What has happened?

This reminds me of Pentax when digital was in it's infancy ... they just stuck their head in the sand and look where they are now.

In the last few years I have seen the same topics raised time and time again and have also seen a lot of members leave because they were either ignored or chastised for having an opinion.

Me ... I put off joining other Pentax forums because (naively) I thought things would get better here as the old guard were slowly replaced with a younger more clued up team but obviously that is not going to happen.

Shame really.

Mike I agree.
If they will not consider an "open" forum now then they are never going to despite what they might say.

How sad that "the team" have decided not to grant the wishes of a good number of the core contributors to this site.

Many other (Pentax Forums) provide a 'lounge' for their members and it is they who will probably benefit from this decision.

No I don't agree. There are hundreds of thousands of forums on the Net which cater for users of specific brands of equipment. Pretty much all of them have an off topic Lounge to help glue the community together.

The foundation of your argument looking at the following two quotes ..

and
.. appears to be that you think that adding an off topic Lounge would all of a sudden become the main focus of the forum. There's no rational reason that this would ever happen. It hasn't happened on any other Brand specific forum.

Trying to fob us off with "it might happen in the future" has no rationale either.

The USA PentaxForums, not only has an off topic sub-forum it has a non-Pentax brand sub-forum

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/5-off-topic-forums/

Even taking to account the larger demographic of the USA that forum is much more successful and no one can say the focus has been taken off Pentax Photography, turning it into a micro-facebook of 'endless mindless off-topic dribble[sic]'.

I know this will sound harsh, but is there no one at Pentax user who knows how to run a forum?

And it's nothing like a mini-Facebook, to quote a previous post.

I know, and I'm a member (assuming we are on the same forum)

I find some of the other sites less pleasant than here... the strength of PentaxUser is its membership - let us not forget that one very, very important point. Without us, the mods are pointless

Pentax Forums gets a bit like Saab Central - started off nice and cosy and because of its size and demographic does become a haven for nasty arguments...The rumours section is sometimes quite painful to read, contributors giving out wish-lists, the same people who've not bought new gear for 3-4 years and start frothing when the new camera isn't full-frame. I've found the new place for our 'exiles' sometimes less friendly than I'd hoped.

This site is all about us... it is we who make it what it is.

Having been a Union rep for many years I was always asked "what does the union want me to do"
The simple answer is "you tell the union what you want it to do".
Somehow I can't quite get this analogy to work on this forum...

I'd be intrigued to see any threads that make you feel this way ... I have seen nothing that I could imagine would make anyone think that way (insert puzzled smiley)

That other forum spends half its time talking about this one, which is really tiresome. Please, don't follow that lead.

maybe because people are still members here and just wish they were respected (or at least listened to)?

Being treated like a schoolboy isn't pleasant.

Inevitable with how it's been here and how feelings run... you may as well ask grass not to grow.

Why should it be inevitable that we follow the tiresome lead, talking about another forum.Do the tiresome chat over there

That's understandable since most of us have invested such a lot of our time in this forum, but times they are a changin'.

Having invested all that time and still to be treated the way we are at times by one or two 'team' members makes me feel that our input is not as respected as much as it should.

I've been an active member of this forum for 9 years and I'm increasingly dismayed at the treatment some posts receive.

This is not a new problem, whilst the mods continue dealing with some posts by simply deleting them with no explanation, members are going to continue to be rubbed up the wrong way.

That said, in recent weeks we've had more say about how we feel than once would have been allowed without intervention, but that intervention did come . . . eventually.

The european Pentax forum is a good place to be and will continue to improve as its list of members increases, but it'll take time.

All the chat over there about what's going on here will die down, just as this thread will eventually, unless it gets locked of course.

I think my last achievement here will have been to get the name of the "General Chat" forum changed. Hopefully it means no more "General Chat" posts will be unceremoniously deleted and you can all enjoy your stay here as a result if that's what you choose to do.