Hi Ansh, (and all)
I agree...I miss just reading the posts even if the destinations don't concern me that much...
I read someplace that BBC is trying to sell LP (which would mean TT also...) but the main problem is, of course, their paranoia about unacceptable sexual topics...
There's an expression in the US about locking the barn door after the horses are gone...seems to me that the BBC is trying to show how concerned they are now that they find out they've been blind to much larger issues.
I can see it happening like this:
OMG WE'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING. IMMEDIATELY. RIGHT NOW.
2nd person: I agree, I agree completely, yes, you're absolutely right, and right now.
1st person: SO WE HAVE TO ORGANISE EVERYONE SO WE CAN FIND OUT WHERE ALL THE BAD LITTLE BITS ARE, GET RID OF THEM, GET RID OF THE PEOPLE WHO POSTED THEM, MAKE CERTAIN THERE ARE NO 'ALMOST-BAD' BIT SO WE'LL HAVE TO ALSO SET UP A GROUP OF PEOPLE TO RESEARCH WHAT REAL BAD BITS ARE, WHAT ALMOST BAD BITS ARE AND WHAT THE DIFFERENCE IS.
2nd, 3rd&4th person: Right ho! I have two brothers (sisters/aunts/cousins) who need a job and several people I owe favors to...we'll hire them (all agree).
time passes...since all the people involved have no understanding of what sort of people post on TT or what independent travel is (a travel agent is de rigeur for Messrs 1-4)
so reading posts is much too challenging for their experience and intelligence. At least one of them starts harboring doubts about the political correctness of the BBC actually advising people to vacation anyplace else BUT the UK...
more time passes....the people who are supposed to be vetting the posts (all of them, all the blinking lot of them) forget to apply critical standards and are getting caught up in the actual trips people are writing about taking and they even start thinking about their own vacations...if they could afford them. AND SOMEPLACE AWAY FROM THE STICKING RAIN FGS!.
More time passes.
In reading the posts the readers are gaining a much better understanding not just of the posters on TT but of the real world itself and of humor and acceptable cultural differences and the benefits of real diversity and are finding fewer and fewer 'bad bits' and actually enjoying coming to work. Except when the bosses are around, then gloomy looks are to be found on their faces and muttered comments about how a uni education doesn't prepare a bloke to read this kind of English, if that's what it is...
(notes are taken on especially interesting/humorous posts (esp the long ones) and taken home and shared with partners/flatmates/dog/friend at the local takeout).
Meanwhile, back at some important building Messrs # 1-4 are still going on and on about how serious they are and how seriously and hard the people they hired are working and how they hope to have everything in hand (scratch that...possibly 'bad bit') everything being considered and how they'll do their best and make certain the Beeb will again be fit for purpose while being non-offensive in any way, state or form.
For those of you not familiar with British humor/politics/newspapers, I'm sure there are similar companies/govt. organisations that do a very good job of making a muck of everything while proclaiming they're doing the best job yet.
My hope is that things will be resolved and that maybe, maybe, some person within this mess will find another job and then leave the BBC and write a book about the "(fill in appropriate term)" which will make everyone who didn't know TT greatly mourn their loss and those that do vow to not forget and MAYBE, JUST MAYBE something like it will come back and they'll trust all the grown-ups on TT to continue to behave as grown-ups, even if with sometimes strange senses of humor.
And shame on Google for not caching some of the old pages...
but I did come across this for a bit of nostalgia...
www.lonelyplanet.com/blog/2010/04/01/tragic-moderator-war-breaks-out-on-thorn-tree/Irene Adler we miss you....