The Student Room (or TSR as it is affectionately known) is a thriving free student discussion forum, if you can think of a topic there will be somewhere for you to discuss it on TSR.
The student Room is the world’s largest and fastest growing student community, with over 250,000 members and more than 16,000,000 posts on our forum. We also have the TSR wiki which has thousands of pages of revision notes, hundreds of sample UCAS personal statements and articles on everything from gap years to coping with long distance relationships.
The site welcomes people from any stage of education. You can read and post messages in any of our forums free of charge. We only ask that you register (which will take a few seconds.) Once you have done this you can join in any existing discussions, start your own and contribute to the ever growing array of resources and information for students.
Who runs The Student Room, what do they do, and can I help?
Many people are involved in the running of TSR, both paid and unpaid. Below is a list of who is who. Further down you can also find descriptions of their roles and also some info on how you can help out.
An up to date list of all members of staff as well as supporters of The Student Room can be found in the Staff and Supporters list.
How can you help?
Please direct any queries towards a moderator by starting a thread in the 'Ask A Moderator' forum. Your thread will only be visible to you and the moderators. If they cannot help, they will find another moderator, super moderator or administrator that can. If for whatever reason you cannot do this or if you cannot access the site, you can contact an admin by emailing admin@thestudentroom.co.uk
As The Student Room is such a busy forum, the moderators need everyone's help. So if there is a post which
needs to be looked at, please report it to them by clicking the button. It's on every post and notifies each of the mods. You can then see the status of the report and which moderator is dealing/has dealt with it, by clicking here or by going to 'Reports' in the quick links menu.
Role descriptions:
Admins
Admin’s raison d'etre is the continued growth of The Student Room. Working with the Mods and all site users they plan the direction TSR should take and then work to get us there.
Admin are paid employees of TSR’s parent company AcumenPI and a significant part of their role is making sure TSR is profitable and self sustaining; coordinating and managing ad campaigns they work closely with our sales team and key partners.
h their big picture view of TSR site Admin manage all TSRs development large and small with our team of developers. They work closely with the Moderator Team on everything from site rules to Mod appointment and overall community wellbeing.
Supermoderator
Supermoderators are long standing model TSR users handpicked for their understanding of TSR and their leadership skills. (They really are Super!)
The majority of a Supermoderator’s time is taken up responding to specific user enquiries and providing support and leadership to the other Moderators. Supermoderators have the final say on moderation matters. They work closely with Admin and the entire user community making sure the Members interests are adequately represented.
Global Moderator
Global Moderators are prominent and respected members of the TSR community. Like Super Mods they have a key role in keeping the site running smoothly on a day to day basis. As well as posting on the forum and being part of the community Global Mods respond to post reports across the whole site. A consequence of a report by a user may be that a thread is moved or edited or the author warned for breaking site rules. Whilst they work across the whole site most Global Mods will have a section or two in which they like to devote most of their time and efforts.
Global Moderators also respond to specific user enquiries in the Ask A Moderator forum. If a Global Moderator can’t deal with a particular issue (perhaps they don’t have the tools/permissions to do something) the enquiry will be tagged for a Supermoderator to deal with or in some cases Admin.
The Global Moderators work closely with the rest of the Moderator Team to discuss development, moderation policies and general day to day running of the site. They are appointed for their contributions across the site as a whole, their exemplary behaviour and their suitability to work as part of a team that leads the site forward.
Minimod
Minimods are active and respected members within a specific forum or group of forums. They are selected for their keen interest and positive contributions within that area of TSR.
Minimods are responsible for the day to day organisation, moderation and wellbeing of their site area. This encompasses everything from patrolling the forum for inappropriate or incorrectly placed posts and threads, dealing with disputes to answering queries, replying to post reports and developing articles on the Wiki.
In addition, Minimods work with users in their site area to make recommendations to Admin on improvements that could enhance their sub community on TSR. This could be updates to the forum; but also wider resources such as articles, blogs, photos, partnership suggestions etc. Minimods also discuss wider TSR modding policy and development with the rest of the Moderation Team.
Forum Assistants
Forum Assistants support Mini Mods operating in a particularly ‘admin intensive’ area of the site.
They are responsible for keeping their specific forum area orderly, by moving posts, merging threads and tagging threads appropriately.
Forum assistants are chosen either by the Members of TSR within a sub community of the site (in the case of the House of Commons and the Model UN) or by the Mods (in the case of the Personal Statement forum assistants) to perform an important auxiliary role.
Wiki Support Team Member
The Wiki Support Team (WST) are members who have shown an interest in the Articles section of the site. Part of their role means they are responsible for patrolling edits that are made to the articles to ensure there is no vandalism or advertising occurring.
They also are active in editing the articles themselves and may try to coordinate efforts within the wider site community to develop certain groups of articles. In addition the WST takes a role in discussing the development and improvements to the articles section in the About Wiki forum.
Personal Statement Helper
PS Helpers are university undergrads or graduates who volunteer to help other students who are planning to apply through UCAS with the wording of their Personal Statement.
TSR Members can submit a draft of their statement that they would like critiqued into one of the Personal Statement Helper Forums. Only PS Helpers are able to see any of these submissions. The PS Helpers will provide an excellent service making recommendations for alterations based upon what the Member wants to study and where they plan to apply. Reviewing quality is kept high by informal peer review.
Anyone can apply to become a PS Helper, as long as they are at University or have graduated.
Specialist Advisers
Specialist Advisers have a particular specialism or expertise that enables them to impart reputable and credible help to TSR users. They may be people from TSR or from outside of the community who help out by share their knowledge and experience with others.
A TSR Member may be approached by Admin to become a Specialist Adviser if they have demonstrated that they have a positive persona on the site and are suitably knowledgeable about a topic covered in one of the TSR forums. Alternatively Admin may approach an external professional partner to provide a Specialist Adviser service into an area that it is felt into which real benefit could be given.
Current examples of specialist advisers include our Careers Adviser and our Health and Relationships Adviser.
CV Helper
CV Helpers are usually people have entered full time work who volunteer to help other Members who are planning to apply for jobs through the wording of their CVs and cover letters.
TSR Members can submit a draft of their CV or cover letter that they would like critiqued into the CV Helper Forum. Only CV Helpers are able to see any of these submissions. The CV Helpers will provide an excellent service making recommendations for alterations based upon what the type and level of job the Member is applying for.
Though there are currently enough CV Helpers, anyone may become one once you have entered full time work.
Staying Safe on The Student Room
We want you to enjoy The Student Room. It's a great place to interact, learn and make friends; but as with every other social site on the web there are risks associated with sharing personal information that you should be aware of.
Privacy and reputation
If you choose to share personal information, photos of yourself, or meet other members offline it is at your own risk,
Remember to be careful when posting on the forum. This is a public site and is available for all to see. You may not wish to post information that could be linked to you personally or make you easily contactable.
Information we strongly recommend you do not post includes:
Postal address
E-mail address
Landline and mobile phone numbers
Passwords
If you must post any personal information, keep it fairly general and non-specific. Use your common sense and think before you post!
If you choose to share information that can be linked to you personally, then be doubly careful about what you are saying (whether it's about you or other people). Is it how you wish to be seen by people you may know offline? Does it falsely represent who you are? You wouldn't be the first person to have something you said on the Internet come back and haunt them! University tutors and employers (and even school teachers) regularly visit the site, so be careful.
When choosing a username - Please don't use your real name, choose something more random instead that does not make you identifiable.
If you are using our Classifieds section please take extra care. Only give over personal details such as your address if you feel happy to do so. We also suggest you use Pay Pal for any payments and keep communications private rather than on the forums to avoid other people having access to your details. See the classifieds forum guide for full details of 'Trading Safely Online'.
Online Safety
People may not be who they seem to be. If you do choose to meet people from TSR in the real world ensure that family/friends know where you are going and what time you intend to be back. Meet in a public place and for first meetings, no matter what your age, we'd always advise you to take someone with you, or meet amongst a group of friends.
It's not acceptable for Members to send threatening or harassing PMs, posts or reputation messages to other Members. If you feel threatened or harassed in any way by other members, please report it using the Ask A Moderator forum or the Post Report button on individual forum posts. It will then be looked into by the Moderators and dealt with as necessary.
Files attached to emails from people you don't really know or trust may contain viruses or nasty messages so it's best not to open them.
Tell your parent or carer if someone or something makes you feel uncomfortable or worried.
ATTENTION: This Legal Notice applies to the entire contents of www.thestudentroom.co.uk and the websites associated services including (but not limited to) The Student Room Wiki (together the “Website”). This Legal Notice is issued by Acumen Professional Intelligence Limited (company number: 4666380) whose registered office is 3rd Floor, 33 Bond Street, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 1RD (“Acumen PI”).
The terms of this Legal Notice along with the Privacy Policy (the “Terms”) apply to all:
a) users, members, subscribers, customers and person who visits and use the Website; and
b) administrators, mini-moderators, moderators, supermoderators, PS helpers, wiki editors and any person holding a similar position of responsibility as may be identified by Acumen PI from time to time (the “Moderators”);
(collectively or individually the “Users”).
PLEASE READ THESE TERMS CAREFULLY. Using the Website indicates that you accept the Terms regardless of whether or not you choose to register with us. If you do not accept the Terms, do not use the Website.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 By accessing any part of the Website, you shall be deemed to have accepted these Terms in full. If you do not accept these Terms in full, you must leave the Website immediately.
1.2 When using the Website, you will be subject to any additional posted guidelines or rules including (but not limited to), the “Forum Rules and Guidance”, “Announcements”, “Stickies” or any further guidance (which has been approved by Acumen PI) posted on the Website from time to time by a Moderator relating to a specific activity or feature (together the “Guidelines”). All such Guidelines are incorporated by reference into these Terms.
1.3 Acumen PI reserves the right to revise these Terms (including the Guidelines) at any time by updating them. You should check the Website from time to time to review the then current Terms, because it is binding on you. Certain provisions of these Terms may be superseded by expressly designated Terms or terms located on particular pages of the Website.
2 OWNERSHIP
2.1 You acknowledge that the Website is owned and operated by Acumen PI. Except as provided in clause 2.2, the copyright and all other intellectual property rights in all material on the Website (including (but not limited to) photographs and graphical images) are owned by Acumen PI or its licensors.
2.2 Users shall retain ownership rights in the text, messages, chat, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship or any other materials that they from time to time post or transmit to the Website (the “User-Generated Content”). Except as provided under clause 5.6, any User-Generated Content you post or transmit to the Website shall be considered non-confidential.
By submitting the User-Generated Content you hereby grant:
2.2.1 Acumen PI a permanent, non-exclusive, assignable, royalty free licence to display, reproduce, distribute and modify your User-Generated Content.
2.2.2 to all other Users a non-exclusive licence to display, reproduce or perform (if applicable) your User-Generated Content solely as necessary for such User to participate in the relevant Website activity or functionality.
3 USER-GENERATED CONTENT AND CONDUCT
3.1 Any use of the User-Generated Content by Users other than for private, non commercial research or study is strictly prohibited.
3.2 You are prohibited from posting or transmitting to or from the Website any material:
3.2.1 that is threatening, defamatory, obscene, indecent, seditious, offensive, pornographic, abusive, liable to incite racial hatred, discriminatory, menacing, scandalous, inflammatory, blasphemous, in breach of confidence, in breach of privacy or which may cause annoyance or inconvenience; or
3.2.2 for which you have not obtained all necessary licences and/or approvals; or
3.2.3 which constitutes or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise be contrary to the law of or infringe the rights of any third party, in any country in the world; or
3.2.4 which is technically harmful (including (but not limited to) computer viruses, logic bombs, Trojan horses, worms, harmful components, corrupted data or other malicious software or harmful data. (together “Inappropriate User-Generated Content”)
3.3 Acumen PI shall fully co-operate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing Acumen PI to disclose or identify or locate anyone posting any Inappropriate User-Generated Content.
3.4 Acumen PI accepts no responsibility for actively monitoring any forums contained in the Website for Inappropriate User-Generated Content. You agree that Acumen PI accept no liability whatsoever if Acumen PI so chooses from time to time to edit, restrict or remove the User-Generated Content.
4 4 SUBMITTED COURSEWORK, ESSAYS AND NOTES
4.1 We shall have the sole discretion to edit, refuse to post or remove any Coursework that is submitted and/or posted to Our Web Site across our Network of Websites.
4.2 You are entirely responsible for all Coursework and other material that you upload, post, email or otherwise transmit via the Service. We shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that the work submitted by You belongs to you and it satisfies our standards. Please note that by submitting work You are declaring that you are the owner of all privileges to that work. However, We act in good faith upon your declaration that you sign when You submit your Registration Data. Under no circumstances will We be liable in any way for any Coursework and / or Submitted Coursework, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any Coursework and / or Submitted Coursework, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Coursework and / or Submitted Coursework posted, emailed or otherwise transmitted via the Service.
4.3 You shall be solely responsible for the content of any piece of Submitted Coursework that You supply and You will ensure that the Submitted Coursework does not contain any inaccurate, misleading and/or offensive information. You guarantee to Us that any Submitted Coursework supplied by You to Us:-
4.3.1 does not infringe any copyright or other personal or proprietary right of any other person or entity;
4.3.2 does not infringe any personal moral rights; and
4.3.3 is not immoral, unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, profane and/or does not cause offence.
4.4 All work that You submit that passes Our validation system will be subsequently submitted along with Your name to plagiarism detection software (a third party company which is hosted in the United States of America). This will protect Your submitted work against abuse from other users. The plagiarism detection software will store Your submitted work for the sole purpose of plagiarism detection, to safeguard Your work against future reproduction.
4.5 With respect to the Coursework You elect to post to other publicly accessible areas of the Service, You grant Us the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Coursework (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed.
5 PROHIBITED USE OF THE WEBSITE
5.1 No part of the Website may be reproduced or stored in any other website or included in any public or private electronic retrieval system or service without Acumen PI’s prior written consent.
5.2 You agree that you will not:
5.2.1 use the Website for any purpose that is unlawful (including (but not limited to) by hacking) or prohibited by these Terms;
5.2.2 use the Website in such a manner as would, in the sole discretion of Acumen PI, cause harm to the Website or other Users or otherwise interfere with the enjoyment of the Website;
5.2.3 harass, abuse, threaten or defraud another User;
5.2.4 use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Website for any purpose;
5.2.5 attempt to gain authorised access to the Website through hacking, password mining or any other means; or
5.2.6 interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Website.
6 MODERATORS (This section is only applicable to moderators)
6.1 Moderators shall be entitled to carry out such day-to-day tasks as are reasonably required for them to carry out their roles (as outlined in the relevant Guidelines), without prior approval from Acumen PI.
6.2 Moderators shall only be entitled to appoint or delegate authority in relation to the Website (for instance (but not limited to) appointment of a Moderator) with the prior approval of Acumen PI.
6.3 Each Moderator undertakes that he shall not at any time::
6.3.1 communicate or otherwise make available to any person, in whole or in part, any information provided by Acumen PI or a User which is marked as confidential or is imparted in circumstances importing an obligation of confidence (for instance (but not limited to) private messages, anonymous posts by Users or posts by Users on a “Ask a Moderator” or “Ask a Mini-Moderator”) (“Confidential Information”);
6.3.2 use the Confidential Information in whole or in part for any research, development or manufacture;
6.4 A Moderator shall disclose Confidential Information:
6.4.1 to the extent required by law, by any governmental or other regulatory authority or by a court or other authority of competent jurisdiction provided that, to the extent it is permitted to do so, it gives Acumen PI and, if relevant, the User as much notice of such disclosure as possible; or
6.4.2 to Acumen PI if the Confidential Information is relevant or subject to an investigation by Acumen PI for an alleged breach of these Terms, but only to that extent.
6.5 Each Moderator acknowledges and hereby agrees to adhere to the terms of the Privacy Policy and its obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 in respect of any personal or sensitive information relating to any person that it may have access to on the Website (or any part of it).
6.6 Each Moderator agrees that they will:
6.6.1 not use the Website or the powers conferred on them by Acumen PI in such a manner as would, in the sole discretion of Acumen PI, cause harm to the Website or other Users;
6.6.2 use all tools, access to the Website (or any part of it) and any other powers or authorities provided or delegated to them by Acumen PI solely for the purposes of carrying out their responsibilities as detailed in The Guidelines, and at all times in good faith;
6.6.3 not unduly undermine or criticise User-Generated Content (including Confidential Information) on the Website; and;
6.6.4 not use User-Generated Content (including Confidential Information) to gain an unfair advantage over a User; and
6.6.5 immediately remove any content from the view of Users as soon as it becomes aware, or could reasonably be expected to be aware, of any User-Generated Content posted in breach of the Terms and assist in any subsequent investigation. If such content appears to be in significant breach of the law, or requires action or investigation from Acumen PI, then in addition, they will immediately notify Acumen PI.
6.6.6 immediately notify Acumen PI in the event the Moderator receives a request from a third party or User requiring or requesting any User-Generated Content to be removed from the Website on grounds it is defamatory, illegal, infringing, in breach of confidence or privacy or otherwise in breach of the Terms and for whatever reason such request is not actioned by you by removing the identical material immediately on receipt.
6.7 Acumen PI may terminate a position of a Moderator immediately without notice for any reason. In such circumstances the Moderator will cease to have access to the Website in its capacity as Moderator. The termination of a Moderator’s position will not affect clause 2, 9, 10 and 11 sub-clauses 6.3 to 6.5, and this sub-clause 6.7
6.8 Each Moderator agrees that they will seek Acumen PI’s guidance if they are in doubt about any of the forgoing provisions of this clause 5.
7 LINKS TO AND FROM OTHER WEBSITES
7.1 Links to third party websites on the Website are provided solely for your convenience. If you use these links, you leave the Website. Acumen PI has not reviewed all of these third party websites and does not control and is not responsible for these websites or their content or availability. Acumen PI therefore does not endorse or make any representations about them, or any material found there, or any results that may be obtained from using them. If you decide to access any of the third party websites linked to the Website, you do so entirely at your own risk.
7.2 If you would like to link to the Website, you may only do so on the basis that you link to, but do not replicate, any page of the Website, and subject to the following conditions:
7.2.1 you do not remove, distort or otherwise alter the size or appearance of The Student Room logo;
7.2.2 you do not in any way imply that Acumen PI is endorsing any products or services other than its own;
7.2.3 you do not misrepresent your relationship with Acumen PI nor present any other false information about Acumen PI;
7.2.4 you do not otherwise use The Student Room mark displayed on the Website without express written permission from Acumen PI;
7.2.5 you do not link from a website that you do not have the necessary authority or permission to link from; and
7.2.6 the website you are linking from does not contain content that is distasteful, offensive or controversial, infringes any intellectual property rights or other rights of Acumen PI or any other person or otherwise does not comply with all applicable laws and regulations.
7.3 Acumen PI expressly reserves the right to revoke the right granted in clause 7.2 for breach of these Terms and to take any action it deems appropriate.
7.4 You shall fully indemnify Acumen PI for any loss or damage suffered by Acumen PI or any of its group companies for breach of clause 7.2.
8 REGISTRATION
8.1 The Website is not available for any person under the age of 12 or to any member banned, suspended or removed from the Website.
8.2 Each registration is for a single user only. Acumen PI does not permit you to share your user name and password with any other person nor with multiple users on a network.
8.3 Responsibility for the security of your password(s) rests with you.
9 SERVICE ACCESS
9.1 While Acumen PI endeavours to ensure that the Website is normally available 24 hours a day, Acumen PI shall not be liable if for any reason the Website is unavailable at any time or for any period.
9.2 Access to the Website may be suspended temporarily and without notice in the case of system failure, maintenance or repair or for reasons beyond Acumen PI’s control.
10 DISCLAIMER
10.1 Acumen PI does not warrant the accuracy and completeness of the material on the Website (including the User-Generated Content). Acumen PI may make changes to the material on the Website (including User-Generated Content), or to the products and prices described in it, at any time without notice. The material on the Website may be out of date, and Acumen PI makes no commitment to update such material.
10.2 The material on the Website (including the User-Generated Content) is provided "as is", without any conditions, warranties or other terms of any kind. Accordingly, to the maximum extent permitted by law, Acumen PI provides you with the Website on the basis that Acumen PI excludes all representations, warranties, conditions and other terms (including, without limitation, the conditions implied by law) which, but for these Terms, might have effect in relation to the Website (including the User-Generated Content).
11 LIABILITY
11.1 Acumen PI, any other party (whether or not involved in creating, producing, maintaining or delivering the Website), and any of Acumen PI’s group companies and the officers, directors, employees, shareholders or agents of any of them, exclude all liability and responsibility for any amount or kind of loss or damage that may result to you or a third party (including without limitation, any direct, indirect, punitive or consequential loss or damages, or any loss of income, profits, goodwill, data, contracts, use of money, or loss or damages arising from or connected in any way to business interruption, and whether in tort (including without limitation negligence), contract or otherwise) in connection with the Website (including the User-Generated Content) in any way or in connection with the use, inability to use or the results of use of the Website (including the User-Generated Content), any websites linked to the Website or the material on such websites, including but not limited to loss or damage due to viruses that may infect your computer equipment, software, data or other property on account of your access to, use of, or browsing the Website (including the User-Generated Content) or your downloading of any material from the Website (including the User-Generated Content) or any websites linked to the Website.
11.2 Nothing in these Terms shall exclude or limit Acumen PI’s liability for:
11.2.1 death or personal injury caused by negligence (as such term is defined by the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977); or
11.2.2 fraud; or
11.2.3 misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter; or
11.2.4 any liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.
11.3 If your use of material on the Website (including the User-Generated Content) results in the need for servicing, repair or correction of equipment, software or data, you assume all costs thereof.
12 GOVERNING LAW AND JURISDICTION
These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law. Disputes arising in connection with these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
Privacy Statement
The Student Room is owned and run by Acumen PI. The Student Room and Acumen PI are trading names of Acumen Professional Intelligence Ltd.
For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”) the data controller is Acumen Professional Intelligence Ltd.
Introduction
At The Student Room we are sensitive to privacy issues on the internet. We believe that it is important you know how we treat the information about you, which we receive from you. To this end we have created the following privacy statement to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy on the internet and especially within the use of this website.
General Privacy Statement
In general you can visit The Student Room without telling us who you are or revealing any personally identifiable information about you. Our servers automatically collect domain names, IP addresses, browser details, your country of origin and how you got to the site (via the use of cookies and server generated technology – please see the section ‘What are cookies’ for more information). This information is aggregated to measure things such as the number of visits, time spent on the site, pages viewed etc. The Student Room uses this information to measure the use of our site and to improve the service we offer to you. Personally identifiable information such as email address, home address, first and last names, and other such identifiable information is only known when voluntarily provided by a visitor for the purpose of registration, or in communication with other members and guests.
Please be aware that whenever you voluntarily post personal information to discussion forums, wikis, Journals, Blogs, Message Boards, Classifieds or any other Public Forums that that information can be accessed by the public and can in turn be used by those people to send you unsolicited communications.
Personally identifiable information that is collected in response to the use of this site is retained by The Student Room, and only used in the improvement of services and in contact from us, to the user. We do not sell, transfer or otherwise disclose this information outside this company, except:
where disclosure is required by law or;
when the visitor chooses to become a ‘subscriber’ using the online payment method (i.e. via debit or credit card). Some or all of this information is passed to our payment processor, PayPal. PayPal also hold and process all sensitive information securely (please contact PayPal via the contact link on their website – http://www.paypal.co.uk/uk - for information on their Privacy Statement, and security measures).
From time to time, The Student Room may sponsor a promotion, sweepstake or contest on The Student Room. Users may be asked to provide personal information including name, email address or home address or to answer questions in order to participate. We may transfer personal information to certain ad partners that you have explicitly requested to receive information from. It will be clear at the point of collection who is collecting the personal information and whose privacy statement will apply.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmission to our site; any transmission is at you own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use the strict procedures to try and prevent unauthorised access.
It is your responsibility to keep your site login information secure when it’s in your possession. If you are using a shared computer, please ensure you log out of The Student Room or close down the browser before leaving the computer for the next user.
This site contains links to other sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such Websites.
What is a cookie?
The information supplied by a cookie can help us provide you with a better online experience and assist us in the profile of our visitors. A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a website's computer and stored on your computer's hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows. You have the option to set your computer to accept all cookies, to notify you when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these means that personalised services cannot be provided to that user and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of The Student Room’s features. For more information on cookies please visit www.aboutcookies.org.
How we use IP addresses
To help us maintain a safe website your IP address is displayed alongside all your posts, and can be used to investigate illegal/inappropriate user behaviour. We may also use your IP address to help diagnose any problems with our server or to administer The Student Room. Your IP address may be used to help identify you and to gather broad demographic information that helps us understand our users requirements.
Security
The Student Room has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of information under its control. Please try and keep your log in information (username and/or password) secure at all times. If you suspect that the security of your login information has been breached you can gain access to your members account area and change both your password and email address under ‘Settings and Options’, ‘Edit Email & Password’.
Children
Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important. The Student Room is intended for general use and does not knowingly collect or maintain personally identifiable information on persons under 12 years-of-age. As no part of The Student Room is directed to persons under 12 we would suggest you use other websites more suited to your age group. If The Student Room learns that personally-identifiable information of persons less than 12-years-of-age has been collected on The Student Room, then The Student Room will take the appropriate steps to delete this information. If you are a parent or guardian and discover that your child under the age of 12 has obtained access to The Student Room or has created a membership account, then you may alert The Student Room at admin@thestudentroom.co.uk and request that The Student Room delete that child’s personal information from its systems.
Parents and legal guardian’s should supervise the online activities of their children, and should consider the use of parental control tools available from online services and software providers that help provide a child-friendly Internet environment.
Viewing and correcting your personal information
In the majority of cases, The Student Room will allow you to view any information that is held about you if you ask for it either in an email or in writing. If you then inform us that part or all of the information is incorrect, we will review it. If we also believe that it is incorrect, we will then correct our records. The Act gives you the right to access information held about you. Your rights of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request may be subject to a fee of up to £10.00 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.
Third Party Advertisements
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What is UK-Learning (UKL) and what is the history of The Student Room?
UK-Learning (UKL) was the old name of The Student Room.
A bit of fun history for you about The Student Room:
The dawn of time - February 2004
Pre-History
Back, before traceable archives, existed the era known
as the Pre-History. No survivors from this era still actively post on the
forum, and records from this period are sketchy and near indecipherable. It
is assumed that this era began in the year 2001, and that the early forum
was mainly a local site for teaching resources. The great administrator,
known only as d, is the creator of UK-L and the only contactable individual
who witnessed the pre-history. In these later years, however, d has drifted
into almost-permanent absence, and is rarely seen participating in the
utopia he has created. d is as mysterious as he is powerful, even his real name
is unknown to us mere members.
Long ago, d decided that both member and unregistered
user would walk as equals; neither denied the privilege of active
participation. So it was that both the named and the nameless partook of
the great d's hospitality, and all was joyous within the forum.
So it came to pass that the forum grew, and the
demands of maintenance were a strain upon the founder, and the omniscient
and wise d decided that his power would be shared. With that, he granted a
chosen few members a small amount of his power, and he called them his
children, they were the moderators. Looking back at the Pre-History,
details of appointed moderators are sketchy, but should one choose to seek
them on the vast and old members' list, then one will see that, despite their
absence, they still retain the power and titles that were granted them, so
long ago.
The Old Era
The point at which the pre-history ended and the Old
Era began is widely accepted to be around April / May of 2003. This is the
point at which the forum ceased to be a small, localised discussion board,
with few members, but began to grow into a community, a metropolis, where
exchange of ideas flowed freely across the world. The number of members is
accepted to have been in the 3-figures at this point, but, for an unknown
reason, this number began to increase at a drastic rate at the end of the
Pre-History, so, a new era was born, the Old Era.
At this point, there are only 2 moderators, other than
d, overseeing the affairs of the forum, the population is not large enough
to warrant any more. These 2 individuals were known as Koloth and
Helenbrownsell. Both have long-since departed. Koloth was, even in his
absence, a fully-invested moderator until quite recently.
Very few members from the Old Era still remain, most
having long abandoned this place, but there are still a few around, and,
should one choose to ask them to recount of the past, then one can learn of
the greatness of industry that was the Old Era. Compared to more recent
times, post rates were extremely low during this era, with the total
quantity required to top the member list being barely 200.
The Early Middle Era
The period of time known as the Middle Era can be
divided into two sections, the Early Middle Era, and the Late Middle Era.
The former can be remembered as a time of development, being the transition
stage between the Old Era traditions of elitism and low-posting, and the
approaching establishment of the forum as an epitome of sociability, not
just a place of academia. The Early Middle Era is accepted to have started
around the date of 25th June 2003.
Indeed, in this era, �culture� began to establish,
with many individuals making their mark on the forum, and an almost
familial camaraderie developing. Many distinct personalities emerged from
the Early Middle Era, some more memorable than others, and a large increase
in the popularity and usage of the forum was apparent. As such, it was
necessary for d to allocate more of his influence to deserving individuals,
in order to manage the rising status. So it came to pass that Leekey and
Ollie were instated as moderators, and all rejoiced, unregistered and
member alike. Alas, this was also a time of great melancholy, as the
once-proud Helenbrownsell resigned her moderatorship, and left this place
discretely, without any farewell.
With the acceptance of a new way of life, d became
more permitting, and spent less time among his children, removing his name
from the moderator board and withdrawing, confident in the abilities of the
moderators to manage without his divine influence. The establishment of the
forum as a place of sociability, thanks in part to the work of Middle and
Old Era posters such as Bloodhound, a_musical_gal and PHIL, resulted in one
of the most notable incidences up to this point, this being the emergence
of the General Chit-Chat threads. Comprising 4 threads in total, some of
which being as long as 30 pages (which, in Middle-Era terms, is immense),
these threads were the defining feature of this era, and it was on them
that the first member, PHIL, reached the 1000 posts mark. Many events
transpired on these threads, with friendships being born and dying, but the
chit-chat thread was to die out inevitably, at the approach of the Late
Middle Era.
The Late Middle Era
This era is one of the most central, being similar and
yet so different from the Early Middle Era. It is accepted to have begun on
the 1st August 2003. The 3 moderators, Koloth, Ollie and Leekey, were
proficient at their duty, but the ever-rising popularity of the forum led
more assistance to be needed. As such, d appointed Rahaydenuk moderator,
yet the demand was still great. So, with slight trepidation, d decided upon
instating two more moderators, ickle_katy and a_musical_gal. The latter was
not pleased with this arrangement, and, as such, spent almost an entire day
misusing her new powers, in protest at this unwanted attention she had
received. d, somewhat grudgingly, removed her privileges.
The Late Middle Era also saw the end of one of the forum�s
most influential members, Bloodhound. Becoming disillusioned with the forum,
and the changing times, Bloodhound announced his protest and departure in a
blaze of sour grapes. To this day, he has not reappeared within the main
forum, but there are those who remain in contact with this Old Era
objectionist.
The growth of the forum continues, with two particular
threads being started and becoming prodigious in size. These were the
Voting Intentions Debate Thread, and the Harry Potter Discussion Thread.
The latter continues to this very day, and is the largest thread to ever
grace the forum.
The Early Recent Era
So it came to pass that the Middle Era was to,
inevitably, come to an end. The rapid influx of members led to the forum as
a whole becoming much busier. The Recent Era is called so because it is the
true beginning of what we see as �today�s� forum, away from the vagaries
and close-knit nature of the Old and Middle Eras, and into the hectic world
of high post per day rates and genial competitiveness. This era is accepted
to have begun on the date of 1st October 2003.
With the ever-growing number of members reaching
meteoric highs, and spam becoming increasingly commonplace, dissent begins
to form amongst the masses. As such, revolutions are started, with several
would-be leaders attempting to incite fellow members into following them
and their cause, whatever it may be. The road to victory is marked with the
failure of many of these less-than-successful insurgents, but one or two
succeeded in their aims, uniting the majority with their charisma. d,
whether as a result of these revolts or not, decides to appoint Edders as a
moderator. With that, the revolutions halt (albeit briefly).
To this point, the unregistered users were able to
post freely within the forum. However, due to a huge increase in the
amounts of spam, d decides that the forum would be more contented without
them. So, in secrecy, the unregistereds are removed. The exact time is
unknown, as an announcement was not made, but, a few hours later, a member
realises what has occurred, and announces it.
Late Recent Era
The beginning of this era is accepted to be around the
time that the eighth moderator is instated, 15th November 2003.
Adhsur was the appointed moderator this time, and is the most recent to be
chosen to date. The Late Recent Era is one of the most interesting, as it
is characterised by the formation of strong alliances and the thriving of
�parties�, organisations that recruited members into their ranks, and were
extremely hostile towards opposing parties. Some of the most eminent
parties are listed below:
The Alternative Leader�s Party (ALP):
The first party to be
formed, the ALP, led by Blamps, was not very successful in its entirety,
despite kicking off the entire party trend. Only reaching a maximum of 5
members, the ALP did not succeed in its goal of altering the running of the
forum and changing moderators, unsurprisingly.
The Way:
Initially called the Mr White Fanatical Society, The Way was one of
the most successful parties, thanks in part to the efficient administration and
effective recruiting drives carried out by senior members. Founded,
predictably, by yours truly, The Way was based around a dominant hierarchy,
and preached complete obedience to those above one�s station. Totalling 31
members at its high point, The Way�s hierarchy consisted of a single,
unquestionable leader, an Inner Circle of 5 people, and several other
ranks, ranging from Chevalier Elect to Junior Provost. The Way disbanded
after a spate of random dismissals and subsequent resignation by its
leader.
The Girls on Top Party (GOT):
Founded as a rival to
combat the mounting popularity of The Way, the GOT, led by Infinity, was
mainly intended as a piss-take. Irregardless, many members joined, and it
became the main rival to The Way, totalling 27 members at its high point.
The Party Against Parties (PAP):
Founded by Iluvatar in
protest at the party culture, the PAP is never recorded as having more than
one member. This one member, however, was extremely vocal, and provided exceedingly
hostile opposition to the other parties. With the death of the Way and the
GOT, the PAP had no reason to continue existence, so drifted into
obsoleteness.
There were numerous other parties instigated, but none
really reached the eminence of those listed above.
Thanks, in part, to the competitiveness generated by
the division of the forum, post rates reached new highs in this era, with
some members reaching rates of 100 posts per day.
The Late Recent Era ended at the turn of the new year,
and the first UK-Learning awards finished 2003. The awards, organised by
Ollie, were a tremendous success, giving recognition to members in various
categories, from Most Political
to Best Avatar.
The New Era
Beginning on the 1st January 2004, the New Era is the
era in which we currently reside. As of the time of writing, only a few
interesting events have occurred. The most notable being the demotion of
Koloth as a moderator, after 7 months of retaining the position. Also, after
months of debate, d finally divided the forum into sub-forums.
What the future holds? Well, I guess that we�ll see.
When I tell my many assorted friends- well, both of them- about the wonders of UK-Learning, and of the multitude of fascinating threads that adorn its every page, I am met with one comment: �I wish they had that on TSR.�.
Under the leadership of the Almighty d- with the help of his masterful assistants, A and m- the forum has seen changes. One of the least of these was the change of name. This left many in the unenviable position of having to having to learn a whole three new letters, to insert into the titles of their spam societies. Luckily, �TSR� was found difficult by only a few, who still today sit cursing at their keyboards in frustration.
The situation was not ideal to all. Even d himself had his original suggestion of �Banaboo.com� subjected to almost universal criticism, despite his claims that was best for its obvious connotations of �tropical, outdoor, youthful fun�. Exactly what kind of forum he was planning to create with such a name is unknown to us mere members, but I can say with some certainty that it would definitely have involved beach volleyball and reggae.
Acaila, however, summed up the mood of the forum on the matter: �it sounds like a really babyish way of saying bananas�.
Not that it was just the name that was changing. The forums were too: the TSR subforums were splitting just about as quickly as British boy bands when the money dries up. The chat threads spawned entire spin off forums: Health and Relationships gave 13 year-old girls nationwide an opportunity to announce their impending motherhood to a student audience, while Debate and Discussion gave Tory nut-jobs a chance to moan about the imminent disintegration of society. General Chat remained much the same as ever, albeit possibly with a few extra �OMGWTF!!!???�s.
On the other side of the proverbial coin, each and every possible topic of student academia found a forum of its own. If ever you come to TSR looking for the facts on what �Engineering� be, or what �Keele� am, you will doubtless be glad that there is a forum entirely for your own kind.
Extra forums included those for the few who chose to line d�s pockets with their hard-earned pennies: they were left free to discuss their hatred of the plebs below in their dedicated Moaning Thread. The original subscribers (known in the biz as �subs�, by the way) even had access to the halls of power known as the Moderator Forums. Reading what moderators are thinking: a scary concept, and not one which I wish to discover any time soon, as most of it is probably illegal here anyway. The subscriber forums are now bustling with business, complete with �The Moaning Thread Mk II�, and a forum designed entirely for sex and swearing. If you have not already joined them, you are scum. Get off this forum, you freeloading, bloodsucking scum. Ahem.
The TSR Awards went smoothly, and some may say uninterestingly. �Some� being me, as I failed to make the top 3 in any awards whatsoever. In the latest round, the member known as �Pig� dominated almost every award he was eligible for, and Best Newbie was won by gossip_girl, with cans of lager for all in celebration (probably).
Other notable events managed to propel UKL/TSR even as high as the highly high heights of BBC News. One now-legendary member reached a new record in subtle skulduggery, in posting requests for �help� with a series of mathematical teasers, a request to which a gaggle of forumites were only too happy to acquiesce. Imagine their surprise- nay, their horror!- when they saw precisely those questions printed on their Maths A-level papers the very next day? Outrage, I�m sure they felt, although I doubt I�d be complaining. Our paper-stealing scoundrel has not been seen since; some rumours suggest that he must now be rather more careful in the shower, if you catch my meaning. These have not been confirmed.
No TSR history would be complete without an update on the moderator situation. So, it goes quite simply: there are now four levels of much-praised being above us lowly plebs, them being the levels of Administrator, Super Moderator, Moderator, and Sub-Moderator. Of this latter brand there is just one: Corey is stranded between the aristocracy, as one may put it, and the mundane masses. Administrators are identifiable by their minimalist penchant for one-letter usernames. �m� is no longer with us, but lives on in memory; �d�, to many, is a fully-fledged God, with �A� acting as his earthly representative- some might say Jesus. The Mods and Super Mods alike are similarly differentiated by the use of their titles, in black, bold letters, directly beneath their username. Which is hardly modest of them, to say the least. Super Moderators have included the dearly departed Ollie, rahaydenuk, and Pig. As to moderators, there are a lot of them, but I�m sure you�d enjoy the company of each and every one of them in a broken lift. I promise.
The moderators have had their work most improved in recent times, as they now have had their ability to feel powerful and respected greatly increased, by the introduction of a system of �warnings�. Once one reaches 15 warnings, they are banned, although I�m quite confused as to what sentient being needs fourteen warnings, before they realise that shutting up would be a good idea. As usual, a number of members spoke out against this change, with a few even going as far as to plan revolutions against the existing system. Mr White �author of the history above this- joined with yours truly in an uprising that was quickly ended, when Mr White was made a moderator. This state of affairs quickly ended when A read through White�s private messages, quite possibly finding several messages discussing a certain planned revolution. White was quickly demoted, and thus the circle of life completed.
Events even closer in our memories include the grand spectacle of the TSR General Election. The denizens of TSR were finally given the opportunity to use their vote maturely, participate in intelligent debate, and choose the party that they knew would make a difference.
This opportunity was then squandered, with the forum simply choosing to vote for the candidate that managed to annoy Vienna, Conservative leader, most effectively. The election, therefore, was won by the Liberal Democrats, after accusations on their side led to the aforementioned Tory being banned the day before the election. The member was not seen, for rather a long while. The eventual TSR Prime Minister still roams these parts occasionally, looking smug.
So, as we can see, TSR has gone from being a mere glint in one Cambridge boy�s eye, to the epitome to internet sociability, however much an oxymoron that may sound. Today on TSR, one can find a society of club for almost any hobby, fettish of fixation: Christian? There�s a society. Gay? There�s one out there. Vegetarian. Go look for it. The Mr Blobby Remembrance Society and Sock Society are also easily visible to those prepared to search. If, like me, you simply wish the worship the glory and power that is d, a whole thread is devoted just to this, a fact that d himself has described frankly as �slightly creepy�.
But what next for UKL/TSR/Banaboo? In the words of Mr White: �What the future holds? Well, I guess that we�ll see�.
Have fun, but avoid drugs, morris dancing, and incest,
2 + 2 = 5.
The second part of the history (february 2004 - february 2005) was decided by a poll. Click here to see the other entries.
The Journal of Pig, February 2005 - July 2006
A retrospectively written log of seemingly arbitrary events in TSR history from the point of view of pig, littered with slanted opinions of important events, trends and odds and ends.
February 2005
Mr White seems to think that writing the first history gives him the right to win the competition to be published the next time round, despite only visiting the forum about three times in the period to be described and thus penning a hideously inaccurate version. He kicks up a childish fuss but eventually disappears into oblivion once again. Nobody really cares. We are in a new era.
If they�re being truthful no one can really remember any details from this period other than to say that it was basically the same as it is now but with different mods, cliques, features and a few more forums; all in all TSR is now a mature community (or immature if you�re reading the Penguin Soc thread) that doesn�t fundamentally change very much.
From time to time relics of the bygone eras awaken from their slumbers, generally to moan about how things were better in their day (when it was all fields round here) and about how �d� would never have stood for such moral decay (picture pensioners grumbling about hoodie-clad teens). In fact this is so much of a recurring theme that I�m beginning to wish that I�d stumbled upon TSR in early 2003 and had buggered off by Christmas � it must have been brilliant back then.
March 2005
Growing weary of members attempting to divide the moderators by PMing them individually I suggest the creation of the Ask A Mod forum. It's quite slow to take off, but has since become invaluable. The users are generally suspicious of any changes, but if they're good they come round to them in the end. By 'good' I mean 'not a Russian dating site'.
I�ll leave it to the reader to research (another way of saying I can�t be bothered to look it up) but at some point A (the admin) decided it would be a really great idea for a site populated mainly by students (average age: 18) to join forces with a site populated by Ukrainian women called Olga (average bust size: 36) all of whom were (and presumably, still are) on the lookout for lonely yet loaded Western gentlemen for international mail order wedding escapades. This episode can be neatly summed up with the phrase �what an absolute hoot�. Needless to say it didn�t go down too well (though allegedly Tatiana from Kiev does) and was quickly scrapped.
April 2005
There is a growing sense of divide amongst the moderators. In fact there is more of a full scale turf war, with the enthusiastic, inspired and energetic on one side; the complacent, lazy and incompetent on the other. The crux of the conflict seems to be that the latter group has had its inadequacies exposed by the former group's attempts to revolutionise moderation. Apparently some moderators seem to think that everything has worked perfectly well until now, and are opposed to any change, while others think that arbitrary, inexplicable decisions, bannings and deletions with no accountability, consistency or communication aren't particularly good ideas. The ructions eventually soften to less than a murmur as the revolution begins; it's hard to oppose change instigated by proactive and relentless individuals when you don't even bother checking the mod forum for days on end.
It�s my opinion that moderation of TSR has greatly improved over the last 18 months. �Well you would say that� I hear you cry, but really, it has. Some mods have left, yet more mods have arrived. There are codes of conduct, procedures, queues, leaflets and application forms. Think of a job centre without the fake Burberry and you�ve got the mod forum right there. It�s possible to statistically prove that moderation has become progressively more liberal over the last year and a half, but then again it�s also statistically possible to prove that a thread about one particular anonymous user�s inability to orgasm is the most popular thread ever.
But really, you can see what happens when you report posts now, rather than the reports disappearing into internet oblivion without any feedback or way of knowing what had happened to it; you can change your username on demand; you receive warnings rather than being banned indefinitely for saying that edders� social skills are somewhat lacking and you can actually be furnished with a reason for your thread inexplicably disappearing never to return. That�s progress.
May 2005
A makes me a supermod. From my point of view this only means I can easily make changes I previously had to write scripts to do (since I had FTP access and could change and add files, but did not have access to the admin control panel) and my name is a different colour, but others think this is a big deal. It seems to be generally well received among the masses. A few days later ickle_katy realises what has happened and throws a tantrum. Apparently d had promised her she would be the next supermod if ever a position arose. Chuckling at the prospect, we attempt to placate her but as things die down the feeling is that wounds have been opened that won't heal.
In just over a year, since it was first listed on the �big boards� site, TSR has gone from being the 188th largest forum in terms of posts to the 125th, recently surpassing five million posts including a spell of a million posts in under 5 months. In terms of regular posting activity TSR is regularly ranked in the top 50 forums in the world. Some people attribute this increase in growth to TSR�s addictive nature and community spirit, but it could equally well be explained by the huge amount of spam in the Chat forum.
June 2005
We draw up a list of forum rules. Immediately this gesture of good will is distorted by members who seem to think that companies should not be able to override their own terms of service in exceptional circumstances not covered, or perhaps these people want to look for loopholes in the rules and then exploit them to the best of their ability.
If there's one thing I've learned from TSR it's that if the users are not restricted from doing something then they will do it repeatedly regardless of the effect it may have. But I clearly haven't learned much yet, since I lose the mod forum sweepstake on who will be first to complain about the rules.
It wouldn�t be TSR without a bit of bickering, would it? Having written-down rules is a bit of a mixed blessing. On one hand there are fewer arguments about, say, what constitutes advertising; on the other hand because there isn�t a rule that says �you must not break into the building that houses TSR�s servers and write your post directly onto the hard drives in excrement� some people will inevitably try it and plead innocence when brought to book.
August 2005
A announces privately that we will be upgrading to the latest branch of vBulletin. I point out that if we do so we will lose lots of functions, since the third party hacks we are using have not been rewritten. Additionally I have not rewritten any of my own hacks, but I don't mention this just yet, because I want to see what he's got to say. A tells me that he will rewrite the hacks himself. I say nothing but smirk to myself and begin waiting for him to ask me to rewrite the hacks once he realises what he's said.
TSR has lots of features which again, tend to be mixed blessings. You can post anonymously which is great for those embarrassing personal problems, such as an inability to find romance � could it be something to do with all of these hideous pus-filled boils - in H&R, but arguments ensue when someone replies with less than well meaning advice � perhaps a head-sized paper bag would suffice.
November 2005
A announces that he is buggering off for a while and that he's leaving me in charge. This is a slightly disingenuous statement in that it implicitly denies the fact that I've been running everything for months and suggests that he's been doing something other than saying 'Cheers' too much. Apparently this is a big deal so I give it appropriate pomp and make myself an Administrator which I could have done at any time since May anyway, which makes my name red but otherwise changes absolutely nothing.
It�s amazing to think, given the staggering amount of forums on TSR, that it all began with a single forum (though the ill-fated US version of TSR appears to be attempting the exact opposite). You can post about cars, holidays, food, computer games, mobile phones and orgasms. Well, you could in fact talk about these things before but they tended to get lost between threads about LPK�s latest avatar and AT82�s favourite Manchester-based minor celebrities.
TSR�s �Model Parliament� has had its ups and downs and comings and goings, with speaker Beekeeper serving a term and deej2 now at the helm (despite being voted out ages ago). The parliament tends to go through short periods of intense activity followed by long lulls of dullness, usually corresponding to most of these virtual MPs realising that such status doesn�t actually entitle them to two jags or two mistresses.
The �Model UN�, under the guidance of Nightowl is still going strong; this is a forum in which TSR users pretend to be representatives of UN nations. The UN forum has seen such hot topics as �rep for votes� and �Peru declares that his dad is bigger than Bulgaria�s dad�.
December 2005
Much fun and games as the annual awards fiasco finally draws to a close after almost two months of chicanery, canvassing, flattery and outright begging. There aren�t many genuine surprises though there are slightly more sour grapes than is usual.
TSR is trying to be �more than a forum�. It�s not doing very well, but it�s trying nonetheless. After long campaigning by the perennially unappreciated PQ a wiki has been added which while initially regarded with scepticism has started to pick up. You can also post your personal statement (thanks to LH's ingenious idea) and have it reviewed in confidence by a crack team of experts and Juno (she knows I�m only kidding).
February 2006
I kick off the upgrade. This consists of me clicking a button every once in a while, but otherwise getting on with life and returning periodically to check on progress, though I get the idea that some TSR users think I'm perpetually hunched over a bank of screens displaying rapidly scrolling garbled green text. Things don't get off to a good start as the server starts crashing under the strain. But this is resolved and I carry on. It soon becomes apparent that I've grossly underestimated how long this is going to take. Rather than the hours I'd stated, it will take days. In the end it takes two days. 24 hours in, pharmacists across the country begin reporting low levels stock levels of Prozac. A refugee camp is set up on TSR US to relieve the withdrawal symptoms that many are experiencing. Eventually we return to normal, though there is some disappointment that not only does TSR not look much different, it is now slower and several features have disappeared.
Societies have become a great big thing on TSR since the societies feature was added. No one seems to have noticed that the only thing this feature entails is a bunch of small pictures next to your posts, or if they have they aren�t saying; the popularity of socs remains a mystery. There are too many societies to mention (you may as well simply browse the list) so I�ll just say that there are a lot, and that some of them are truly bizarre.
May 2006
Everything is crawling to a halt. The hosting people are trying to blame me, even though I haven't done anything. A certain person of dubious character and a history of exaggeration and fabrication attempts to claim credit for a DDoS, but this is nonsense; he hasn't had the funds to rent a botnet for quite some time and TSR is protected anyway. Quite what the specific problem is remain unclear but it needs to be resolved urgently before the temperature on Brimstone's F5 key drops below 95 degrees.
The pulling power of TSR is such that even when faced with a 20 minute wait to load each page many members will diligently continue their posting business, albeit at a greatly reduced pace. But for every member quietly and patiently waiting for things to sort themselves out there are five who refresh like crazy in the vain hope that somehow their requests will get through faster (the same people who think that holding two mobile phones close together will make their text messages arrive faster).
Whenever resources are at a premium, non-essential items are the first to get the chop. A small roar went up when searching was restricted, during times of extreme usage, to subscribers. An even bigger roar went up when restrictions were applied to the length of searchable words. Sadly it was no longer possible to search for �sex� in the H&R forum, though this example alone did cut the number of searches made in half.
June 2006
We finally get a new server and everything is flying once again. World hunger is abolished and war done away with. Birds burst into song. Or at least you'd think so. People moan and groan every day but their gripes are insignificant; they just want something to complain about. What they really want is a lightning fast server, one that can keep up with them clicking refresh on the Chat forum every 3 seconds. When you've got that, everything else pales in comparison.
In a startlingly short period of time in mid 2006 TSR went from looking like a pristine showroom model forum to a Michael Schumacher�s jumpsuit forum, rather like someone had filled up a sawn-off shotgun with arbitrarily selected adverisments and given TSR both barrels right between the eyes. Despite personally adding the ads to the site I was absolved from blame as I was merely acting under the instruction of new TSR owner �CN�, who verbally got both barrels between the eyes (or possibly legs) from disgruntled users.
June 2006
I meet with CN in a pub in Newcastle. He immediately achieves 'sound bloke' status by joining me in consuming several bottles of brown ale, and also for shouting 'pig?' at me across the pub. I realise CN is enthusiastic, ambitious and knows all of the right things to say, face to face. Unfortunately he doesn't translate well into TSR post form so everyone else thinks he's a bit of a prat.
Some of the best ideas that have ever been thought of were dreamt up at this meeting. Unfortunately neither of us can remember any of them due to boozing. I do remember discussing my �job title� (misnomer since I�m not actually employed by TSR) and sadly having my requests for �supreme chancellor�, �evil overlord of TSR� and �Queen for a day� turned down in favour of the rather more humdrum �Chief Operating Officer�. Coo indeed.
CN�s announcement of his arrival (several months after he did actually arrive) officially heralds the death of �d� who until now had widely been assumed to be lurking quietly in the shadows and not interfering, exactly like he did when he was actually in charge.
July 2006
I take away Rich's supermod status but nobody notices, including Rich.
The mod team has been quite static for the past few months; apart from a handful of people (edders, Leekey, corey, Rich) being removed for inactivity and some leaving voluntarily (LH, lou p lou, ickle katy) the only additions have been minimods. Or, as I like to call them, my minions. Minimods moderate specific areas, and can�t trample all over the rest of the forum like the current moderators [s]do[/s] can. The notable success is D&D where we have a team of three minimods who are essentially autonomous, which pretty much resolves the issue of none of the global mods being arsed to moderate in D&D. Not to belittle the efforts of these minimods, they do a fine job that few could manage but I get the feeling that maybe you�ve got to be a bit barmy to take that on. Brave men have fallen attempting the task. Remember that Howard, next time you complain!
Notable exceptions to the slipping away of Rich et al and the resignation of ickle katy etc. are Adhsur and Jamie (previously foolfarian) who were shown the door in dramatic fashion
New moderator appointments since early 2005 include, in no particular order, Miles, Dogtanian, Acaila, Princess Ana, AT82, Helenia, Chicken, Cindy, Apollo and lessthanthree.
I�ve been accused of favouring the appointment of female mods over male which, ignoring the fact that I don�t actually appoint anyone without consulting the mods first, is apparently a symptom of my leering lecherousness. I consider this not an assault on my sense of decency, but on my sense of taste. Wouldn�t you have thought that if I was going to appoint a bunch of chicks to drool over in the mod forum, I�d have gone for some hotties?
July 2006
I meet with CN, blissy, Daveo, Acaila and PQ in a hotel in London to discuss the future of TSR. The big disappointment is that lunch consists of small triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The outcome of the meeting is a plan consisting mainly of features lifted shamelessly from myspace, facebook and google homepage, though there is a big surprise in that not even the professional moaners have anything to moan about, but there�s plenty of time for that.
I don�t know exactly what will happen to TSR in the coming months and years, but I�ve seen enough to suggest that members will come and go; egos will grow and shrink; cliques will form and disband; old members will return; features will be added; people will moan, congratulate, suck up, give advice (good and bad), troll, flirt or rant; the site will sometimes be slow, sometimes fast; problems will arise; fights will be fought; romances will blossom while others will end; forums will be created; mods will be added, leave or be kicked out; threads will be started and posts made; fun will be had. Otherwise it wouldn�t be TSR.
The third part of the history (february 2005 - july 2006) was decided by a poll. Click here to see the other entries.
July 2006 - July 2007
The Student Room has continued to grow at an impressive rate - reaching the dizzy height of 81st on bigboards.com. Yet more pointless spam and emo questions from horny teenagers. Your humble chronicler must wonder whether TSR is providing a valuable public service by containing all this nonsense in one place away from society at large.
This year saw the arrival of J, latest in a line of new admins. Unlike most of his predecessors, he is often to be found around the forum, posting lots of confusing threads in About, dealing with fawning admirers, and more importantly, checking out the jiggly boobies thread in the Back Room.
The forum graced the news again, with BBC News among others picking up on discussion on TSR that students were receiving a good deal of help from teachers during particularly hard practical exams. Or at least something like that�after all, it happened in the Academic forum so nobody really takes that much notice of it.
Also of note was TSR�s emergence as a matchmaker. (No, not more dodgy Russian dating services being run on the side�) This year heralded TSR�s first wedding as oldie Wzz broke many male TSRians hearts by marrying Forces-forum Sweetheart Blackhawk. Sorry chaps, she�s firmly off the market! This loved-up theme continued as long-time members and mods Daveo and blissy announced their engagement. Ooohs and aahs were heard around the forum at the size of the rock in blissy�s ring. All the best to both couples!
One of the big arguments of the year was over the new TSR logo. It had been due for a replacement to fit in with TSR�s new look (which is in the pipeline apparently) and the member base were presented with several options�.all different coloured versions of the same thing. An amount of outcry followed, with TSR showing its creative side by designing their own suggestions. The most shocking thing to come out of all this was TSR members actually on the whole agreed on something - Deus� suggestion of a globe with mortarboard was widely acclaimed in a rare bout of harmony amongst the membership. That said, we�re still getting the speech bubbles.
The big news of this year, and the events for which it will most likely be remembered, occurred in April. Much has been written about this - much of it being utter tripe - and very little without some sort of bias. Or indeed attempts at turning it into a Shakespearean tragedy (unfortunately that draft of this year�s history by myself and Agent Smith wasn�t finished in time for the deadline) The basics seem to be: search gets messed up, pig isn�t happy and says so, J not happy with pig saying so and makes noises to that effect, pig says �tata� and demods himself, followed later by a request for all of his plugins to be removed from the site. Much chaos, confusion and anarchy results, especially as many other staff members follow. (Note to any who fancy themselves as a supermod - doing all the admin tasks, a good bit of modding and dealing with forum politics in the middle of your final university assessments is not fun). Prophecies of doomabound as many members wonder how TSR will ever cope without so many of its prominent staff and the legendary admin.
However, the forum appears to be still standing when the dust finally clears. After some time new staff members begin to pop up, including our newest supermod, fleur de lis (continuing her meteoric rise after swift promotions to minimod and moderator). Plugins reappear slowly, utilising TSR�s new testing site. Other than that, things continue as they always have here on the forums. No matter what drama the next year brings, your humble chronicler would wager there will always be someone asking �What are those green gems beside my username?�
---Acaila
The fourth part of the history (July 2006 - July 2007) was decided by a poll. Click here to see the other entries.
August 2007 - August 2008
The last year has seen a great number of changes on TSR: There has been a major redesign; the appointment of a million and one new mods; and even quite a substantial change in the demographic of users on the site. This history documents all of these changes, as well as offering five cautionary tales, based on the true stories of certain significant members over the last year. It was drafted in August 2008, and was kindly edited by the mods who stopped it being so funnynaughty. I am thankful for their contributions.
TSR is, of course, still the place it always was. Older members stick around, while new ones come and go. People still complain about trolls, members moan about mods, mods moan about members, and we all moan about LPK (who this year went through puberty). Whilst over time the structure of the site changes, its backbone of members giving helpful advice, leaving sarcastic comments, or anonymously posting single smilies remains the same.
One of the most important changes the forum has seen in the last year is a change in staffing. At the beginning of last year the mod team was rather diminished in size, after a set of resignations in April and May. The last year has seen a significant change in strategy in terms of mod appointments, with thousands of minimods being appointed, keeping the number of global mods constant (including a couple of crusty foreigners who were brought out of retirement to take up slack.) There doesn't seem to be much in the way of a reason for the proliferation of minimods, other than the fact that purple is quite a pretty colour. In the last few months these new swarms of mods engaged in a "crackdown" which made most people crack up. They came bearing banners with slogans of, "hr isnt for jokes", and "it's against the rules to be against the rules".
When minimods were first conceived of, they were for areas of the forum that the global mods either didn't want to mod, or couldn't mod through lack of expertise. Now they are used almost universally across the site, and there has certainly been a change from a system in which global mods would have their own areas of interest but would moderate globally, to one in which users with a specific area of interest are given minimod positions, and the majority of global mods barely post in the public forums. More recently we've seen the addition of "Forum Assistants" to the ranks of moderators. These users have even less powers, no access to AAM, and can still receive warning points (whereas naughty mods get bans). They exist in the House of Commons, and the PS Help forum, where they spend their time moving and renaming threads.
In early September last year, TSR underwent the most significant redesign in its history. Serious effort was put it in to make it look more "web2.0" (read: derivative of facebook). No longer did it look like a standard vBulletin forum, and the old skins were replaced with an interesting blue and orange colour scheme. The redesign process was rather problematic in its poor-execution. And, while there were a team of users asked to do dev testing, these dev testers and mods were only given 24 hours notice on the changes going live. Consequently, when it did go live it was full of bugs. The most serious was that the contrast between the background colour and the text was too high, so people were posting in the About forum, complaining of migraines, nausea, and epilepsy. Finally the font colour was changed to the grey you see today, and everyone was less ill. Hooray. The bugs from the redesign eventually took about four months to all be solved, although some of them (such as the problems with subscribed forums) are yet to be fixed.
Many people spent lots of time objecting to the redesign, with the About forum being filled with a cloud of grumpiness and negativity. The owners of the site weren't massively impressed with this at the time. Thankfully, though, they've come understand that when people moan in the About forum it's so the site can be made better.
One of the main points of this redesign was to move TSR away from being "just a forum". The wiki, which began its life as a small set of articles, became greatly expanded, particularly with the help of the WST ("We're Special" Troupe). The home page, for example, no longer showed all of the subforums, and all of the activity that was going on around the site, and instead, with the implementation of "tabs" at the top of the page, directed users towards portals, which in turn led to wiki and forum pages. Regardless of this, the wiki remains far less popular than the forums, even though it has a rather excellent page on tight foreskins, and a superb cheese toasty recipe.
December saw the return of the TSR Awards, in which regular users had the opportunity to vote to say which of their peers were the funniest, hottest, most useful, etc. and generally espouse some much-needed Christmas sycophancy. Fleur de lis, that supreme beast, won in nearly every category (although was disqualified from best male late in the day after admitting that she'd been stuffing her boxers with socks), despite only having started posting in January 2007. That girl sure knows how to make an impression. There was very little controversy here really, although block voting from chat peeps seemed to ensure many of the same people were in the line-up for lots of awards, and it remains a nice way to award people for their positive contributions to the site.
The other way that good members are acknowledged, the reputation system, has been rather more controversial over the last year. The trouble is that a few users just won't shut up about it, however boring it is. Of course, only 0.3% of users have red gems, but sadly they are often the most vocal. All of this, along with sustained rants from a few idiots (and the suggestion from ukebert that we should have molluscs in our postbits) caused the powers that be to poop themselves. Consequently they set up a survey, but are yet to release the results to the public. Anyway, we're told that it's all set to change in the near future, regardless of the fact that the only people who care about rep are the admins (who don't use the site as users) and a few trolls who end up with red gems for, erm, trolling.
This issue of rep was all rather exacerbated by the fact that the last year has seen what seems to be a death of useful discussion in the About forum. It was once a place where issues regarding the site were debated, mods would get involved in the arguments, and admins would keep a keen eye on it. In the last year points directed at admins have been answered a lot more slowly than during the pig era, and many have been left unanswered, while lot of the mods seem to have withdrawn from posting in there other than to lock threads that become filled with spam. As such, the only threads that remain are the thousands of rather boring ones about rep and n00bs asking how they make a signature.
That being said, the issue of admin communications with the membership, which has been so poor for the last year, is apparently being worked on, and sources are hopeful that it will be rather better in the future. They've set up a blog, but for the moment it seems to mainly have pictures of really ugly soft toys and car crashes. With any luck, this should liven up the debate a little more in the next year. That being said, the familial aspect of communication has been broadly extended in the last year. Something that has sadly been omitted in previous histories has been the nepotistic element of the running of TSR, and this lack will hopefully be rectified by publishing the following diagram (which may or may not be entirely truthful):
Out of the football forum, in December, came an idea for a TSR football meet. The first one of these being a success, these events have continued to happen and in fact have grown in popularity. Groups of ethnic, male TSRians descend on the parks of London and hack a ball around for a few hours. In fact, meets of TSR members are becoming more and more common, particularly amongst the subscribers, but also at universities around the country. Often, such as with the football meets, these will be attended by the regular users of one particular subforum.
As the community of TSR has grown it's started to split into a whole range of micro-communities, which have become increasingly developed over the last year. These range from Indian Friends to Grumpy Old Graduates. As the site becomes bigger, there are fewer globally-recognised users. These smaller communities are also encouraging different types of users to access the site, and, for example, where the exams forums have developed so significantly over the last year, there are now more school-age users than ever before. Amazingly though, given quite how rife teenage pregnancy seems these days, it is not one of these kids who's having the first TSR baby:
So TSR just does what it always does, and presents us with a diversity of material, from petty frustrations, to children, to more petty frustrations, to laughing at someone posting an impotence thread in H&R, to friendships, to arguments. In some ways the place has got a lot smaller in the last year, there's more room for familiarity than there ever has been before, but also more room to just disappear. It's also still evolving: In the last weeks we've seen the implementation of widgets, and soon enough you'll be able to make TSR look pink, which I'm sure will be very useful.
Who knows what we'll see in the next year of TSR: Who will be next to get 65535 PMs? Who will leave in a strop? Who will moan about rep? Who will complain about the moderation? Will any new members ever be funny? Will gossamerthreads ever reach the bottom of the devlist? I guess to find out you can either stick around, or just wait for the next episode of this history.
P.S. Acaila was written out of this history because her ego was too big already. -- Musicbloke
The fifth part of the history (August 2007 - August 2008) was decided by a poll. Click here to see the other entries.
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Do you want to get your message across to young people aged 14-20something in the UK? We have a range of targeted advertising solutions and would love to work with you to achieve the results you are after.
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Whatever the topic be it current political debate, entry to university, lip gloss and skinny jeans, or mathematical formulae - The Student Room has the lowdown!
How popular is The Student Room and who uses the website?
Site activity
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76% - UK
TSR is mainly aimed at young people UK and over 90% of our members are young people aged 16-24.
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If you feel you would like to find out more about our advertising solutions and current rates please contact us at the following email address: admin@thestudentroom.co.uk or call Richard at Educate on 0207 902 1223.
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The University of Reading:"This website provided a great opportunity because of the large numbers of young people visiting the site who you could identify as being interested in higher education. You could choose which pages you wanted your advertorial to appear on, so I was able to be very specific about where we were promoting ourselves ... Over the five day period that the advertorial ran we had 1721 clicks which is 6 times higher than the average rate for online advertising ... I was really please with this first step into online advertising and will certainly be looking at running a similar campaign in the future."
The Uni Box:"Having just developed our new online store we really wanted to drive high levels of student traffic to our site, so we tried The Student Room for the first time. After finding a package tailored to suit us we decided to launch our placement on the 1st August, just before Highers and A-level results. We were ecstatic to realise how well the campaign was working for us in such a short space of time and it was brilliant to look back at the continuing success it was throughout it's 6 week duration. We are already looking to use this product again in next year's summer marketing plans and are also looking to exploit The Student Room's potential in other projects throughout the year."
University College Plymouth St Mark & St John:"We used The Student Room as part of our October Open Day promotion campaign Despite the campaign only running for a few days, it proved to be our most successful campaign of the year with nearly 40% more unique visitors than other web advertising which lasted up to 3 times as long. I will certainly be looking to include this as part of future campaigns."
button. It's on every post and notifies each of the mods. You can then see the status of the report and which moderator is dealing/has dealt with it, by clicking 
