Goodbye

[somerandombloke]

[Pally]

Let's be very clear: Eagle was NEVER handled with kid gloves as the Father of the House. Never.

Of course you must defend yourself when attacked. But some people are attacking first, going straight to personal vitriol (not necessarily you, somerandombloke).

No approach - ignoring, attacking, reasoning - has made any difference to the sort of thing Eagle posts or how he does (or doesn't) defend his position. The dilemma is we can't be seen to do nothing, yet doing nothing (or at least the minimum) is often the best choice for the forum overall.

I don't agree that a more robust approach will clear the way for a 'better' forum because there is a danger you'll raze the forum to the ground along the way.

I agree Rachael that a "more robust" approach could well raze the forum to the ground (or very close)! This post and your previous post express very clearly what seems to have been happening in the name of "challenging Eagle. It is what I have been trying to explain/express (with apparently little success) in my various posts on various threads, referring to killing debate because of the styles of response! My comments have been variously interpreted as irrelevant, not liking uncomfortable truths, agreeing with Eagle and a few other variations on a theme. I seemed unable to successfully get over the point so in the end I gave up and said that I was. But you have described it very clearly; challenge is not the same as personal attack; endlessly repeating interpretations of what Eagle has said which he doesn't accept seems pointless. And like you I am not in any way suggesting that he should be completely ignored, but reasoned argument without endless repetition, and reference back to points rather than repetition, must be more effective and less boring frankly!

I have to also add that Eagle is not the only very regular poster who will just ignore points made, questions asked or whatever when it suits!

[somerandombloke]

...challenge is not the same as personal attack; endlessly repeating interpretations of what Eagle has said which he doesn't accept seems pointless...

So what do you do just give in and let him steamroller over everyone beleiving hes the voice of reason and sense and that no one else has a relavant and trutheful and valuable word to say? He was present ed with clear evidence of his dodgie posts which he chose to ignore so he was presentewd with them a few times more till it just got silly.

I know i did say I wasnt gonna comment again. But hey.

[Rachael]

...challenge is not the same as personal attack; endlessly repeating interpretations of what Eagle has said which he doesn't accept seems pointless...

So what do you do just give in and let him steamroller over everyone beleiving hes the voice of reason and sense and that no one else has a relavant and trutheful and valuable word to say? He was present ed with clear evidence of his dodgie posts which he chose to ignore so he was presentewd with them a few times more till it just got silly.

I know i did say I wasnt gonna comment again. But hey.

The thing is, he'll believe the same whatever is said here, whether we ignore him or argue with him. As I think most people are aware. So why continue arguing with him? At some point it says more than about you than him.

[somerandombloke]

Yep. So lets stop bangin on about the silly old eejit and get on with foruming.

[Pally]

...challenge is not the same as personal attack; endlessly repeating interpretations of what Eagle has said which he doesn't accept seems pointless...

So what do you do just give in and let him steamroller over everyone beleiving hes the voice of reason and sense and that no one else has a relavant and trutheful and valuable word to say? He was present ed with clear evidence of his dodgie posts which he chose to ignore so he was presentewd with them a few times more till it just got silly.

I know i did say I wasnt gonna comment again. But hey.[/quote)

As ever my points just seem to be misunderstood and I'm not sure why. I did not say or mean that he should be allowed to steam roller over everyone! And you hit the nail on the head when you say it just got silly ....that's the point, it gets boring and silly and achieves nothing. The styles of response that I observe are not ones that will change anyone's view on anything, they just rate an excuse for huffing and puffing and general effrontery!! But perhaps that is what is wanted? I also think that if someone quite clearly does not understand the point, and clearly Eagle doesn't on the racism and African nurses comment, then repetition gets nowhere. However, Admins response to Eagle was an example of a calm, clear, fair response, with clearly stated points and suggestions, no vitriol (although Eagle was rude to him), and was far more effective. A pity really that Eagle is no longer responding even if he is lurking, I would like to have seen his potential response to Admin. It would probably have brought out more posters as I think Admin. has quite a lot of loyalty on here!

[mosy]

I think I see the Town Pub differently from some on here. Some threads can become genuine debates but historically these have tended to be of the more philosophical, abstract or theoretical sort. Threads can just be news items or ideas where everyone is welcome to offer an opinion.

Eagle almost always gives his opinion in his opening post, which not all do, and so having laid his cards on the table probably doesn't feel the need to add much else. I doubt he expects to be quizzed to the nth degree as to why he thinks things that he just does nor should he have to justify his opinions unless he chooses to - anymore than anyone else does. He doesn't automatically expect people to agree with him and is unlikely to change his views. Doesn't that sound like the wishes we all have? Surely we're all "Eagles" until such time as a day has more than 24 hrs or one has the inclination to be bothered about minutiae when stating a generality.

He has apologised at times for when he has been genuinely misunderstood, yet these issues are dragged up relentlessy, time and agin. For goodness sake, let some things drop!

---

For what it's worth, I happen to agree with Eagle about nurses since it's been my experience too in hospital stays that non-white nurses are more compassionate. I concluded that the reason was because white nurses were more likely to be senior and therefore had way more time pressures from form-filling and pressure to meet targets which absolutely had to be done so patients came second. <- That's a direct quote from a nurse by the way. Does that mean I'm racist or just a simple observer? Nurses have had to take on loads of extra duites for little extra pay and in Lewisham Hospital were decidedly understaffed for the number of patients on a ward (at least those I've been in). That, to me, is worthy of a debate in itself (despite Cameron's claims of more nurses) and it's illogical to turn it into a racism debate when understaffing and management pressures seem to be the primary causes. And no, I have no means of factually proving any of this - no statistics or learned book quotes, nothing. You'll just have to take my word that I'm telling the truth about what I experienced.

My above last sentence also reflects the pressure some forum members impose that absolutely everything has to be backed up by facts. It doesn't if it's an opinion!

Edit PS: I do dislike the deliberate mispelling of people's names when it's used as a put down. It's not big and it's not clever, as Vic Reeves once said.

[Smiffy]

My above last sentence also reflects the pressure some forum members impose that absolutely everything has to be backed up by facts. It doesn't if it's an opinion!

I don't think anyone pressured him to come out with the 95% 'fact'.

[Pally]

1. I think I see the Town Pub differently from some on here. ........ Threads can just be news items or ideas where everyone is welcome to offer an opinion.

2. He has apologised at times for when he has been genuinely misunderstood, yet these issues are dragged up relentlessy, time and again. For goodness sake, let some things drop!

3. My above last sentence also reflects the pressure some forum members impose that absolutely everything has to be backed up by facts. It doesn't if it's an opinion! .

(My italics)

1.I agree that Town Pub is a mixed bag of news, ideas and opinions. But presumably everyone is welcome to offer their opinion on any of the forums although they may not always feel like that with the way some threads end up going!

2. Letting things drop after making a clear point is a very good idea. Endlessly repeating them does nothing for the forum and I think would tend to make someone more entrenched rather than move their views forward

3. Re backing things up with facts - I agree that this can get boringly limiting with the level of repetitious pressure to provide facts, links etc for every point. However there is a key point re opinions needing to be based on something factual in the end .... the opposite is precisely how racism (for example) can develop to a point that it becomes "fact" in people's minds. Your point about black nurses is backed by a discussion and possible viable reason for them apparently being more caring in that particular hospital. I am not sure it becomes valid without knowing more about the numbers of black and white managers to non managers and observing both in action over time, but I can see that in those circumstances one is hardly likely to start asking for that information and so one's view will be based on one's own experience which has its own validity! I wonder if that view then becomes an assumption that might be made when going to another hospital for example? Would that be a valid assumption about black nurses at that hospital? I would say not, and is exactly how opinions from experience can turn into inaccurate, unfair and unreasonable labels and assumptions... in this case about both black and white nurses!

[mosy]

Pally, re your point 3: I'd be very surprised if anyone extrapolated my experience into a racist fact applicable to all NHS hospitals since it is increased admin pressure on senior nurses in the NHS that was my conclusion.

If anyone has any facts about a glass ceiling in the nursing profession in the NHS, or time sheet data as to what proportion of nurses' hours are now spent on admin foisted on them due to redundancies in admin/management posts and re-organisation today versus a decade ago, I'm all ears. FOI requests maybe, assuming that similar comparative statistics from a decade ago even exist.

However, this NHS Confederation review published in 2013 makes it plain that bureacracy (data collection in particular) needs to be reformed.

Quote (from the Introduction): The problem we want to solve
We want to ensure data in the NHS works
harder to improve patient outcomes and enable
staff to focus on delivering high-quality patient
care, without being distracted by unnecessary
bureaucracy. Unquote.
Full official findings via this link, Challenging Bureaucracy. Click the option to "Open file" (pdf): http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/2013 ... ureaucracy

This is a published comment from a practioner within the NHS: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/ ... sites.html

As to how many nurses fall under a glass ceiling, it's likely that very many of the imported ones will if they don't speak English very well... (The desperate NHS and brought-in foreign nurses gets numerous "hits" on Google.)

I don't see how finding the above "validity" makes any difference to my experience so to be frank I feel that I've probably just wasted my time. If anyone wants to tell me I haven't because I've done a public service by doing others' Googling for them because they didn't believe me in the first place, I'm not sure I'd exactly find that flattering

[Pally]

Pally, re your point 3: I'd be very surprised if anyone extrapolated my experience into a racist fact applicable to all NHS hospitals since it is increased admin pressure on senior nurses in the NHS that was my conclusion.

If anyone has any facts about a glass ceiling in the nursing profession in the NHS, or time sheet data as to what proportion of nurses' hours are now spent on admin foisted on them due to redundancies in admin/management posts and re-organisation today versus a decade ago, I'm all ears. FOI requests maybe, assuming that similar comparative statistics from a decade ago even exist.

However, this NHS Confederation review published in 2013 makes it plain that bureacracy (data collection in particular) needs to be reformed.

Quote (from the Introduction): The problem we want to solve
We want to ensure data in the NHS works
harder to improve patient outcomes and enable
staff to focus on delivering high-quality patient
care, without being distracted by unnecessary
bureaucracy. Unquote.
Full official findings via this link, Challenging Bureaucracy. Click the option to "Open file" (pdf): http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/2013 ... ureaucracy

This is a published comment from a practioner within the NHS: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/ ... sites.html

As to how many nurses fall under a glass ceiling, it's likely that very many of the imported ones will if they don't speak English very well... (The desperate NHS and brought-in foreign nurses gets numerous "hits" on Google.)

I don't see how finding the above "validity" makes any difference to my experience so to be frank I feel that I've probably just wasted my time. If anyone wants to tell me I haven't because I've done a public service by doing others' Googling for them because they didn't believe me in the first place, I'm not sure I'd exactly find that flattering

My comments were an example of how opinion without facts can become generalised assumptions. It wasn't that I didn't believe your experience; I have no reason to disbelieve you. The information you have posted is interesting but doesn't detract from the example. I could have used many other examples regarding opinion from experience, just took that one as you had mentioned it.

[_HB]

Bloody hell - This place has gone downhill since Eagle left

[Pally]

Bloody hell - This place has gone downhill since Eagle left

in what way exactly HB?

[_HB]

Because of the disgusting racism on this thread. The disgusting racism which has now been removed by admin thankfully.

[Pally]

Because of the disgusting racism on this thread. The disgusting racism which has now been removed by admin thankfully.

Yes ..I was being a touch ironic!!

As a result of it being removed, my reply has also been removed understandably as it would no longer make sense!

But my point about opinions from experience without facts or being turned into "facts" remains relevant... and that two people with different experiences of people from the same perceived group, can draw different conclusions which may or may not have facts to prove/ back up that opinion.

Overall I am saying that opinions without facts to back them up ( a point made in the original post I replied to) very easily slip into generalised conclusions about a group of people seen as an homogenous group, rather than as individuals.

That though does not mean that specific characteristics or achievements in specific groups can't be acknowledged and used to inform opinion.

[somerandombloke]

Because of the disgusting racism on this thread. The disgusting racism which has now been removed by admin thankfully.

The who the waht the where now? Did I miss a spat?

[mosy]

A post was made (and subsequently disappeared, presumably removed by Admin due to tone or a couple of somewhat pointed comments) from someone who said they'd resigned as a nursing manager in the NHS because recruitment policies were now such that underqualified and in some cases incompetent or unconscientious staff were employed thus making the jobs of the competent and diligent staff harder; also making jobs less attractive for competent would-be applicants [which I took to mean invoking a downward spiral of efficiency overall]. Complaints, he/she said, couldn't be made about any staff where race might be a factor as to do so might imply a race bias and thus could lead to disciplinary charges.

I immediately thought of Pally's earlier comments that this was another personal opinion (so unsubstantiated) and that I could hardly expect people to believe me yet doubt him or her, so I kept quiet. I didn't see the response Pally said he/she made.

It has got me to wondering if the Royal College of Nursing has an official line, but I'm too busy to go digging at the moment.

[_HB]

Hmm that's overly diplomatic mosy. What it said was "Africans are lazy and incompetent."

It was basically Eagle turned up to 11 and with some typing lessons.

[admin]

I am closing this thread. Some of you know why. Others will just have to trust me. I can't be more specific in public.

Admin