Which.net discussion area

Nine weeks later and no response.

Are we waiting on the new CEO to make the decision malcolm or who really does make the policy for this website? Governance is one thing but what company law and regulations, other than moderation apply here? Don’t tell me its classed as “entertainment ” and filed under “miscellaneous”? I get the feeling its a sounding board for government policy or an “ideas ” website.

I don’t believe we are waiting for the new CEO, duncan. The questions asked of Which? could (should) have been easily addressed by the staff and, at least, cleared the air a little. Which? frequently ask other organisations to deal with customers’ complaints promptly.

I think covering a 12 month period is a very reasonable request for the renewal of annual items which might have been overlooked. It is remiss this wasn’t thought of, or mentioned, earlier. I hope Which? will do the right thing.

The idea of extending the forwarding service was not only considered but promoted strongly, by a number of people at the time. It was only reluctantly extended to six months after protests, but personally, given what it costs us to remain with the organisation, it would seem perfectly feasible for Which? to continue the service on a indefinite basis. It does, after all, consume almost no resources, financial or technological, and perhaps – given the undoubted harm this entire appalling episode has done to Which?’s reputation – the new CEO might look again at how the most loyal and longest serving members of Which? have been treated and, if not reverse the decision, at least consider extending the forwarding service indefinitely.

As a short reminder, not only were the W.net members given no choice, they were not consulted in advance and were not given the option of purchasing the domain name, that Which? now sits on, not using and yet will not release to the members. It’s hard to believe any organisation can behave in this way, but a Consumer organisation? It defies belief.

Forwarding of email for a year is an absolute minimum. I am still getting letters for the previous occupants of my home after more than two years. Although I am not involved it’s disappointing to be a member of an organisation that is unwilling to lift a finger to help.

It will be interesting to see how Anabel – the new CEO – reacts to the obvious disquiet and concern expressed multiple times in excruciating detail over the appalling ineptitude of the entire sorry saga. She will have the authority to reverse the decision to only offer auto-forwarding for a miserable 6 months (only extended to 6 after a massive outcry) and thus to go some way to restoring the confidence in Which? felt by the numbers of subscribers, many of whom I know have felt utterly betrayed by the entire process.

It would cost W? almost nothing to retain the service in perpetuity, which is – I believe – the least we are entitled to expect.

Which? have ignored this Convo since May. I doubt there will be any further interest. Most, or all, subscribers will have made new arrangements and will not, I imagine, want to return given the circumstances of their loss of service.

I think the new CEO will need to figure out whether she is running a “friendly society” of consumers or a publishing and services business.

Malcolm: I would not return to using a which.net address, as you can no longer trust them, but that’s not the point. We need auto-forwarding to be maintained indefinitely.

I could not agree more, and I believe it’s incumbent on Which? to not simply extend the forwarding but to provide it indefinitely. After all, there was no provision for cancellation in the original contract; Which? chose to insert the clause a week or so prior to the cancellation. They have behaved appallingly, but the new CEO has the power to extend the auto forwarding indefinitely and I would ask her to do this and thereby set the minds of the most loyal, elderly and often infirm members of Which? at rest regarding this entire debacle,

I’m not from Which? DP – and I will be sorry.

You are too kind Roger.

George posted the above at 10 past 4 ,I expected a deluge of posts and I rightfully giving respect, gave many 5 hours to reply .
Nobody has — as you know I don’t look for “brownie points ” quite the opposite and get condemned for criticizing many businesses operating in the UK which -IMO fail the public .

But I have to say from a purely engineering point of view The Team has put forward good engineering points .
If the website is not helped by big proprietary digital organisations in any way then they are right its engineering intensive for the very points they put as well as labour intensive , its not for the “faint hearted ” and even tech,s on this subject , if its not for “home use ” put up a long list of – “think again ” before you start .

On the other hand IF it was using a big US company to run/maintain it that’s a different story then it would come down to annual costs .

Again incurring the wrath of many here I too would not sell off the domain for the same reasons the Team give .
I have not been that long here in comparison to some regulars and I know how emotional this subject is as you know I am an emotional person but I am fair and try to be even -handed .

Which ? in the time I have been here has made a “massive ” impression on its Web presence its increased greatly the last thing it would want to do is let its prestige fall into a third parties hands to do as they wished with it .
I know of no big business in the USA who would do this ,as a matter of fact after checking up on US law websites run by business attorneys the verdict is that they would be committing economic and business “suicide”.

I am now ready for the “mark downs & brick-bats ” but try to see it from an engineering stance- check up yourself but don’t quote any that are run with help from private companies.

Dear Ms Hoult. Thank you very much for coming here and writing this. Your response and willingness to contribute to this forum is the first sign that those in head office, wish to acknowledge our presence here. The fact that you are at the very top of the organisation is like having the Queen coming to visit and I regard your post here with the same reverence that I would give to any person of such stature. While this might seem a little sycophantic you have, in this first visit asked for and obtained answers to questions raised above. Might I also respectfully direct your attention to the potential in Which Conversation to contribute to the research and ideas included in the magazine and your reports on line. While we would not claim to be totally representative of the general public, you do have, here, a wide, eclectic and very knowledgeable set of contributors who do have experience of life and the ways of the world. You can tap this data base with directed requests in the form of leading articles and, when we have contributed something useful, mention our thoughts in your texts. Thank you again for writing here. It is an encouraging sign for the future.

Earlier this year I cancelled my membership in despair, I shall now renew it with the same degree of enthusiasm!

We should have welcomed you sooner, Anabel, but were not aware you had arrived.

I think we understand that this tiny corner of the Which? empire does not justify [and possibly not deserve] an early visit, but you are welcome to drop in at any time – even, like many of our participants, after you get home from work and at the weekends.

For some curious reason few Which? people see Which? Conversation as anything other than a work obligation. But for anyone who consumes anything this is a good place in which to read and write.

Duncan – If I remember rightly you do not subscribe to Which? at all but I wondered if that has now changed.. ?.

Anyway to what George has written and the problematic rushed nature of the closure and the looming GDPR . You see I am not clear why this decision was not telegraphed a year ahead or even two years ahead. Is it because Which? is/was badly organised?

I think ultimately it is indisputable that this was handled very poorly but apparently nobody seems to have been involved in making this decision in a timely fashion other than when it was passed to the Trustees with a very short time frame to execution.

Speaking as a shareholder of the Consumers’ Association I have been painfully embarrassed by the ineptitude shown in this episode.

The abrupt removal of reader’s product reviews in September 2018 is more widely noticed and potentially will be more embarrassing in the long term.

Patrick, if the technical reasons for the closure of Which.net were clear and obvious well in advance of the GDPR implementation date, then I think Which? was too slow to act on them, leading to the untimely closure of those services and the associated pains for long serving members.

Patrick if your memory is that long then why is it when when originally commenting on this (being a member ) Which ? posted saying that they don’t mind me commenting on member subjects like this ?

I did say quite loudly at the time I have no moral right –or probably legal right to comment but Which said I could .
Malcolm also told me to -quote- “think about joining ” and by the way -WHERE is malcolm ?

if this had not been forthcoming I would not in my wildest dreams comment on subjects relating to paying members while not a member .
I might be outspoken but I do have some social morals and ideals and would not “go where I am not invited ” , that’s the only reason I comment on subjects like this .
If Which ? changed its mind and told me otherwise I would never say a word from then on relating to members subjects.

Just curious as without you seeing the magazines, and not having access to the Reviews, and likely not seeing the Accounts and the AGM Minutes, I think your views may be slightly skewed by seeing a partial picture of the organisationsolely from on-line activity.

Anyone can post on Which? Conversation so we are open to all. However there may be a danger perhaps that non-members will be vociferous on matters and may be assumed to actually be genuine members with a subscribers insight.

Should members and non-members be indicated? Only a thought.

Patrick , you read my post I was commenting on the engineering aspect not the moral/social one , why didn’t you bring this up when I agreed with the regulars in the way it was announced “wasn’t cricket ” and got marked up for it ?
I never asked to be allowed to post on convos directly relating to this subject Which told me I could when I queried it.
It cuts both ways.

Well “knock me down with a feather ” – Amazon have said-Yes !
Quote-from Amazon itself –

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Email Service (SES) is capable of sending and receiving email using your domain names. When SES was launched in January 2011 the target use case was an organization sending large volumes of email that didn’t want the responsibility of building and managing mail servers. Technology solutions such as DKIM and SPF and government legislation (e.g. CAN-SPAM Act) had been introduced to attempt to address the proliferation of unsolicited email, but these developments also made it more challenging to manage an in-house email platform.

Organizations using SES could send almost any scale of transactional emails and correspondence while only having to pay for the number of emails sent and amount of data transferred. Currently the charge is $0.10 USD for every 1,000 emails sent which includes content filtering, handling of bounce backs, delivery attempt success notifications, and processing spam complaints.
In September 2015 AWS added the capability to receive email with SES. Beyond the basics of communicating with other mail servers SES also scans incoming email for spam and viruses and can reject mail from untrusted sources.
As an integrated member of Amazon’s portfolio of services, SES can also chain together actions upon receiving an email, such as storing it in an S3 bucket, publishing it to a Simple Notification Service (SNS) topic, calling custom Lambda functions, or transferring the message to WorkMail.

It goes on about AWS Lambda as an event-driven ,serverless computing platform and gets “technical ” so I will stop there.