BritCaster - let’s put the record straight
Published by on December 7th, 2006
Everywhere I look these days it is reported that primary reason we decided to close the BritCaster forums is lack of time. This is actually a minor part of the real picture and the one element we could have easily overcome. The others were insurmountable.
Time is precious
Community forums - despite ‘community’ not being part of the original concept when BritCaster itself was created, that’s just how it evolved - take time and energy to maintain, spammers being the biggest productivity disrupting burden. Spreading the load was not an option because of a lack of confidence in the commitment of those very few genuinely willing to help out. Some that had helped during holiday or break time had felt the strain after just a few days. What strain? Spammers are just an admin tasks a few times a day, button pushing. Negativity and imposed political posturing are much tougher to handle (and we didn’t always get it right) and they do not merely occur in the public forum space; we have stored emails and instant messages to demonstrate that, many abusive. Put simply, if it were merely down to spam moderation and general admin, the forums would not be closing.
Dysfunctional Family
I doubt many regular visitors (contributor or lurker) would deny the growing perception that negativity was outweighing value. Particularly over the past 6 months or so, there has been an accelerating negativity which not always involved the forum moderators but which far too regularly got down to hurling personal insults as egos and insecurities clashed.
Stagnating creativity
The increasing negativity turned a valuable resource and idea exchange into a soap opera. I had received many comments that the forums had become an essential daily visit to watch the latest spat between conflicting attitudes, but each time I heard that it crystallised the decrease in genuine productive value. The perception - based on incoming links and mentions around the web which we have monitored - was that BritCaster was the place for morbid entertainment.
Another very common message was that people had not bothered to create anything of real worth outside of BritCaster purely because BritCaster already existed and had prominence - mainly due to its age. BritCaster community as it had become, was by its very existence, stunting development of community-focused ideas and projects. I have always maintained that there is plenty of room in podcasting at all levels, yet BritCaster as a community, seemed to be perceived as a blocking force to other activity.
Can you see what it is yet?
If you aren’t seeing the thread by now then you have not read the above clearly: the main underlying reason for closure was the increasing rate of negative energy being aimed directly at us, the moderators, resulting disruption to our day to day personal life and severely decreased value of the forum to contributors and visitors.
The last straw? A tantrum of a discussion concerning long-standing common family-friendly forum moderation policies. Though by no means the only reason, it did - once again - highlight that things were continuing on a downward trend. We never set out to become THE community for British podcasting, but the positive reasons for keeping BritCaster Forums going were becoming more often eclipsed by the negative. As private individuals, we decided that kind of site was not one we wanted to maintain or watch degrade further.
I sincerely hope that the newly created spaces currently being established here and here do not ultimately succumb to the same fate. Let’s all learn the lessons and build something with real staying power.
Posts which provided the impetus to correct the ever more widely reported opinions on the forum closure:
http://www.bloggernews.net/12631
http://blog.tartan.pnohosting.ca/?p=42 (comments in particular)
http://www.podcastpointer.com/podcasting/podcasting/britcaster-podcast-forum.html
http://www.utahpodcasters.com/2006/12/05/britcaster-podcast-forum-closing/
http://www.podcastingnews.com/2006/12/04/britcaster-podcast-forum-closing/
Other, more accurately reported posts:
http://www.podcastfresh.com/2006/12/farewell-to-britcaster-podcast-forum/
http://www.blog-relations.com/2006/12/02/briticaster-forum-closes/
NOTE: If this post raises a few hackles and starts some final heated discussions, then so be it - this is not a time to bury heads in sand and ignore the lessons which need to be learned from BritCaster’s lifespan by those vying to be the new focus of UK podcast community. There are only a few days left until the forums become read-only archives. After this time I will make no further comment or enter into discussion regarding the circumstances as it must be by that time, in my opinon, all over and done with, chapter ends, time to move on.
[tags]britcaster,podcasting,forum,community[/tags]
13 Responses to “BritCaster - let’s put the record straight”
Hey Neil:
“BritCaster already existed and had prominence - mainly due to its age. BritCaster community as it had become, was by its very existence, stunting development of community-focused ideas and projects.”
No, it wasn’t. There were, and are, plenty of good community projects which didn’t come from or rely on Britcaster. So, I don’t go with this p.o.v.
Plus, although you and others have adamantly denied it, running PodShow is a huge task, fraught with organisational problems, it’s not been 100% smooth, and while I sympathise with the enormity of the task and its demands, you have been running into difficulties with that too, which have had repercussions and created several personal frictions - I write with my own experience of this, and first-hand knowledge of others. I would expect this in any new organisation - but it is foolish to pretend otherwise.
The reason I am writing this is that you still insist on listing my article as inaccurate - which it isn’t.
You could be more honest and admit that PodShow and the fallout from there played it’s part - which it very definitely did - instead of pointing the finger vaguely at “certain elements” in the forum, and blaming other people. Then you might go some of the way to restoring trust, the evaporation of which in the end, was the underlying reason that Britcaster became unmanageable.
Love,
Dr Deek.
Dean, I work no more hours per week
nowfor PodShow than I did as a freelancer. The PodShow workload is a minor element and in fact the nature of the work means my overall daily stress levels are significantly lower than previously, therfore the workload is actually easier to handle.Your assumption that PodShow is a significant element in BC’s closure is incorrect.
What irritates me is the use of both BritCaster and Podshow in the articles to draw attention to the formation of National Grid/UKPF. Cheap trick to raise awareness of the UKPA-run forums, especially when Podshow had nothing to do with the BritCaster Forums closure. Hell, if things were rosy with the threads and Neil wanted to cease his involvement due to his PS commitment, then I could’ve run BC on my own (and likely pull in a few trusted moderators). Truth is, negativity won. Good job for being a part of it.
But, guys: you never did answer this:
“Plus, although you and others have adamantly denied it, running PodShow is a huge task, fraught with organisational problems, it’s not been 100% smooth, and while I sympathise with the enormity of the task and its demands, you have been running into difficulties with that too, which have had repercussions and created several personal frictions - I write with my own experience of this, and first-hand knowledge of others. I would expect this in any new organisation - but it is foolish to pretend otherwise.”
Any negative responses ought to be seen in this context - and so my article was perfectly fair.
But for the fact that a certain colleague of yours decided to “expose” my article in our new forum, it would have quietly died. If I was so wrong - why all the fuss?
FYI - “UKPA-run forums” - it isn’t. See your own TaP thread about it.
I’m not going to address your personal frustrations regarding PodShow. My day-to-day perception from the inside is, not surprisingly, very different to yours from the outside.
Dean, you are the only person determined to make the sole connection between BritCaster closing and my involvement with PodShow. If others are making that assumption, apart from those lifting information from your ‘article’, then point me in that direction.
You’re starting to sound like a man obsessed.
I would have throught you’d be pleased BritCaster forums are closing because that gives you (and others) the opportunity to build a forum community yourselves, be even more actively involved in community goings-on, and whether or not it were based, funded, run by or on the behalf of UKPA is irrelevant - it can only act as positive community PR related to the UK Podcasters Association.
Let it go. Move on. Just let it go. There are more important things in life to get worked-up over, this is not one of them.
How many hours have been lost going over the ins and outs of this? Drop it. Onwards and upwards, eh?
Dean:
“A new UK Community Podcast forum, National Grid, has been set up by the UK Podcasters Association. National Grid is UK-centric but open to podcasters from any country.”
This is a quote from the article you wrote for Blogger News Network. Seemed clear enough.
http://www.bloggernews.net/12631/
I agree with you, Pete. This stuff was bad enough on the forums… * sigh *
“Let’s all learn the lessons and build something with real staying power.” - the only way that will happen is if you assume that
a. I am sane, not obsessed, and not malevolent, and
b. that since I have not given up and gone away, maybe, just maybe, I am making valid points which deserve more than sarcasm.
Pete: This is not a forum, and you are not being misrepresented here - but I am. When (if) the time comes that you get a public slagging, I will expect that you have the right to be heard.
This is why I feel I should speak: “The last straw? A tantrum of a discussion concerning long-standing common family-friendly forum moderation policies.”
So, Neil is saying that because I asked not to be censored, he threw in the towel ? I really don’t think that is true, and if you persist in repeating it, I will continue to say otherwise.
Neil: “Dean, you are the only person determined to make the sole connection between BritCaster closing and my involvement with PodShow.”
No, I am not, I am a person who wrote it down, and that is all.
and: “I’m not going to address your personal frustrations regarding PodShow.” - that, Neil, is because to do so would expose you. Which despite my article, I have not done…
Jen: Read this: http://teaandpodcasts.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=30&Focus=582#Item_22
Mr. Whitbread, all this really isn’t doing you any favours. The more you post here, the more you draw attention to the whole issue.
With a new forum, a podcast directory, a podcast aggregator, a UK Podcasters Association (UKPA) in addition to creating and promoting products such as the John Cleese podcasts - plus I suspect a whole world of other commercial and creative activities - I’m surprised you have so much time on your hands to keep this running and you certainly have far more important and positive things to do than this.
As I’ve said to you in the past, it’s all out there for people to read. The small minority who care will be able to make their own minds up.
You are disingenous even to your last comment: “it’s all out there for people to read.” It’s also here in your blog for people to read, which is why I am trying to put the record “straighter”.
I don’t mind that we have differences; I do mind the continual sniping, which continues even into the new TaP forum. I do mind that your mates spent a huge amount of energy/time muck spreading in my direction; and I mind that you are STILL making out that I am somehow to blame for your forum closing.
I’m a convenient fall guy, who dared to write down what he observed, and was promptly pilloried.
Mr Dixon, surely it is up to me to decide what does me favours. I’m 100% certain that your systematic blaming of me/other nameless individuals does you no favours.
Your forum closed because you wanted it to close. The fact of your employment elsewhere and the timing of the closure = putting two and two together. The problems that your new employer is experiencing are public knowledge.
Now - whatever I have written, or said, you have yet to convince me that the slagging I received is unconnected with my dealing with these issues together as a single piece of news. In fact, Jen is quite clear about this. But, for the umpteenth time, if I was so wrong, why all the fuss?
You are unconvinced, I have better things to do. Comments closed on this post.