A political subject for a change (as it is back in the news)- Budget 2010

[ole razzy]

Yeah they dont like it up them! Well maybe some do?

[rogueelement]

Interesting to note the figure of less than £6000 for Phil Whicker to travel to Mumbai a couple of times, Hong Kong and  Dubai , we can only assume that those costs did not come out of "his" travel budget , but out of the budget of Jersey Travel,,, oooops sorry meant Jersey Finance , who are of course supported by the States.
A more interesting figure , and this would apply to all Politicians , is where have they been, what did they contribute and who paid the balance? A trip to anywhere in the world on business travel with a 3/4 night stop over is going to cost you £5k . So lets get real , the figures produced for all States members are rubbish in so far as they only relate to their personal expenditure and do not cover trips paid by other agencies , IE , Tourism, the FSC, Jersey Finance , all quangos which have huge travel budgets .
I suppose You might even find the odd trip to London to meet an exiled Senator!
It is all Bollix .
I recall a politician from St John who wracked up more air miles than Alan Whicker , but we must suppose he was doing this for the Public good.............

[ole razzy]

So on the 10th march the JEP landed this headline

http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/03/10/states-deficit-to-hit-64m/

They probably got that from PJ seeing as we were discussing it on the March 1st is that why the site got crashed lol

rs

I think you might be right there Rico. If you, like me, have been interested in the discussions on PJ for some time you will doubtless have noticed that at the bottom of the forum page there is a counter which tells you how many people are online and the most ever online. If my memory serves me correctly then I'm sure the ‘most ever online’ figure was 157 and that was around the time of the last senatorial elections. PJ had a multitude of posters talking across numerous threads at that time. If you now look at the ‘most ever online’ stat it tells you that on March 2nd 2010, the exact same time that PJ was taken down temporarily, the figure leapt up to 218! Why?

I reckon that you might have ruffled a few feathers with your cut and paste from the Hansard and that Philip Ozouf's shocking addmition that the deficit was much higher than the 50m he'd earlier stated caused alarms bells ringing right at the top.

Of course it’s only speculation but it would not surprise me if this was more than a coincidence.

Admin tells us;  “Many of you have not been able to access the old server due to the fact that the IP address for that server was being blocked by the name servers accessed by many in Jersey (no names of the company involved, but if you couldn't see us, you use it).”

My speculative theory , if indeed correct, would suggest that a Minister or Ministers have the capacity to take down online sources if they do not like the nature of the comments made. Of course this is only speculation that can never be proven but what other reason could there be?

[Dundee]

It is easy to speculate as to why the site was down, but having stated that I have had access problems a number of times I very much doubt if there is any censuring of PJ my theory is that the forum set up is unable to cope with weekend traffic and hence crashes at this time. It would be very risky for a politician to order JT to undertake such actions, and what would it achieve?
Many of the forums I am a member of crash and this is down to the nuts and bolts of the sites and nothing else.

[vlad1m1r]

I think you might be right there Rico. If you, like me, have been interested in the discussions on PJ for some time you will doubtless have noticed that at the bottom of the forum page there is a counter which tells you how many people are online and the most ever online. If my memory serves me correctly then I'm sure the ‘most ever online’ figure was 157 and that was around the time of the last senatorial elections. PJ had a multitude of posters talking across numerous threads at that time. If you now look at the ‘most ever online’ stat it tells you that on March 2nd 2010, the exact same time that PJ was taken down temporarily, the figure leapt up to 218! Why?

I reckon that you might have ruffled a few feathers with your cut and paste from the Hansard and that Philip Ozouf's shocking addmition that the deficit was much higher than the 50m he'd earlier stated caused alarms bells ringing right at the top.

Of course it’s only speculation but it would not surprise me if this was more than a coincidence.

Admin tells us;  “Many of you have not been able to access the old server due to the fact that the IP address for that server was being blocked by the name servers accessed by many in Jersey (no names of the company involved, but if you couldn't see us, you use it).”

My speculative theory , if indeed correct, would suggest that a Minister or Ministers have the capacity to take down online sources if they do not like the nature of the comments made. Of course this is only speculation that can never be proven but what other reason could there be?

I'm pleased to see that someone else finds it a little odd that our site was blacklisted and the thread you mention is the only one I can think of as being sufficiently controversial. Shouldn't this be an outright scandal if in the 21st Century a government can censure free discussion in this way?

I suppose the problem has been solved for now by migrating to a new server but if anyone in the island hasn't followed their suggestion to switch to OpenDNS I suggest they do so now or else you'll have JT deciding for you what sites to access. Perhaps we could start another thread about this? It bears some discussion...

V.

[vlad1m1r]

It is easy to speculate as to why the site was down, but having stated that I have had access problems a number of times I very much doubt if there is any censuring of PJ my theory is that the forum set up is unable to cope with weekend traffic and hence crashes at this time. It would be very risky for a politician to order JT to undertake such actions, and what would it achieve?
Many of the forums I am a member of crash and this is down to the nuts and bolts of the sites and nothing else.

Have you not see the new PJ server page? It said the site was blacklisted; that said if it had been blocked by JT's DNS server it would simply appear to be a technical error. I say let's all switch to OpenDNS so we can see the sites we want, have multiple mirrors and carefully archive the site - it beggars belief that something like this could happen!

V.

[Fritz]

I would like to hear JT,s comments on this.

Has anyone spoken to them?

[Dundee]

Have you not see the new PJ server page? It said the site was blacklisted; that said if it had been blocked by JT's DNS server it would simply appear to be a technical error. I say let's all switch to OpenDNS so we can see the sites we want, have multiple mirrors and carefully archive the site - it beggars belief that something like this could happen!

V.

This still does not answer why access problems should occur over a weekend, why block a site on a temporary basis? Why switch when I can access any site in the world I personally wish to? If it was a political move how come other sites have not been blacklisted? I vaguely recall a couple were but only because of some fairly damming statements.

[Fritz]

I, personally, think PJ only goes down when admin do not have someone there to monitor it.
If JT, for whatever reason are blocking it, they are taking a helluva risk as far as their credibility as an international business concern goes.

[vlad1m1r]

I, personally, think PJ only goes down when admin do not have someone there to monitor it.
If JT, for whatever reason are blocking it, they are taking a helluva risk as far as their credibility as an international business concern goes.

I find it hard to believe that the PJ server can buckle under the strain of a forum with only 500 or so members; of course the blacklisting may have been accidental, perhaps we were listed as a spam site or something but there's more going on here than meets the eye in my humble opinion and beyond the front page the admin doesn't seem comfortable discussing it any further - I suppose we should be grateful that we're up and running now but if your ISP can cut you off again at any time the issue isn't really resolved..

V.

[ole razzy]

I find it hard to believe that the PJ server can buckle under the strain of a forum with only 500 or so members;

Agreed. Especially when at any given time, even on a good day, there are probably no more then 20 members and 40 guests online. I think its smelly. Will admin ask for a written explantion? If an answer is forthcoming might it be published?

[vlad1m1r]

Agreed. Especially when at any given time, even on a good day, there are probably no more then 20 members and 40 guests online. I think its smelly. Will admin ask for a written explantion? If an answer is forthcoming might it be published?

I've done a bit of fishing and it seems that no one using a SMF script has had a problem with volume in this way; I wonder who our host is? I'm at a bit of a loss as when I ran my humble online business we were able to register a domain name for less than a pound which supported thousands of visitors to our site every day (at least potentially, my business acumen isn't that good!) - Certainly you can stop JT from deciding for you what you see by doing as admin suggested and switching to OpenDNS (I think it might be worth starting a thread with simple info on how and why people should do this.)

If things have happened as we think though isn't it letter to JEP time?

V.

[ole razzy]

That may well be but ultimately its the owner of this sites call. And until such time as they have some facts to substantiate any of this speculation my feeling is that it would be better in the meantime to simply move over to OpenDNS. 

Maybe Admin would like to comment at this juncture?

[rogueelement]

I would just like to state that it was not me!
I took a week off and so did everyone else it seems. Hmmm something for the paranoids to think about

[vlad1m1r]

That may well be but ultimately its the owner of this sites call. And until such time as they have some facts to substantiate any of this speculation my feeling is that it would be better in the meantime to simply move over to OpenDNS. 

Maybe Admin would like to comment at this juncture?

Quite right chief, probably best not to theorise in advance of the facts as Sherlock would say, in the meantime I'll see if we can't provide some links on how to use OpenDNS.

V.