6 August (Part 1) - Notomob implodes. Not a Wise move
I was very pleased with myself when
this website attracted Notomob to Bexley to assist
councillor Craske and his Merry Men comply with the law. I subscribed to their
forum and through it learned how their leading ‘member’, Nigel Wise had
triumphed over Richmond council and to this day they have no gestapo wagons on
their roads. Subsequently Notomob took on and beat Westminster and Hertfordshire
councils. Nigel was their principal asset, dogged, determined, knowledgeable and
quite probably bloody minded at times. The meek do not beat dishonest councils
at their own game. I understand he only once lost a case at
the Parking Adjudicator, undeniably a winner and a major flag waver for Notomob
providing them with unprecedented publicity nationwide.
I put the word member within quote marks because Notomob doesn’t really have
formal membership, you sign up on their forum and you are as close to being a
fully fledged member as you will ever be. I last rode a motorbike in 1960, there is no way I
am much use to Notomob but everyone is equal there and there is no formal
leadership. Those who I believed to be the leaders I heard deny it on the few
occasions I met them. Notomob is a mutual cooperative, a partnership of equals dedicated to fighting
parking injustice; at least I thought it was. I know better now.
A
few weeks ago Nigel Wise had a bit of a set to with a Parking Adjudicator. He
said his “decision is ridiculous”. He said of an Adjudicator’s inconsistent
decisions that they “seem to depend on which day of the month [it is] whether he allows it”.
I assume Mr. Wise knows what he is talking about but my views would not change even
if he was proven to be wrong. Compared to some of my own descriptions of officialdom
Nigel’s comments were pretty mild, he was after all rebuking ‘the enemy’.
PATAS is funded by London councils, it is not on our side and Notomob has more than
once demonstrated how PATAS will favour its paymasters. Rigging computers to allow Westminster
an advantage was one incident I recall. But someone believed Nigel to have overstepped some
unstated mark. For those few words he was banned and expelled from Notomob. By whom is
unclear to ordinary members, there was an announcement by an anonymous ‘Administrator’ and
Nigel was no more. No opportunity for an Appeal. The anonymous Administrator had spoken and that was that.
There were protests of course and someone set up a poll to see what the
’membership’ felt. The poll went strongly in one direction. Someone else used the
forum’s messaging facility to contact all members seeking their opinion. All the critics and the
poll maker were expelled and banned, by whom I cannot tell you. Notomob traditionally operates
under pseudonyms and ‘Administrator’ is about as vague as you can get.
Under the deluge of criticism the Notomob site was taken down for four days, “for
maintenance”. When it came back it had been largely cleansed of support for Nigel
and the poll in his favour had gone as was the original banning announcement and
the facility for circulating a message to all members. A worse case of mismanagement,
misjudgment, dictatorship, injustice and blind panic is hard to imagine.
The revamped Notomob forum includes new Terms and Conditions with which I
could not possibly agree. For this blog I am confidently expecting expulsion. I
removed the Bonkers’ menu links a few days ago because I cannot support Notomob under its
present anonymous dictatorship. It has handed a victory to the opposition on a plate and
is not a mutual organisation after all. Madness and deceitful.
Expelling your leading ‘member’ without warning, appeal process or consultation
defies every convention. It is stupid in the extreme. I predict
the Notomob forum will die. Members now know that one critical word may be rewarded with expulsion.
I don’t know who leads Notomob, I was always told no one did, but this ‘no one’ must
be the toast of the parking gestapo in councils everywhere. That ‘no one’ has brought Notomob
to its knees leaving the Tina Brooks of this world free to run amok. She can call in the police if
Martin Peaple dusts off his placard again with little fear of the consequences.
One of the members expelled for supporting Nigel Wise was known as The Phoenix.
Maybe it’s an omen but it will take a lot of effort to raise anything from Notomob’s ashes.
The Notomob forum has been largely censored of Nigel Wise related stories. However
this one still permits discussion and understands what equality and mutual cooperation is all about.
Note: Tina Brooks is Bexley council’s Parking Manager.
Notomob’s Bexley coordinator, known on their forum as Peperami, took no part in
recent events.