These forums
@jab1 "............. not a lot of people know that ! ! ! " 
Plusnet, in it`s wisdom, decdided a few years back, that it would close "live chat" as it caused too much work, and they could use the guys on Live Chat, to answer phones instead.... unfortunately, this resulted in a negative way, as it was discrimination against people with hearing problems, that could not use the phone to hold a conversation.... so... having been alerted to this situation, they decided that it might be a good idea to have a "Twitface" resource for people to try to get help with their problems... again... they forgot that "not everyone" likes, uses, or has, "twitface" accounts. Mind you.... that is often called " Award winning customer service"....Nobody has ever said which kind of "award" was given though ! 
Around about the same time, many of the "old timers", and long serving forum members, who used to have a great camaradery (?) with other members, decided that it was time to move on, ,.... the same way that Plusnet had moved on.... being overrun by BT. so, the best parts of the forum "help line system" just gradually disintegrated...
For the past few years, since about the start of COVID lockdowns, there has been a lack of control by the "moderation team" regarding forum rule breaking, with repeated offences, being reported by various people, and no action taken against the perpetrator. The loss of a good "moderation team", has also contributed to the low standards and low useage of the forums, which will never be able to be recovered.
Some members still try to help out other members, but as you said, generally, after being given the help, the person requiring the help, just ignores his postings, which has a "bad taste" effect on those members who do/did try to help, therefore they too, have decided it is not worth bothering with it anymore.
Often the help is now passed on via the Private Message service. where "one to one" communication seems to be a way to follow up any help advice given, and any queries can be similarly dealt with between the two parties involved... Sometimes the "open forum" style can add more confusing advice, by going "off topic" slightly from various points of views being tendered.
@shutter wrote:
Some members still try to help out other members, but as you said, generally, after being given the help, the person requiring the help, just ignores his postings, which has a "bad taste" effect on those members who do/did try to help, therefore they too, have decided it is not worth bothering with it anymore.
Often the help is now passed on via the Private Message service. where "one to one" communication seems to be a way to follow up any help advice given, and any queries can be similarly dealt with between the two parties involved... Sometimes the "open forum" style can add more confusing advice, by going "off topic" slightly from various points of views being tendered.
I agree with what you say above, @shutter - in the main - but my point is/was that the lack of response by OP's leads me to believe (rightly or wrongly) that there is a 'higher-level' intention to bring the PN forums into line, so to speak, with the BT Broadband one, which from my experience, admittedly a few years back, is to frustrate the end-user so they just give up and go away.
