A pat on the back to the people that need it

[pbottomley]

I have to agree with Chevetter, this forum is about bringing people together not seperating them. In fact Chevetter is a welcome guest.

The Yahoo group [vivaclub] has been running 5 years and its not closed its ranks to fee paying members only, so why ask me to do it to this forum now?

With the regard to the issue of discussing club business on a public forum, may I tentatively suggest that a 'Members area', for viva club members only, is created for this express purpose.

Good point, But we have a magazine, and the post for such items, as only a tiny % of fee paying members actually use this forum. According to the last magazine 460 people have paid fees, and Adrian is in the process of doing a further load of memberships, of those 460 about 30 are here, Less than 10% of the members.

Secondly I dont actually know who is and who isnt a paid up member of the Viva owners club! How would I know this? I am not the membership secretary, and data protection act restricts me access to such data. So it would be impossible for me to make it a members only forum.

We live in a free world and we have freedom of speach, If you as a fee paying member of the viva owners club dont like what is going on here you are welcome (and able) to express your feeling on the internet all over the place, not just here.

Equally I allow non fee paying members on here as its a good way to encourage membership to the club, but alas thats been spoilt by a few over keen forum members attacking anything they dont agree with.

I would like to thank the non fee paying members and fee paying members for making this forum what it is today, helpful, full of content and growing to become what it should be, a voice for ALL Viva owners be you VVOC or otherwise.

Remember your fees dont pay for the maintance of this forum, nor did they pay for its creation.

[Pork Pie]

Hmmmmmmmmm what have i started. The next thing will be falling out over the committee (when sorted) decisions.
Please lets all agree to disagree and use this forum in the right way it was set up for. Paul B set this forum up for Viva owners and for people who take an interest in Viva`s including kit car, moded and rat Viva`s. It`s what we all have in common on this site. Sod the wrong or right way of politics (yes we can not ignor it) but it would be nice on this forum if we could.
Dont forget Paul can close this site down and set up an independent site for Vivaing, then what we all jump on that? use what`s in place. If it aint broke dont fix it, just take it steady

[jgwilliamson]

John, your out of order. You have directly accused "non members" of back-biting and by default become the very thing you accuse non-members of being.

No I'm not, IMO...I'm accusing one non-member in particular. One who has a particular axe to grind with the club in general, and Adrian in particular. I fail to see how allowing people like that a platform here will help attract new members.

By the way, you seem to have a lot to say about my particular post, but remain remarkably quiet when the likes EddV6 make quite derogatory comments about our club secretary.

I can't quite work that one out !

Most of the really positive and helpful comments on this forum have come from people who might become members, many times I have found the answer to my issues from "these" people.

Yes there has been some, disagreements, "welcome to the world!".

By all means have public sections in order to encourage interest in the club, but why should it *all* be public? I know of no club or organisation that is quite so prepared to discuss what are effectively internal matters with non-members.

As I have said before I will not restrict membership to this forum, there is no point arguing about it, just accept it and get on with your vivas.

Yes, I recall you saying that. You have spoken so I have to accept it.

A question :- when the new committee gets formed, and should they decide to make some or all of this forum private, would you go along with their decision?

John feel free to ban people you don't like on the Yahoo foum, then claim that as a member only zone. Enjoy!

Not sure I like the tone of that comment. In case you've forgotten Paul I don't have anything to do with the running of the yahoo group since I handed it over to you.


Paul, just to clarify a position for me. Was the orginal purpose of this forum to the be the "official" VVOC forum, or just *A* Viva owners club forum?

By some of your comments in this, and previous threads I seem to think that you're suggesting it's the latter. (I had the impression it was the former). In my opinion the requirements of managing the two types are quite different.

If this is just *A* viva owners forum then I'll just shut up. However perhaps consideration should be given to making it obvious that this is the case. (eg not embedding it in the VVOC site?)

John

[pbottomley]

I'm accusing one non-member in particular. One who has a particular axe to grind with the club in general, and Adrian in particular

Then take it away from here John, do it in private, we don't need it in public. I have spoken with Edd_v6 privately as you should do with the person who seems to of upset you. I would also encourage everyone to do the same if they have issues with people.

when the new committee gets formed, and should they decide to make some or all of this forum private, would you go along with their decision?

If I am doing the website and its still part of the viva owners club then YES

Was the original purpose of this forum to the be the "official" VVOC forum, or just *A* Viva owners club forum?

As far as I was concerned when I set up this forum it was for all Viva Owners, E.G. for the club members, but not exclusively for the club members. I took the approach of Club first and the rest of the people are just there to take from our club, over time and through experience I find its the wrong way to run the forum. the Non members make a massive contribution to this forum and without them this forum would be quiet place.

What I am doing to try to do is make MEMBERS understand that good ideas and comments have come from non members, most of the test driving of this forum has been done on the good will of non viva club members. Most help about fixing cars have come from non members, Most bargain parts have come from non members, I have had trailer trips of several 100's miles from non members giving there time to help a fellow viva owner. (you know who you are thanks a million yet again) To close the doors on that wealth of good will, when they can directly help to make our club a better place is wrong.

Maybe you have a good point about it being embedded into the viva owners web site. That I can change, but personally I think its a good idea to show that the club is willing to discus issues even if they seem negative. Its not a hard job (a few days and nights) to move it to another server, re code it as NOT THE VVOC and continue as is, and make a link to the forum with a re worded disclaimer.

John I realy value your comments, if we need to discuss this more lets make is private, so this thread doesnt drag on and on.

[jgwilliamson]

Then take it away from here John, do it in private, we don't need it in public.

Paul, this is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Where do club members go to discuss internal matters privately ? PM's only work on a one-to-one basis.

I have spoken with Edd_v6 privately

Glad to hear it.

If I am doing the website and its still part of the viva owners club then YES

Again, glad to hear it.

As far as I was concerned when I set up this forum it was for all Viva Owners, E.G. for the club members, but not exclusively for the club members. I took the approach of Club first and the rest of the people are just there to take from our club, over time and through experience I find its the wrong way to run the forum. the Non members make a massive contribution to this forum and without them this forum would be quiet place.

I agree with your point about non-members contribution and I would never suggest "locking" them out completely. As you and others have pointed out that would be counter-productive from the club's point of view. However I am still of the opinion that non-members should not have a right to come on this forum and pass derogatory comments about the club itself or individuals within the club.

John I realy value your comments, if we need to discuss this more lets make is private, so this thread doesnt drag on and on.

Agreed Paul. I (more than most) can appreciate the effort it takes to maintain a website and keep it up to date and interesting. I'll also be the first to congratulate you on the improvements you have made.
I'm happy to put this one to bed and get back to "Viva stuff"

Cheers,


John

[kellyharding]

A members only area is simply not possible currently.

This is down to the Data Protection Act. Adrian cannot provide membership details to Paul without breaking that act.

So there is therefore no way to determine who are actually members of the club and who aren't, other than on faith of people saying 'I am' or 'I'm not'.

Sadly there will always be the odd derogatory comment on any forum. It is a difficult matter to deal with, without it all flaring up and becoming a big fiasco.

In the end, the car is the star, not the owner!

Kelly

[jgwilliamson]

A members only area is simply not possible currently.

This is down to the Data Protection Act. Adrian cannot provide membership details to Paul without breaking that act.

Kelly

Kelly,

I'm really don't want to keep this thread going, but I thought I'd point out that your statement above is not entirely correct.

In the first place we already have a "members area" which is password protected. A new user name and password is issued with every club magazine. Putting a forum behind that same user and password is a 2 minute job. The downside of that approach however is that the whole forum would be "private"...hence why I have previously suggested that we run two.

Regarding membership details and the DPA....there will be some way for other individuals in the club to get access (eg by signing a Non Disclosure Agreement or similar). There has to be something like this if you think about it. How else is the new membership secretary (when we get one ) going to get sight of the members register?

I'm not 100% familiar with the functionality of phpBB, but I do know other BB packages allow for the delegation of the forum administration. The "management" of a private member's section doesn't all have to fall on Paul shoulder's if it is decided to have one.

So what I'm saying is that if we want one (ie a private members area) we can have one. If other club's can manage to do this, so can we. It's not rocket science.

Regards

John

[pbottomley]

Im going to close the thread after this comment:

phpbb passwords are user specific not site specific, so it would not be possible to have an area that had one username and password, if that were the case it would of been done ages ago !!!!

permissions however are given at a user level or a group level, so I could create a members group and a non members group, but that comes back to the old who is a members and who is not again.

As kelly says re using members information from the club membership details for other purposes than its original intention is breaking the data protection act. A good example is to use it to verify who is a memebr on this website. As the host is outside the EU, it has serious ramifications.

I did ask sometime ago to change the membership forms asking permission to allow the webmaster to use their details to verify if they are a fee paying member or not. seen nothing so far.

So as it stands its a free forum because there is no way to manage it without breaking the law, on data usage, so all the arguing about close it to members is somewhat irrelivent.

Hopefully the new mebership sec (who ever takes the role) will look at this and give some help.