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.
12:34 PM
Keep up the good work Brian.
I suspect these new fangled terms and products are a way for manufacturers to keep selling their products beyond market saturation.
If someone pays £1000 for a new TV they're certainly in the market for a "gold" HDMI cable, super "digital" aerial, a new freesat dish and of course oxygen-free speaker cables at £100 per meter... even though they don't need any of them.
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1:26 PM
Braintist: Just something else I was thinking as well, if somebody offered to purchase this website off you (not that I'm thinking of offering to), depending on the amount they offered, would you accept the offer and sell this website off?
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Josh: I suppose they say "never say never", but no one has ever offered so I have never had to consider it.
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1:34 PM
Brian, you needn't apologise; not your fault.
Some chap called me a "muppet"(!), it's not the worst abuse of course, but since I don't know the person, and I had spent much time trying to help him/her previously, I found it very offensive and shows how ungrateful and selfish some people are.
But I'm sure you have seen this sort of behaviour many times before. It's sad.
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J/P: To be honest, sometimes people just expect you to agree with whatever bit of misinformation they have got into their head "the transmitter is broken" or even more laughably "the satellite must be broken" and get abusive because you point out that reception is the responsibility of the receiver.
On the other hand, when people say thank you, it does make it all seem worthwhile.
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2:26 PM
Braintist: I wonder how easy it must be to keep all of the information about each and every single transmitter in the UK up to date on this website?
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Josh: It would be easier if Ofcom didn't publish it all in PDF formats that I can't important and have to check line by line, box by box.
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4:46 PM
Watlington
Well here it is - THANK YOU ! Very helpful site and am appreciative of your hard work.Don't blame you for easing your burden !
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frank's: mapF's Freeview map terrainF's terrain plot wavesF's frequency data F's Freeview Detailed Coverage
frank: Thanks. I hope you didn't think I was "fishing for complements".
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11:47 AM
Brian
Its your site.
Its a great site
Nothing you're planning/doing should cause problems to any of the many folk like me who find your site educational, clarifying and an all round valuable resource in the digital swamp
-if I'm allowed digital swamp:-)
All power to your elbow
John
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