Great Western Coffee Shop

This is a forum. A wide variety of views is welcome - basically anything that is legal, decent and honest. You can read that policy in many more words in the pinned thread at http://gwr.passenger.chat/1761 . If you do not agree with a view, you are allowed to (indeed encouraged) to post your alternative view. You can choose to do so in a positive way to promote your position, in a negative way in pointing out the holes in the view you have read here, or as a comparative.

As an administrator here, I am very careful to differentiate my personal view from anything which may be taken as an official view of the forum. For example, the other day I prefaced what I wrote with:
and within the post emphasised that:
This from ((here)) (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=2338.msg280953#msg280953) when expressing my own views – as currently held without deep techical knowledge on an alternative rail route to Plymouth from Exeter.

My signature has – since last summer – read as follows:
It has been brought to my attention that the personal views I expressed in the thread are not the same as work done at RailFuture. In order to avoid any future confusion, I have amended my signature to
The way the forum works that amendment now appears below all my posts – historic and new.

My position is an elected one at Railfuture, and I am not standing for re-election, so I will no longer be on the board there after 27th June. I have no authority at Railfuture to speak on their behalf without prior clearance, which I did not have in making my personal comments.  I hope the change to my signature, and this post, helps clear that up. To clarify further, my decision not to stand for re-election was taken some time back and is not made based on this single situation.  I remain very much in line with Railfuture’s objectives and will remain a supportive member for the foreseeable future.

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Back to the top … “all” views welcome here – even if they disagree with the moderator team’s (or mine).  My personal view is that by discussing a wide variety of views on a subject – especially when we’re looking ahead beyond the short term – we strengthen understanding and help ensure that options finally chosen are not only good ones, but the best.

It might be worth adding to the above that members here are encouraged to post their disagreement to a view by explaining/posting their own view, rather than simply stating that they disagree.

I added that it a personal reply to an email that triggered the thread, with an encouragement to explain and post alternative views. Those alternative views are also (already) in my inbox and I should be able to share them in this specific case, but it's far, far better for people to post for themselves.