Great Western Coffee Shop

From time to time, new members claim to represent or work for a company or an organisation in the rail business, or to be a well known person, but then that claim turns out to be false.  If you want to do that - sorry - it's not allowed; it's against the very first sentence of the forum agreement that you have to accept to post here:

You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false ...

It's a very serious matter to pretend to represent an organisation you don't represent; it's also serious to pretend to work for someone when you don't.  And if you are impersonating a role that you don't hold and aren't close to, that's unlikely to be an accident or a mistake; you're abusing the trust we place in you when we authourise your account, and we'll not be able to let you continue posting one we establish what's going on beyond reasonable doubt.

We've always checked posts that are potentially false in this way, and how we make those checks has been tested and honed pretty well now. That's fantastic news for everyone else, as it means that official ans staff posts have that greater validity - something of a stamp of authority.

A shortened version of this post will be added to "newcomers start here", as this one will run and run, I'm sure - especially around public holidays and in high summer  ;)

P.S. If we (the moderator team) are in significant doubt about any particular post or series of posts, we may move the post / thread to our own board while we check.   That's not a sign of a problem - just an ongoing series of checks.

i am staff

i work for head office

Well apparently your name is Bernard, but your email says Carl....

I raise you a previous post you made.

^5 please.

Am I the only one missing what you achieve from saying "I work for FGW" on a FGW forum?

I am an admin

I work on this forum

... but I am fed up with being woken to deal with such nonsense at this time of morning.  Member bernardinuk is now banned from posting.

Chris from Nailsea.  >:(

An excellent example of the "sort of nonsense" (good wording, Chris) which is the subject of this thread - I'm glad we have a clear example here.   Exceptionally, I'm going to leave it here in this thread and there are indeed a couple of other examples around which are clearly labelled down-thread at least as false claims.  However, now that the matter has been raised and these examples are here to remind our members that you can't believe everything you read, the moderator team will take a far more proactive role in getting rid of such posts from public view. Rather like weeding a flowerbed occasionally.

May I just add that as a Moderator who was around yesterday afternoon, it fell to me to do the necessary housework and raise concerns with the rest of the team about bernardinuk's first two posts on this forum.

The similarities to another dubious account opened last week by maryfgw - introduction in 'Fares's Fair' followed by a thread on the same board warning us about fare dodging* - jumped out to me and swift action was taken by myself and grahame. Despite the similarities, an opportunity was given to bernardinuk to confirm his bona fides, but none were forthcoming.

It it no coincidence that bernardinuk's post were; 1) a claim to be fgw staff, 2) a topic about fare dodging and now, 3) a post saying they are staff, but contradicting their introduction. An identical modus operandi to maryfgw.  ::)

Not very clever and a just a little annoying. Fortunately the team are excellent in defence during a game of Silly B*gg*rs. Even when the second half kicks off at 6am (well played, Chris  ;)). We've got better equipment and experience!

It's good to see forum members challenging dubious posts as well.



*That thread, now removed from public view was titled; FGW IS WATCHING YOU and the body of the message was:

Have we ever actually discussed how to intentionally avoid fares? On top of not understanding why you'd want to impersonate FGW (That's not an insult to FGW employees, merely an observation that impersonating First has no benefits on this forum.), I do not understand why you would post, what is, frankly drivel (intentionally).

Anyway, Graham and his band of merry moderating men (that's me banned now) do a very good job of quickly removing these posts, for which I'm grateful.

... and women.

^5 fine for discrimination.  :P ;) ;D

Okay, I admit to missing out Jo (and Leah). I have an IOU from Graham for ^5, so we'll call it quits. :)

I rather found maryfgw's posts entertaining. At least she called everyone "my love". ;D

Shame she doesn't have anything better to do. ::)

I am a leading industry outsider. I now wish I'd thought of Industry Outsider as my handle on this forum. Still, Four Track Now!, I say.

I claim that I am possibly potentially the most senior member of XC staff with no authority to say anything officially, unofficially or surreptitiously on this forum.  :-\

I've been blagging it on here for years...  :P

I am very high up in my own personal domain

Oh dear, we have another, and the posts get more ludicrous each time!

I think it's the same person.

Chris said "my love" which is what Mary did.

They need to grow up.

We do indeed. Sorry folks  :-[

Threads locked and a ban now firmly in place.

exactly my comment in the report button comment. Somebody obviously very bored to go through such effort of signing up, every couple of days!

I'm a train driver...

I drive FGW Class 57 Loco's...

Just a shame that the 57's are OO Gauge ;D ;) :P

sorry everyone... I'm late for the train, boarded without a ticket at a penalty fares station, but I couldn't resist!

Now now trout my love we all know that you are actually a route information specialist for that layout and not a driver

Nice one TT - but since when have you been promoted from N gauge ?!