Posted By Philip Roberts Can anyone explain the reasoning behind locking threads. The careers forum has been reduced to its present form, despite a vigorous campaign for it to remain open to advertisers, to protect the advertising revenue of SHP. It has now been reduced even further so that replies to posts can only be made via e-mail. I for one like to follow the progress of threads as some of the advice given may be useful to me. Is it just to save moderators locking individual threads from recruiters ? Phil Roberts CMIOSH

Posted By IOSH Moderator We are only locking those threads that are straightforward requests for work. Threads that are seeking more general advice will remain open. The Moderators, who are all volunteers, had found that AUG3 had more holes than Reason's Swiss Cheese model of Accident Causation and were finding that a totally disproportionate amount of their time was being taken up in simply sorting through these breaches on the Careers Forum. These would all require follow-up - contacting the posters to let them know that their post was a breach. Despite the requests and instructions on the site, many people with positions to offer, including recruitment consultants and others, were either failing to read them or ignoring them. It was felt that, provided a job-seeker had made their contact details plain, there was nothing to be lost by locking the thread. The Moderating Team

Posted By Philip Roberts I agree with Pete, It seems that no thought has been given to members requirements or wishes. Just another unilateral action by IOSH reducing the benefits of the forum to members without consultation. Regards Phil Roberts

Posted By Philip Roberts The point I made in my first posting was about the usefulness of any indirect assistance and information which is not considered as advertising being given to the poster, may have to other readers of the forum. I still maintain changing the AUG is a reduction in the service to all forum users without consultation.

Posted By Karen Todd I started to do the survey so I could put down my thoughts about the careers forum, but it was all taking too long so I abandoned it. I did think about starting a thread, "What do you want from the careers forum?", but thought it might be construed as a survey and therefore breach of AUGs. But, if I had my way, I'd split the careers forum into sub-forums: those seeking work, those offering work, and general career issues. And I'd like it if those seeking work could be consultants posting about contract work. And if those offering work could be companies and perhaps even agencies. The IOSH website has such a huge volume of traffic that I think it's a pity that the users have to go to other websites and bulletin boards (that I won't mention) to seek work and offer work. It'd be nice to have everything here on the IOSH site. KT

Posted By The toecap With regards to the mods stating it takes loads ot time trawling through posting. All your gonna get now is job seekers re posting the same stuff so that they are kept at the top of the list. Then these will get blocked then the whole system falls down. Nobody can post anymore

Posted By chrisogmccann I agree with the mod's. Too many people are basically going and publishing.,..Need work so so area. This is happening daily. Careers advice forums are for advice. If they want to look for work, go to job websites and H&S specific web sites. These people that Mod these sites are volunteers and should be respected.

Posted By Philip Roberts Chris, I have the greatest respect for those people who have the time and inclination to act as moderators for this forum and I don't think anything I have posted has shown any disrespect, please correct me if I am wrong. I myself have used this forum whilst searching for work as well as all the other web sites and jobs boards, this is just another avenue to follow in the hope that someone with work to offer will get in touch. I can vouch for the fact that contact with someone offering work was made by me directly following up advice given to another posting, this avenue has now been lost, in my opinion to the detriment of the forum. I know I will not win this battle, just look at the conference papers battle raging on the members forum, I just want my point to be recognised, regards Phil