Paradigm shift

Yesterday, I read this post on the Chris Johnson thread in the BOI, and rather then comment there about it and take that monster thread off track, I have decided to bring it here instead.

luvchondros said:

Zach, those babies look nice fat and healthy and beautiful. Thank you so much for keeping us updated with your clutch.

I realize that it's technically possible for your pair to still be hets, but given the circumstances of Chris's business transactions it's starting to look increasingly grim for you and others in the same shoes.

Chris was rude and condescending to me quite some time ago and I remember thinking very strongly to myself that he would never get a single penny of mine, no matter how much of a "good guy" he was. I never dreamed he would self implode as he has in the reptile community and I am so sorry that by his "alpha male" personality he was able to hold potential complainees at bay which allowed him to get away with his foul behaviour as long as he did.

It's hard to believe nobody has ever met him, never had a table at a local herp show, or showed pics of visible morphs copulating or sitting on a clutch of eggs. It really disgusts me because he really did have people bamboozled and now he's running like a dog with his tail tucked between his legs and acting like the total crook I now believe him to be.

I am so sorry to everyone that used this forum to check him out before purchasing, based upon what I would have found here I would have gladly purchased from him myself if he ever had something I was interested in too.
I love Fauna Classified and respect all the work that has gone into making this site a source to try to prevent these kind of crooks from hurting the community. I try so hard to be non confrontational and to address problems privately, have to tell you though..... for the black eye that Chris has given to the herp industry in general my childhood youth wants to jump out and just simply really kick some serious butt.

Chris, your actions are catching up with you.... I hope you wind up losing ten times what you have stolen...... you've already lost face and any sense of respectability, that is good enough for me.

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You know, ever since I read this post, it has acted as a seed in my mind that is beginning to blossom into a personal paradigm shift for me. There are quite a few implications embedded in these words that I believe are very important to me as admin of this site. Personally perhaps even rather crushing, as a bunch of thoughts are beginning to come together in a not very pretty picture that I have to address. Hate to sound oblique about this, but this is a pretty big gulp to swallow for me. But I believe there are some very unpleasant ramifications (for me) that I will simply have to address that are going to be the culmination of a bunch of conflicting emotions at this point.

I can see where this is heading from the quote above and I can understand why. These will be hard decisions to make and only you can make them. Glad I'm not in your shoes.....

Wow...a very powerful statement Rich....guess I will sit back and wait for your decisions......

I read that post 4 times and think the only way to interpet it is that she is proud of fauna and she is sorry for the people that used fauna as the catalyst for going into deals with him. She seems to be sorry that members got scammed by someone that tricked us all.

Does someone read that post differently??

I think I may be missing something as well. The post does not suggest to me that fauna has any blame in the TSE situation.
Chris conducted himself as an upstanding businessman for 2-3 years. He appeared to be properly representing his animals, he shipped on time, everything you'd expect from a good business. As a result he had a lot of positive feedback on the BOI. I've even bought from him myself in the past, no hets though.
It took a while, but when his hets started failing to prove out questions were raised, and we come to where we are with him now.

The BOI is only as good as the current information allows it to be. When Chris had all appearances of being a good guy, the BOI reflected that. There was no way to predict how he would turn out.

Maybe I'm missing what Rich is vaguely suggesting, but I can't see anything that serious with that post.

Well bear with me on this logic twist. Here we have a person (luvchondros) claiming that if she (I think it was a "she" excuse me if I am wrong about that one) had not been the brunt of Chris's tirades on this site, she most likely would have become a customer of his, based on his reputation alone, and quite likely be among the ranks of people right now who appear to be up the creek without the proverbial paddle. Extend this logic a bit. If I had had the rules in place NOW 2 years or so ago instead of only more recently, Chris would never have been allowed to display that side of him that has apparently warned away a potential customer. So in effect, if the rules I have in place now would have been in effect THEN, they would actually have prevented luvchondros from seeing that side of Chris and have the ability to make a decision based on that aspect of his personality. In other words, that personality seems to have proven out to be a reasonable indicator for a decision making process concerning doing business that I am now inhibiting.

Does that make sense? If so, then carry this thought a little further. There could be other people right now on this site with that very same personality marker, which in fact COULD be a marker that people might find needful of seeing to make an informed decision about whether or not to do business with them. And me, dumb schmuck that I am, and blocking that from happening with my "rules". I am keeping them from seeing that side of a person by actively not allowing it.

Used to be my policy was to give a person enough rope to hang themselves with if they had the inkling to do so. Well, by all appearances, I have taken away that rope. Basically, although my intentions have been to make the BOI better, I have made it worse and less effective. I have taken away a perspective of a person that reflects the WHOLE person and not just the Mr Nice Guy persona that I have now forced them into being. I am forcing them to appear to be a nice guy when posting, and not allowing the true person to show through.

Does this make sense at all? Or am I way out in right field somewhere?

And yes, I am fully aware that some people will say "I told you so!"

I completely understand where your coming from Rich. Personally, I agree that it does make it easy for the "true colors" of someone to be hidden with the current rules in play. At the same time, it has made fauna a better place. Not as volatile as it used to be. I can imagine that it had many posters refraining from posting due to the violent nature of some of the past "hound dogs". A hard decision at best, take it with a grain of salt Rich and get many more opinions.

To Rich and all members here, often words on the internet are misinterpreted and I hope that nobody read my post as an attack here on Fauna of anyone or anything other than Chris and his lack of ethics. Nicolai and Clay got it pretty much exactly as I intended it to come across.

I think the community came together rather quickly when we realized what was happening and "unvoted" him right out of his good guy status within a matter of days of disclosure. I've read every post on that thread... forgotten some of it but followed it closely.

The paradigm shift part, oh my!!! I just spent a fair amount of time reading up on that concept on Wikipedia....... I'm not real excited about the concept of total change!!!

OK, that's a relief to read!! Personally, I like the changes in the last couple of years!! Perhaps somewhere in between may serve us all well!

Rich,

I have typed 20 replies to this and just erased them because as I was typing different aspects popped into my mind and I have changed my thoughts 20 times.

Bah.... which I just did for a 21st time.

I understand where you're coming from now Rich. You do make a valid point about potential bad guys not being able to show that potential early, but I do believe that to be the exception and not something that would happen regularly.
I take it from your post that you are pondering the possibility of relaxing the rules due to this possibility. It's a double edged sword either way you go.
I think overall the site is better off being stricter, especially in the discussion forums where you want a more pleasant atmosphere rather than a hostile environment. The BOI however is hostile by nature and it has to be controlled with more force. Relaxing the rules might once again allow a sneak peek at future bad guys, but you'll be back in the original situation of having a percentage of users not willing to post for fear of backlash.
Hard to say which is better in the big picture.

Well yeah, it's going to be a tough call, and certainly not everyone will like it, no matter which way it goes. And quite honestly, there is the contributing factor of the fact that I'm just tired of fighting with everyone over my policies. Pretty much everything I have ever done for this site to try to enforce my hoped for direction towards a better environment has gotten me hate mail, angry and alienated members, gotten people viciously stabbing me in the back, lost CUSTOMERS for my real business, or made me enemies that I wouldn't even know in person if I fell over top of them. Then when I see something such as that post I copied, it makes me just sit down and ponder "just what in the hell am I doing?" And why? Is what I get out of this site even close to being worth what I put into it?

Let's look at some very simple stats to see what I am talking about.

I look at the stats and see this site still getting an average of 200+ new registered members a week. But the count of actual registered members actually visiting per week has pretty much remained stagnant over the past year or more. What is that telling me? Simple. We are losing as many members as we are gaining every week. We have over 30,000 registered members but on any given day maybe 1200 of them will come back to visit. At any given time, we may have 4 to 5 times the number of visitors and guests then we do registered members here. Why aren't they registered? What is it that gives them reason NOT to? We get around 10,000 unique IP addresses here nearly every day. With all those people visiting and looking in, we may only get 300 or so posts per day. Even if we make a stretch and say that there is one unique member making each post, we are left with 9,700 people who are visiting but NOT participating at all each day here. Why not?

Apparently people come here looking for something and just don't find it, then leave. Is whatever it is they are looking for absent because of MY policies and rules? Heck I have evidence right here in this thread that someone COULD have been hurt financially had my current policies been in effect longer then they have been. Are these same policies what is driving people away from here?

Well I have to admit that this certainly may be the case. My idea of what I want this site to be may be just contrary to what people really want out of it, as well as keeping it (the BOI) from being effective. I am failing to give people what they want and am actually standing in the way of what this site needs to be for people to stick around. When I look at the stats, I find it difficult to come to any other rational conclusion. And quite honestly, I really shouldn't have to be fighting so often with so many people if I were actually on the right track.

Clay I'm going to have to disagree somewhat. True there were people afraid to post, but I think that still happens. There are at least a couple threads where the person had a "righteous"? BOI post, and the posters still got beat down, harrassed (IMHO), attempts at turning the "bad" label back on to them, etc. Not going to mention names, but at least one of the "attackers" and "distorters" (again IMHO) used hunting dogs. This is happening even with the new and improved? BOI. Sure with the old "rip bad guys a new one" mentality some stated that they were afraid to post, but if they were a good guy and really had a good case they SHOULD have been brave enough to try, and probably would have seen that their fear was overblown. I also think bad guys were taken down and were afraid of the BOI whether they admitted it or not. Fast forward to now.....I think there are still some good guys who may be afraid to post, but now the bad guys are not [as] afraid to post, because it is harder to "draw them out" or make them expose themselves.

Anotherwords:
old BOI; bad guys ripped to shreds, bad guys allowed to hang themselves, harder for bad guys to control themselves (therebye exposing their true selves). Some good guys afraid to post.
new BOI; Bad guys less afraid, easier to keep themselves "hidden", because they can use the strict rules to help keep themselves from imploding or hanging themselves, and doubly, it may be harder for the "attackers" to expose them or draw them out, as they have the same rules. Some good guys afraid to post.

There is probably no way to know which of the above scenarios is more "true", if either even is. There are so many ways to look at the pros, cons, assets, faults............whatever, that this site offers, that none of us have a crystal ball. This place is pretty unique, so there is no template or established way to do this, at least never knowing to a 100% that it is being run the right way. I will say, whether the old BOI, new BOI, or a hybrid (oh no! we have to debate hybrids now ) the positives, and benefits, far outweigh the negatives.

Like luvcondro, I was one of those who never cared for Chris' attitude, even when he was overwhelmingly considered a really good guy, and there are one or two others that I feel the same way about, as they had shown similar things, back when the reins weren't as tight. So I've always been an advocate of let them hang themselves, or show their true colors. Though I have always been more of an old BOI advocate, as I strongly believe we should be able to "tell it like it is", I know there were some ugly times back then. Now, virtually no uglliness, yet possibly less effective? Thankfully, and no offense meant to you Rich, but it's not my site, so I don't have to try to figure out what's best. All I can do is offer personal insight and opinions. I will also say that, though I love to be able to call a liar; a liar, a thief; a thief, and an ____hole; an ___hole, if one were to look at my 1000+ posts, I don't think many, if any would be considered "terrible" even in the nastiest of nastiest threads from the wild west days, so it can be done.

Well put John. I do agree with you.
I think in my last post it sounded as if I am opposed to relaxing the rules on the BOI. I'm not. I only meant to outline the two possibilities as I saw them, not to offer a suggestion really.
As far as I alone am concerned, I would rather see the BOI returned to its former incarnation for the most part. At the same time I'd like to see the remainder of the site, the discussion forums, remain under the current rules.
The BOI is indeed a unique animal, nothing like it exists on the internet. As I said before, it is by nature hostile, and myself I think it should be. Foul language (the F word etc. mainly) I believe should be controlled, even the strongest points and accusations can be made without that. However, in order for the BOI to have the full intended effect you have to be able to call a spade a spade.
It has never been a perfect system, and the fact is it never will be, but it should be ran in the way in which results in the most effective means to acomplish the desired purpose.

I think we are pretty close to the same page Clay. I do agree that there has been much improvement to the message boards, due to the clean up, as well as programs (forum facilitators) Rich has set up. It is welcome indeed. As to the BOI? With no apparent, or at least practical way of knowing whether more people are afraid to post now vs then, or if maybe more were afraid to post then, but the ratio of exposing bad guys was higher, or was it the opposite effect? Who knows?

Clay and John, you both said it best. But this was something, like Rich said, that conflicted with HIS vision for this site. Sometimes as a person "in charge" we have to step back and evaluate what we are doing and decide if it for the best of the group or ourselves. There is nothing wrong with this or how Rich has been running this site. It was his vision of how things should run. But as soon as I saw the quote and his words after, I knew he finally saw what was happening here and knew the seed had been planted.
I do agree on the BOI that one should be allowed to call a duck a duck. The harsh language should be avoided because there are minors visiting here quite often. A thief, liar, scammer, idiot, or whatever may be the case should be labeled as such without having to sugarcoat it.
Anyway Rich, I am not envious of you on this decision because like everyone has stated and you yourself said, you will catch flack no matter what you do but catching flack over exposing scammers and the like is worth it in my book.....

Now I see where your going with this. Do you give people enough rope to hang themselves and still be able to keep it respectable. As seen in the past when given leeway many people have pretty much jumped off the bridge themselves without being pushed, some others just need that little extra push which at times is hard now due to the stricter enforcement of the rules. Sometimes when you push the right buttons even without the name calling and such it will be enough to get them to take that one extra step they hadn't intended on taking of their own accord.Right now people hold their tongues more then in the past due to the stricter regulations recently imposed and this could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how they decide to voice their opinion or handle a conflict.
Chris was to a large point allowed to be a bully for the most part, but I believe that was in part due to his "impeccable" reputation in the hobby at that time and everyone believed he was acting in everyones best interests, low and behold it turned out that he was acting only in his best interests. He used the bully philosophy to his advantage as very few people had the gumption to stand toe to toe with him on anything or dared to say anything derogatory towards him or his company. there were a few that did though and in the end were proved right. But you must remember there are others that have the same kind of hard nosed attitudes that actually are acting in our best interest. All the people that follow the BOI posting religiously know who the outspoken people are and know that it is in the character to act this way.
So to make a long story short, maybe giving people a little more rope is a good thing as long as the integrity of the BOI and the feelings and honor of the members can be maintained. This would definitely be walking on a razors edge when knowing where to draw the line.

Clay and John

I couldn't have said that better myself! The old "wild west" days on the BOI are the reason that I'm here today......when Neil, Corey, Ritchie. and Seamus went after someone, they were done with very quickly....now fast forward a little to Dand, pch101, JimO, Gmherps, Crttical Bill, and Wes, same thing, cooked with a little more flavor, but done just the same!

With all of the new improved crack downs, this sight has lost some of it's more memorable characters....warning points, suspensions, and banning have only caused anger and frustration. When myself and some other's were fined and suspended for calling someone a scumbag and a nimrod, we payed our fines, and posted in "hell" about how we felt about it.

Th BOI is the most unique tool on the net for our hobby and business. If I want a family friendly atmosphere, I'll watch the Disney channel....but if myself or someone else gets ripped off by a thief, scumbag, low life or "insert your favorite description" I should be able to post that with in the TOS of the BOI and not get warned or suspended for doing so.

We pretty much all know I'm not a big fan of all the new rules~ and I hate having seen so many of the old characters gone..........

But...........

I think your missing the Forest for the Trees here.

It was not new rules or old rules that allowed Chris(and other bad guys) to pull off a scam like this. It was all of those things~ force of personality and adaptability to the change in rules. Cathy said it in her post. Alpha dog. One day Chris was this new guy asking for advice in chat and almost overnight he was one of the Alpha dogs. He did that through force of his personality~ and we fell for it because most of us are just not Alpha dogs. We follow the lead of the more forcefull leader~ he stood up~ basically proclaimed himself a forceful leader.....verbally attacked several that the masses perceived as "bad guys" .........then the rules changed and he could not verbally attack any longer so he held his tongue while the other "Alpha" members got angry and left or where chased out by this sites "Lead Alpha" dog .........until he saw the opportunity to verbally attack THE Alpha dog here.......... and somehow we all sat down and nodded......"yep~ he must know what he's doing, just look how forcefull he is."

The only reason Chris was finally outed was a lack of responce on his part. That first post was followed by defense of Chris by BOI members.......and if Chris had shown up and bared his teeth, complained that the the complainant was a whiner~ verbally attacked him/her as we all pretty much expected him to do when we first saw it........most of the people now posting their displeasure would not have worked up the nerve to do it, the the true depth of the scam would not now be apparent.

Just my .02 cents
(Could be that I got a new dog this week so pack dynamics are on my mind right now too)

reptilebreeder said:

I will also say that, though I love to be able to call a liar; a liar, a thief; a thief, and an ____hole; an ___hole, if one were to look at my 1000+ posts, I don't think many, if any would be considered "terrible" even in the nastiest of nastiest threads from the wild west days, so it can be done

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Laura Fopiano said:

.now fast forward a little to Dand, pch101, JimO, Gmherps, Crttical Bill, and Wes, same thing, cooked with a little more flavor, but done just the same!.

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gosh darn it........maybe I should have made some terrible posts, as those times/participants mentioned are where I considered some of my best "work", but I seem to have become invisible, especially lately. Really miss my buds........Well Wes can't come back (even if he wanted to), Shrap is still here (though not mentioned above), JimO made a decision not to come back, Dand was gone for a bit, and is back now, but where the heck is James (pch101)? I noticed he visits occasionally, but I haven't seen any posts for a long time.