Public questions for Marc
Marc (RCadmin),
I am not trying to stir up trouble that appears to have settled but I have a few concerns that I think some others may have. We, being those that frequent the FF Forum and use to drop in on the PB Forum, sat back and watched as the entire forum seemed to implode. I sent a note to support voicing my concerns and received a reply but the person did not say anything except repeat what had happened in the forums and said that it might be a good idea to have a public explanation. That person did not "sign" the reply so I'm not sure who it was. They did mention that they, as well as yourself, received PMs and emails from a few of the involved. Maybe it was Mike?
I understand the fact that one of the ProBros was doing a build thread on a prototype that he had hopes of selling once it was completed and ready for market ... and he has sold planes/kits/etc in the past. I also understand that action is against RCU policy. I can accept that. I saw you attempt to explain the situation ... and then I saw things starting to get personal ... on ALL sides.
Now, the PB forum is gone and it seems that threads have been locked in FF ... not due to content but due to who was posting to them. There are a lot of us that come to the FF Forum and went to the PB Forum for insight, knowledge, experience and entertainment.
You said that you shut down the PB Forum and you said all threads that were in PB were moved here. There are quite a few missing that did not contain business advertisements, profanity or anything else questionable. Why were these not carried over? If they truly were meaningless to anybody but the PBs the threads would have died a normal thread death. It appears, from my viewpoint, that you had a problem with a few people and have utilized some .... let's say "extreme administrative measures". What we have now is - an entire forum is gone that had more traffic than any other forum in RC Airplanes. We also have public threads locked that contain nothing against RCU policy. We have admins (you) creating locked threads (which is what caused this new thread, otherwise I would have posted my questions there). All because you had problems with 5 or 10 people?
This brings me to my specific concerns.
# If you have problems with 5 or 10 people in the FF forum, will it be deleted? If not, why did you not deal with the situation in the same manner you would have here?
# If I am a member of a club that you do not personally like, are you going to lock every thread I start or post to?
# If I mention the PB, its website or any of its members in a thread, will that thread be automatically locked?
# If I say something that you do not personally like but is not against RCU policy, am I going to be scrutinized, monitored and in the end "asked" to leave by having my account deleted?
I ask these questions because I am a member of multiple clubs/groups/brotherhoods and have seen entire groups treated unfairly because of .... say ... their name. I have caught crap from a local RC club over the past week because I advertise that I am a "Vulture RC Club member". They "assumed" since I did not advertise their club name ... I must not be a club member so I should not be allowed to fly at their field .... even though I paid my club dues just as they did. Assumptions suck and do nothing but make the "assumer" look bad.
I am not saying that you overstepped your bounds in every situation. I am saying that what I have seen over the past few days has caused me some concern. If you did some things out of anger, I can understand that, but please undo what it was. Right or wrong, you have total control of what happens in here ... and the problem is ... that is very obvious right now.
Honestly, should so few have such an effect on an entire forum structure? Please deal with individual problems and not make rash decisions based on emotions ... even if you have the authority.
Jim Olson
p.s. your editing routine has made one of my points for me. Above, where I was discussing groups, it seems as though I cannot use the word B-R-O-T-H-E-R-H-O-O-D-S on RCU because it replaced it with ****s. Come on Marc, do you not consider that type of censorship a little "extreme"?