The BBC

Oh thank goodness for that then, if it's on after the programme! It'll give me time to warm up my tonsils!

Thanks Andrew and Niclara.

Well, you just knew that I WOULD look at Nick's latest blog, and you know what, rather than whoosh, my reaction was <yawnsmiley>. In how many ways, and using how many words can a man say..........practically nothing (still he can LINK to previous comments) . It's a non-event.

What gets me, is that I have no idea WHY Nick is even telling the blogging community about what has happened on THESE boards. Throughout his SEVEN blogs, I think there may have been less than a dozen bloggers commenting, within the THOUSANDS of postings by Message boarders. I DON'T think that Nick has converted EVEN ONE blogger to coming to the Message boards. Practically EVERY single comment by bloggers has gone along the line of "I object to paying my licence money for moaners to gather and complain about BBC." AND...... "There are places outwith BBC where people can moan about BBC". I think that sums up the input from bloggers to Nick's "Message Board" blogs. Of course, the bloggers who have contributed thus, have missed the irony that they are posting to blogs, where THEY get the opportunity to moan about BBC. BUT, then, those are blogs, so, somehow used by "higher thinkers", and, therefore MORE WORTHY of OUR licence fee.

Good comments by the Message boarders, but, really, just more of the same, and Nick still not hearing.

The remit of the BBC Internet Blog is

Senior staff from the BBC's online and technology teams discuss issues raised by you about BBC Online, BBC iPlayer, the BBC's digital and mobile services, and the technology behind them.

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So that will be why the boards have been mentioned there - they form part of BBC Online and the blog talks about it, just as it does iPlayer, search and so on.

Hope that makes it a bit clearer.

Well if it is possible to work between the blogs and messageboards...lets stop closing the messageboards down and also as I suggested...maybe the problem of low useage is the lack of publicity and directing of posters to the appropriate areas of the BBC website to discuss topics and if the messageboards were mentioned as much on the blogs as the blogs have been here things could be different and there is a place for both.

Firstly, I would just like to say I welcome the comments from Andrew Bowden who wrote:

We have a blog. It's at www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/...

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Yes, and I have contributed to that blog and my comments were just ignored, or at least never responded to.

There isn't a BBC red button board.

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No, but there was a BBC Digital board until a couple of weeks ago when, after years of poor, broken, and no links to it, it was abandoned due to little use. It wasn't used by many who didn't know it existed nor by you because 'it wasn't worthwhile'.

Andrew Bowden wrote:

I could have tried stimulating debate on POV but trying to build a community on POV just for the sake of it being on the BBC website wasn't particularly worthwhile.

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yet also states:

Part of my job is to know and understand the audience

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I've been communicating online in various forms now for about 13 years. Newsgroups, mailing lists, boards, forums, blogging, micro-blogging. You name it, I've done it.

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I have also contributed to Digital Spy, AV Forums, Usenet, mailing lists, boards, forums, blogging, micro-blogging since I started using the Internet in 1994; I was a member of the BBC Networking Club before the Beeb even got round to buying the bbc.com and .co.uk domains from those guys in Boston, Ma, and see no reason why the BBC should not have a good, well managed and promoted forum where viewers, listeners, and readers, from around the World, could chat to each other, exchange views with 'interested' BBC staff, and generally feel it was 'their BBC' and that there views were welcomed.

Instead, we are told to go off to the Daily Mail, News Of The World, Guardian, Digital Spy, Twitter, Facebook, our own, and other peoples blogs .... in fact anywhere but here where BBC content emanates from.

it's a lot harder to keep track of things on boards.

Take for example EastEnders the other week. There ended up being about 24 different threads about the same storyline.

That's the nature of the beast - if you allow any of your users to post a topic, all a host can do is try to reactively manage the topic. Close duplicates and try and funnel people to one place.

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Rather than keeping track, reactively manage, close topics and funnel people, or even control the creation of topics, as is that beast 'the Blog', why not concentrate on encouraging, the public to contribute by having an easily accessible, easily navigated series of forums for TV, Radio, Online, World, the BBC, which would attract a a richness of comment and opinion thus improving the feedback for those BBC people who are interested and, (perhaps more importantly), provide a way for viewers, listeners, and readers, to chat with each other.

the BBC cannot do everything.

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Correct, but if people wanted to comment on the content or layout of Digital Spy, I would be surprised if they told people to go to the BBC messageboards to comment.

The community helps promote brand loyalty, in a way a DOG, never could.

Slightly off-topic, but since you mentioned it

The remit of the BBC Internet Blog is Senior staff from the BBC's online and technology teams discuss issues raised by you about BBC Online, BBC iPlayer, the BBC's digital and mobile services, **and the technology behind them.**

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Yet we have the grotesque sight of Danielle Nagler attempting to ridicule contributors to her BBC blog by saying:

I know that for some who read this programmes are a second order issue, compared to the DOG and our broadcast bitrate.

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Quite incredible - critising early adopters of High Definition Television broadcasts for being interested in the bitrates and other technology behind the transmission.

Joke: My grandad once pressed the Red Button - the TV switched-off!

It wouldn't be great if I went onto (say) Digital Spy and said "If you repost this on Points of View Digital" I'll reply there.

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Considering what we've just been through with Nick and blogs, I do find this quite funny.

Excellent post jtemplar

You know, I've just taken a look back at Nick Reynold's first blog on the subject of the future of the POV boards.

www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/...

What's interesting to note is that in just reading the first 20 or so comments, it's the lack of clarification on moderation and not the lack of Hosts, that people commented on.

And there was no mention by Nick of the possibility of these messageboards being "aligned" to the POV programme.

"Result" as Jeremy Vine would say.

Even the cynics were helpful Seurat! It's quite extraordinary to see how much we gave and what we got in return!

Firstly, welcome Russ . Hopefully, YOU will be a blogger who stays around. We had one or two pop over, post a couple of postings of an inflamatory nature and buzz off. (I don't think YOU will be one of those).

I too see a place for message boards AND blogs, having to read blogs for my job, BUT, I have to say that I'm not over-enamoured of the quality of the authorship of far too many BBC blogs (and the proliferation of 0 Comments, 1 Comment responses.)

Nick says that the Radio board was closed for lack of input by posters, (as well as NOT being Television), and YET, dozens and dozens and dozens of BBC blogs receive NO comments. It's this blinkered unbalance which infuriated us. It is actually VERY unusual for a thread on BBC message boards to receive 0 Comments (when you consider the phenominal number of threads).

OUR main objection to BBC blogs is that (as with all blogs) the author decides WHAT topic will be discussed, and "controls" the blog by either responding or ignoring, or hiding comments or closing the debate. On the message boards ANYONE can start a discussion, and THEN it is EVERYONE's thread. The original poster has no power over the direction, and certainly no control over hiding or closing the debate. EVERYONE's comment is valid and everyone's comment is EQUAL. There CAN be fluffy lighthearted threads (and I quite like to read those to lighten the day), BUT, there can be discussions of amazing intelligence, passion and information. Again welcome, and I hope you stay around.

My head is spinning with all the points brought up in the comments above. So, much so that I am not even going to attempt to respond, just congratulate everyone for the quality. (Where's the round of applause smiley when you want one) - I used to detest smileys when I first came here, but sometimes a smiley can convey in one character MORE than you can say with words.