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RE: Benedique

Tom

TS Member
Benedique said:
I'd just like to clear this up, as ex team members are remaining professional and polite over the whole thing. There have been many issues in the past and as somebody has said, this seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back. The following views are completely my own conclusions and I'm not representing any ex team member with anything that I say. These are views that I have formed myself from things that I have witnessed firsthand during my three years on TTF.

As has already been said the ex team put their heart and soul in to the forum, I even know that Craig (he's not alone but just as an example) has stayed up for 24 hours solid (and now gone to work for a 12 hour shift) just so he could ensure, along with others, that the teams leaving statement was finalised rather than leaving you all without an explanation.

I don't mean to drag the person into this but Chris-TT added somebody to the team overnight without telling anybody. That person was given access to everything on the forum including team topics that contained sensitive information and discussion. Usually the adddition of a team member is discussed fully and team topics are vetted before that member is given access. Over 30 people applied for a team position, many of whom have spent years contributing daily to discussion and many had spent hours on their applications. (Again no offence to the person involved) somebody was added to the team without any discussion, decision or otherwise from the team (the people who have built and maintained this site for years). It's my understanding, and again I'm not speaking on their behalf just giving my understanding of it, that the team offered to discuss the issue with Chris however they were told more or less to just deal with it.

If the team don't put their foot down, where is the line drawn? Just because somebody pays for a site and contributes little else to it, does it give them the right to undermine the decisions of a team and do whatever they like? I myself have seen posts by Chris on Twitter hinting at selling TowersTimes in the past, that's not to say that he would, but it's hardly the solid and safe community that team members have spent years creating.

Every news article that you read on here has been written by an ex team member, every link you click has been coded by an ex team member. They are the people who have spent hours and hours of their own time creating a community, I guess they have all decided that they want to protect their work and they don't want just anybody (not a dig at the person involved) to be added to the team without some kind of say, nor do they want the fear of the website being sold to somebody who could completely destroy their hours of hard work. In a nutshell the team seem to have taken the decision to be a 'team' and to govern their own hard work.

It seems an extreme example but how would you feel if a friend invited you to live in their house? You spend years decorating it/cleaning it every single day for your friend to then hint at selling it and also, move someone else in without consulting you. You probably don't mind living with them but it's not the point, imagine waking up to find a stranger wandering around your house with access to your bedroom and belongings. When you query It with your friend you're told to basically deal with it as you don't have an option. As far as your concerned, it's your home and it's your hard work that's gone in to making it what it is. Wouldn't you say enough is enough and move out in to a home that you own yourself, if you were given the option? No threat of eviction, no worries about hard work being destroyed, no waking up to find strangers wandering around?

The announcement thread was just deleted again so I'd like this on record here:

Thank you for that detailed explanation.

My original post in this topic stated how it seemed based on the information available.

People said I didn't know everything and that is certainly correct, but you have to consider how all this came across to many people (probably a majority in all honesty - think of the lurkers).

I apologise for nothing but given that all of the insults towards me, on here, in the chat and shout boxes were all started by others first. Some people really do need to take a step back and look at how over-emotional they are towards someone they have never met. I didn't have the whole story and yes, for those smart enough to realise, I was playing devil's advocate.

Thanks again :)
 
Good of you to write out such a detailed explanation. Fully agree with the decision, not been on TT for too long but I can understand why you all made the decision. :)
 
You may have thought you were 'playing devil's advocate', but actually you came across as gauche and ill-informed.

I take you point about the information given to you, but when I don't have all the information to hand and it's obviously concerning a difficult decision that people have made, I tend to keep schtum at the risk of being told I don't know what I'm talking about.

I'll apologise for swearing at you, but you should respect the fact that it's not "just an internet forum" for me. In fact, I couldn't give a stuff about the forum, but I know the people and I know the work that they've put in, and I found your posts (and others) to be be crass, ingrateful and insensitive, considering the time and effort that those people - who, additionally, I know in a personal capacity - have put into to creating the community.
 
This topic has actually made my night, out of all things. I'm glad everyone is seeing the same page here. :)
 
Simon said:
You may have thought you were 'playing devil's advocate', but actually you came across as gauche and ill-informed.

I take you point about the information given to you, but when I don't have all the information to hand and it's obviously concerning a difficult decision that people have made, I tend to keep schtum at the risk of being told I don't know what I'm talking about.

I'll apologise for swearing at you, but you should respect the fact that it's not "just an internet forum" for me. In fact, I couldn't give a stuff about the forum, but I know the people and I know the work that they've put in, and I found your posts (and others) to be be crass, ingrateful and insensitive, considering the time and effort that those people - who, additionally, I know in a personal capacity - have put into to creating the community.

Thanks and I apologise for retaliation and dog'n'boneism. I just didn't read anything as detailed about past events until Benedique's explanation, but I will have missed things across the whole topic for sure.

I'm not going to continue arguing - but how things come across not actually being fact is my point as well as yours. :)
 
I was myself a member of the team for a period last year, and I hope Craig and other team members don't mind me sharing this anecdote about how out-of-touch the ownership of TowersTimes was, from the team which did everything they could to develop and lead the community.

Around early summer last year, the team were pulling out all the stops to build a good relationship with Alton Towers. However, you may have noticed that at points last year, a Twitter account posing as TowersTimes - whilst not the 'official' account - was spamming users on Twitter whenever somebody mentioned the words 'Alton Towers'. We had been contacted by representatives at Towers several times about this spam - at first, the team actually thought it was someone impersonating TowersTimes and went through a lengthy process with Twitter to try and get the account shut down. It soon emerged that the account was, in fact, registered to a TT email address. Only then did Chris-TT own up to running the account, sending the messages automatically to try and drive more traffic to the site, presumably to increase his advertising revenue. I recall this putting quite a strain on our relationship between TTF and Alton Towers, but despite this it seemed to be a lengthy struggle between the Chris and the team in the staff forums before the automatic spam was turned off.

These sorts of things happened every now and again, and it was irritating. It was also quite demotivating as a team member to feel that any time you were giving to help build a community could be simply pulled from under your feet whenever Chris had a new money-making opportunity he wanted to give a try.
 
Adam said:
This topic has actually made my night, out of all things. I'm glad everyone is seeing the same page here. :)

Adam, I think you are the only person here that has actually met me. I am not your classic keyboard warrior, but I am certainly capable of being argumentative in real life. But with facial expression and tone in actual conversations removing any doubt about people's intentions, I am 99% of the time quite laid back (as I hope you'll agree)!
 
Jordan said:
I was myself a member of the team for a period last year, and I hope Craig and other team members don't mind me sharing this anecdote about how out-of-touch the ownership of TowersTimes was, from the team which did everything they could to develop and lead the community.

Around early summer last year, the team were pulling out all the stops to build a good relationship with Alton Towers. However, you may have noticed that at points last year, a Twitter account posing as TowersTimes - whilst not the 'official' account - was spamming users on Twitter whenever somebody mentioned the words 'Alton Towers'. We had been contacted by representatives at Towers several times about this spam - at first, the team actually thought it was someone impersonating TowersTimes and went through a lengthy process with Twitter to try and get the account shut down. It soon emerged that the account was, in fact, registered to a TT email address. Only then did Chris-TT own up to running the account, sending the messages automatically to try and drive more traffic to the site, presumably to increase his advertising revenue. I recall this putting quite a strain on our relationship between TTF and Alton Towers, but despite this it seemed to be a lengthy struggle between the Chris and the team in the staff forums before the automatic spam was turned off.

These sorts of things happened every now and again, and it was irritating. It was also quite demotivating as a team member to feel that any time you were giving to help build a community could be simply pulled from under your feet whenever Chris had a new money-making opportunity he wanted to give a try.

That has really opened my eyes more about what happened, never knew it was that bad... thanks for letting us know though!
 
Tom said:
Adam said:
This topic has actually made my night, out of all things. I'm glad everyone is seeing the same page here. :)

Adam, I think you are the only person here that has actually met me. I am not your classic keyboard warrior, but I am certainly capable of being argumentative in real life. But with facial expression and tone in actual conversations removing any doubt about people's intentions, I am 99% of the time quite laid back (as I hope you'll agree)!

Definitely agree there - sometimes I wish emotions expressed through forum language (such as sarcasm and jokeyness) were easier to read myself. :p
 
Thanks for sharing this, as you've found via Jordan's post - there is so much under the surface that the team have protected you all from. I just wanted to stick up for them and all their hard work!
 
I had written it out as a reply to you, but the thread was deleted at the time which irritated me a great deal. However, luckily I was able to hit back and copy it for here!
 
That was a decent post, Dom. I haven't really kept up with what was going on so that explained a lot. I understand why the team feel the way they do, it's just a bit of a shame that it had to happen like this!

That said, I'm so glad about how close everyone is for this to work out rather than a divide within the team. I would be distraught if I could never see you all again in one place at one time all happy to see each other.

All the best from me. No doubt I'll see you all soon! It's been far too long!

Mankey
x
 
What is actually the point of playing devil's advocate here?

Devil's advocate is for when you're having an abstract and theoretical debate about something, and think that the arguments of the opposing view may be illuminating. This is a very real incident where someone awful has done something bad for selfish reasons and wrecked a community in the process.

Playing devil's advocate is pointless, harmful to our cause, and upsetting to the people whose many years of hard work this man has ruined.
 
Sam said:
What is actually the point of playing devil's advocate here?

Devil's advocate is for when you're having an abstract and theoretical debate about something, and think that the arguments of the opposing view may be illuminating. This is a very real incident where someone awful has done something bad for selfish reasons and wrecked a community in the process.

Playing devil's advocate is pointless, harmful to our cause, and upsetting to the people whose many years of hard work this man has ruined.

This post was made to admit my flaws and express thanks to Benedique for being the only person to provide a comprehsnive explanation for those outside of the 'inner circle'. I don't want to debate this three days later and have it turned it into another argument thread.
 
Tom said:
But I'm not interested in debating this three days later and turning it into another argument thread.

Sam, you know I love you, but I have to agree with Tom here. Oblique as the apology was, it still was one.
 
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