Now I'm annoyed...

Why is the policy there? Simple, because IFAS do not have the right to tell people they need to use any particular opperating system or to buy any aprticular software to access our site. It is about GIVING the users the freedom not to use a particualr OS or a particualr piece of software!

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point Bart.

Why is the policy there? Simple, because IFAS do not have the right to tell people they need to use any particular opperating system or to buy any aprticular software to access our site. It is about GIVING the users the freedom not to use a particualr OS or a particualr piece of software!

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point Bart.

As long as people realise that that is the motivation behind this and that it is not my personal petty anti-MS thing I'm happy to agree to dissagree on this.

OK lads...we're slowly making progress privately so can we just refrain from posting messages in this topic for the mo. We don't want it locked, just for people to honour a simple request. The less that is said about this on the boards at the moment the better.
After we sort out the current "situation", we hope to draw up procedures to ensure we don't get a repeat of this.
For the moment though, just keep going with the astronomy threads.

Thanks.

Evening All,

As an Admin:
With the thread locked, I did post a message inviting people to post their ideas on new forums that Bart created. I did this to encourage people to contribute who may have been put off by the technical nature of the previous thread, and phrased it to try to defuse tension. I apologised on the first line of that post, it seemed the right thing to do at the time, however posting to a locked thread was the wrong thing to do, sorry, I apologise. Some people took further serious exception to the post, taking it to mean that I supported this action and was not supporting Dave's rights to free speech, this was not
intended and I apolgise again for the post.

As IFAS Chair:
Dave had asked explicitly for me to intervene, but the manner I did wasn't fruitful and may have matters worse, so Dave I apologise for letting you down there. What I want to try to do now is make sure that we don't end up with this situation again. To that end the moderators and club reps are working on some, well, protocols is probably the best word at the moment, and we'll be letting you know more about that shortly. Part of that will include a defined appeals process.

Best Wishes,
~Al

Albert/Bart,

A quick word of thanks, that is a generous gesture and it's much appreciated.

However... I'm kidding- don't kill me

For those of you who have not been privvy to the behind the scenes workings I think it is important to let you know both Al and Bart have been gentlemen and that this is a genuine resolution, not a handshake though gritted teeth.

For my part I want to apologise to the both of them if I have caused any offence.

Sincerely, thank you both.
Dave P

Cheers Dave, much appreciated .... now we can get back to the whole Astronomy thing!