91Èȱ¬

Thanks for the info :)

I'm so glad you decided that the priority was just to bring the site back quickly. Otherwise, who knows what would have happened? Maybe we'd have had to wait a whole week or something crazy like that.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

you haven't left it all on a train have you, just because it's ok for politicians to leave our personal data laying around doesn't mean it's ok for the bbc or the rest of us to do so!!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

You've lost the backups, haven't you?

Errrmmm...

What do you mean, there weren't any backups? Nobody would run a system like that without backups, would they?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

OK, I'm a techie. What's the problem? Something packed up?

Matthew:
Thanks for the information....
~Dennis Junior~

Sounds as though it's been a bit of a nightmare!

Hope it all gets sorted out soon, and thanks for keeping us informed.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

you're doing a fine job, ignore the detractors, i reckon we've all experienced long term mystery IT problems in our places of work at one time or another.

as to the accusations of bias, well, if your'e managing to annoy the whole political spectrum, then you've probably got it about right.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The update is appreciated. However, I am still not clear what the problem is!

I have a reasonable level of techie know how. So what happened? Why is it taking over a week to fix and where are all our comments from HYS?

What controls were in place? Who was responsible? Will someone be apolgising?

I guess these are all questions the Beeb likes to ask politicians when things go wrong so I would expect them to respond very promptly.

Let's see shall we?

I can only reiterate the comments made by other members of the IT programming world, it seems strange that after this time you still can't ascertain what the issue is. "Nothing can survive in a vacuum", they say, well speculation as to why the HYS is still not running is proving the exception to this rule.

How the 91Èȱ¬, and more importantly how will the thought police - sorry moderators - cope when all is back and running. Posters, you know who you are! Will have a field day speculating as to what the reasons are. I won't be naive enough to suggest that this is all politically based, i mean how could it be, this is the Beeb isn't it?

Seriously though my lunchtimes at work are proving to be less interesting now, no right/left (delete where appropriate) rants accusing/applauding the government of inaction/nannying are sorely missed. Come back soon please...

I bet Gord is behind this...he doesn't want us to comment on his 'U' turns!!!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

It is, at least, gratifying to find that I am by no means the only person to be completely lost as to the vaguearies of the moderators. To have you comment rejected it is said it has to break the house rules. I have had many comments rejected but I am wholley convinced that they break no house rules so I have come to the conclusion that the only rule they break is that they do not conform to the received wisdom of the 91Èȱ¬ or the moderaror who has picked it up.

I include in this contributions in which I have just said, for example, that killing people is fundamentally wrong. Whilst I appreciate that is a highly contraversial statement, one that a vast number of people disagree with, I would have thought that I should have the right of free speech to allow me to express my somewhat misguided opinion.

91Èȱ¬ moderators disagree so it gets rejected.

My view, along with so many others is that moderation is more than just moderation, it is censorship

Wot!! still no progress in getting out posts back on line. Surprisingly I never had an answer as to how I could get a disc with my comments on here since 2006. You are not convincing me this is just a technical problem. We got to the moon quicker than this. Watching you.

So what's going on then..? Installing the necessary identity collection software are we..? Putting in the communist governments spyware?

I can see how serious the problems are, and I believe you are doing your best. Thanks For the Information. My old comments aren't important, I hope that we could again recommend the comments which will be left on the old HYS.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I'm not surprised it's taking over a week to fix this. Judging by the time it normally takes to get a comment moderated, I guess there's only one person running the whole HYS section of the 91Èȱ¬.

the british people wouldn't mind paying he licence fee if the bbc represented their views instead of the views it wants us to have. It's a bit hard to believe it is taking over a week to resolve this problem and why is it texts to Question time are repeated over and over as if only a handfull are received when we know that loads are received is it because only a handfull represent the bbc's viewpoint. Everyones views are supposed to be heard in a democratic society it is up to the individual to make up their own mind as to their view so all views should be aired/printed however offensive we don't need the bbc to nanny us in the same way the government want to! Its not the soviet union yet!

I am reminded of an early Monty Python episode in which John Cleese states, "I wanted to work for the 91Èȱ¬ but unfortunately I have a very good university degree."

I guess all those degrees in computer technology are really paying off now. You could have rewritten the code for the entire site by now.

The software clearly rebelled. It couldn't cope with the name "Have Your Say", when the actual result was "Second-Guess The Viewpoint The 91Èȱ¬ Endorses And All Dissenting Views Will Be Deleted Even If They Are Within The So-Called Rules".

just another way of the 91Èȱ¬ police........ sorry moderators controlling what they want to see published and no one being able to check if their comments are. Waiting to be published. Not published. maybe someone should open up a page on blog spot for comments then we the people who have something to say can read all of the comments and not just the ones that the 91Èȱ¬ decide to publish. and as one person commented its funny how the HYS went down during one of Gordon browns worst weeks. you could catch swine flu quicker than your tech guys could fix this page.

25. At 10:39pm on 07 May 2009, meltonmark wrote:
"So what's going on then..? Installing the necessary identity collection software are we..? Putting in the communist governments spyware?"

You really don't get it, do you? This government is deeply committed to unrestricted capitalism, possibly even more so than the Tory opposition. Admittedly, it is using the methods of communism (and/or fascism) to entrench the control of the bankers and money men. A commmunist government would have taken out and shot those who were responsible for the sub-prime scams that have wrecked our economy. A socialist government would have taken control of the banks to ensure that the country was never again ravaged by senseless greed. Ours won't even take away their multi-million payoffs.

Even Obama has determined to drag the money back from these criminals by punitive taxes. Here, they get away scot-free.

#28. At 11:39pm on 07 May 2009, budmischief wrote:
"I'm not surprised it's taking over a week to fix this. Judging by the time it normally takes to get a comment moderated, I guess there's only one person running the whole HYS section of the 91Èȱ¬."

Actually, there's two, but one of them has been decimated by swine flu - think about it ...

Something fishy in the works and the explanations given for the problem are lame. Guess Have Your Say as I knew it (long moderation waiting and all)is no more.

I find the whole situation highly suspect. You can't tell me that there isn't a team of techies somewhere that can fix this problem. Too bad, I enjoyed this site...

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

There are so many talented IT professionals that subscribed to the 91Èȱ¬. Can't you put your IT problem out there and let them fix it for you.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

It's a disgrace.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Thank you for the update on HYS. The temporary fix is OK.
I have read the comments of others and have o agree with some of the statements about moderation/moderators. I accept that racist/sexist should be moderated, but who decides what is sexist/racist, surely an honestly held view, abhorrent as it may seem to some, is nevertheless a view and in a democratic society is capable of being stated. My main issue with moderators is that there is no way to appeal, believe me I have been moderated, have asked for an explanation via feedback (there is no other way) and had no reply. Please, when the new HYS goes up can we have an appeals system.
Sanity Sam

With all that is happening in Current Affairs at the moment this failure is at best unfortunate.

As part of any restoration of Service, can more consideration be given to easier (timely) posting with less pro-active intervention?

Any "moderation" could be reactive regulated after readers bringing to attention rather than the simple stifling of one view by another.

By the looks of it there's been a good deal of updates done recently, ie connections to Twitter and there's been critical files overwritten or deleted somewhere on the production server. These things can easily be prevented by using version control, because if the new, updated on doesn't work you can roll back to the previous working one and start again. It forever amazes me that many, many big websites don't do this since it can save money, time and an awful lots of headaches.

Well Matthew,just read your update,but it dosnt tell us much does it? There
has to be someone,somewhere,that can fix the problem with HYS surely? You
have read I hope the comments made about the moderators,as in my view they
stifle debate unnecessarily.Its crazy to hold hundreds of posts in line,and
then to publish them all at once,and very often then close the thread.It is
infuriating!!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I see my account still works but all my posts have been lost. So, the database is not that corrupt then ? Funny that.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I suspect the problem with HYS was a blocked bile duct.

Sounds like a corrupt database.

Still, not a problem, your daily backups should sort it in seconds.

What, you don't have a daily backup?

Strict rule with web applications; if it was working yesterday, then yesterdays backup will be fine.

So, one of two things have happened:

1. Database corrupted, could not be repaired using repair options (I hope you are using MySQL - wouldn't want to be wasting licence fee on unsuitable, clunky commercial DB), and no one has bothered backing the database up in ages.

2. The lawyers have browsed Have Your Say, seen that it is stuffed with racist propaganda and personal, libellous statements, realised that as the publisher the 91Èȱ¬ is liable and panicked. They picked up the phone and told the IT department, "We don't care what you do, pretend it is a technical fault, anything, just get that thing OFF the web!!"

Which option would you vote for?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#41, yes I notice that it's still not been fixed. But I don't see any evidence to start thinking there must be something "mysterious" about it.

Sure, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Sure, conspiracies happen, and the 91Èȱ¬ is not above committing them. But I think an awful lot of people want to believe there's something mysterious about it, because they have a fairly set opinion of the 91Èȱ¬ that they want to see confirmed.

In fact if they stopped to think about it calmly and objectively they would realise that the 91Èȱ¬ offers a truly enormous amount of functioning content and services every single day, people get to whinge every single day - about the government AND about the 91Èȱ¬. Frequently.

If a messageboard being down for a week is viewed as a conspiracy to favour the government, then it stands to reason that a messageboard being up for several years could be viewed as a conspiracy against.

That's saying nothing of the fact that almost every other week seems to be Brown's worst week, as is the case for any outgoing Prime Minister of a long-in-power government (I don't say that because I support them - I don't.)

The point is, I didn't hear people whispering about conspiracy in the other direction when HYS DIDN'T go down during the 10p tax "fury", or the humiliation over the non-election that dominated for several weeks, or the northern rock nationalisation, or the Damian McBride story broke, or Daniel Hannan completely obliterated the PM at the European Parliament, or any number of other stories that were deeply damaging at the time and would have provoked cries of "conspiracy!" had HYS happened to develop a fault at that particular juncture.

Given the way the 91Èȱ¬ is routinely portrayed (/caricatured) in the Mail, Sun, et al (with their vested interests in doing this), it's not in the least bit surprising to me when someone here extrapolates about this "conspiracy" - from the rigged Blue Peter phone vote!

To Matthew Eltringham I would say erm ... "Look here mate - Just expalin what the problem was." - It wouldn't arf save some time. I am a techy with philosophical delusions of grandeur - just tell us the facts or if you really don't know "take full responsibility and sack someone else (hehe - below the belt eh!)" Have you just 'been on government communications course' (You know - the one they send Sir Humphreys on(no - not John Humphreys).
As Sir Humphrey said ... "We dare not allow politicians to establish the principle that senior civil servants can be removed for incompetence. We could loose dozens of our chaps. Hundreds maybe. Even thousands."

So does that mean my collection of Rejected comments are lost forever, permanently rejected so I can't even view them for a laugh and wonder why they got rejected the first time but published the second time?

Seems most odd. I'll have to write some more things containing less than gushing praise for all things Left so I can accumulate some more Rejected tags.

I think you also need to FIX the Moderation so comments do not sit in a que all day!

Oh dear, doesn't look like it's fixed yet. There seems to be some terrible fault that is not allowing moderators to approve posts in a timely manner. Latest stats for the HYS on MP's expenses:

Published comments: 59
Moderation queue: 458

#52:

Basically, I agree with you. Even with something as dodgy-looking as this, cock-ups are so much easier to believe than conspiracies.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

As a public service broadcaster, I think we deserve from you (in return for gigabytes of lost 'archive material', that we generated) two things: (1) a clear explanation of what happened, including an apology to everyone who contributed material to HYS over the years. (2) assuming it was lost/failed backups, I think a feature-length article on the subject of corporate data loss and how to prevent it would be a fitting apology to all your contributors.

Have really missed not being able to Have a Say, and it is obvious that you are doing your best to correct this serious fault. The amount of comments must have overloaded the system but glad that you are partially functioning again. Mind you it is curious that it should have 'gone down' during a week of controversial issues, should we all be concerned about this?

So what is the backend for this ? Some form of Windows no doubt. Should have used open source.

How come so many posts are 'moderated' into the blue, never to be seen again? Do you not think the 91Èȱ¬ has the responsibility to actually publish what people take the time to contribute? We are all becoming convinced that the UK is becoming a political/police state and the 91Èȱ¬ should be allowing free speech/comment, rather than editing/deleting it. Uless of course you are all as corrupt as the new political 'robber class'?
Hopefully the 91Èȱ¬ will return to it's roots.
Dave, UK (just)

Here is what i think should be done to HYS. Since it is down, why not have a total rethink

1. Allow users to start their own discussions and topic agendas. So instead of having one at a time, lers have more.
2. Users be allowed to comment directly to other users comments, like on youtube.
3. Moderaors should be fired, since it takes them forever to check all the comments. How long does it take to read a paragraph?
4. There should be a computer designed moderator. A software which can detect racist, homophobic views. You get the trend. And this can be done. I mean is the 91Èȱ¬ can catch a snow leopord on camera (planet earth last week amazing), spending 3 years finding this unique animal, it can surely do this.
5. A new design for HYS. It looks terrible compared to other places on this site.
P.S a prize for the comment which has the most reccommendations. I have never had the honour. And i think if you reward those who have achieved this milestone( greater than the everest challenge itself), perhaps a refund of the fee, or a year supply of chocolate.
Thanks

Are you sure that the 91Èȱ¬ isn't under instruction from the NeoLabour police state control freaks to censor Have your Say?

I would like to ask who decides which stories to cover and what level of importance to give each story .
I assume the story editors' well i would like to discuss or talk about these choices and importance placed on certain stories and not on others this is the worst kind of censoring because it's done in the dark, so please can we have an open debate about this because it would go a long way in deciding if i am wrong about undue influence from certain quarters;
if we do not talk about it (in the open) we' I" will think that we are correct in our assumptions.

Having discovered that all members have gone back to zero as far as previous comments goes including my 1200 or so. I will not post again on HYS until all my previous published comments reappear. I am sorry but it now feels too fragile I don't trust this fix. I have no idea if this will help but applying electrical switch and breaker theory to the fault? Have any of the repair team tried removing the 'load' from the circuit before switching back on or deactivating all RSS feeds from HYS in order to enable it to reset to a previous state then re enabling RSS?

Hope the moderator (as there can only be 1, as it takes so long to get published) has enjoyed his weeks holiday.
Maybe next time you'll get a colleague to moderate, instead of having to close down the 'have your say' site!

Why are people so upset at not being able to view their old posts? I simply do not understand the mentality of those who demand the reinstatement of the archives and, in one case, a disc containing old posts be posted to them. Why do you want them so badly? So you can smugly marvel at your razor-sharp wit? Or so you can calculate the amount of times you've referred to Nineteen Eighty Four or moaned about being 'gagged by the moderators?' You couldn't make it up!!!

Well, regular updates are something so can't complain at that.

I have, however, noticed that more and more of my comments are being rejected and when reviewing can't see what the problem is so if this carries on, and my own freedom of speech, although edited to not break the house rules, I will be forced to bow out of what is a potentially interesting forum. Shame......

I was wondering, who owns the intellectual property rights to HYS comments? Have you considered the possibility that all the past comments have been stolen by a government or opposition 'think-tank'. No, seriously, I think it more likely they have been stolen by someone who intends to published them in an Xmas stocking filler so the general population can howl in laughter at the more idiotic and inane comments posted on HYS.
The conspiracy theorists here who claim they are being censored by the 91Èȱ¬ are really quite a hoot. Do they actually believe they are worthy of a muzzle? Their inane drivel only discredits whatever political faction they belong to.

66. At 12:35pm on 08 May 2009, LifeofReilly wrote:

Having discovered that all members have gone back to zero as far as previous comments goes including my 1200 or so. I will not post again on HYS until all my previous published comments reappear.

####

Promise?

64. At 12:26pm on 08 May 2009, supaCurryking wrote:

Are you sure that the 91Èȱ¬ isn't under instruction from the NeoLabour police state control freaks to censor Have your Say?

####

Since that does not exist, Quite sure.

#68

I am sure that there are those who "smugly marvel" and why not? It isn't the loss that bothers me it is the sheer incompetence of the 91Èȱ¬ to manage/direct/instruct its contractor in running an orderly and working ship. We do not know the terms of the "HYS" Contract but I am sure it must have a part dealing with outages and/or data loss and penalties relating thereto.

It is quite an irony to learn that whilst our views are "so important" to the 91Èȱ¬ they can be "disposed of" without so much as a twitch of an eyebrow. No you don't need to make it up - this IS the 91Èȱ¬ after all.

I'd just like to add my voice to those regular contributors who really don't care whether the beeb find their old comments or not, i can't be the only one who finds some of his own comments embarasssing for reason or another.

Contary to the feeling in some comments i don't feel the bbc owe me anything, i pay my license fee, they provide TV & radio (of variable quality)and one of the best english language news site on the web, as far as i'm concerned , that fulfills the contract they do not owe me or anyone else a HYS site.

As for conspiracy theories - gordons been in crises from the moment he came into office, ok its been a bad week for the government but the the bbc would have had to have been psychic to predict the events since HYS broke down.

If HYS was really as crooked as some people claim, surely it would have been shut down during ross/brand fortnight when the sheer volume of anti-beeb comments overwhelmed the site, but they still carried on publishing as much as possible.

70. At 1:14pm on 08 May 2009, tom_cripin51 wrote:

I was wondering, who owns the intellectual property rights to HYS comments?

####

Under the 91Èȱ¬ terms, you retain copyright, though they have the right to use it in anyway they wish.

You also agree that your comment is not defamatory in anyway so that you get sued rather than the 91Èȱ¬. However, this is a really difficult area and web publishers have been sued before for things written in their forums. So, I would think the 91Èȱ¬ lawyers are not great fans of the interactive elements of the website!! :)

You can consult those IT professionals who have subscribed to the bbc.co.uk, They can suggest ideas for your probllem.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Hmmm, how many weeks now? Will we get the full report from the crisis meeting? How did it happen, what will be done to prevent it happening again?

Thanks for the update.
I have greatly missed reading everyones' comments, including the ones I don't agree with.
I'd expected, given the length of time the site has been offline, that some kind of upgrade was in progress so I'm suprised to hear you don't know what's wrong. I used to work as a commercial programmer and I can tell you for free that downtime of this length - let alone unexplained downtime - would mean the boot for someone. In the real world, computer failure, without a backup system of some kind, is likely to mean business failure.
If the archives are a problem (is that a legal problem I wonder?)then forget them. Hearing what folk think about the issues of the moment is, to my mind, the most important.
TTFN

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The overreaction and outraged frothing on here is truly hilarious.

Get a grip, people. Pull yourselves together!

#78 for example - assuming this wasn't a parody...

"Hmmm, how many weeks now?"
- barely more than ONE week, Alan. A week and one day to be precise.

"Will we get the full report from the crisis meeting?"
- Crisis meeting? This isn't genocide or world hunger or the loss of the TV service or even the loss of the news website. It's a messageboard gone down.

A mess-age-board.

Sheesh.

I'm sure it's extremely important to the editor of interactivity and the techies working behind the scenes, and that's understandable. But to the rest of us - come on! Perspective, please.

There seems to be a core of people in this country who are determined, absolutely determined, to treat every problem as a "fiasco", an "outrage", a "shambles". I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the populist tabloids like the Mail pump out a steady diet of poisonous cynicism and miserablism every day with the exact same perspective - and often, language.

Thank goodness for beacons of calm sanity like Gurubear and goldCaesar and a few others.

The rest of you: lighten up, and learn what a real crisis is while you're at it.

What a bunch of nut-cases! HYS offers a free and informative source of news and comment & people have the nerve (and lack of class) to insult & criticize when the service goes down. Get a life people! 91Èȱ¬....Thanks for the forum.. Hope all gets straightened out & we all have our rant&rave page back soon. Have a nice day in spite of the idiots.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

HI ed in the sky Looks like you could do with a few of them wizz kids to help you sort out the problems you seem to be having,You know the ones him that cracked the banking codes to replentish his own bank account or the one who made my poor old desk top to dissintergrate it never did me any harm,Hurry back on course so we may all keep on at gb to stand down .

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Oh My..........

LOTS of these about on this thread........

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.


Touchy about your failure are you?...... :)

PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND.

THIS IS ONLY A MESSAGE BOARD. THE WORLD WILL NOT END.

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES HAPPEN WITH EVERY COMPUTER SYSTEM.

NO OFFENCE BUT WHO WOULD WANT YOUR OLD COMMENTS.

FINALLY. IT IS PERFECTLY SAFE TO COME OUT OF THE BUNKERS, HAVE SOME FAITH THAT THE 91Èȱ¬ CAN FIX THE PROBLEM.

Thankyou

In HYS we trust
As the page is a must

Great. More conspiracy theorists. The idea that HYS is built around suppressing right-wing commentary due to pressure from Downing Street falls down on several points. Let's examine them in turn.

1. Why would the HYS site fall down now, rather than, say, at the run-up to an election?

2. Why is it that everyone, from across the political spectrum, finds their comments rejected, or held in the queue?

3. Why would HYS debates sometimes open with leading questions that prompt right wing responses?

As for those who think the house rules are 'obscure', read them again. Read them *carefully*. See the point about defamation? I'll bet most rejected comments break this rule in particular. Think before you attack specific people: would this, in a newspaper, invite a libel case?

Have Your Say is a best platform in world electronic to put up your opions on all kinds latest most important issues.So please restart it as early as possible.Because it is the need of the hour to discuss world issues on such a world platform irrespective of our differences of opions. thanks.

Sorry if someone has already brought this up, but it's quite ironic that HYS has just demonstrated one of the thought control tactics we were discussing in the first "fault" thread by closing a popular debate after a day or less.

For some reason it's not on to discuss Should bloggers behave responsibly? even though it's linked to as a "New debate" by Matthew Eltringham above. "Stifled debate" is more like it.

Any comments Mr. Eltringham?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Just hoping that you will endeavor to retrieve the past debates. 91Èȱ¬ is a gigantic public venture branching out to the remotest niche of the world. This is unique and unsurmountable by any other news media. Let's hope you will be able to unravel the past debates to the satisfaction of your readers and contributors to HYS. Godspeed !

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Ah, it is good to have "Grumpy Corner" (HYS) back where we can let off steam no matter how badly informed or unpopular our views. Looks like a fresh start and so with it, one hopes, will come a new team of moderators able to understand and apply the house rules free of personal interpretations in future.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The 91Èȱ¬ had once-upon-a-time purposely over-written on top of the original (apparent) masterpieces recorded by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's early efforts on tape - each of which at the time costing a fortune to record on. Hopefully the 91Èȱ¬ can afford hardware this time round without having to recycle as was apparently common in the 50's-60's.

Good grief, the moderator has a sharp scalpel this afternoon.

Further evidence that it's not just right-wing views that get removed for (IMHO) inexplicable reasons.

'Fixing' proved to be vastly optimistic then.

Let me drive - I'll fix it.