The Wholesale Forums

[Anthony]

Over the past month we have noticed an unacceptable increase in the number of instances where a forum discussion is taken completely off its original and intended topic. This sort of thing is all too familiar to see on forums and to a certain extent we feel that threads should be permitted to take their own course and develop naturally. However, there have honestly been far too many occasions recently where a serious business discussion has been hijacked by members either bringing entirely off-topic matters into the thread or deliberately diverting the topic for their own benefit.

What some of you may not realise is that this has a devastatingly negative effect on the quality and resourceful nature of the content that we, as a community here, develop together. In order for discussions to be useful and for the benefit of all members, they must remain pertinent and not contain passages that lower the tone or detract from the original principle. It is rude, counter productive and rather selfish to assume that your input is more important than somebody else's. Members should not be expected to have to read through pages of unrelated material to find the answers that they are looking for and in addition, they are far less likely to contribute to a discussion that contains such material, which in turn disrupts the natural life cycle of a good quality forum debate.

As a leading professional trade community, our ethos has always been to offer a high quality resource that people can use to assist them with their business endeavours and also share their experiences with others. This should not be confused with a chat room or social networking website, nor should it be confused with a venue that you can exploit for purposes outside of its intentions. By all means engage in some light hearted banter, post a joke or two, make friends and share a laugh with another group of members, all of this we encourage. Please however do not confuse the serious business discussions with the off-topic chit chat, as the two do not mix effectively. We have an off-topic forum, please use it.

We have decided to be pro-active on this issue, as we feel that there are some members here (and you know who you are) that are taking liberties with this communities good graces and imposing themselves far too much. For those of you who do take threads off-topic or deliberately attempt to fuel disagreements by publishing inappropriate remarks, you will first receive an infraction, and repeat offenders can expect to receive a lengthy suspension.

There is not a member here that is more important than the collective community. Some of you would be advised to remember this (as you seem to have forgotten) and consider whether what you are posting is truly of real resourceful benefit to other members.

For the majority of members that do use our services as they are intended, we thank you for your contributions and trust that you will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, this grumble is not directed at you.

Thank you for reading.