It has come to my attention that innacurate/ill-informed statements have been made on this Forum regarding my website, the LTDF (
www.londontaxiforum.co.uk).
I know the individual concerned (GBC), not personally, but from experience of his/her antics on said website that he/she frequents from time to time. Let me address the points in turn:
1. GBC claims to have "exposed a security glitch" in the site which allows multiple registrations from the same IP address. First off, I don't 'own' the host server of the Messageboard software (Proboards), so I do not have ultimate control over security policy to that degree. However, as has been stated by another contributor on this thread, it is difficult to restrict multiple registrations based on IP address because unless everyone who uses the Internet has Static IP addresses and not dynamically assigned IP Addresses (as is the case with AOL users for example), then you run the risk of preventing perfectly legitimate people (i.e. people who are NOT trying to be devious) from signing up. In any event, to be perfectly honest it never crossed my mind that anyone would be so pathetic as to want to sign up with multiple names and then simultaneously contribute under those different guises, because it seems so immature as to be beyond belief. So it is not a 'security glitch', it is purely treating potential users like adults and not kids in a playground (and I apologise if that is disrespectful to kids in playgrounds who in the main are probably all above such behaviour anyway).
2. There seems to be a fair deal of criticism of LTDF from GBC in terms of the number of members we have as if in some way this is a shortcoming of some kind. Let me put some perspective on this. The TDO is a NATIONAL Taxi drivers forum, LTDF primarily exists for LONDON Taxi drivers (hence the name LONDON Taxi Drivers Forum; having said that we welcome input from and indeed posess members from all corners of the UK as well as both retired cabbies and lurkers from non-cab-driving backgounds!). So straight off we have a less ambitious target audience for our membership. At present, we have virtually 1000 sign-ups, which roughly translates to 5% of the entire number of London Taxi drivers in existence (if you take the rough calculation of there being 20000 london taxi drivers). This in less than 2 years. TDO has been in existence for SIX YEARS and what percentage of National Taxi drivers are signed up to TDO? I can't find the total membership of this site and I don't know the total number of taxi drivers in the UK, but if its more than 5% then thats great work and I commend the site. I don't intend this as a criticism of this site in any way, I have no axe to grind with it whatsoever and it seems like a very good website, but I am just using this to illustrate that you can't compare numbers on LTDF and this site (if indeed that is how GBC arrives at the reasoning for his criticism of our number) like-for-like. But what you should bear in mind is and I reiterate, LTDF is a very young venture, less than 2 years, but has already attracted around 5% of its target market.
3. GBC implies that some of his contributions to LTDF have been removed. This is utterly incorrect. The only instances where moderation is performed on our site are where
a) Improper or inflammatory language is used in which case that language is censored but the post is not removed (unless the entire post is of course improper).
b) A post is placed in the wrong category on the board in which case it is moved, intact, to the correct place.
I am the Administrator of LTDF and as such I and I alone have access to the Security Log for my Forum. The moderators of the site do not have such access. Therefore if any improper moderation (in my opinion) is carried out I can see it when I regularly review the Security Log. This Log records EVERYTHING that happens on the site (as you will see later GBC) therefore if any posts are removed improperly I will know about it. I can categorically state this has not happened and if you wish I can provide you with a copy of the Log to see for yourself (although you best have a week free to read it as its massive!).
Ok, so thats the main points for clarification out of the way, let me now address GBC's comment about "attack the poster, not the content".... GBC, does this ring any bells....
Mar 4, 2009, 6:19pm addylee 195.93.21.8 addylee smited disgruntled.
Mar 4, 2009, 6:18pm surrey 195.93.21.8 surrey smited disgruntled.
Mar 4, 2009, 6:17pm londoncabbie 195.93.21.8 londoncabbie smited disgruntled.
Mar 4, 2009, 2:32pm addylee 195.93.21.8 addylee smited disgruntled.
Mar 4, 2009, 2:29pm boboddy 195.93.21.8 boboddy smited disgruntled.
Mar 4, 2009, 2:07pm gbc 195.93.21.8 gbc smited disgruntled.
For those of you unfamiliar with the 'smiting' referred to, Proboards has a concept whereby you are able to effectively register your agreement or disagreement with a post by what is called 'Karma'. Therefore over time, various users of the board will build up either a positive or negative Karma depending on how may people 'smite' and/or 'exalt' their posts. So obviously someone with a Karma of -100 would be considered someone that not many people agree with most of the time! Its not a massively serious aspect of the site I admit, but it is one that people participate in nonetheless (some more than others apparently). Anyhow, I digress.
The above are extracts from the Forum security log (just two examples, there are plenty more but this gives you the gist) and whilst I said nothing at the time about it, (despite the rather personal and spiteful nature of it, to be honest I found the whole thing laughable and quite pathetic) I feel that given the comment about "attack the poster, not the content" made by GBC, the hypocrisy inherent in that individual making that statement needed exposing. The users 'addylee', 'surrey', 'londoncabbie' and 'boboddy' are all users (as well as a few others) registered under the same email address as, you guessed it, GBC. And, as you can only issue Karma submissions once every hour, this individual went to the trouble of logging in under each of his/her personas in order to rack up negative feeling toward AN INDIVIDUAL. So you can see that for GBC to lecture people about 'attacking individuals rather than content' is quite laughable. Really, is this the behaviour of an adult? Good grief, surely you have better things to do. Or perhaps not, either way there is maybe something missing in a person's life to behave in such a way.
As I said, up to this point it made me chuckle and roll my eyes, but when you start accusing others of the very things of which you are a master proponent, its time to let the cat out of the bag I think and open people's eyes to a few cold facts.
I don't intend further contribution to this thread on this subject regardless of whether GBC wishes to respond as I have no real interest in the kind of slanging matches that he/she seems to revel in. I just wanted to set the record straight on a few things and add a degree of balance to the comments made.
Its a shame really because from my experience GBC has had very pertinent and valuable contributions to make when he/she was on LTDF, however, any credibility he/she gained is destroyed by the utter immaturity shown by some of this behaviour.
Good luck to all and sundry on this site, at the end of the day we're all cab drivers whether that be London or Leicester, Dublin or Derby and we need to be focused on important issues if we want to further our Trade, not indulge in petty behaviour that does no-one any favours.
Ta-ra.
PS - GBC for your info, there are still no limitations on you re-joining LTDF if you wish, to do so would invalidate the concept of free speech which is a cornerstone of any Forum for debate.
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