I forgot to mention...

I think Dogsey is a very "well rounded site". It's not strictly about breeding/showing. It's very pet orientated which I find most appealing.

It's good to be able to share photos of your dogs without people saying - "oh, that's not breed standard/bit overweight/underweight" etc etc.

There are other forums out there that are like that.

this is so sad....

Especially hearing that people like Luz, Sutty and many others feel like they are being ousted or pushed out.

I went missing for almost a year(nothing to do with dogsey - just my own life events) and came back and was sad to see that some of the people who I looked to for advice and chat had vanished, but they have since popped back from time to time(which is always great to see)and like others say people go through bad patches, busy patches and life changing events and don't always have time to post.

BUT having said that I think it would be so sad to lose members just because of the breed they have after all are we, all of us dogsey members, not supposed to be passionate and caring about any breed any cross breed or any genuine heinz 57r???? Do we not all We all share the same motive?,a love of our particular choice of dog, and we all want to seek advice on subjects we do not know about and share what knowledge and experience we have??

There are some heated debates and I tend to avoid even reading some of them as I think its sad, but we are all different and we all have different views. Acceptance and Tolerance seem to be the way forward. Lets not lose the true dogsey spirit after all thats what makes this such a supportive friendly and IMO great place to come and post.

People come and people go, a forum of any kind cannot be static as it becomes stagnant, you need new people to stimulate debate. If people can't take that and rush off because they aren't hearing what they want to hear then so be it. That's life.
I respect a lot of people's opinions on here, I may not agree with them all the time but that's what makes it interesting reading, I learn something from this board most days that I didn't know before and surely that's a good thing?
Becky

Its nothing to do with they aren't hearing what they want to hear, its the tone its delivered, me and borderdawn have had many a debate but they have always been done in a polite adult way. There has been debate on here for a long time but very few have decided to leave before.

Like I said earlier, change is good and it good that it hasnt become stagnant, but should we forgo the things that made this one of the better sites just for change?

People change, Dogsey, at it's heart remains the same.

Yes we get different sorts of people coming on, but we still moderate to the same rules as we did last year. The problem is some people forget this is a discussion forum and they just can't handle difference of opinion.

In addition some people can't handle somewhat difficult questions about their 'breed' (yet the same people usually start the 'infighting') - people are inquisitive and have every right to ask questions if a breed interests them, and we have a moral obligation to let them - so long as they stay within the boundaries of the law.

I think it's fair to say that certain 'breeds' (and I put breeds in inverted commas as they are not technically breeds) have public perception problems - these people need to get thier own act together and do a good PR job to turn things around - they should not expect to censor anyone. AND the last thing they need to do is sign up fake accounts to try and hoodwink people (we keep records of every single account that does btw).

Some 'breeds' have more exposure here as unlike other forums, we have always been open to all breeds new or old. We are however seriously considering restricting chat of these 'breeds' to one single section, due to not only the disruptions it causes everywhere else but because of ridiculous legal threats so putting them all in one section would make it easier for us to moderate them (that means no pics in the pics section, no health related topics in the health section if the breed is mentioned etc etc). In addition posts from that section won't show in the 'new posts link'.

We almost banned talk about these 'breeds' at one point as we found people 'high up' in the breeds were abusing Dogsey and it's members by using multiple accounts (which like I said we have a record of - and one day we might publish something about this). However we had two supporting members at that time who were also owners of these breeds (purely as pets, not breeders) and it is because of them we didn't go ahead with the ban. We were that sick of it all.

These 'breeds' have had more exposure on Dogsey than probably anywhere else, and frankly we're getting a tad annoyed by the lack of respect and courtesy from some people in these breeds. Just recently we were shown a site where some of our members (owners of these breeds) had posted nasty remarks about Dogsey and it's members on their breed specific site - members who we thought were part of the Dogsey family too.

Anyway, I'm closing this thread as all feedback should go in the feedback section - not on the open forums.