Not to me, let me make that perfectly clear from the start. My good friends over at the TEFL News Network gave me advance warning that this was coming and I have to admit to a little foaming at the mouth in anticipation of this interview. I’m not going to copy and paste sections, as I’m sure, like me, that you’ll want to read the whole thing, which you can do right here.

I will of course, give my response.

Firstly, I feel one of the key problems with the ESL Cafe is the lack of interaction between the mod team and the regular Joes. This, among others, is an issue that was picked up on in a recent TEFL Logue post. This is something myself and my moderators have tried to avoid thus far on the ELT World Forums. Mr. K alludes to the fact that the mod team at the Cafe are privileged to be able to help the members who require their assistance. I never felt ‘the love’ unfortunately.

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I was particularly intrigued to read Mr. K’s thoughts on the troll issue. While his comments make a lot of sense, it’s sad that the policy seems to have alienated so many who have had genuine contributions to make over the years. He is right when he says that modding a forum is hard work, but there are so many people who can help you out as regular forum members, whose voices I feel are ignored at the Cafe.

I also like some of his ideas for developing the café. A tech forum you say? That seems like a novel idea! But seriously, I’m glad he’s learned something from all that time spent browsing ELT World. Furthermore, the fact there’s no blog of any kind goes to show how far back in the dark ages Dave’s now is when compared to its contemporaries. How can this possibly not have occurred to anyone involved in the site? How? Hang on a minute, why am I agreeing with so much of what Mr. K says? Well, to an extent I agree, because I don’t particularly feel that what has been said is what actually occurs. Over the past few months, I’ve learned just how tricky it can be to run a TEFL discussion forum, so I have some respect for the man for having entrenched himself in the job for more than five years. I certainly don’t agree with the policies of the café, I don’t even agree that Mr. K does much of what he claims in the interview, but to mire yourself in the negativity that the ESL Café forums have created for so long takes some doing.