The Enid Blyton Society

Fiona, I'm a bit confused by your post. Also, Thank you VERY much for telling me that general only had 1 n.

Which part were you confused by? The benevolent part or the general natter part?

Both Fiona

Ok,
I was being sarcastic when I said it's great when you're benevolent. Benevolent means charitable, generous etc. It would only be a genuinely benevolent moment if you actually had any influence over the thread staying or going, ie, Anita saying it would have been benevolent.

This thread was originally part of the General Natter Room THREAD (this one http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... 56#p130656" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). It's now its own thread in the General Natter (sub) FORUM (this one http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... m.php?f=14" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).

Perhaps I am being naive but I don't think people check their
Post Counts before posting. Mind you it would be a good thing if it encouraged
more members to post comments.

Being a forum about EB I think it natural that it will attract people from all age groups and, as a result, we have to accept that their will be a huge gulf in what our younger members post and what the more "mature" members post. Personally I find some of the comments aimed at the younger members a little uncomfortable.

Tony Summerfield wrote: Matt has gone the same way as the dodo, you need to go on a yeti hunt to find Keith and G@K grazes peacefully on Famous Five pastures.

Funny how the 'important' people, with names in red, seem to go AWOL!

Nick wrote:Personally I find some of the comments aimed at the younger members a little uncomfortable.

Yes, sometimes I feel the same. As I said on another threrad, most of us were young once!

Lucky Star wrote:G@K once suggested a dedicated realtime chat facility be introduced here.

We used to have a facility like that on the Blyton Yahoo Group - probably still do in fact - but I don't think it gets much use. The good thing about it was that, if I remember correctly, any "chat" wasn't stored but was automatically deleted as soon as the conversation ended. That meant no moderation was required. Though absolutely anyone who was registered could join in, and youngsters in particular need to be careful when it comes to conversing with people they've met online.

Moonraker wrote:However, it is the quality of posts that must remain paramount. Another forum I subscribe to would warn members about trivial/chat-room/one word posts, and should they continue, the member would find his account deleted.

Crikey, on those terms we'd have to delete about half our regular posters! I do warn people by PM if they're constantly posting very short or trivial posts, but in most cases I doubt it would warrant a banning unless they were doing it systematically in an attempt to derail the forums or annoy other members - especially if it was clear that the offenders had little or no interest in Enid Blyton.

Moonraker wrote:

Tony Summerfield wrote: Matt has gone the same way as the dodo, you need to go on a yeti hunt to find Keith and G@K grazes peacefully on Famous Five pastures.

Funny how the 'important' people, with names in red, seem to go AWOL!

I think Matt once tried to remove the red from one or two names, or maybe only his own, but couldn't do it.

About younger members - yes, they can be impulsive and sometimes post randomly, but if they stick around they're likely to settle down as they mature. But when they are warned about things we expect them to make an effort to remember for the future.

I think I'm going to have to take a look at the general forum rules that Matt posted ages ago and add to them where necessary, in consultation with Tony. It may take a while to review the rules and think about what needs saying, but when I've done it I'll draw people's attention to them so we all know where we are.

I'm leaving this topic in "General Natter" for now so people don't suddenly wonder where it has gone, but I'm considering moving it to "Questions, Comments and Suggestions" soon.

Nick wrote: Personally I find some of the comments aimed at the younger members a little uncomfortable.

I agree with Nick.I love the fact that young and old can mix freely here,without censure.
I love the fun,spontaneity and sheer joie de vivre that all the young ones bring to our excellent site.
Its a testimony to the quality of our site that they want to be here and post and join in with us at all.
It's fascinating to see how the young ones seem to come,shine very brightly and then fade,only to be replaced by yet another youthful Enid Blyton devotee.

It seems to me that the young ones who post here have a real love for the Mallory Towers series,which is in itself a strong testament of how good Enids writing is -even for modern children reading those stories many, many years after they were originally published.
Something in that particular series seems to resonate with lots of the younger ones.
Have you noticed how keen they are to write about it?

The young ones on the site will obviously mirror their adult peers,so if we adults promote our 100,000th post its logical for us to see the young attach the same importance to their post counts.

If we have a thread entitled 'general natter' well, that's just what it is general natter.
I personally would not like to see any of the young stifled,made to feel unwelcome or made to feel that they should suddenly become erudite posters only.
By the same token,I would expect them to have respect for the more mature forum members here and treat them with the respect,dignity and courtesy they deserve.

I'm sure behind the scenes the influx of more youthful posters has meant lots more admin and tidying up of many posts and threads and has made lots of more work for Anita (perhaps often behind the scenes) and for all this work and attention for detail I am sure we are all extremely grateful.

Long may this brilliant site thrive.Were else could you have the extraordinary age range and life experience that we enjoy here?
We have teachers,students,business professionals,housewives,medical professionals,authors,nurses,infants.juniors,seniors,senior citizens,the list goes on.

I think we all deserve a pat on the back,we are all a credit to Enid Blyton.Everyone of us who takes time out of our busy lives to post regularly here is a credit to the wonderful Enid Blyton Society Forums. (oops 4 point penalty)

Regards

Pete

Very well said, Pete.

Yes, well said, Pete. Pete always seems to post words of wisdom, and always strikes me as someone worldly wise!

I have just read your post with great interest and agree with what you have to say, Pete. So, very well said, from me too. That's three yeses; you're through to the next round!

I know for one that most of my posts could be counted as nusiance, not needed etc etc. Some of my earlier posts certainly are full of babble that an excited 15/16 year old who had a certain baby-ish quality in regards for Blyton would post.

So here's me, making another babbly post to apologise for any previous babbly posts I may have posted before.

Pete, I think you summed things up quite well.

Just an idea; if people are going to continue to want to mark signifcant posts to them, why not have one big thread for it, so people just use that to boast?

I know. Bad idea. Usually is.

I don't have a good suggestion for the running of this forum. I wouldn't like to suggest any even if I did (There is usually some flawed logic to my ideas anyway!) but I doubt there is a way to stop people counting posts. However I sort of like seeing how regluar a member is, previously it showed maybe how knowledgable they were on the subject. But since we've had younger members join our ranks, the dynamic of this has clearly changed. I mean may a thread for the younger members may be in order, if it'll take the pointless chat off the other boards? I mean if we don't want to discourage anyone as posters, then we have to take it as it comes, with a polite nudge here and there to remind them to keep it in the PM's- though a PM.

But shutting up now. Sorry for my thoughts.

I'm sure some of my posts could come under the heading of 'babbling' and I don't have youth as an excuse.

Pippa-Stef wrote:I know for one that most of my posts could be counted as nusiance, not needed etc etc. Some of my earlier posts certainly are full of babble that an excited 15/16 year old who had a certain baby-ish quality in regards for Blyton would post.

On the contrary, I've always considered you pretty mature, Stef (though you do let your hair down when it comes to Julian and certain others! )

Pippa-Stef wrote:Just an idea; if people are going to continue to want to mark signifcant posts to them, why not have one big thread for it, so people just use that to boast?

If people really must do that - once in a very long while, preferably - I suppose they could add their "boast" to one of the existing threads (and I could change the title if necessary), though personally I'd rather people didn't bother about their post count!

Pippa-Stef wrote:I don't have a good suggestion for the running of this forum. I wouldn't like to suggest any even if I did (There is usually some flawed logic to my ideas anyway!) but I doubt there is a way to stop people counting posts.

Feel free to express any ideas, Stef! If we were to have the "post count" feature removed at any time, people could still work out a member's tally by clicking on someone's username followed by "search user's posts". Then it would be a matter of doing the maths! But at least the number of posts wouldn't be permanently on display, shouting out a person's total and encouraging some to try to increase it for the sake of increasing it.

Pippa-Stef wrote:I mean may a thread for the younger members may be in order, if it'll take the pointless chat off the other boards?

My own feeling is that the chat wouldn't stay in that thread because young members would still want to join in with the other threads and respond there. And newcomers may not realise that anything posted there will be deleted regularly, and might get a shock when their posts disappear.