In view of a few concerns raised I wanted to explain a bit about what the mods do on here to ensure the forum is not compromised by bogus posters.

I wanted to do this because there seems to have been some misunderstanding and confusion about what we try to achieve here.

Firstly, the whole mod team is constantly monitoring users on the forums. The mods over a period of time have developed a "nose" for bogus posters, and although we cant be 100% accurate all the time, we are usually pretty good at it.

There are a number of ways we can check posters out, which will generally expose them to be double personalities. These checks are carried out either when we are suspicious, or if it is bought to our attention by pm. Its generally not productive to start posting comments in a thread. For one thing it discourages new members from posting here, and the more genuine posters we have here the better. Sometimes the issue is borderline, i.e. we're just not sure. In that case we will give the benefit of the doubt and monitor things carefully.

So far from wanting people to post a rosy view of Spain, we just want to make new posters feel welcomed

As a long term poster, I personally, and this is purely a personal opinion so its pointless trying to argue the toss about it, is that there seems to be an element on here at the moment who are hell bent on stirring things up and just being narky in general. Not sure what the reason for this is but I have my suspicions and if its what I think it is its pretty lame, there are plenty of forums and discussion places out there so not sure what the problem is!

Well said, Matt. I´m mostly keeping a low profile these days and I am very bemused at times.

Well ........ lets try and change that.
Life's too short, and this is simply an internet forum trying to help people.

I opened this up just so people can ask any questions .... I'm simply reassuring people that we aren't asleep back here .... we are aware of the problems associated with internet forums and we are being vigilant on your behalf

Can I also remind you of the "report" button on posts. This is totallly anonymous as far as the rest of the forum is concerned, and once pressed sends a report message to the whole moderation team.

I thought the forum had been better recently?? I just dissappear when it gets nasty!

Jo xxx

To quote Monty Pythons' Brian: "We're all individuals!". We're allways going to have different opinions on the same subject which helps to contribute to a colourful forum. Everything is subjective.