Daniel Haynes, help

I'm not Daniel, but I hope you don't mind me putting in my two penn'orth.  

I have no problem with you calling yourself Verdun.  I soon realised you were the former Christopher2 as going back a few days and clicking on your avatar revealed you as one and the same person.  No problem.

I don't see why some people should mind you changing your name, and I don't see why they feel this was done in some underhand way.  I don't see why they feel you've done it in the wrong order or whatever it is they're going on about. In my humble opinion they're being ridiculous.  This is an open public horticultural forum, not a private club where they can instigate specific codes of behaviour, other than the general ones about not to abuse, incite etc.  none of which you've done as far as I can see.  If they think you should have handled the situation in some other way well that's their opinion, but you're entitled to do what you feel is right and best for you.

I'll be really sad if you leave the site, partly because I feel you have a lot to contribute and I've enjoyed your posts, but also because I feel they will have won. I've seen that sort of bullying on other boards (in particular some of the BBC boards) and it is despicable.

Verdun, I'm sending you a private message.  I hope you will read it.

I don't want to drag out this situation unnecessarily but I have been following the threads and I think that the poster who deliberately chose the same name (apart from h) and identical location is a wind up merchant who just wanted to cause conflict and sadly has done so. Everyone who loves a garden is wanted here and, Verdun, there are enough people recently who have told you that you are one of them for you not to let the WUMs drive you away.

I have to say that I find this forum cliquey and some of the posts can come across as almost rude. I just tend to read posts now and now hardly post anything myself.

Please stay Chris / Verdun. There are not many proper gardeners in Cornwall so I need all the mates I can get 

Not sure what you mean by cliquey-you always get a small community on forum- -and can't say I have noticed any rude postings either-perhaps a difference of opinion sometimes?

As regards Verdun and his upset-I for one would hate to see anyone driven off this forum-so Verdun please stay and carry on regardless.

It should be impossible to register with a name already in use so this needs looking at by Daniel and the systems team.

Apart from that I would suggest you relax and keep posting as Verdun, formerly known as Christopher 2, and do you best to ignore idiotic and troll like behaviour.  It is only an anonymous forum after all and most of us are here to enjoy exchanges of info and friendly banter about gardens and all things gardening.   The real posters won't always agree with each other but they won't be spiteful or nasty.

You never feel there is a clique unless you are not in it. And by rude I mean terse, snippy even or abrupt and those that are, are usually telling others to lighten up. Just my impression/experience of this site that's all. Doesn't stop me looking atm.

Muvs Dashwood wrote (see)

You never feel there is a clique unless you are not in it. And by rude I mean terse, snippy even or abrupt and those that are, are usually telling others to lighten up. Just my impression/experience of this site that's all. Doesn't stop me looking atm.

I asked Verdun to lighten up-and will not apologise for that-I repeat this is just a gardening forum-but doesn't have to be serious or just about gardening-it is what you make it

Sometmes the short answer is more helpful-does that make them terse,snippy or abrupt?

As for a clique if you are referring to the long running chat thread- there is no clique all- are welcome to join in and many do.

As a newish member, I had been reading the long running chat thread for a few days and was a bit nervous of joining in.  However, I popped in and said hello and was immediately welcomed by all and now I'm so glad I did.  I love to read all the threads but sometimes it's great just to pop in and have a chat and a bit of lighthearted banter and you're guaranteed to have a laugh and see a different side to our gardening experts.

Like I said, it has been MY experience but I still like reading the posts and looking at the photos.

Daniel, thanks for your post - it's a problem only when we don't know quite how to deal with it.  There are always one or two voices who speak out of turn - there are lots of very serious forums (fora??) on the web - maybe they would enjoy those more.  Love the chat here, and that so many of the posters came from the old BBC site which closed, and were accepted and joined in with the people already here.  We all need information and help, and sometimes it is nice to be able to offer some as well  --  or even just to moan about squirrels and pigeons. 

Verdun, I think the problem is that human beings (even Daniel ) don't actually play any part in checking the joining process - it's all done by computer, that's why the mischief-maker (and I do believe it was someone intending to cause mischief) only needed to change one letter of your name to be able to register it as their own.  If someone chose to register as Dowefromabove the computer would recognise it as different to Dovefromabove and allow it.  It's the same sort of technology that chucks us out of our online bank account if we get one letter of our password wrong - it's there to protect us but it doesn't actually have a brain and think, 'Aha, this looks a bit suspicious - we'll disallow it' - unfortunately.