Plymouth gin

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al_yrpal
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by al_yrpal »

Bonefishblues wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 10:14am Reads VP's post. Shakes head, wondering how Plymouth Gin might precipitate argument, unless taken to excess :?
Possibly its the effect of Plymouths Navy strength 57 % ! Somebody will probably be along to claim its actually 57.5% in a moment :lol: And, require a scource... :wink:

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
DevonDamo
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by DevonDamo »

al_yrpal wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 11:23am
Bonefishblues wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 10:14am Reads VP's post. Shakes head, wondering how Plymouth Gin might precipitate argument, unless taken to excess :?
Possibly its the effect of Plymouths Navy strength 57 % ! Somebody will probably be along to claim its actually 57.5% in a moment :lol: And, require a scource... :wink:

Al
I saw your deleted post Al, and I think it was a measured reaction and that it's a shame you're now being forced into using insinuation and smileys here. This thread was entirely friendly and non-adversarial throughout the first 3 pages, apart from two polite-but-adversarial posts which stick out like a sore thumb and are still there, unmoderated, for all to see. Although I wasn't involved in this 'argument,' I can't help pointing out that the moderator has not been done any favours by being called in here. Each time they're brought in under these circumstances, it further highlights the problem with their unusually zealous enforcement of superficial politeness whilst appearing to be blind to underlying intent.

(In the unlikely event that this post remains unmoderated long enough for it to get the inevitable polite follow-up question, here's my answer: The 'underlying intent' here was to point out that someone was wrong. I have absolutely no problem with anyone doing this, but when it's a non-sequitur in a jokey chat about something entirely non-controversial, then a very mildly sarcastic response is entirely justified. It's comes across as heavy-handed and biased for that response to be moderated like it was.)
thirdcrank
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by thirdcrank »

In this context, if the OP wasn't an obvious wind-up worthy of messrs Mortimer and Whitehouse - which struck a catch immediately - I'll eat my canteen humour handbook.
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al_yrpal
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by al_yrpal »

Moderators do a thankless task but sometimes do seem to get it wrong. :(

Looking online there seems to be a massive trade in make your own gin kits. I made sloe gin once but I didnt really like it.

As an apprentice I remember making a still and collected liquid dripping from a decaying marrow hung up in a ladies stocking, humgrummet or something. That was pretty awful too. Fortunately we didnt go blind!

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
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ncutler
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by ncutler »

I think I'm coming round to the view that moderating the 'usual suspects' in the Tea Shop is a pointless exercise and perhaps the title of the section should change to 'Beware all ye who partake of the tea here ...... '

One spoke of the 'problem' is the reporting system. Mostly, apart from covid stuff, I wouldn't see any of the arguments, bad language, upWindings, twigs in wheels. If a post is reported one takes a look, if a member is obviously upset or irritated one tends to remove the source of upset or irritation under the false impression that we are all cyclists and supposed to be nice to each other.

However, as a contrary example:

Al's comment: "Possibly its the effect of Plymouths Navy strength 57 % ! Somebody will probably be along to claim its actually 57.5% in a moment :lol: And, require a scource... " was reported.

I thought, and still think, that it was perfectly acceptable and rather pertinent; so the report was closed.

I don't for a moment suppose that we will all agree about anything*** - does it really matter ?

*** except cycling, of course.
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Mick F
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by Mick F »

Nick.
+1 from me. :D

For the most part, I've given up with reacting to alerts.
Too many of them and by far the most of them are trivial.
Mick F. Cornwall
DevonDamo
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by DevonDamo »

ncutler wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 5:47pm Al's comment: "Possibly its the effect of Plymouths Navy strength 57 % ! Somebody will probably be along to claim its actually 57.5% in a moment :lol: And, require a scource... " was reported.

I thought, and still think, that it was perfectly acceptable and rather pertinent; so the report was closed.
Absolutely agree with your decision here. The anonymity afforded to complainants has an obvious benefit in empowering people to flag up unacceptable behaviour, but there is a lot of evidence on this forum of some users playing a game with it. I'm particularly surprised to see the comment above having been reported. I've previously mentioned the possible advantages of a second opinion being required before subjective moderation calls are made where there may be suspicion of misjudgement or bias, and this is a good example of why I think that. Far from adding to the moderators' workload,. spurious reports like the one above will stop coming in once it is known that the moderators will no longer be acting on them.
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al_yrpal
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by al_yrpal »

I dont think I am alone being thoroughly fed up with adversarial and often pedentary posts being dressed up in polite language. My post was merely a light hearted response to highlight the futility of what some people seem to think is ok.

Sensible decision by the mods on this occasion I believe. Lets get back to friendly non adversarial discussions.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
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Mick F
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by Mick F »

Yep. :D
I'll vote for that!

Friendly and non adversarial please.
Mick F. Cornwall
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ncutler
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by ncutler »

"possible advantages of a second opinion being required"

Not going to happen. The Forum is not going to turn into a bureaucratic rule-bound collection of dollops.

But in a way it already happens. If I come across a report that I'm not sure about I just leave it for another mod to deal with. We have never discussed this, but I suspect the others do the same. There is, for instance, an open report that has been languishing since 30th March: I don't have a clue what to do about it, and I guess nobody else has either. Perhaps I'll publish it here for y'all to argue about ?
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DevonDamo
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by DevonDamo »

ncutler wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 7:18pm "possible advantages of a second opinion being required"

Not going to happen. The Forum is not going to turn into a bureaucratic rule-bound collection of dollops.
Fair enough. I knew that suggesting the imposition of cross-checks or second opinions etc. on unpaid volunteers would be a lead balloon, but it served as a diplomatic way to flag up the fact that something's not right here. There's a deafening silence here from whoever flagged the post you quoted above. That same person was presumably also responsible for reporting the posts that @Vorpal deleted yesterday, however I read these before they were deleted and can confirm that there were two of them: one from @al_yrpal, and the other from @hellhound. Al's point was a technical one about gin distillation with the only personal aspect being that he prefaced it with 'no matter how good your googling skills...' And Hellhound has already defended his post in the thread about Covid booster moderation. For some reason, @Vorpal's response to Hellhound characterised these two offending posts as follows:
Vorpal wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 9:58amAs for the Plymouth gin thread, a number of posts (not just yours) were removed on the basis that they were confrontational or aggressive, and the thread was spiralling into sniping, etc.
Although I disagree with @al_yrpal on many things, I still see him as the archetypal English gent and find the suggestion that he may be confrontational or aggressive to be ludicrous: Whatever reason Vorpal had for deleting those two posts and making this comment, it is clear that this explains the further report that you've cited above - i.e. the person making that report was confident that @al_yrpal's post would be deleted, regardless of whether this was justified. If moderation is not being applied impartially, it will inevitably lead to more work in the end.
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by slowster »

DevonDamo wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 11:09pm
ncutler wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 7:18pm "possible advantages of a second opinion being required"

Not going to happen. The Forum is not going to turn into a bureaucratic rule-bound collection of dollops.
Fair enough. I knew that suggesting the imposition of cross-checks or second opinions etc. on unpaid volunteers would be a lead balloon, but it served as a diplomatic way to flag up the fact that something's not right here. There's a deafening silence here from whoever flagged the post you quoted above. That same person was presumably also responsible for reporting the posts that @Vorpal deleted yesterday, however I read these before they were deleted and can confirm that there were two of them: one from @al_yrpal, and the other from @hellhound. Al's point was a technical one about gin distillation with the only personal aspect being that he prefaced it with 'no matter how good your googling skills...' And Hellhound has already defended his post in the thread about Covid booster moderation. For some reason, @Vorpal's response to Hellhound characterised these two offending posts as follows:
Vorpal wrote: 25 Nov 2021, 9:58amAs for the Plymouth gin thread, a number of posts (not just yours) were removed on the basis that they were confrontational or aggressive, and the thread was spiralling into sniping, etc.
Although I disagree with @al_yrpal on many things, I still see him as the archetypal English gent and find the suggestion that he may be confrontational or aggressive to be ludicrous: Whatever reason Vorpal had for deleting those two posts and making this comment, it is clear that this explains the further report that you've cited above - i.e. the person making that report was confident that @al_yrpal's post would be deleted, regardless of whether this was justified. If moderation is not being applied impartially, it will inevitably lead to more work in the end.
I did not read any of those earlier posts, but -

1. Inevitably there will a degree of personal opinion and gut feel when moderating posts which are possibly borderline. Moreover, if someone's posts are reported more frequently than most others, and if usually the moderators agree with the reports and delete the posts, then that person will probably end up being seen as one of the 'usual suspects', and moderators will give their posts less benefit of any doubt.

2. Regarding something 'not being right', I remain to be convinced of that. All of us will have our own view of what is and is not acceptable, and some may simply draw the line in a different place. What matters most is not only where moderators draw the line in order to set a general baseline for discussion that does not descend into abuse, but also that there is reasonable consistency.

3. When a discussion starts to deteriorate into petty sniping, the issue is not who is at fault (who started it, who escalated it more), but that once a thread starts to take a turn for the worse it is difficult/impossible to recover it. I can understand therefore why moderators might intervene and delete posts at what might seem an unnecessarily early point.

4. It is instructive to compare how these dynamics play out and are dealt with on CycleChat. I appreciate it is bad form to discuss another internet forum, but the differences and similarities do help to put these issues into a clearer perspective. Recently the equivalent to the Tea Shop for discussing news and current affairs on that forum was closed, as I understand because the moderators found it took up far too much of their (unpaid) time. I think that was partly because they do get a second opinion before taking action.

The forum owner has instead set up a separate forum to replace it, which is at arm's length from CycleChat proper. It is unmoderated, and CycleChat members have to register separately to post on the new forum. One of the things that is noticeable is that the sly digs and sniping which existed in the original CycleChat Tea Room equivalent are just as bad, but probably no worse, in the unmoderated forum. Although the problem has not become worse, it is neverthless not pleasant to read. A consequence of this is that it probably deters many others from registering and posting in that new forum: not everyone can give as good as they get (or wants to). That said, my reading between the lines is that the new forum has stopped a very small number of posters who were deliberately trying to get some threads closed by making posts that created spurious grounds for them to claim they were being abused, i.e. gaming the moderation.

5. Based on what I have seen on CycleChat, I think the moderators on here are probably right to intervene at at early stage when even just faintly petty digs etc. are made: once that pattern of posting becomes entrenched in a thread, it is very difficult to turn things back and more importantly it is probably likely to break out again in other threads because of the lingering antagonism between posters. I can understand therefore how something that might seem only a mildly sarcastic remark could get deleted in order to stop things getting worse.

6. I also think that cessation of moderation in the Tea Shop would, sooner or later, cause even bigger problems for the moderators. There are some extremely contentious subjects, which, if unmoderated, I think would inevitably result in a complaint by one side to CUK about the forum, and I think the likely outcome would be the closure of the Tea Shop, e.g. because the moderators decide they are not prepared to continue moderating it.
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al_yrpal
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by al_yrpal »

Ok, enough of all that, lets discuss the other thing ....pasties.

Since my first experience of Cornwall, 1946 I believe, I have always loved proper pasties which is why I too dont really like Ginsters. Neither the pastry nor the filling are authentic. Here in Somerset I havent yet found anywhere locally making decent pasties, so, loving pasties I make my own using this recipé.... https://cornishpastyassociation.co.uk/a ... ish-pasty/

We are lucky to have an excellent family butcher across the road for the skirt. I make 6 at a time and freeze them unbaked, later baking them in the AGA top oven when they are on the menu. I found it really important to chill the pastry thoroughly as this helps to give it the necessary strength to contain the filling. Pasties for me have to have a peppery taste and I have found it difficult to judge just the right amount.

As for me being a gent, wrong! Ancient cockney is more accurate... :lol:

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
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kylecycler
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by kylecycler »

I've just suddenly developed an appetite for a Cornish pasty and it's not even breakfast time yet. :D
philvantwo
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Re: Plymouth gin

Post by philvantwo »

Ginsters?
Made in Cornwall......just up the road from Gunnislake!!
:lol: :lol:
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