Public questions for Marc
08-30-2004, 08:29 PM
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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"?
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"?
08-30-2004, 10:18 PM
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RE: Public questions for Marc
Ok. I don't know who moved this post but .... I posted it in the forum where the problems exist(ed). That is where the stuff was happening and that should be the place that it is discussed "in the open". By moving this post here, it looks like you are trying to hide the fact that you had a problem and may not have handled it in a fashion that promotes "friendly" user/admin relationships.
By moving this post ... you have told me that you do not want it there and there is nothing I can do about it. This post was regarding the forum that I posted it in and needed a public answer so that the users of that forum could, hopefully, get a better feeling about the way things are handled.
This is exactly the type of thing I am speaking of. Could you at least create a locked thread over there with a link over here so that it is not totally hidden from that forum?
By moving this post ... you have told me that you do not want it there and there is nothing I can do about it. This post was regarding the forum that I posted it in and needed a public answer so that the users of that forum could, hopefully, get a better feeling about the way things are handled.
This is exactly the type of thing I am speaking of. Could you at least create a locked thread over there with a link over here so that it is not totally hidden from that forum?
08-30-2004, 11:35 PM
#3
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RE: Public questions for Marc
okay I just caught this now.
First let me say thank you for the well thought out post. Unfortunately not many took the time to write intelligently as you did. Many (more than 5) decided it was better to launch personal attacks and spam many threads and create new threads which were disruptive. During this period I was forced to at least temporarily shut down a few threads and move a couple as well offline for now. Yes a few bad apples did cause a lot of this but when guys are posting nasty stuff my action is to lock or remove first and ask questions later. I'd rather not risk a member or kid seeing some of the stuff I had to read.
Already I have put the mojo thread back into the product & announcement forum. Technically that is where it should have been moved in the first place but it was my own fault for not putting it there and placing it offline until things were sorted out. Water under the bridge now.
All the posts from the PB forum are in the main parent fun flying/profile forum now except for the few that I moved offline. Some of those will be restored where they had to do with RC after I cleanup the mess in them. Others were junk from the get go and will be permanently deleted as I'm sure anybody would not object if they read them.
I don't have a problem with clubs or groups. RCU doesn't have a problem with them either. However we no longer wish to maintain a dedicated forum for a "named" special interest group. If any modeler wants to discuss certain types of products they can do it in our forums. IF they want to discuss clubs or groups they can also do it in the appropriate forums. However maintaining a specific forum for a single group "in name" is not something we will be doing again anytime soon.
Last the reason we censor out the word you realize now is censored is because that site contains material unsuitable for minors (i.e. nudity, explicit images). RCU rules state no links to sites which contain such material will be allowed and we have a zero tolerance policy on this. Should that site remove such content completely the ** censor will be removed. It was brought to my attention that such material existed on that site within 24 hours of the "blow up" and that was when it became censored. I'm sure you will understand why we do this of course.
First let me say thank you for the well thought out post. Unfortunately not many took the time to write intelligently as you did. Many (more than 5) decided it was better to launch personal attacks and spam many threads and create new threads which were disruptive. During this period I was forced to at least temporarily shut down a few threads and move a couple as well offline for now. Yes a few bad apples did cause a lot of this but when guys are posting nasty stuff my action is to lock or remove first and ask questions later. I'd rather not risk a member or kid seeing some of the stuff I had to read.
Already I have put the mojo thread back into the product & announcement forum. Technically that is where it should have been moved in the first place but it was my own fault for not putting it there and placing it offline until things were sorted out. Water under the bridge now.
All the posts from the PB forum are in the main parent fun flying/profile forum now except for the few that I moved offline. Some of those will be restored where they had to do with RC after I cleanup the mess in them. Others were junk from the get go and will be permanently deleted as I'm sure anybody would not object if they read them.
I don't have a problem with clubs or groups. RCU doesn't have a problem with them either. However we no longer wish to maintain a dedicated forum for a "named" special interest group. If any modeler wants to discuss certain types of products they can do it in our forums. IF they want to discuss clubs or groups they can also do it in the appropriate forums. However maintaining a specific forum for a single group "in name" is not something we will be doing again anytime soon.
Last the reason we censor out the word you realize now is censored is because that site contains material unsuitable for minors (i.e. nudity, explicit images). RCU rules state no links to sites which contain such material will be allowed and we have a zero tolerance policy on this. Should that site remove such content completely the ** censor will be removed. It was brought to my attention that such material existed on that site within 24 hours of the "blow up" and that was when it became censored. I'm sure you will understand why we do this of course.
08-31-2004, 12:35 AM
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RE: Public questions for Marc
Thanks for your reply Marc.
I appreciate the efforts that it takes to "contain" an implosion like that. Being a site admin ([link=http://www.scooterscum.com]www.scooterscum.com[/link]) that decided it was more work than I was willing to put in, I can totally understand.
I believe the material on the PB site that you are concerned about has been removed ... and was removed very shortly after it became an issue.
Hopefully the ProBros will come back some day. Their knowledge and wit is truly appreciated. I did join the PBs just yesterday (#1039) so that I could stay in contact with them and continue to learn from them. It sounds like they have worked out any issues that they may have had from this encounter.
If you can decide on a method and approach, I strongly suggest that you put some sort of "Notice" in the Fun Fly Forum explaining what transpired and what can be expected in the near future. I think that would ease a lot of frustrations all the way around. A few people have asked me if the forums being down for almost a day had anything to do with the situation in the effected forums. Plus, a few of the concerns I mentioned were asked of me also.
Thanks again,
Jim Olson
I appreciate the efforts that it takes to "contain" an implosion like that. Being a site admin ([link=http://www.scooterscum.com]www.scooterscum.com[/link]) that decided it was more work than I was willing to put in, I can totally understand.
I believe the material on the PB site that you are concerned about has been removed ... and was removed very shortly after it became an issue.
Hopefully the ProBros will come back some day. Their knowledge and wit is truly appreciated. I did join the PBs just yesterday (#1039) so that I could stay in contact with them and continue to learn from them. It sounds like they have worked out any issues that they may have had from this encounter.
If you can decide on a method and approach, I strongly suggest that you put some sort of "Notice" in the Fun Fly Forum explaining what transpired and what can be expected in the near future. I think that would ease a lot of frustrations all the way around. A few people have asked me if the forums being down for almost a day had anything to do with the situation in the effected forums. Plus, a few of the concerns I mentioned were asked of me also.
Thanks again,
Jim Olson
