grendel

as the other activities are pre-existing then the new activity has to be integrated into the existing activities, and the existing activities assessed for their impact on the new activity safety wise, rather than reassessing the existing activities, though some advice may need to be passed to the users of the existing activities to allow them to co-exist.

moderators will not comment on the moderation applied to another users posts.

yes - now added - and I read it through several times too.

we all have to sleep sometimes - I missed it last night

agreed, it was a valid response to the figures posted about the participation in the other thread, where the perception that the pro event participants were a minority was put forward. and the fact that the people with safety concerns were anti was all a matter of perception, This is a crucial hub in this thread, as it is the perceptions and reactions to posts that we are discussing here. Its only by pointing out the different perceptions that we can begin to understand why we end up with people perceiving they are in a minority and feeling bullied. once again that seems to be down to perception, when the moderators look for bullying they cant see it (in most cases) they can see however that some comments looked at from a different perspective might possibly be construed as such, so then it comes down to whether we feel it was deliberate or not. so as such what do we (everyone - not just the moderators) do? well if we read posts we can read them with a generous mind, ie try to see the good points and not read them trying to find bullying where it doesnt exist (of course if it does exist, report the post), and of course when we post, try quickly reading through to check what you are about to post to make sure it doesnt come across as bullying.

In london we are having to run cables up to 6.5 km to get a point of connection with enough capacity for some developments. most car charging points take a larger capacity than several houses, so every house supply would have to be upgraded to support car charging.

today was sanding, the front and sides were taken through various grits to 1500 grit, these parts are going to be tricky to varnish once in position, so the first few layers will be applied before they go on the boat, leaving just a couple of final layers to be applied once in position. stage 1 of the griff method was used, this is more turps than varnish, but it shows the grain nicely, the inside edges will also be done tomorrow.

some interesting points made about the banks being inaccessible, yes I agree two or 3 in the wider spots, not a large problem, 200 racing...

Bill, its funny, but I have just done a similar exercise, in favour I found 10, against- only one or two, no obvious view I saw 7, but the majority, who were not against the swim as such, but had concerns over the safety aspects at that location I counted 25, now like you I may be one or two off, but I dont see all these people against a swim period, just that it should be in a better location. so the minority here may well be those that just said no, the rest just expressed concern on the grounds of safety, now where is all the negativity we have been told the supporters of the swim were facing. I guess its all in how you define those who are against the idea. Yet the supporters group kept crying out that they were the downtrodden minority. like you I dont see a minority here. As you say, it is still very much a debate, I am sure if some of the safety concerns were allayed, then you would find you have more supporters than you thought.

Ah that must be because you havent signed up for a green tarrif yet.

well perhaps if you dont want to pay the higher tariff on the coal (red) energy, you should disconnect the red wire in all your plugs.

perhaps the railways will also have to adopt the new electricity taxation rate. we know that wind turbines produce green electricity, perhaps wind energy should only be supplied on the green/ yellow wire, then coal can be provided on the red wire, and nuclear on the black.

you dont have to call out such posts publicly, simply hit the report button and the moderators will look at the post to see if it is indeed bullying, in a lot of cases it is clearly just misunderstanding, but we treat each case on its merits, and try not to let our personal opinions on that topic twist our judgement. We all (everyone - not the moderators alone) sometimes read into a post meanings that we see, but that are in truth not there, or were never intended. this is a problem with communicating by forum, with the written word.

John, you have every right to your opinion, and you have every right to express it, just dont be surprised if everyone else doesnt agree with you, as they too have their own opinions, and the right to express it too. I am sorry f you feel that your opinions are not being given the consideration they deserve. I can only answer for myself but I try to look at others opinions, and see if they change mine before I answer a post. that I dont directly answer an opinion doesnt mean I havent considered it.

A good example of how one post can be read differently by different people, I think I may be confused now too.

Charlie, I think he was referring to this thread, not the swimming one, the swimming one was started by JM, I started this one, though for some reason Ians post I moved from the other thread came in before mine.

conversely the people who were against the event at that location felt that the pro brigade were ignoring their concerns, and that their input was being disregarded and dismissed out of hand too. so it really works both ways. When two sides get entrenched so deeply the discussions can get heated, this is when we must all take a step back and consider our responses to not add fuel to the fire and bring the thread crashing down around our ears. This was the reason this thread has been started, so we can all work together to solve the riddle of why these disagreements happen and get out of hand, particularly on threads where we see the importance of discussing matters, and that we can do it here without derailing the original discussion.

we could move the forum behavior thread to members only, but that would exclude those in the original thread that are not full members, the swimming thread by its nature needs to be in the open area.

Its a key point, that applies to both sides of the discussion, if indeed nobody knows, then continuation of the discussion with both sides presenting their arguments is valid. If somebody knows for certain and can present the evidence however, then we have an answer and the discussion becomes unnecessary.

A thought occurred to me while I was typing the above, do we have figures for the average number of boats per hour that travel on the waveney to and from Beccles during that part of the season. how does this number compare for instance with the number of boats per hour on the thames at henley during one of their swimming events. If we had some numbers we could work out the number of boat / swimmer interactions (ie how often will a boat and a swimmer pass each other) for each event to gain an appreciation of the similarities (or not).

do all the consulted organisations know the section of river as well as some of the posters here though, have all of them taken to the water and surveyed the route for possible problems, OK some of the organisations will have people familiar with the section of river, but have those people been involved in the discussions. or has the 'idea' been proposed and given the go ahead as a good idea by some committee unrelated to the navigation, with the thought that the navigation team will have a good look at it before the event. I dont know. are some of the approvals being passed for instance by a committee that sees it like an event on the thames, well one river is much the same as another. all this is speculation true, but we have people here who do know the section of river, some quite well, that are saying its not the right place.

I think that could be said of both sides a lot of the time.

as a moderator there are times I want to get the pair of you together and beat your heads together.

To be fair Bill- Neither do you, the pair of you are very good at sticking to your guns (meant in a good way of course)