Changes to UK Free TV
Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV The purpose of the site is to provide independent (from the broadcasters, infrastructure companies and Digital UK) information about the choice people can make to watch free to air television services in the UK.
Having many years of technical, managerial and communications experience - and particularly after seeing at first hand the failure of ONdigital to communicate the technical difficulties - I thought the would be plenty of people who would need straightforward technical digital TV assistance.
When the site launched the only form of "feedback" was a personal email service, but on 7 October 2005, I introduced a direct commenting service. This has on the whole been very successful and popular - over 88,000 comments have been posted since then.
Many people have assisted people from all over the UK and around the world, and these contributions have made the site a lively and helpful place.
However, 28,500 of these posting are mine, and it is taking an increasingly large amount of my time.
In addition, the number of occasions where personal attacks are being launched on me and my professional knowledge, or I have to deal with uninformed and incorrect answers being given to people has increased.
The main upshot of this is that I spend very little time doing the "top line" site tasks, such as writing articles, upgrading the database information, adding in new sections such as the radio transmitter and YouView pages and so forth.
Whilst I appreciate that visitors can reasonably think that "in a democracy we are free to discuss pros, cons and preferences", this site is not a democracy, UK Free TV is my project.
Therefore I am proposing that:
1. Certain sections pages will be closed to further comments. I really do not have the time to spend going round and round in the same loop discussing same things, such as with the tedious digital radio haters. Such discussions add nothing to helping out people with their reception issues and will be moved to a holding page or deleted if they are insulting.
2. Some sections will be pre-moderated. Comments will not appear until I approve them.
3. Off-topic comments will be deleted or moved. For example, questions posted about Freeview reception in Jersey posted on the Winter Hill page. I will normally move them to the general purpose Feedback page.
4. I will then will have the time to improve the resolution and accuracy of the transmitter coverage pages, upgrade the radio transmitters section and provide information about the upcoming local TV, IPTV and YouView.
I will instigate these changes shortly.
Bold indicates changes made from feedback.
7:01 PM
Wrexham
I crossed with Brian's last post.
Not wishing to argue, but the paperwork says, in big letters,
"BBC (logo) The Switchover Help Scheme is run by the BBC."
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steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
2:44 PM
Braintist: If there happens to be any bugs with any of the features of this website you don't yet know of, or any of us have feature suggestions, is this article the proper place to post them?
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@Briantist
Just thought I'd say hi. I am a long time lurker, but only started posting a few days ago. You have a great site here, and I admire your dedication to it. I used to run a website about digital tv in the early days, so I know how much time they consume. Well done on a great resource.
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11:30 AM
steve ... yes, it was a full rig with amp and the rest of your answer is what i thought they offered? not seen much of that yet tho
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9:17 AM
Thank you very much for all that you do to help people. I am sorry you receive abuse.
My only request is this: could you please use a larger font point size? I have my e-mail browser set to 'largest' text size as it is, but still find it hard to read off-screen.
I use Outlook Express.
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2:19 PM
Phil Smith: The bottom right hand corner of Internet Explorer 8 has the option to increase or decrease the Zoom. Or use Ctrl+ or Ctrl- using the keyboard.
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9:37 PM
Milton Keynes
Ashley: Hi folks ,hope you can help? BBC2 has just been switched off in my area . So had to retune my freeview TV all channels back ok but with interferance on BBC1 and 2 ie pixel strips flicking now and again across thes screen enough to drive me nuts! New wideband arial fitted about 5 months ago,fitted in loft ,all working well on freeview for last five months, arial pointing in correct direction, coax all good, retuned tv at least three times . what am i missing ??
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ASHLEY's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage
9:38 PM
it seems a company called avc is involved with the bbc switchover at £40 scheme? i have had to go to 4 people unhappy with this scheme and know of other workers not happy with a company within the cai and rdi structure? i think there will be more to come from this and makes you wonder about the barriers of rdi and cai who are there to help/protect the public?
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