Absolutely it's worse. AVF had a moderator who was constantly posting antisemitic stuff. There was also allegedly a direct intervention from Hope not Hate over the amount of antisemitism, which is why Stuart temporarily closed that thread in order to clean it up.The AV Forum is one of the nastiest out there at this point. I'd say it has far surpassed Digital Spy on that front.
I’m Jewish and always thought AVF was dodgy so I never went on it. I guess I have a sixth sense. It’s like gaydar but bad.Absolutely it's worse. AVF had a moderator who was constantly posting antisemitic stuff. There was also allegedly a direct intervention from Hope not Hate over the amount of antisemitism, which is why Stuart temporarily closed that thread in order to clean it up.
It's the politics section and the terrible moderation of that section that really drags the rest of the site down.I’m Jewish and always thought AVF was dodgy so I never went on it. I guess I have a sixth sense. It’s like gaydar but bad.
I had to have a look and my question is how the absolute fuck is occy still hanging in there (not that I ever had an issue with them)TJ Hooker
Recently bought the first 2 seasons off hooker, love that show. Pity they are not going to release the rest of the seasons.forums.digitalspy.com
Someone dared to bump an old thread.
You'd think it was on par with murderering a puppy the way the absolute saddos have responded to the, er, crime.
Not a mod in sight to even attempt to shut down the bullying, of course.
Overall I enjoyed my time on AVF but sadly it was becoming more and more like DS - as in, “HOW VERY DARE YOU HAVE A POLITICAL OPINION DIFFERENT TO OURS!” coming from ridiculously left wing members who love to gang up on anyone else. Even the site owner has no respect for anyone who doesn’t share his political opinions. And these are people who call themselves “liberal”. The irony!Now that most of the right wing posters have been banned from AVF, the raging lefties are going after a member named Rustybin. I guess they need a target to direct their hate at. Rusty is probably just left of centre and apparently voted for Starmer, but often brings a much needed rational point of view to the political discussions. He is getting ridiculed, and sometimes blatantly insulted, on the Trump thread (despite him being a Democrat supporter and a Trump critic) for trying to point out that the US will not turn into a dictatorship just because Trump is in charge. Several posters aren't happy that Rusty is still planning to take a couple of holidays in the US this year, some of the climate obsessives just can't accept that he flies full stop, some even believe that the US should be treated like South Africa during the apartheid era while Trump is in charge and is definitely not a country to visit!!
Today on the UK DWP benefits thread, Rusty is trying to argue that quite a few people are cheating the system and this seems to have offended some of the regulars. A poster named Lynx posted this. "RustyBin, go and have a wee lie down to get your blood pressure lowered". A comment like this appears to breach AVF rules, even worse when you consider that Lynx happens to be one of the moderators!
I tried to find that thread again at a later date for reference but I couldn’t find it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was deleted. It was obvious to me that the site owner reads people’s private messages for entertainment, and on this occasion got confused, thought it was a forum thread and so replied, and then got busted.
Shame, cos aside from the weird site owner and some annoying, ignorant forum members, there was some really nice ones (including RustyBin who you mentioned) and some nice threads and discussions. But I just couldn’t stick around any longer.
The thread you mention is under "AV Forums resources/Feedback support & site news" and is titled "Forums founder/staff member entered a private chat". It's on page 3 of the Feedback Support sub forum and the last post was made July 23 2024. I'm not entirely sure, but I think you need to be an AVF member to access that part of the forums. The site owner SW tried to explain it as an accident, like you I don't believe it for a minute!Overall I enjoyed my time on AVF but sadly it was becoming more and more like DS - as in, “HOW VERY DARE YOU HAVE A POLITICAL OPINION DIFFERENT TO OURS!” coming from ridiculously left wing members who love to gang up on anyone else. Even the site owner has no respect for anyone who doesn’t share his political opinions. And these are people who call themselves “liberal”. The irony!
There was one particular member on there who had problem that I intend to move to the US and that I’m happy that Trump got voted in. It particularly irked this person (and some other members) because I’m Asian, a woman, and I don’t feel threatened, victimised, persecuted or oppressed in the US.
Also, and this was quite a shocker - a forum member a few months ago made a thread with screenshots to show that the site owner casually joined in, uninvited into a private message conversation between this forum member and another forum member. It was a conversation about nothing controversial at all. No reason for site owner to butt in at all. Naturally this forum member was pretty alarmed, as others aware, including me. And the reasons given for the butting in were absolutely poor.
I tried to find that thread again at a later date for reference but I couldn’t find it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was deleted. It was obvious to me that the site owner reads people’s private messages for entertainment, and on this occasion got confused, thought it was a forum thread and so replied, and then got busted.
Shame, cos aside from the weird site owner and some annoying, ignorant forum members, there was some really nice ones (including RustyBin who you mentioned) and some nice threads and discussions. But I just couldn’t stick around any longer.
Ah thanks. I did look for it again when I still had an account (I deleted iirc end of last year) but I couldn’t find it then (sometimes the search function on there wasn’t very good).The thread you mention is under "AV Forums resources/Feedback support & site news" and is titled "Forums founder/staff member entered a private chat". It's on page 3 of the Feedback Support sub forum and the last post was made July 23 2024. I'm not entirely sure, but I think you need to be an AVF member to access that part of the forums. The site owner SW tried to explain it as an accident, like you I don't believe it for a minute!Here is his post on the matter.......
The tiny number of people who have permission to search conversations get them amongst all the search results. As you have seen, the presentation of conversations on mobile is virtually identical to the presentation of threads, so it would be possible for someone half asleep late at night to accidentally scroll to the bottom and send a message in the quick reply box without reading any of the messages on the page.
The conversation title here was 'The Covid Thread' so it's easy to see it and confuse it with a Covid thread.
That's what happened here, I'm certain.
Apologies for the confusion.
Yep that’s what I had the biggest problem with overall - the hypocrisy. iirc there was a sticky on the politics forum written by the site owner, basically saying to keep it respectful, respect each others viewpoints, etc, yet he himself doesn’t practice what he preaches. Either welcome discussions with people with opposing viewpoints or don’t - just be honest about it!Yep 90% of the issues and frustrations with the AVF politics section would be solved if Stuart dropped the pretence that they're open to both sides of the political spectrum.
People with centre-right leanings then attempt to engage in good faith, are then rounded on and dogpiled by the majority Left-leaning element, reported and moderated out of the threads or forum entirely. Which is why they get so many bad reviews.
If Stuart was honest, like he was on the covid/Russia policy and just said "I lean Left, I voted Green last election, the majority of people that post in politics are left leaning, therefore moderation decisions are based on protecting the majority. Anyone not left of centre is welcome to engage at your peril" then I think a lot of the issues would be resolved.
He also claims to be rational, logical but has his own blind spots and biases just like anyone else. So of course, he is naturally protective of his forum in the same way that a parent is often blind to the bad behaviour of their children. I used to think he gave his mods too much freedom, which meant he wasn't aware of what Iron Giant and Steven were upto , but that excuse no longer holds water.
Derek S-H said: It's not actually private, as some of us recently found out.MadManMarcus said:
With respect, the forum does have a PM feature that allows forum members to converse in private. No one is being forced to take part in this public discussion.
Yep, plus the ignoring of the rules when it came to antisemitism.Yep that’s what I had the biggest problem with overall - the hypocrisy. iirc there was a sticky on the politics forum written by the site owner, basically saying to keep it respectful, respect each others viewpoints, etc, yet he himself doesn’t practice what he preaches. Either welcome discussions with people with opposing viewpoints or don’t - just be honest about it!
But it’s more like “all opinions are welcome…as long as they’re the same as ours”. Fuck that.
I wasn’t aware of those posts (probably cos I barely visited the politics section) - how disgusting! And again, the hypocrisy. I’m getting deja vu of DS.Yep, plus the ignoring of the rules when it came to antisemitism.
Posts like "Israeli's are the undisputed champions of child murdering" or "zionists barely qualify as Jews" clearly breach the rule "must not submit libellous, insulting, antagonistic, racist, misogynistic, prejudiced, aggressive or otherwise abusive content to or about any individual, group or organisation."
Yet for some reason reports about these posts and many others were routinely rejected. Which is of course a double standard (which is itself antisemitic).
Especially when you consider how quick the mods and Stuart himself are to see racism in posts where none exists.
Those posts barely scratch the surface.I wasn’t aware of those posts (probably cos I barely visited the politics section) - how disgusting! And again, the hypocrisy. I’m getting deja vu of DS.
It’s a joke really, cos every now and again several AVF members would bring up Tattle and act morally superior about it, with the “let’s not stoop to Tattle levels”-type nonsense, when their forum has plenty of blatant racist/classist/xenophobic bile floating around.
Have you ever come across Styker? He could start an argument in an empty room. He’s so antagonistic, if he’s wrong about something he won’t put his hand up and admit that he’s wrong he has to come up with some long convoluted reason for why he said something without ever saying, ‘oops my mistake’ and the amount of people who have said in various threads that they’ve put him on ignore as they can’t take his combative styleStraker on DS is quite possibly the miserable sod I've ever seen anywhere in my entire life.
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