Stats 7 August 2006

Rank       : Bounty Dog  Level      : 55  Percentage : 3.06% (+0.76) Forum Posts :   1,577 (+5)
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 27996  (+95)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    73   (-5)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125         People      :     0  Total      : 28194         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  165 Shows (+1)             1 Show

Stats 6 August 2006

Rank       : Bounty Dog  Level      : 55  Percentage : 2.3%  (+0.64) Forum Posts : 1,572 (+5)
  
  Submissions                Reviews  Accepted   : 27901  (+64)  Shows       :     1  Pending    :    78   (+6)  Episodes    :     2  Denied     :   125         People      :     0  Total      : 28104         Total       :     3

  Edited Guides              Trusted User  164 Shows                  1 Show

I had a lot of thinking to do last night. Eventually. I was distracted when I was addressing some credits attached to a duplicate person guide and discovered that someone had 80 points for The Guardians. When I took part in the great grab for shows last year, I corrected the show summary, added the producers, the odd synopsis, and all missing actor and creator credits, but I completed the guide as far as I was able and couldn't make 80 points. The guide I saw last night was unchanged from my last visit, yet someone had gone from zero to 80 points at some point between April and July. The guy has a private profile, but a Google search shows a familiar picture: an unscrupulous editor grabbing as many show guides as he was able, and eventually being sacked. Happily, correcting the credits for the one actor gave me the necessary points for the editorship. This was all done after I had decided to retire for the night, having gathered enough submissions to hit 3 per cent, so my thanks to the hard-working staff for working so late on a Sunday.

Meanwhile, something has been troubling me all weekend. Late on Friday, I received a surprisingly hostile PM from a senior staff member. This wasn't quite unprompted: I had just written him to thank him for the swift action taken to sort another corrupt guide/incompetent editor I had uncovered: the editor had been stripped of the guide and the guide stripped of his bogus contributions within a few hours of me PMing about it.

Now, I have previously been openly flamed in the forums by another senior staff member who, when challenged, put it down to being tired (although her inflammatory post remains). She is of the opinion that everything I write is sarcastic, and that view appears to have filtered through to the rest of the staff. I cannot otherwise account for being attacked for sending a thank-you note.

Now, those of you who know me will realize/realise that I am rarely critical of anyone or anything in the forums these days. This is largely because I feel that the some of biggest issues have been addressed, while others are in hand, and I have learned to live with the rest. I have adopted an early Huntsman-like position of unquestioning support, not because I am trying to score points, but because I believe in the site. That said, I have written here before that I have become fairly guarded in my forum posts, as I am commonly misunderstood and moderated without apparent cause. Even defending missribs in the forums gets me moderated these days. It seems I can do no right as far as TPTB are concerned, having once been tarred as a troublemaker, although I still get PMs from senior staff members asking for technical advice. But I feel it's all rather thankless and, frankly, a little one-sided. These days it seems that, every time I pop my head out and express a viewpoint, I get grief, but, like the tv.com staff, I am a human being, not a machine.

I have been thinking, over the weekend, about what I want from the site, and that has taken me back to why I joined in the first place: to help build the greatest resource of information about British television programmes on the web. I am not really a great one for blogs, and only post these to have somewhere to record the stats that I was recording anyway. I am not a great one for forums, and only started visiting them to find out what the hell was happening with the site, and whether everyone else was having the same issues I was. I only started offering my tuppenceworth because I thought that I had acquired a lot of knowledge and experience that I could share.

I look around now and think, would the site be any worse if I had maintained my low profile? I honestly mean no disrespect, because I love their ways dearly, but CaptainMidnight is every bit as superior and intolerant of fools as I can be on my best/worst days, and 123home123 just as crushingly adversarial. Ethandune is there to fight for the language. angelandspike is now a moderator, while afenla, Angus_Mac, dju010, EdKlumpp, jekyll, MacDeacon, maritimer00, ntonks_tvtome and sesho2022 are all fighting on different fronts, fighting their corners, giving advice to newbies, and agitating for positive change. I have followed each of their bloggings and forum posts avidly, envious of their focus or erudition or humour or patience. Meanwhile, new stars are arising all the time.

I've thought about it, and I feel I can safely retire from public life. So, no more PMing the staff to report corrupt or incompetent editors, nor to beg for basic services, nor to follow up on promises unkept. And I shan't be posting any more words on these pages, either interesting or banal. I shall just be going back to what I do best, which is sorting the guides. Not retiring, then, but retiring from public life for a while. I might be back, or I might quietly slip away when the job is done. In any event, I know that the site is being watched over by a fine group of dedicated people, without whom the site would be nothing. Tonight, I shall sleep soundly, for the first time in days.