:
I was wondering, who owns the intellectual property rights to HYS comments?
####
Under the BBC terms, you retain copyright, though they have the right to use it in anyway they wish.
You also agree that your comment is not defamatory in anyway so that you get sued rather than the BBC. However, this is a really difficult area and web publishers have been sued before for things written in their forums. So, I would think the BBC lawyers are not great fans of the interactive elements of the website!! :)
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You can consult those IT professionals who have subscribed to the bbc.co.uk, They can suggest ideas for your probllem.
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Hmmm, how many weeks now? Will we get the full report from the crisis meeting? How did it happen, what will be done to prevent it happening again?
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Thanks for the update.
I have greatly missed reading everyones' comments, including the ones I don't agree with.
I'd expected, given the length of time the site has been offline, that some kind of upgrade was in progress so I'm suprised to hear you don't know what's wrong. I used to work as a commercial programmer and I can tell you for free that downtime of this length - let alone unexplained downtime - would mean the boot for someone. In the real world, computer failure, without a backup system of some kind, is likely to mean business failure.
If the archives are a problem (is that a legal problem I wonder?)then forget them. Hearing what folk think about the issues of the moment is, to my mind, the most important.
TTFN
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The overreaction and outraged frothing on here is truly hilarious.
Get a grip, people. Pull yourselves together!
#78 for example - assuming this wasn't a parody...
"Hmmm, how many weeks now?"
- barely more than ONE week, Alan. A week and one day to be precise.
"Will we get the full report from the crisis meeting?"
- Crisis meeting? This isn't genocide or world hunger or the loss of the TV service or even the loss of the news website. It's a messageboard gone down.
A mess-age-board.
Sheesh.
I'm sure it's extremely important to the editor of interactivity and the techies working behind the scenes, and that's understandable. But to the rest of us - come on! Perspective, please.
There seems to be a core of people in this country who are determined, absolutely determined, to treat every problem as a "fiasco", an "outrage", a "shambles". I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the populist tabloids like the Mail pump out a steady diet of poisonous cynicism and miserablism every day with the exact same perspective - and often, language.
Thank goodness for beacons of calm sanity like Gurubear and goldCaesar and a few others.
The rest of you: lighten up, and learn what a real crisis is while you're at it.
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What a bunch of nut-cases! HYS offers a free and informative source of news and comment & people have the nerve (and lack of class) to insult & criticize when the service goes down. Get a life people! BBC....Thanks for the forum.. Hope all gets straightened out & we all have our rant&rave page back soon. Have a nice day in spite of the idiots.
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HI ed in the sky Looks like you could do with a few of them wizz kids to help you sort out the problems you seem to be having,You know the ones him that cracked the banking codes to replentish his own bank account or the one who made my poor old desk top to dissintergrate it never did me any harm,Hurry back on course so we may all keep on at gb to stand down .
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Oh My..........
LOTS of these about on this thread........
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Touchy about your failure are you?...... :)
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PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND.
THIS IS ONLY A MESSAGE BOARD. THE WORLD WILL NOT END.
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES HAPPEN WITH EVERY COMPUTER SYSTEM.
NO OFFENCE BUT WHO WOULD WANT YOUR OLD COMMENTS.
FINALLY. IT IS PERFECTLY SAFE TO COME OUT OF THE BUNKERS, HAVE SOME FAITH THAT THE BBC CAN FIX THE PROBLEM.
Thankyou
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In HYS we trust
As the page is a must
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Great. More conspiracy theorists. The idea that HYS is built around suppressing right-wing commentary due to pressure from Downing Street falls down on several points. Let's examine them in turn.
1. Why would the HYS site fall down now, rather than, say, at the run-up to an election?
2. Why is it that everyone, from across the political spectrum, finds their comments rejected, or held in the queue?
3. Why would HYS debates sometimes open with leading questions that prompt right wing responses?
As for those who think the house rules are 'obscure', read them again. Read them *carefully*. See the point about defamation? I'll bet most rejected comments break this rule in particular. Think before you attack specific people: would this, in a newspaper, invite a libel case?
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Have Your Say is a best platform in world electronic to put up your opions on all kinds latest most important issues.So please restart it as early as possible.Because it is the need of the hour to discuss world issues on such a world platform irrespective of our differences of opions. thanks.
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Sorry if someone has already brought this up, but it's quite ironic that HYS has just demonstrated one of the thought control tactics we were discussing in the first "fault" thread by closing a popular debate after a day or less.
For some reason it's not on to discuss Should bloggers behave responsibly? even though it's linked to as a "New debate" by Matthew Eltringham above. "Stifled debate" is more like it.
Any comments Mr. Eltringham?
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Just hoping that you will endeavor to retrieve the past debates. BBC is a gigantic public venture branching out to the remotest niche of the world. This is unique and unsurmountable by any other news media. Let's hope you will be able to unravel the past debates to the satisfaction of your readers and contributors to HYS. Godspeed !
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Ah, it is good to have "Grumpy Corner" (HYS) back where we can let off steam no matter how badly informed or unpopular our views. Looks like a fresh start and so with it, one hopes, will come a new team of moderators able to understand and apply the house rules free of personal interpretations in future.
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The BBC had once-upon-a-time purposely over-written on top of the original (apparent) masterpieces recorded by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's early efforts on tape - each of which at the time costing a fortune to record on. Hopefully the BBC can afford hardware this time round without having to recycle as was apparently common in the 50's-60's.
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Good grief, the moderator has a sharp scalpel this afternoon.
Further evidence that it's not just right-wing views that get removed for (IMHO) inexplicable reasons.
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'Fixing' proved to be vastly optimistic then.
Let me drive - I'll fix it.
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Have you tried rebooting, or running a defrag? Sorry those computer support technician habits just won't die... :)
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BBC's, Have Your Say, where are my post comments, are they hidden from me and the world? RSVP.
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We are FORCED to pay for you, therefore you have NO RIGHT to treat us with CONTEMPT!
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All comments are pre-moderated. This means that the moderators have read a considerable number of complaints that items are unreasonably rejected.
Taken against that background I had a look at a debate on MPs expenses and discovered that 1501 comments had been published and 90 rejected. This presumably means that 1591 had been considered. If you do your sums that means that more than 1 in 20 items submitted broke house rules....
So, over 1 in 20 people are rebels and wilfully break the house rules - or the other alternative is that BBC moderators and like politicians and know best
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I am glad to note that after doing a lot of efforts, finally the old version of BBC Have Your Say is back. Thanks to the Engineers who made it possible for the debate participants to go back to the old BBC Have Your Say version.
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#106
"We are FORCED to pay for you [the BBC]"
No one forces you to use a TV set at all, if people are going to rant they should at least get their facts right first...
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BBC remains unarguably the the most influential medium on earth,at least by most people's evaluation.I became a member of the BBC blog Have Your Say in September,2008.
The only fault I think I have got to find with BBC is that of sieving some of the comments I considered most crucial.Since the best word you can transliterate for debate is critique,I want BBC to publish all comments pushed forwarward by anybody in-as-much they are meaningful.
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In case the Have Your Say archive isn't retrieved, I will be one of this technical crush casualties as more than 740 comments, more than 420 of which will be lost.
I also hope, after repairing this site, you can add a search section, which used to be but was deleted more than two years ago.
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It was a quiet week on Have Your Moan,
No chance to whinge, no place to groan.
I decided instead to get some fresh air;
Appreciate nature, get off my chair.
At last, I discovered the good things in life
Are not gained from moaning 'bout trouble and strife.
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Maybe the solution would be to download all the old comments and posts on disc and return them to the authors. All it takes is a CD an envelope, some postage- but hold on a minute. Better not they might get lost.
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Yes, this "downtime" is a bit suspicious; have everyone's previous comments vanished into the ether?
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Sheiss Tecknik!!!
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I would like to say thanks to everyone working on fixing HYS. It's great fun, and a welcome bit of light relief during a hectic working day.
If I could verbally represent my license fee contribution, I would say not to spend too much time trying to access the archives; it's not the end of the world, and as you have already said, new debates will build up soon enough.
Thanks again, beeb.
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How long before I can post my comments at the Post Office?
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90. jbreckmcke,
Fair comments and I mainly agree with them.
But regarding left wing comments being rejected, I'd like to see the nature of those comments since I don't believe they would be rejected simply for being left wing. This would not happen on the BBC.
If HYS ever retrieves our comments, I'll post some of my rejected ones to demonstrate how the moderators treat comments from the right. (If the moderators will let me post them here, that is.)
110. MendleshamLiberal,
You regard yourself as a liberal? That's one of the most illiberal and unfeeling comments I have seen in a while.
It's quite fashionable among the tunnel-visioned dears of the left to scorn the armed forces and the BBC is no exception to that rule.
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Thank you for the information on the disruption of the Have Your Say but especially for bringing it back on-line despite the reduced content.
I hope you will be able to fix existing problems resuming the full service quickly.
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'House Rules' are needed on the BBC's HYS just as theyre needed in any family/society/country etc. However, theyre one-sided. While there are a lot of conditions that the contributors have to conform to, there are none or very few for the moderators.
Here is a solution to ONE of the problems:
Every comment starts with a line titled 'Added:' which gives the time, weekday and date on which the comment was submitted. If the BBC could add a similar line below it which is titled 'Published:' and this one gives the time, weekday and date on which the comment was published; THEN the games which moderators play would perhaps reduce. It is quite obvious to regular HYS contributors that many comments are selected for delay. Either a comment violates the 'House Rules' or it doesn't. Delaying certain comments is editorially unethical.
Will the BBC implement this?
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This swine flu virus has turned out to be a real swine!
While the WHO & many world 'leaders' and medical authorities were warning us about the threat of the swine flu virus to us; they really missed the boat.
Who would have thought that the swine flu virus would have attacked BBC's computer systems and from all the data, news and archives available there it went straight for HYS ONLY?! Amazing!
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Taking a bit long. Dont you think. Ever since the elections we are disconected from Europe. I like to know what Europeans think of the joke we have for a president.
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You know, if the BBC wanted to delete all our old comments, all they had to do was ask, not manufacture a 'problem' with the software......
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The moderation on this blog doesn't inspire. There are any number of "off-topic" postings still standing whilst a number of "on-topic" ones have been removed. Who is doing the complaining?
And as for subject selection in HYS then forget it. Most of the contentious issues do not get to be subjects, or they are on for a day or so, or they have such a huge backlog of queued comments that only a small percentage ever make it onto the boards.
And therein lies the problem for the software. If you do the arithmetic you will find that a high percentage of items should be termed "unpublished" and yet they remain "moderator queued" even after subject closure because someone is not "flushing" the queues. And if the moderators do not know what they are doing then what hope is there for the rest of us?
It amounts to system subversion through moderator ignorance and rather promotes the case against any kind of moderation apart from that which is reactive. Can we not return to the "old" threaded discussion material lead by users and not faceless bureaucrats?
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Wouldn't it be just wonderful if the TV Licensing computer software crashed as well? No chance!
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#112
Actually we are "forced" to pay for the BBC whether we want to watch it or not.
It would be a brave and bold move by politicians to allow the public to vote on whether we should ditch the license fee in favour of an alternative system. I would suspect that a public vote would be close enough to get the BBC back onto its toes.
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Is it impossible to drip feed the comments? Debates seem to go into suspended animation for half a day and suddenly a cart load of comments turn up.
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@136
Agreed. It would help if comments were actually moderated and posted as they come in and not when a moderator gets around to clearing a huge queue. But then that would entail employing moderators to do the job and I don't think HYS is anything other than a low budget make weight.
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It should be fairly evident that, during a 'routine maintenance' of HYS on Wednesday evening over a week ago someone in the HYS team did something wrong to cause the fault that has had the HYS team running round in circles since.
Maybe its time for the Beeb to bring in an outside set of eyes to investigate the problem and come up with the solutions since its indicative of an inept methodology if, after over a week, you've neither found the fault or its cause. Or at least that is what Matt Eltringham would have us all believe.
In the words of a certain entrepreneur - "Your team will come back in the boardroom and amongst that team someone will be fired".
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It's all the fault of Margaret Thatcher/Illegal Immigrants/The Left/The Right/Single Parents/Martians/Teenagers/Football Fans or "Thingy from Crossroads".
Choose any 5 and a bonus reason to win.
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@BeppeSapone & @137 redaer_tolb
I too have been thinking about this "drip feed" of comments & my suggested solution is:
>All comments cleared by moderators go into a "cleared for publication" bucket and are NOT published immediately in a deluge.
>For every debate the BBC estimates the number of comments it is likely to receive and the number of days the debate will be kept open.
>Usually there are 15 comments per published page.
So, the "drip feed" rate should be:
1,440 expected comments (say) divided by 3 days (for which the debate will be open) and divided by 24 hours. So the "drip feed" rate will be 20 comments per hour.
This will be fair to all posters as almost everyone will get exposure on page 1 & 2 (of Most Recent) for a roughly equal time.
Of course, this can work only if the "cleared for publication" bucket does have enough comments in it. It will not work if the mods are sleeping or busy with other things!
Alternatively, the drip feed bucket lets out 15 comments (equal to one page) per hour or per half-hour and so on and the mods must ensure that the bucket is adequately filled to achieve this target. This will NOT solve the problem I highlighted in @126.
What do you say?
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#134
"Actually we are "forced" to pay for the BBC whether we want to watch it or not. "
No we are NOT, there is no law that states that we have to own a TV never mind use it...
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Is it possible that someone submitted a comment so bad that instead of just breaking the 'House Rules' it broke all of Have Your Say?
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I am an IT professional. In profesional IT teams, heads would roll if such problems were allowed to run for so long without any progress.
It is unbelievable that the you cannot find the fault.
Also, I would expect a better PR: saying you cannot find the fault is simply not good enough.
So, come clean: what is the problem? What steps have you taken to find the fault?
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#141
Actually the statement I made is correct since I was already beyond the wanting a TV or not. Would you like me to put it in simpler words for you.
If you want a TV you must pay for the BBC. Is that better?
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Oh dear... bring out the lump hammer, if in doubt giffitta clout.
This is not one of them 'data strays', not caused by any of the parties we moan about would it?
How about blaming the Downing Street cat causing a 'technical cat flea.... ooops sorry a technical hitch.
Good luck and thanks for keeping us informed.
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While I am happy to see it is being sorted out, for me the real test is how soon and how many of the stories that will effect the elections next month get back to Have Your Say format. Or do the BBC intend to censor us with their 'both sides of the debate' format. With that format if 100 posts about Labours expenses come in and 5 support the government we would see some of those 5 as the other side of the argument. Our normal Have Your Say reflects the opinion of the majority far better.
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#145
"If you want a TV you must pay for the BBC. Is that better?"
No, as no one is forced to own a TV set. People choose to own/use a TV and thus accept that they have to pay the licensing fee, no one is being forced to do anything that they choose not to.
For a long time in the UK if one wanted to receive satellite TV (and in some parts of the country that was the only way to receive Ch5) one had to pay money to BSkyB, people accepted that even those they may never watch any 'native' Sky owned channels. I didn't hear or read many of those who complain about the TVL making similar complains about the need to pay money to a private broadcasting company to see otherwise freely available channels - no then just accepted that they had a choice to make...
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Thanks for the update. I don't know much about IT systems, other than that they're costly and often go wrong, and some of the posts here are pretty ungracious. Contrary to what one of our transatlantic cousins writing above seems to think, this is not a free service for Americans to learn about what Europe thinks about their President. HYS being down is a pity, but it isn't the end of the world, and you've obviously done your best to get it right asap. Thanks for your efforts
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It's good to see HYS back - I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms. I don't know about anyone else but personally I don't care about all the old debates and my old comments being lost - it's all yesterdays news.
And I am pleased that people like me who were suspicious that BBC were not committed to fixing the problem because of bias against the political leanings of HYS posters have been proved wrong. Looks like I owe the BBC an apology for that one - sorry.
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Hope the ID database is not based on this platform, otherwise the country will come to a halt!!
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Advisedly:
Since it seems that the BBC is listening to us on this Blogg while 'HYS' is down, I hope I can comment without being 'rejected' or penalised in some other way - since I truly believe I am being both helpful to the BBC and it's HYS 'posters':
There are many Comments here complaining about your BBC 'HYS' Moderators actions:
For over a year I have found it neccessary to complain to both 'Have your say' and the BBC's 'General complaints' Dept. etc regarding all the things said by others here. The prime problem seems to point to the fact that 'Moderators' do 'reject' Posts that break no rules - but rather seem to break the Moderators own personal views instead.
I will not go through the whole list of reasons why HYS is acting as it does, but three prime points are:
1) Moderators should judge our Comments only by the 'house rules'.
2) Our Comments should not be 'held back' and only 'published' just prior to the closure of the 'Debate'.
3) When we complain, our future Comments should not be ignored and treated as 'unwanted' - as does happen.
It does seem that 'HYS' is a world apart and ignores the overall BBC ethos. I am old and have always been extremely proud of our BBC, but over recent years I have sadly become extremely disenchanted - along with so many others - due to the seeming bias/super-PC/personal operation of HYS.
I apologise, but I really do hope this comment helps the BBC regain the confidence & respect that it deserves - and I hope I am not 'penalised' for being too honest...
P.S: To be honest, this Blogg seems to be operating as 'HYS' should be. Well done.
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Well, HYS is at it again. I posted five comments early this morning on verious topics. Three were published, one was rejected. OK, maybe what I said was a bit harsh - no major complaint there.
What infuriates me is that the fifth is still "awaiting moderation". Presumably it will be released five minutes before full-time. Come on, BBC, make up your mind. Either publish it or reject it!
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162. Aizoon1uk,
If it's waiting in the "moderation queue," I guess it hasn't broken any rules, at least not yet.
There are four topics currently open for debate on HYS, taking both the international and UK versions into account. As I write this, no comments have been posted later than 1:30 pm and on a couple of topics the most recent comment is at 9:30 am. Must be a few good games of football on.
Seriously, either there are too few moderators on HYS and they are overworked or there are too many and they are bone idle.
Come on, BBC. A number of people have made the point here that shoving hundreds of comments into a "queue" and then flushing them down the toilet unread at the end of the "debate" or suddenly publishing a huge batch of them that few people will read is no way to treat those who write in or those who read the blog because they are interested in the topic.
It can't be that difficult to get your moderators to facilitate rather than hinder debate. Why can't they simply publish the comments as they come in, as you do here? That way, there is no loss of continuity.
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I also noticed that the published comments have been "zeroised" for my username. Sadly, I am down to "O comments published" :-(
C'est la vie, I suppose. :-)
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#163
"It can't be that difficult to get your moderators to facilitate rather than hinder debate."
Sorry but in my experience of reading the HYS boards, few want a debate, most seem to just treat it as a 'sounding-off' board. :~(
#165
"Sadly, I am down to "O comments published""
What makes you think that anyone cares, I have no idea how many comments I've sent to these blogs (or to any other forum) - on-line 'debates' are like a chat in the pub, the next morning few if any will remember what you said and even less will care, only those out to cause 'trouble' will be counting and remembering!...
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#166 wrote: +only those out to cause 'trouble' will be counting and remembering+
not quite true, never assume anything. HYS serves an excellent purpose.
Be lucky and don't judge too quickly.
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In reply to comments made @ #167
Sorry, obviously my attempt at irony failed.
Does it really matter how many contributions, to this or any other board/debate, someone has made, someone could make an earth shattering observation about some topic that could change the world for the next 50 years on their first comment - would the fact that it's their one and only contribution make their comment any less worthy? Most people don't care if it's someone's first or their ten thousandth comment, it's the content that matter, not the quantity...
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@ 166 Boilerplated
What makes you think that anyone cares, I have no idea how many comments I've sent to these blogs (or to any other forum) - on-line 'debates' are like a chat in the pub, the next morning few if any will remember what you said and even less will care, only those out to cause 'trouble' will be counting and remembering!...
There are many excellent and wise comments made by, I presume, very ordinary people. Wisdom is definitely NOT a privilege of the rich and famous only!
While you may not care about the number of comments etc., any serious debater would like to gauge the reaction of other people to his/her comments. In any case you are not a reference point for the world.
As to the washing machine and TV examples you have pontificated on:
Why buy ANY washing machine or ANY TV? I could give you a couple of caves in my jungle to live in. It is a great experience. Though I prefer to enjoy my satellite TV and wi-fi services in my tree-top abode!
KING-of-the-APES, Rumble in the Jungle
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#169
"While you may not care about the number of comments etc., any serious debater would like to gauge the reaction of other people to his/her comments."
What would five thousand "Me too" type comments tell anyone?! I prefer to judge the worth of a contributor on the quality and not the quantity of their contributions - and more to the point, someone could be spot on in one debate but way off the mark in another, just because they where 'on the money' five debates ago doesn't means they can't talk complete gibberish in the current debate.
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Hmm, why do you people want to look back your archived comments? Is it simply an ego-boosting exercise so you can give yourself a good old pat on the back on a recommended post? Or perhaps your opinion on things changes day-to-day and you would just like to remind yourself what your official line actually is? Very suspicious I must say.
Anyway Beeb, its fine. I'm confident you'll have it all up and running in no time. Please don't rush - I'm thoroughly enjoying watching all these people with nothing better to do with their time squirm.
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@ 180 Lea030281
Hmm, why do you people want to look back your archived comments? Is it simply an ego-boosting exercise so you can give yourself a good old pat on the back on a recommended post? Or perhaps your opinion on things changes day-to-day and you would just like to remind yourself what your official line actually is? Very suspicious I must say.
Why do you care WHY people want to see their archives? If some do and some do not that is THEIR choice! No one HAS to conform to your views or opinions.
Whether it is an ego boosting exercise or not is once again my/our business. Please note that your liberty ends where my nose begins!
As to 'opinions changing on a "day-today-basis": the archive is the BEST way to catch the contradictions! Honestly your opinions have gone beyond your comprehension of what you are saying!
Right?!
KING-of-the-APES, Rumble in the Jungle
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It's nice to see HYS up and running again but the same old problem persists
It has been iterated many times on this Editor's Blog
Why do Moderators persist in holding Comments Awaiting Moderstion for hours on end, sometimes 12 or more hours and then publishing them such that they appear on Page 20- 30, where they'll never be seen?
Even worse, why publish a whole batch of back-logged Comments, pages back just as the Topic is closed?
It is very annoying when this happens, why cannot Comments be published in order of time submitted?
It seems a Moderator comes 'on duty' and immediately publishes a batch of recently submitted Comments and then goes back and attends to the backlog
There is no point in doing this, it just gives rise to the frequent complaints of 'censorship', 'selectivity', 'bias' etc
Perhaps more Moderators are needed?
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180. Lea030281,
181. KING-of-the-APES,
Couple of things about the archived comments:
*Anyone who accesses HYS can see a list of a registered individual's published comments by clicking on his/her name
*Those who have registered with HYS can see their published comments, unpublished comments (those "awaiting moderation" when the debate is closed) and their rejected comments.
This adds to the openness of HYS. Without the archives, it would have a much more narrow focus.
In many instances, rejected comments provide an insight into moderator bias. Confronting the BBC with this evidence hopefully contributes to an improvement in the quality of the moderation.
But yes, certainly there can be a degree of ego involved in treasuring one's own archived comments.
I filed some of the more startling bits of evidence of moderator bias. Here are two:
Added: Sunday, 4 May, 2008, 18:59 GMT 19:59 UK
There will be peace when israel is gone for good and not before. Unfortunately that means all the israelis will have to go as well but it has been their choice to stay and they can't say they haven't been warned these last few years. This is the only solution. We have to be rid of them but there is no reason we can't be civil, ...
That was from Dundee.
And this one was from Abu Dhabi:
Added: Sunday, 4 May, 2008, 14:08 GMT 15:08 UK
The only permanent solution to this issue is to bomb Israel with nuclear weapons to erradicate the problem. Remember, they have been hated since Shakespearian times, ie Merchant of Venice.
I thought that last one was particularly unacceptable. In those days I was still complaining about the occasional comment and HYS removed it. It was evidently published by a moderator without even rudimentary training in his/her job.
Unfortunately not only the archived comments have gone but there is no trace of the old topics either. The BBC has shoved everything down the memory hole as if it never existed. And of course, the BBC will not tell us why this happened.
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#182 Thanks for making that point - twice now I've made comments when there have been less than 30 in the queue, but ended up being published days later on page 40 or something, and a couple have just sat there and eventually just been "Unpublished" even though submitted early and complying with rules.
I see that, although it's back, all my previous published comments have been deleted.
#81 That's not really the point - this isn't some free web board run by a bunch of well-meaning enthusiasts for free. This is a service I pay for.
Have a look at the bottom of the front page - it often says at least "10,000 pages were read in the last minute" and is one of the most popular websites in the world with a MASSIVE budget. That's the point.
EDIT: MORE problems! I tried to use the "less than" sign to and when I went to post:
There has been a problem...
Your comment contains some HTML that has been mistyped.
Name cannot begin with the '3' character on line 1
Not a very intelligent bit of software!
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I have been around these boards a while now' so why the pre-moderation,do you think i will start a war ?
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All us techies want to know the details - go on, dooo tell ! We don't want to encounter the same problems.
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#181 King of the Apes
Perhaps this is where you are getting your ideas fella, from the tree-tops of the jungle.
It is my business when I have to defend myself to an individual who clearly has ideas way above his station, whom is rude and obviously likes the sound of his own voice (or reading his own past posts for that matter!). Oh and King of the Apes, you just broke the house rules by using a word in CAPS. Have you never heard of an exclamation mark? Only a bad debater needs to shout.
My point was not whether individuals should have access to their previous posts but more to do with being a little bit patient. No-where has the Beeb said that they will never be available, just that they're not available now. Further had you used my comment in full in your response then it is clear to anyone that my comment was made in a light-hearted manner.
So, I think it's you that has no comprehension of the subject and I'd like you to try and do this before you send an impolite retort in CAPS.
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@ 184 TrueToo
You are absolutely right all the way! (Except that the fate of the archived debates and comments is yet to be known.)
As regards comments from 'Dundee' and 'Abu Dhabi' they are immaterial. Those who make such comments have little realisation of the end which awaits them. But as far as moderator bias goes you are right. Why were such comments published and then allowed to remain published?
As to Lea030281 @ 196
I have no worries about the BBC archives, in so far as, they relate to my comments. All my comments are stored in several locations and printed too! I even store the entire debate when I feel like it!
I also keep hard and soft copies of those comments (from others) which are blatant examples of moderator bias or blindness or audacity or whatever. I also keep copies of comments (from others) which were deleted or rejected for no apparent good reason.
I use Capitals for emphasis! I do not write an entire post in capitals. In any case rules are for the Apes. And as they say, rules are meant to be broken. Then again they say: There are exceptions to the rule.
For a KING everything goes! Hyuk!
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203. KING-of-the-APES,
Thanks for that. Yes, there is a tremendous amount of bias. And of course now that the archives are gone there ain't no way to link to them to prove the bias. I also file a lot of stuff and I tried to access a few linked topics from last year and further back but came up blank. I take your point that they are apparently working to retrieve the archives, but I'm not optimistic. I think it's bye bye.
I have an idea that a lot of the HYS moderation is done by unsupervised students who have only a vague idea of how to apply the House Rules to comments. They'll sometimes post an outrageous comment, I guess because it suits their own bias.
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#219
Thanks for that True_Too. I have to admit I have had to (metaphorically speaking) bite my tongue with boilerplated on many an occasion. I will not dismiss contributions as rants since it is poor practice and has no positive value but I know there will always be people who do not wish to engage in discussion even when you try hard to accommodate them.
I have read many of your contributions elsewhere and I know that you put a lot of effort, intelligence and knowledge into what you write regardless of what I may feel about the content - like it or loathe it! That effort and input is to be respected by anyone who contributes to these blogs because it makes them worthwhile and we all learn something about each other.
I agree with you and King-of-the-Apes about bias and the inconsistency demonstrated in moderation of comments. Personally speaking I cannot understand why the BBC wishes to moderate comments from people who do not demonstrate an ability to descend to profanities, insults, or deliberate offence. Reactive moderation can achieve that and is used in 606 debates on the sports pages - an area much more likely to produce such lapses! I conclude therefore that the bias in HYS is deliberate and engineered with the moderation queue a simple method of bringing the BBC "cream" to the top so to speak! But if Mr Eltringham can prove different then I am willing to listen and learn.
It's a pleasure to have people like you on these boards.
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Who needs backups?....
...you did say "rm *", didn't you?
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These things don't just happen out of the blue. It seems the BBC is on a mission to fix stuff that's not broken. Same happened on Radio 4. Perhaps your tech wizkids need lessons on trial runs of new builds before they go live. But please keep us informed of progress.
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The important issues to ask about are these: What has been learned about this fault, and what steps are in place to help prevent it reoccurring?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
To remain on topic I would suggest that there is a parallel between the MP expenses scandal and the lack of competence demonstrated in BBC audience opinion facilities and moderation. Both these issues involve "monopoly" structures with self regulation within a framework of rules.
In each case it has been suggested that the rules are flawed and yet, on further investigation, it appears the rules are okay but the application of them is not. It then follows that the individual participants claim they have acted within the (application of the) rules and have not therefore committed misdemeanour or worse. Some of the more interesting remedies for the House of Commons are as follows:
1. Call in the Serious Fraud Office.
2. Call on the Speaker to apologise and resign as an MP.
3. Call on every MP who has broken the rules (i.e. not the application of the rules) to apologise, resign as an MP and repay the erroneous monies claimed.
4. Call on every UK citizen of voting age to ignore elections until the matter of expenses is resolved.
5. Give all former MPs (since 1997 say) an amnesty of thirty days in which to confess to breaches of the expenses rules.
I wonder what remedies we could ask of the BBC in response to their failures to provide us with decent and accessible methods for demonstrating our opinions on current affairs. Maybe we should insist on having control of our own message boards on the BBC site if we are license payers?
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What a load of whingers. Do you all live in perfect worlds, where nothing ever breaks or goes wrong? Don't fret. If you can't "Have Your Say" today, then you can have it tomorrow. And as for wanting to sit and read your old comments.....GET A LIFE.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
To err is human:- to REALLY foul up takes a computer.
As an IT professional for 30 years, this is engraved upon my heart.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The HYS fault as been truly fixed, back to managed debates were thread drift or the right of reply (to a off border-line off topic comment) will never be allowed - well done BBC in fixing the HYS faults - the BBC is a pillar of the worlds media for allowing on-line debating!...
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re the HYS fault
#224
"Who needs backups?...."
All the back-ups in the world can't help if the hardware or software has crashed, I well remember my first IT problem (back in late '80s), we had the data back-ups, we had a installation copies of both OS and program software and the hardware was proved healthy - but what ever we did the system crashed - the problem was eventually traced to badly written programming code. Once the program had been patched by the vendor it ran (and as far as I'm aware is still running...) faultlessly.
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Absolute twaddle Matthew! Maybe you should not have made all those poor BBC employees redundant or tried shipping them to Manchester in the new 'HQ' squandering £millions of license payers money? I digress.
I'm yet another techie who designs and consults on highly available public systems and financial insitutions to comment here. Two blindingly obvious points:
1. You etiher have data in your tables or you don't. If it is currupted, restore from your online backups and integrity check. Hey presto! Working database.
2. If your web front end can't connect to your database, try the log files old chap. They prove very helpful. Especially the "database connection lost" and "returned no data" syntax, bit of a clue there.
Just tell us the truth (we pay your large salary don't forget) about the problem. Trying to cover up the fact that the work experience junior didn't change the backup tapes for a week or there was no backup in the first place. Perhaps even a data breach at the Beeb has compromised user accounts? The longer you cover it up the more venomous the response.
Keep up the good work Matthew we are all rooting for you.
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I would expect better from a company with as much guaranteed income as the BBC but only if that company weren't the BBC.
Is it really so hard to replace a server and install the backed up data?
You did have a backup didn't you?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Great news it's up and running but does it really take so long for MI5 to install spyware to log who is saying what? Surely they have their lists drawn already?!? (sarcasm.)
Seriously though, this is a simple web page with lots of data fields, what's gone wrong? Please clarify what the cause of the fault was and why it occured. Not so we can blame of course, but better understand.
Thanks ;)
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I guess everything is alright now so we don't have to face such problem again? It's one of those things you know, but you should have the backup, thanks for the job you are doing.
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Incidentally, there are four HYS debates Live at the moment, three of them haven't had a single comment published by the moderators since lunchtime today (over 4 hours !).
You may have resolved one problem BBC but the real one persists, if you don't have the manpower to cover four fully moderated debates then how about making one or two of them reactively moderated ?
Or maybe, just maybe, do what other websites do and invite some of your users to become volunteer moderators, therefore making the BBC a media of the people, by the people and for the people :-)
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Well the site is back up and running but where are all of our old comments and history? Are they floating in cyberspace or should we be paranoid?
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As the HYS fault has been fixed perhaps this blog/debate/rant - call it what you like - should be put-to-bad and closed for further comments, many of which seem to have broken the "House Rules" one way or another anyway?...
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The BBC continue to be as useless as ever. Pathetic.
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Fixing the HYS fault (2):
Actually the title should have ended with the word faults!
Debate title: How can a humanitarian crisis in Pakistan be avoided?
Total comments:152
Published comments:12
Rejected comments:2
Moderation queue:138
This has been the status for almost 24 hours except that ONE comment was published during this time and it was submitted by Lodhi Ahsen, karachi on 'Sunday, 10 May, 2009, 15:27 GMT 16:27 UK'.
This is the real problem with HYS!
Questions are:
~How many moderators have the guts to debate many of the contributors to HYS on a world stage?
~How many moderators have the breadth and depth of knowledge which is exhibited by many contributors?
~How many moderators look upon contributors as the 'lumpen proletariat'? People who are to be tolerated but to be treated with contempt without explicitly appearing to do so?
If the Editors and others in BBC were to do an honest soul searching the answers would be obvious! As a corollary the intellectual level of the debates on BBCs HYS would perhaps increase.
KING-of-the-APES, Rumble in the Jungle
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230. redaer_tolb wrote:
Maybe we should insist on having control of our own message boards on the BBC site if we are license payers?
245. Secratariat wrote:
Or maybe, just maybe, do what other websites do and invite some of your users to become volunteer moderators, therefore making the BBC a media of the people, by the people and for the people :-)
Last year World Have Your Say did precisely that. As an experiment they handed over control of the moderation to any contributors who wanted to try their hand at moderation at the same time as posting comments. This led to some interesting interaction between ordinary contributors and contributors who had the power to delete comments before or after they had appeared on the site. The political orientation was strongly to the left, with the occasional conservative sticking out like a sore thumb and annoying the members of what had become a left wing club. The blog administrators at the BBC stopped the experiment, unhappy with having to deal with the tension between moderators, or at least that was the reason given. I suspect it was more to do with an unwillingness to give non-BBC people a lot of power on the blog.
redaer_tolb,
Most of the moderator/contributors weren't licence payers, coming from all over the planet. They frequently lapsed into chit-chat mode and it became tiresome having to scroll past yards of off-topic discussions on gardening and exchanging recipes.
Would be good, though, if HYS could try something along those lines, at the same time tightening up training of the moderators. A major problem with HYS moderators, as so many people have pointed out, is the sheer indifference they display to the mounting up of hundreds of unpublished comments. Another major problem is inconsistency in applying their own rules.
Sometimes it really does seem like people are sleeping on the job at the BBC.
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If every comment, email, phone message, text message etc is being examined nowadays, perhaps they're just held up in the infinitely long queue of never endings texts from teenagers that say things like 'kk' or 'wot' or LMAO etc.
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Mr Eltringham
What is your view of the episodic and desperately inconsistent moderation of this blog?
Do you agree it suggests the BBC needs to communicate with much more thoughtfulness and effectiveness (both internally and externally) in all matters concerning the opinions of your audiences including HYS?
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It is time to STOP going on about MP's expenses- Let Govement sort out the problem. All this is doing is distroying confidence in Govement and will make sure that no one will ever want to go into Politics. We need people to be in Public Life and to run the country and people in glass houses should NOT throw stones.
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What do you think of the YouTube comment system? (in terms of representation, quality, political orientation, ease of dialogue etc). Do you think it is better?
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I notice the link to this page is now no longer on the Have Your Say index page. Gently pushing the archive problem under the rug are we? Has the task force sent in to fix the fault been scaled down because the core function is back up and running? Albeit with the same old issues and no improvements to the features such as the many suggestions made on this page.
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_marko:
"What do you think of the YouTube comment system? (in terms of representation, quality, political orientation, ease of dialogue etc). Do you think it is better?"
Far better than what we've got here.
Although I think a slightly better system can be found on the F1 Fanatic website (F1fanatic.co.uk.), on there you can reply directly to a comment and your comment attaches to the bottom of the one you're replying too.
It also allows you to quote, link & highlight text. There's also no limit to the length of your pots so you often get people with specific knowledge writing mini-articles containing loads of useful/interesting information.
Keith, the guy who runs that site, often gets thousands of comments in a very short space of time and his site seems to deal with them with no problems even though he runs the site himself and he also manages to reactively moderate the site effectively.
My questions has been, if he can do this on his limited budget, why can't the BBC do something similar with the vast wealth of licence payers money they have available to them ?
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"256. At 09:46am on 12 May 2009, LifeofReilly wrote:
I notice the link to this page is now no longer on the Have Your Say index page."
I think perhaps you need to engage brain before writing, I got here from the HYS main page with a single click so I can see no reason why you can't too.
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Find the "crash" at this time quite sinister. Why no replies to the tech nerds who may know how to fix it?
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258. At 10:23am on 12 May 2009, Drunkroy wrote:
I think perhaps you need to engage brain before writing, I got here from the HYS main page with a single click so I can see no reason why you can't too.
36 posts on 11 May compared to just 6 on 12 May suggests that I was not the only reader who unlike you didn't spot the link after it got moved and reduced in prominence on the index page. However I am happy to offer you an unreserved apology for my utterly inexcusable mistake I do hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me for missing the link. I promise to try harder in future so as not to offend the trivia police again.
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Oh! Goody!
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"We are FORCED to pay for you, therefore you have NO RIGHT to treat us with CONTEMPT!"
1) You can choose to go without television, therefore you are not forced to pay for the BBC
2) You aren't being treated with contempt, you are being given a slightly vague update concerning a systems failure. They most likely reason they aren't telling you what's gone wrong is that they aren't quite sure yet. Damn their eyes, they should admit to this... oh, hang, on, they've done exactly that.
3) It's a message board that's gone down, not your grannie's life-support machine. Please show some common sense and realise that it's not the end of the world.
Having said that, please when it comes back can the moderators work to a consistent standard? Rather than rejecting the first attempt to post a comment, but letting the second attempt (with no alterations!) through? It's a little frustrating at times because it seems so capricious!
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"I have no worries about the BBC archives, in so far as, they relate to my comments. All my comments are stored in several locations and printed too! I even store the entire debate when I feel like it!
I also keep hard and soft copies of those comments (from others) which are blatant examples of moderator bias or blindness or audacity or whatever. I also keep copies of comments (from others) which were deleted or rejected for no apparent good reason."
Blimey! Wish I had as much free time!
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#252. At 10:40pm on 11 May 2009, Galloping Galoshes wrote:
"If every comment, email, phone message, text message etc is being examined nowadays, perhaps they're just held up in the infinitely long queue of never endings texts from teenagers that say things like 'kk' or 'wot' or LMAO etc."
Actually, I think the problem is just the opposite. I reckon the moderators are teenagers who are incapable of understanding a coherent English sentence.
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#262. At 11:21am on 14 May 2009, Jonny_Locust wrote:
"1) You can choose to go without television, therefore you are not forced to pay for the BBC"
Can we? If I have a computer, which I need to do my job, then I can receive TV pictures over the Interweb thingy. Therefore I need a TV licence...
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Well, it was either a hardware fault or a software fault, so that's a start. If it was a hardware fault then it should be no problem as long as backups were kept. If it was a software fault such as a major corruption of the database, then again should be available from backup.
I don't believe you cannot be a bit more specific about this problem, unless there is some embarrassing truth you don't want us to know about.
Is it possible that your system was hacked into and our personal data stolen?
Do you host your own servers or is this an external company that does this, if it is an external company what safeguards do you have in place to protect our personnal data.
Agree with previous comments re moderation, totally inconsistant and un-understandable at times. I too have reposted a rejected comment to have it published.
Banned words are awkward as well, I posted a message with the phrase homo-sapien in it and it was rejected as it had an offensive word in it, you can work out yourself which one it was, but surely if the word was used in an offensive manner this should be picked up by the moderators.
This stops you from using perfectly acceptable words, it's not the words it's the context that matters.
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Oh dear all that scintillating debate lost! Never mind, Central Office's network will soon be swamping the debates as usual!
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Thanks for bringing it back. All the nutters were beginning to venture out into daylight and who knows where that might lead? Far better that they stay indoors, spouting their wacky drivel at fellow weirdos who share their abhorrence of proper spelling and grammar! :-)
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Re: 266 Dancin-Pagan
"Is it possible that your system was hacked into and our personal data stolen?"
Possible! However, please note that the membership status and the data therein are intact. Only the comments made by everyone have disappeared. This includes all comments:
>Published
>Rejected
>Unpublished
>Awaiting Moderation (Even after the debate is closed!)
So if there was a thief then he stole a copy of everyone's personal date but he stole the originals and all copies of everyone's comments!
So is the thief one or more of the secret service agencies of various countries who are planning revenge on those who wrote against their country or ideology?
Or is the thief a lawyer or lawyers who have found a gold mine of comments on which to base their lawsuits?
The answer is neither! Assuming that the thief/thieves was/were smart the best way to steal the personal data and the comments was to do so without drawing attention to the theft. Which means steal but leave everything 'as-it-was'.
Moral of the Story? There is probably no smart thief outside the BBC but a bumbler inside the BBC! Question is: Is this a deliberate bumble? If yes; why?
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Re: 266 Dancin-Pagan
This stops you from using perfectly acceptable words, it's not the words it's the context that matters.
Very well said! I couldn't have said it better.
However, the 'system' of BBC's HYS debates has three levels of control:
First level is the screening of posts being submitted for banned words such as Homo Sapiens, fag etc. If your post contains any of these words then you are prevented from posting by the 'system'. This means that the software searches for banned words before accepting a post. It also means that the software is dumb as regards context!
Solution?
Posts containing banned words should be accepted under a separate category where a 'not-as-dumb-as-the-software' human checks whether the banned words are used deliberately and offensively or are used in a scientific context (as would be the case in a debate on the evolution of the human species) or the word fag (colloquial) is used for brevity in the context of cigarettes (In a 500-character debate where even a space is counted as a character every letter counts if the poster is interested in packing in as much information as possible into the post).
Second level is the level of so-called moderation which is where almost ALL the problems lie. The moderators need some lessons in inventory management which can be applied to the process of moderation. Terms such as:
FIFO: First In First Out (that is how it should be done)
LIFO: Last In First Out (Happens most of the time. Quite unfair!)
Third level is the one where a post is 'rejected' after publication. Another can of worms!
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HYS debate title: How can democracy be achieved in Burma?
Questions asked: How can democracy be achieved in Burma? Should the international community take more of a pro-active role in Burma? Do countries like Burma care about the opinion of the rest of the world?
Debate status: Total comments: 78, Published comments: 58, Rejected comments: 7, Moderation queue: 13.
Comment published AFTER moderation:
Added: Friday, 15 May, 2009, 19:32 GMT 20:32 UK
The Asian Development Bank released a report that said Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam would likely experience six percent loss of revenue by century's end due to the effects of global warming. The severe cyclone that came ashore in Burma should have been a wake up call for all nations to take measures to protect their people and land from the lasting effects of climate change. Any number above two degrees of temperature rise is unlucky for all nations not just those of a few.
Dale Lanan, Longmont, United States
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Recommended by 0 people
I have nothing to say except that there are no debates on Climate Change which are open at the moment! Could someone be the judge please!
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Just to prove the point about inconsistent moderation:
DEBATE:How can democracy be achieved in Burma?SENT:15-May-2009 18:55COMMENT:Sorry, did I hear that Burma has oil?
Click to view comment RECOMMENDED BY:0 people COMMENT STATUS:Published
DEBATE:How can democracy be achieved in Burma?SENT:15-May-2009 17:15COMMENT:Sorry, did I hear that Burma has oil? COMMENT STATUS:Rejected
So how come the same post is unacceptable at 17:15 and acceptable at 18:55?
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I am relieved to see that all these blips are not caused through incompetence nor lack of technical knowledge. Proof - the Moderator's buttons are being pressed correctly and frequently. Business as usual!
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Seeing that you are semi back on line the speed of moderation is still pathetically slow. I also presume that the seemingly comments removed are due to the BBC not liking them. Get your finger out and do what the licence payers pay you for.
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Still nothing from the HYS resolution team then? Even after nearly three weeks? Where are our historical comments? If they've magically disappeared then how, and what else went with them? Retrieving something from an IT archive database does not take this long (unless you're fool enough not to maintain one) so maybe a little honesty is due. Was the BBC HYS system hacked and was anyone's personal information taken? Since my information is held on your system, and without wanting to start citing the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to know. A simple "yes" or "no" would suffice.
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Perhaps Have Your Say should ask the news sniffer site for a back up copy of the archive including all the rejected comments all available to read no matter what the subject. They haven't been closed down or sued yet.
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@ 214 TrueToo
"I have an idea that a lot of the HYS moderation is done by unsupervised students who have only a vague idea of how to apply the House Rules to comments. They'll sometimes post an outrageous comment, I guess because it suits their own bias."
@ 264 Pigsty Hill
"Actually, I think the problem is just the opposite. I reckon the moderators are teenagers who are incapable of understanding a coherent English sentence."
I must admit that I have fallen in love! Not with Ms./Mr. TrueToo and Ms./Mr. Pigsty Hill but with the intelligence and perspicacity / perceptiveness demonstrated by their comments.
I have to watch out as you are the kind of people who might make mincemeat of a loose comment from me or anyone else. Please keep writing!
Ciao!
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Subject : MPs Expenses
DEBATE STATUS
Total comments:
14107
Published comments:
8922
Rejected comments:
985
Moderation queue:
4200
Isn't this the root of the whole problem. How can you maintain "a publish as comments come in" when the queue is almost half as large as the published comments? What on earth do moderators do?
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There is a problem with the way that posts breaking house rules are reported back.
The BBC, much to its credit, advises offenders they have broken the rules and then returns a copy of the 'offensive' comments.
To their discredit, they refuse to say what the offence was, not even by highlighting the returned copy. The result is that the accompanying invitation to resubmit becomes a nonsense ... resubmit 'what' has to be asked?
Moderation is subjective and the moderators are no less prone to fault than the writers ... but I suppose that's subjective too.
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There is a problem that moderation is not taking place in order of posting. I have been stuck in the moderation que since 15/05/09 'awaiting moderation' but posts are being published that were made on 16th & 17th posts should be moderated in order they are received.
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The obvious political censorship of comments is disgusting..!
No politcal comment should be rejected because it 'broke the house rules'.
My comments have been censored with this pathetic excuse.
Also 'awaiting moderation' is another sneaky way of not publishing
comments. Just leaving the comments in the inbox and then saying 'unpublished'
is just censorship again. I know this goes on because quite often I submit
a comment that gets 'moderated' BEFORE an earlier one that is still awaiting moderation.
Also there has been no explanation as to why all previous comments, published or not, have been deleted.
Probably the reason why the site went down for a week recently.
It is no wonder that alternative media sites flourish given the bbc online and tv
broadcast censorship.
One only has to read what ex-bbc journalist Tony Gosling has to say regarding
these matters.
Regards....
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#279
To state the obvious for a moment why isn't a comment published if it isn't rejected but simply stuck somewhere within the moderator file "out of sight and out of mind".
The argument that it is "repetitive" of similar comments doesn't wash as there are plenty that do that that are published.
The only conclusions possible are lazy moderators, not enough moderators, or a system that allows moderation to work outside the "queue" order thus b****ring up the system.
Now we all know that public service IT is not the best in the world and I think HYS proves it. It should be hystory!
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277. KING-of-the-APES,
Thanks for that comment.
There are four HYS debates open at the moment and around 2000 comments have been shoved into the "Moderation Queue."
Seems that the constructive criticism people have provided here is not only going to be ignored, the moderation is actually getting worse. And years of comment history have gone down the drain with the BBC quietly sweeping the whole mess under the carpet instead of telling us what is going on.
With an annual guaranteed income of billions of pounds extorted from the taxpayer, the BBC has groan bloated, lazy and unaccountable to the public.
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TrueToo, I agree with you. I used to think that people's complaints of bias were ridiculous, but I have recently had a couple of complelely uncontroversial comments rejected. They did not break the house rules as far as I can see, but of course, as comments are rejected without reason, I will never know why they offended the moderators. Despite all the criticism on this blog, nothing seems to be changing for the better. The moderation queues only seem to be getting longer and the order in which comments are posted are often bizzare. Perhaps the editor could comment on these issues? Otherwise, it seems that we have absolutley no way of knowing if he/ she is even reading this, let alone doing anything about it.
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#283
I endorse your comments wholeheartedly. I hope that a change in Government will take the sword to the present BBC structure and cut it into tiny pieces to be disposed of whilst retaining a quality core worthy of its once great name. Maybe then HYS will be a real debating forum (and our license fee will be a much more manageable size).
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It's down again, any chance of another update ?
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I have to say the comments on this page are the funniest I have read anywhere on HYS to date.
Where people get such an overinflated opinion of the importance of their comments is beyond me. Are any of you really that arrogant that you believe that what are, on the whole, ill-informed and speculative comments are worth the attention of hackers and/or government snoopers?
The HYS forums are just supposed to be a bit of fun and are as highly regarded as the letters page of the Sun. Try taking yourselves a little less seriously and just enjoy it!
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284. dflughae,
285. Wherewhich,
Thanks for that, guys. Yes, it would be nice if Mr. Eltringham would get back to us. It's against the spirit of a blog for the writer thereof to remain aloof from the comments for so long.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Is it about time we had an update on the lost archives of have your say or has Indian Jones, Lara Croft and Robert Langdon been called in to search for them? Or has the search now been down scaled?
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@ 266 3:59pm on 14 May 2009, Dancin-Pagan
Debate-"Do you agree with the Gurkha settlement?"
I wrote out and tried to post the following comment:
Quote:
A saying in Hindi:
"Gurkha jis ka namak khata hai oos kay saath namak ha(r)ami nehi karta."
Translation:
The Gurkha is NEVER a traitor to the person(s)/Nation whose salt he eats (employed by/works 4)!
This does NOT mean that the Gurkha will necessarily work for anyone. It is to be read in the context of HONOURABLE tasks which is what they do!
Do I agree?
Absolutely, irrevocably, unequivocally!
If I do become rich enough or powerful enough my bodyguards will ONLY be Gurkhas!!
Max Mahajan, Singapore
Unquote
The feedback I got was:
"Sorry Your message appears to contain offensive language. Please remove any offensive words from it."
I re-read my post, washed my face with cold water, had a glass of ice water and pinched myself to ensure I was awake! I changed the spelling of "harami" thinking that was the 'offensive word' and changed the spelling of several words but rejected again and again.
Then I changed the spelling of 'jis' which in Hindi means who or whom) to 'jees' and hey presto my comment went through.
I checked the Chambers Dictionary but could not find a word called 'jis'!
I am pretty well informed about the world but I was NOT aware that the word 'jis' was an expletive!
Is it? If it is PLEASE tell me the language in which it IS offensive!
Thank you!
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Still no archive comments.
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Can we please have an update on the process to recover the archived comments? The last update was over 2 weeks ago. Is this a lost cause? Perhaps the "fixers" are hoping we'll forget!
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Your assurance that the archives will be restored is re-assuring. My 1,000 plus published blogs on HYS is one of the few things in my life that I am proud of.
I am looking forward to printing a full set so I can one day hand the same over to my grand-children. Anybody else feel the same?
Life without HYS is unthinkable.
Thank you, BBC (one of the few things Britain continues to do right that we can ALL be proud of)
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I have been contributing to HYS since Aug 2006 and had logged over 1,500 posts of which almost a 1,000 were published.
I was horrfied to find my previous posts lost - please restore them to my space - I feel i have lost 3 years worth of intellectual property.
What will I bequeath to my grand-children?
FatRadioMan
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291. Max_Mahajan,
Good work finding the problem. Try Google to learn why jis is offensive.
FatRadioMan,
I saved some of my earlier comments, published and unpublished but then relied on the BBC to save them for me. I guess the lesson here is that if you really want to keep your work, print it and put it in your desk drawer.
Then again, the printed word also gets lost....
Seems little doubt that our files are gone for good. The criticism on this thread and the earlier one has been mostly constructive and even-tempered. The BBC people responsible, on the other hand, are treating people pretty shabbily by maintaining an uncomfortable silence on what, if anything, they intend to do about the problem. If they don't know what happened and cannot retrieve the HYS archives, then it's a simple matter to let us know with a short note here and on the HYS page.
If I thought someone at the BBC would listen, I'd complain.
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@ 294 {3:33pm on 22 May 2009, FatRadioMan}
Where is this assurance that the archives will be restored? Please educate/advise!
Your assurance that the archives will be restored is re-assuring. My 1,000 plus published blogs on HYS is one of the few things in my life that I am proud of.
I am looking forward to printing a full set so I can one day hand the same over to my grand-children. Anybody else feel the same?
Life without HYS is unthinkable.
Thank you, BBC (one of the few things Britain continues to do right that we can ALL be proud of
"Anybody else feel the same? What?!
I feel exactly the same and more! Why?
I have NO grandchildren or children for that matter! Ha! Ha! I ain't even married! Even once! So my comments were my babies! Damn!
That brings me to the people who wish to denigrate those who ARE interested in their archived comments. There is a saying in India:
You do not become great by belittling others!
I clearly remember recommending comments made by "FatRadioMan"!
Contrary to certain views I have seen and read 'Pearls of Wisdom' from regular contributors. I have seen/read fantastic one-liners which made me think: Why the heck didn't I think of that?!
So to you 'FatRadiMan', 'TrueToo' and others:
Please remember that there are jerks like me who read and appreciate comments made by people like you! I/we may also criticise or disagree with comments made by the likes of you! That is life! Isn't it? It is indeed a pleasure to read your views even if at times we may disagree!
BTW: Max_Mahajan, Singapore and MaxMaxmilianMaximusI, Indian Caesar in Singapore are one and the same person! I wanted to use Max_Mahajan as my nick but my first comment was rejected for no apparent reason (despite having almost a world record for the number of times I spoke on Have your Say on Sundays and World Have Your Say on weekdays!) so I decided to use my most egoistical and megalomaniacal nick!
Cheers guys and girls!
{P}arting {S}hot: This news about abolishing/suspending the Licence Fee IS BAD! I would not hesitate to contribute a few quid per year to Auntie Beeb! She IS unique and NOT subject to the vagaries of Private Capital! Where exactly and from which unsavoury activities that Capital comes from is another question!? TIME TO THINK! AND THINK CAREFULLY!
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Last night I made the following comment on this HYS debate:
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=6494&edition=1&ttl=20090526085724
I got in fairly quick with a moderation queue of 12 (I have a screenshot to confirm this). Today there are 284 published comments. But my comment is still awaiting moderation. WHY? The only conclusion I can draw is that the BBC is deliberately suppressing calls for an English Parliament for whatever reason. Frankly it's a disgrace.
--
An English Parliament.
No - not another tier of politicians just no Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish MPs voting on English issues - in any shape or form.
Then half the number of MPs.
Create two classes of MPs? There already are two classes of MPs - English MP's who can only vote on English issues and Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs that can vote at home and on English issues.
Decidedly unfair. Throw in the Barnett Formula. Outrageously unfair.
Revolution is due. Rise England rise.
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Is it about time we had an update? 'Fixing The Have Your Say Fault (3)' might be a good title.
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I was ever hopeful that HYS would turn over a new leaf and become more streamlined. But the same old irritations are happening. It's lovely to have HYS back but why oh why do they continue to publish posts at random and leave those who've just posted lost in the mire? Why do they not publish for hours at a time and then suddenly publish dozens and dozens all at once that nobody will ever read ? What are they doing when nothing has been published for hours. Do they have long lunch breaks or time out for shopping?
Ah, with all the troubles in the world I mustn't moan.
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Twenty days after you put "Have your say" back on-line, as you've made no further comments, I guess we conclude this was your last word on the matter.
So we don't know what went wrong, whether we'll ever see our legacy comments again, whether you're going to have the same problem in the future.
Top class info for a news organisation's editor, don't you think?
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Hallo BBC I am still waiting over 2000 Posts lost and I was hoping to run them into a book and I note that you are playing the same old game Moderation declined until later then not published or not read. I am, in the words of the old poet, not impressed. Can you please let me know if this old data can be retrieved?
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I tell how to fix HAVE YOUR SAY.
Listen to and act upon what people have said this editors blog.
Do away with moderators. They are stifling free speech.
Stop censoring political comments, such as this one:
If you really want to know about corruption,
then why not do an HYS on the BILDERBERG...?
It is not a secret anymore so why the bbc blackout on it.
It really is a joke...!
Guardian Journalist, Charlie Skelton
just reported on this year's bilderberg meeting in Greece.
Peter Mandelson was there as was George Osbourne,
Why the pretend secrecy BBC...?
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DEBATE:
Britain's Got Talent: Did the best act win?
SENT:
31-May-2009 13:07
COMMENT:
"I was shocked by the results."
So was I. It is amazing how many people cannot dial a telephone number correctly isn't it?
Click to view comment
RECOMMENDED BY:
0 people
COMMENT STATUS:
Published
******************************************
DEBATE:
Britain's Got Talent: Did the best act win?
SENT:
31-May-2009 10:41
COMMENT:
"I was shocked by the results."
So was I. It is amazing how many people cannot dial a telephone number correctly isn't it?
COMMENT STATUS:
Rejected
******************************************
Don't you just love moderators......
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Its been about a month since the last update about the missing comments.
bbc technical must know by now what has happened...?
Questions already posted and NOT answered:
why have the comments been deleted?
why have they not been restored from back up files?
why no update?
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Further to my post: no303
I have received this email from BLOG THE EDITORS:
'Dear BBC blog contributor,
Your Nickname 'MANDELSON-BILDERBERG' has been changed back to
'14002412', since it contravenes the House Rules -
Nicknames will be failed if they:
Appear to impersonate someone else'
This is the sort of MACHIAVELLIAN tactic the BBC
carries out to censor politcal debate on (NOT)HAVE YOUR SAY,
when people have a politcal view that is outside the
the area of of what is allowed to be said via the bbc.
I was NOT trying to to impersonate anyone
with the nickname: MANDELSON-BILDERBERG.
Whoever at the bbc decided to use this pathetic excuse
in order to stop me using this nickname as a political statement,
as that is the REASON why I used that nickname,
did so to try to cover up the corruption of government ministers
such as PETER MANDELSON secretly attending the the rich man's club
known as THE BILDERBERG GROUP.
What a pathethetic, unethical thing to try to do...!
No way can information be suppressed in this fashion,
thanks to the internet the information is out there.
I will not allow my political views to be censored.
wait and see BBC as I WILL HAVE MY SAY..!!
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Excuse the couple of spelling mistakes in comment 306 above.
That happened in my haste to complain about the enforced name change.
I am surprised it was published on here.
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#307
There is a full moon soon, which is about the time the Big Hand in the Sky appears with its big red pen striking through anything that the more modest moderators may have missed. Many blogs appears to be whittled away in a day or so, so there is still time.... Save a copy and post again?
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Hey, Mr Eltringham, how about pulling your finger out and start explaining where all the archives have gone? While you're at it, what else went with them and where? I'm not paying my license fee for your techie lot to lose data, or worse still let it get nicked by someone else.
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Maybe people should start posting on here amount of days
since HYS archive was deleted and not restored, with no update
from Mr Eltringham.
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I think that maybe it is too much of a coincidence that this so called fault occurred in the same week that Channel4 closed its forums and also rendered its archive of contributors comments unavailable.
I assume this was after legal advice that both broadcasters were perhaps holding and continuing to make public too much litigious material in the form of readers comments. Therefore it was deemed prudent to take archive comment off line and start a fresh clean slate with a new unwritten stricter moderation policy.
If this is in fact the real reason why the archive is still lost then why not send members an email with a secure log in password where we can at least view our own past comments or download them or just make them available to view only within our own 'retrieve details' sections of our sign in page. You could tell us that it is the best possible fix your technicians have been able to come up with.
Your consideration of this stalemate breaking proposal would be appreciated.
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This is turning into quite the conspiracy theory now !
Maybe the left-wing thought police at the BBC are reading all of our past comments and are compiling a list of possible agitators for the government so they can make them (possibly us) disappear before the election(if we ever get one).
Or maybe the BBC have got better things to spend their (well "our" actually, but that's another debate) money on than a load of old comments from the general public
Either way, it surely wouldn't take Mr Eltringham more than 10 minutes to let us know what's going on...
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Mr.Herriman,
Although it's plain to see that 'HYS' is having problems, while you endeavour to sort it out, I truly suggest you also ensure you also seriously reconsider your Moderation of 'HYS' - it is becoming nonsensical and a laughing-stock of people with an average IQ.
Constant 'holding-back', rejecting for no real reason, unpublished - and now - obviously impossible & nonsensical levels of 'Most Reccommended' hits. You have to be kidding us, right? Please treat us with at least some respect...
EG:
Have Your Say
What's your favourite new word?
Added: Wednesday, 10 June, 2009, 15:27 GMT 16:27 UK
Cheeko-Beeko One newly formed complete word, consisting of two words. This can be used for a person (male or female) who talks a lot, but do nothing.
Syed A Mateen, Karachi, Pakistan
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Recommended by 134 people
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Is HYS experiencing more problems this morning? Also I have noticed the number of debates running at any one time tends to be far fewer that in the good old days, have the staff levels been cut on the moderation team? PS Still no news on the achieve.
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We are currently experiencing technical problems and are unable to update HYS debates. You can email us your comments using the form below and we will publish a selection of them. Here we go again!
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No restoration of the HYS archive and nor will there be.
The bbc have ignored all postings asking for an update
and have relied upon expecting people's concerns to fade away.
Which is what has naturally happened so leaving the bbc
thinking they can do just what they like, regardless
of what the licence payer thinks.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
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