Great Western Coffee Shop

Many thanks for that link, Lee ... a little light reading  ;) ... see you when I surface!

Edit to add - What a long URL - mirror at http://gwr.passenger.chat/gwf_consult_output.pdf

Four Members of Parliament, who responded on behalf of their constituents, expressed the view that the Heart of Wessex route should be transferred to South Western franchise. This view was supported by a councillor and several other consultation respondents.

Considering we've just had the GWR franchise consultation report, I think the morons suggesting this should foxtrot oscar!  Don't the DFT have anything better to do then keep going on about splitting up the GWR franchise?

Over the past few days, I have been seeing footage of the late Senator John McCain on the TV.   At a rally when he was running against Barrack Obama for president, a lady in the audience used a term similar to 'moron' to describe Barrack Obama. And what did John McCain do?   He turned to the lady and said "Mr Obama is an honourable and well reasoned man.  I happen to disagree with many of his conclusions, and that is why I am running against him, but I have a deep respect for him and will not accept his being decribed as you did".

Members on this forum are very welcome to discuss and disagree with others - those here and those who are not here to speak for themselves.  But this is not somewhere to hurl personal insults. Please by the wise man who puts his case and commands respect, and not the person in the audience who by their own words belittles their own view.

If you'd properly read my comments Grahame I wasn't referring to anyone on this forum and was actually referring to those in the Dft, I should have made that more clearer.

Thank you for that confirmation ... it could have been taken two ways.  Having said which, I have to take a bit of a stand and suggest that neither the description nor wording for description is really appropriate for the people who staff the DfT either.   

I happen to strongly agree with you on splitting the franchise ... I'm a little less sure about moving lines and / or services around the border between franchise as things develop and journey patterns and frequencies change over the years.

Considering that they oversaw the GWR electrification, IEP introduction, GWR fleet loses to Scotrail/Northern and several other failures, I think ill stand by my wording if thats ok. 

What is acceptable language and style on "The Coffeeshop"?

A brief guide for new posters, who should remember that this forum can be read by anyone and everyone, including children, the train company we travel with (or in the case of Melksham WISH to travel with), and groups and individuals who we may criticise .. and who we may wish to talk to and work with in the future.

Language

1. The words that "I can't bring myself to type" - you know the ones, I'm sure - certainly are out. And, no, I am not coming up with a list.

2. The "arse", "scum", "bastard", "moron" level - certainly out when used to refer to a member, an identifiable person, or one of a small group of people. Probably out too when used to talk about larger groups - a very slightly grey area there.  But some of these words have to be acceptable in their original meaning. "They was a horrid scum on the coffee I was served in the buffet at Dilton Marsh station" has to be AOK.

3. Calling an identified peron a "silly cow" or "twit" starts getting even more questionable.  Again I would say "no" when an identified person, but the team behind the scenes does not wish to drive you to come up with colourful new phrases which might be even more difficult to moderate.

4. It has to be a case by case basis with many of the lesser terms and content which may offend by its combination of totally innocent words.  I personally found a comment that I felt to be sarcastic referring to me as "his holyness" to be offensive, although I let it go by without comment at the time as it provided me with a userful reminder of my place.  And that also reminded me just how many others may be offended from time to time, but not say anything!

The moderation team takes a delight in the fact that there a number of us moderating. Any poster who seriously transgressed the acceptable level of any one of the group may get asked to change his/her language (or have it changed), so we cannot be 100% predictable and people should if in doubt, leave it out

Style

a. I would like to discourage the use of texting language as it's not universally understood. We have a common language in English and we're talking about a British company and operation in England and Wales - so really we should all stick to posts in standard English to be universally understood by our readers.

b. Please try to cut down on the number of acronyms you use - we DO have an acronym page (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/acronyms.html) on which I try to list them all as they come up, but at times I get my GOSW mixed up with my GOBLs - so what must it do to the newcomers?   If you introduce an acronym to make your post less verbose, please define it the first time in full.

c. Whilst we don't wish to go round and round (and round and round) the same subject in a thread, remember that we are rapidly growing and that there are many newcomers here all the time - and guests, and people who find our pages via search engines.  So you are encouraged to go back to basics, provide full explanations, re-open matters that we discussed a couple of months back, and should NOT assume that everyone is up to speed. Established posters - if you see a subject repeating itself in a short timescale, please help us by adding a link back to the old subject so that we can keep "churning" at acceptable levels.

In spite of the comments above, the general approach to moderation is a "lighter touch" with moderators very much looking to facilitate the use and usefullness of the board.  Typically, we will NOT jump in and correct spellings nor grammatical errors, nor alter posts that we feel could have been explained better in another way - after all, it's your forum. We may point out via a personal message that a post could be understood in two different ways if we feel there could be a chance the original poster didn't realise this. As a "backstop" we (or rather I as the administrator) have a legal responsibility to act on posts that are (or may be considered) indecent, incite hatred, incite illegal actions, break copyright laws, are libellous and a whole host of other things which - thank you everyone - are very rare indeed here.

Claims of authority to represent

From time to time, new members claim to represent or work for a company or an organisation in the rail business, or to be a well known person, but then that claim turns out to be false.  If you want to do that - sorry - it's not allowed; it's against the very first sentence of the forum agreement that you have to accept to post here (top of this thread). It's a very serious matter to pretend to represent an organisation you don't represent; it's also serious to pretend to work for someone when you don't. 

We've always checked posts that are potentially false in this way, and how we make those checks has been tested and honed pretty well now. That's fantastic news for everyone else, as it means that official ans staff posts have that greater validity - something of a stamp of authority.

At that time the Weymouth's terminated at Bristol

12:51 Great Malvern to Weymouth due 17:10
12:51 Great Malvern to Weymouth due 17:10 was started from Worcester Shrub Hill and will be terminated at Bristol Temple Meads.
It will no longer call at Great Malvern, Malvern Link, Worcester Foregate Street, Keynsham, Oldfield Park, Bath Spa, Freshford, Avoncliff, Bradford-On-Avon, Trowbridge, Westbury, Frome, Bruton, Castle Cary, Yeovil Pen Mill, Thornford, Yetminster, Chetnole, Maiden Newton, Dorchester West, Upwey and Weymouth.
It has been previously delayed, has been further delayed at Cheltenham Spa and is now 23 minutes late.
This is due to sheep on the railway.

It would make more sense, it would also allow for a more frequent timetable.