I find myself out of step with the administrators and moderators of many of the facebook groups and forums that I'm a member of. Whilst there is a need to provide some sort of framework on the activity and direction of the board, I can't help feeling that many board's teams are far too controllingly active, and spend their time applying rules (and sometimes changing rules) to pressure the group / board / forum in their direction and in line with their views.

I've been told off for posting a link to Well House Manor on the Dog Friendly Holiday (Chat) Facebook group (and had my post deleted), when advertising isn't allowed there, in response to a post asking for places 2 hours from Warwick. Advertising (and that means links to your own place) is only allowed in the Dog Friendly Holiday (Accommodation) group. Not the first time I've been told off on Facebook either - one of the HST Enthusiast Group administrators deleted my picture of an HST running the "Weymouth Wizard" because I added a comment that it was running for the next 3 weeks, and apparently that was advertising the train service and not recording pictures of past runs.The "Four in a Bed" fan club group has been getting pretty heated too, with admins telling people off and requesting they be nice left, right and centre - even though the members are simply mirroring what was a pretty nasty show last week.

I suppose this kind of controlling activity is natural. In order to provide good admin / moderator coverage, there's a need for a team with a significant number of members, and if any one member of that team decides to delete / modify / censor a post then that decision reflects on and defines the group's activity as a whole. And sometimes it requires a deep drawing of breath to say "I RAELLY don't agree with that view" but to let it stand, without "correction" and perhap even without comment from an admin who's views - by the very fact they're the admin (and an actively altering one) are the official grou view that must be followed. Sadly, some groups will chuck you off for "arguing with an admin" and "arguing" can mean expressing a different view.

It's so easy to stand in a greenhouse and throw stone ... I hope I'm not seen as doing so in this post. I think we have an excellent team here, and whilst we can (and do) react individually to urgent circumstances, we also have active links between us to share and dicsuss issues, and an ability that's perhaps missing on Facebook to park a topic in private while we consider it, restoring it if appropriate, Our "groundrules" too, if you want to call them that, naturally provide a "stable state" which lessens the need to intervene to drag things back onto a designated line - there are no gaping holes in our structure through which people will (commercially or out of interest) try to charge.

Over the years, you'll have noted a drift in my approach to posting - certainly not a U turn, and not totally "mission creap" although mission tactics have been reviewd over time. The long term strategy of retaining an appropriate TransWilts rail service modifies as it becomes incresingly clear that the service appropriate to the flow is at the upper end of forecasts, and that the presence of a service itself helps to create further demand. Other changes such as phenomenal housing growth in Chippenham, Melksham, Trowbridge, Dilton Marsh and Wilton encourage further traffic, and the withdral of many bus services outside the middle of the day help strong rail growth at commuter hours, and also early and late. And strategy also changes as I seem to have moved from a lone amateur voice considered a bit of a nuisance, and uninformed, into someone who at times talks a bit of sense and who's views / ideas might just be worth listening to, and energy tapping. With this change comes a responsibility on me to be all the more careful what I say / suggest in public. It doesn't stop me flying kites and exploring options in certain other ways, nor does it put any limits what so ever on others flying kites, expressing views on the Coffee Shop. In fact it's quite the reverse as far as I'm concerned - such wideness of views add strength and provide hooks for comment, saying (at times) things tha I might or might not think, but cannot say.
(written 2015-11-02)

 Z406 - TransWilts Community Rail Partnership
  [3881] Wiltshire Public Transport User Group co-ordination - (2012-10-05)
  [3986] Rail services in Wiltshire - up in the air? We need to say what is best required. - (2013-01-20)
  [4142] Passenger survey at Chippenham - report and pictures - (2013-07-24)
  [4148] Special General Meeting, Adoption of Constitution for TransWilts Community Rail Partnership - (2013-08-01)
  [4160] Bank Holiday Monday - pictures of a great train trip to Weymouth - (2013-08-27)
  [4163] TransWilts Community Rail Partnership - formally constituted - (2013-09-01)
  [4191] Getting people to and from Melksham Station - not 20 but 700 times a day - (2013-10-12)
  [4194] TransWilts Link - meeting notes from 19th October - (2013-10-20)
  [4196] Official - Trowbridge and Melksham to London train improvements - (2013-10-22)
  [4198] New trains for 2014 - Swindon to Westbury. Meetings Melksham, Swindon, Trowbridge, Chippenham and Westbury - (2013-10-24)
  [4218] A THANK YOU to those who have brought the new train service to fruition - (2013-12-06)
  [4219] TransWilts train services - up from 2 to 8 per day - (2013-12-09)
  [4225] Melksham Resident? Commuter? Save yourself 2000 pounds and 100 hours in 2014, and have a better journey! - (2013-12-20)
  [4229] Thin end of the wedge - plan to be thicker in 2014 - (2013-12-26)
  [4243] Taking Greyhounds and Lurchers to London for the day - (2014-02-23)
  [4284] Talk and walk to promote train service - Melksham Carnival - (2014-07-11)
  [4287] TransWilts CRP - walking in Melksham Carnival - (2014-07-13)
  [4288] Some questions on how our Community Rail Partnership works - (2014-07-13)
  [4291] Train Online article - ACoRP / TransWilts introduction - (2014-07-25)
  [4309] Even in the dark of night, the train comes bearing passengers - (2014-09-28)
  [4313] Moving community rail support from amateur to professional - (2014-11-16)
  [4328] Folk music train, Westbury to Swindon round trip, 14th December 2014 - (2014-11-24)
  [4343] Politics and the railway the connects Wiltshire - (2014-12-06)
  [4351] A little thing can make a big difference - (2014-12-13)
  [4353] Celebration pictures, year 1 - (2014-12-15)
  [4362] What a difference a year makes - (2014-12-23)
  [4371] Why are people using the TransWilts? - (2014-12-29)
  [4397] TransWilts / Press and Publicity report for AGM / 30th January 2015 - (2015-01-17)
  [4424] Looking Forward - TransWilts Community Rail Partnership and TransWilts CIC - (2015-02-12)
  [4435] Images of our rail promotion campaign - (2015-02-21)
  [4463] Rail Conference, Nottingham - (2015-03-16)
  [4467] Neighbourhood Plan - travel and transport thoughts - (2015-03-29)
  [4494] Monday to Friday / TransWilts train times from 18 May to 11th December 2015 - (2015-05-17)
  [4497] Around the world from Melksham - (2015-05-25)
  [4500] The TransWilts Community Intergrated Transport Corridor - (2015-05-29)
  [4510] Learning from the others - Community Rail - (2015-07-12)
  [4512] The Weymouth Wizard - Saturdays in August from Wiltshire - (2015-07-31)
  [4513] Yesterday, Weymouth - (2015-08-02)
  [4601] Management view - TransWilts and transport at the end of 2015 - (2015-12-25)
  [4612] TransWilts - robust these days - no longer the first service to be cancelled - (2016-01-03)
  [4638] TransWilts Community Interest Company AGM - 13 Feb 2016, Swindon - (2016-02-05)
  [4647] On the problems of a printed train timetable - (2016-02-15)
  [4688] Melksham Station - as at May 2016 - Part 5 (services and prices) - (2016-05-30)
  [4695] Melksham Rail Development Group becoming Melksham Rail Users Group - (2016-06-21)
  [4704] Three months in community rail pictures - (2016-08-27)
  [4706] Melksham trial train service is to be made permanent - (2016-10-02)
  [4726] TransWilts Partner Update for Melksham Area Board - (2016-11-07)
  [4739] A year of changes for Lisa and Graham Ellis, and Well House - (2017-05-27)

G905 - Well House Consultants - Blogging and Blog Administration
  [1] First Jottings - (2004-08-05)
  [6] Blog v Forum - (2004-08-07)
  [18] Wanted: More hours in the day - (2004-08-18)
  [141] Too technical? - (2004-12-05)
  [145] A comment on comments - (2004-12-09)
  [177] Blogs come of age - (2005-01-14)
  [185] Who am I? - (2005-01-21)
  [204] The confidence to allow public comments - (2005-02-06)
  [231] Feedback as lifeblood - (2005-02-28)
  [245] I'm not blogging it - (2005-03-14)
  [359] Chicken soup without the religion - (2005-06-26)
  [390] Moderating wiki, blog, and forum contributions - (2005-07-26)
  [405] Horse's Mouth is a year old - (2005-08-07)
  [410] Reading a news or blog feed (RSS) in your PHP page - (2005-08-12)
  [425] Caching an XML feed - (2005-08-26)
  [508] Comment, please! - (2005-11-28)
  [671] Both ends of the animal - (2006-04-05)
  [876] Making pages clearer - easy Disability Discrimination Act Compliance - (2006-09-23)
  [1000] One Thousand Posts and still going strong - (2006-12-18)
  [1077] In answer to 'am I glad I started a blog' ... - (2007-02-12)
  [1203] A Fresh horse - (2007-05-24)
  [1978] From spam to mod_alias - finding resources - (2009-01-05)
  [2000] 2000th article - Remember the background and basics - (2009-01-18)
  [2192] Copy writing - allowing for the cut - (2009-05-21)
  [2449] Four aspects - Chamber, Transport, Courses and Hotel - (2009-10-11)
  [2517] Blogging accuracy - open invitation for any corrections - (2009-11-29)
  [2564] Microblogging services - Plurk, Twitter, Jaiku and more - (2010-01-05)
  [2751] Going off at a tangent, for a ramble - (2010-05-04)
  [2823] Where have all the bloggers gone? - (2010-06-24)
  [3016] The legal considerations of your web presence - revisited - (2010-10-26)
  [3163] Twitter - the special use of @ # and http: in tweets - (2011-02-09)
  [3186] How to add a customised twitter feed to your site - (2011-02-27)
  [3208] Links for social media, microblogs and business networking - (2011-03-20)
  [3514] Microblogging - what I should have tweeted in the last 48 hours - (2011-11-10)
  [3759] The five oldest blogs and the horses mouth - (2012-06-09)
  [4000] 9 years, and 4000 articles on - (2013-02-09)
  [4121] Has your Twitter feed stopped working? Switching to their new API - (2013-06-23)
  [4292] The Horse is back! - (2014-09-15)
  [4714] The technical article feed continues - personal updates more proactive on Facebook now! - (2016-10-30)

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Tables with values and code in Lua - looks like an object?
Lua - using modules to add your own utilities
A warm welcome awaits you at Well House Manor, Melksham
Lua - changes to how integers and floats are handled - 5.2 to 5.3
Moderation - and the tendency to over-moderate
Japanese and Malaysian food in Melksham
C - why is slow to write and debug) but fast to run?
Allocation of memory for objects in C++ - Stack v Heap
Perl, PHP, Python, Lua, Tcl, C++, Ruby - final public courses for 2015
Formatting and outputting your own classes in C++