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.
4:10 PM
Brian grate site you do a top job, I will try and answer a bit more to help if I can ,some of the questions are a bit vague though, dont know how you do it mate but keep it up .Tom Fletcher
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Hi Brian,
What about issueing a password so that those regular contributors can access it or tie it to the email addresses we use or even link it to only enable for those above a set post count.
Mark Aberfan Aerials
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4:53 PM
Mark
The problem is I don't know much about transmitters from other areas that I don't use, like asking me about Mendips or crystal palace or something, run of the mill TV sky and aerial faults I'm your man,maybe send questions from around my area to me or other riggers in our area, probably Brian would not like that as he is trying to lighten his work load a bit it would mean more up dating for him to do.
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Hi Tom,
Dont worry Mate, answer what you can, when you can, I agree some questions are too vague to answer, but thats just the way it is ! (how many times have you been called out to a faulty aerial when the customer only has a dish !) If those with a bit of knowledge help brian with the general questions when we can, & point out spam & dubious posts when we see them, Brian can do the general upkeep & improving the site to make it even better.
I should add I'm not speaking for Brian, its just my thoughts on how to make the site easier for Brian to manage & so freeing up time for updates & improvements.
Mark Aberfan Aerials
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5:32 PM
Mark
Thanks for that will do a bit this week I'm off with a bad back .
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Mark Aberfan Aerials: When I originally wrote the backend system, it was supposed to be multi-user, but I have never actually used it that way.
It might need a bit of updating to work properly for other users, but I'll have a look at this evening, as it might be useful for other people to be able to do certain things.
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6:41 PM
Wrexham
Mark - I think it is understandable that the laity confuse dishes and aerials. They are not even wrong. A dish IS an aerial after all!
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steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
7:14 PM
ok smarty pants I mite have had to look in the dictionary for laity but I know a dish from an aerial !
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Hi Steve,
There is to much confusion with so called digital aerials, I would agree that aerials & dishes are both antennas !
It was not a pop at the public not knowing the differance just a point that one persons description of a problem may not be accurate or correct but like the rest of us they are doing the best they can with the information they have.
Mark Aberfan Aerials
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The dish itself is a waveguide, only the end of the lnb is an aerial in the technial sense, surely?
If there were a style guide I would ventuee that a yagi is 'an aerial' to the public and a dish is 'a dish'
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