Hello. My name is WebSlave and I am a Kingsnake.com abuser.

Originally posted by The Lizard Lady
I feel guilty now for sponsoring one of KS's Forums.

Don't feel guilty, feel empowered! Negative feedback from sponsors and advertisers has always carried more weight at KS than 10 or more users on the message boards.

Let them know that alienating the users means less folks see your ads and the fact that you sponsor a forum, and that you are no longer getting the bang for the buck you signed on for.

Go get 'em, Lizard Lady!

You must have been reading my mind...

Marcia McGuiness
"The Lizard Lady"
www.thelizardlady.net

I was a kingsnake.com junky - but I got better!


I was told about a month or so ago, by someone on another forum at AOL, that I had been banned from kingsnake.com (it was untrue). This, as far as I am aware, apparently came from a monitor at AOL who is also a monitor at kingsnake.com and who writes a lot of herp related articles (you may know her name). I also left a goodbye message back then sort of expecting to be banned for something I had written.

Two days ago I left yet another farewell message (this is the real McCoy) in three kingsnake.com forums (Snakes: General, Beginners and What Kind...) and amazingly it is still there. Maybe they are relenting a bit, but I have made up my mind - I will not go back unless there are very big changes in how they do things, and not until they reinstate those who were recently banned. Even then I may not return, the site has, in my opinion, become less than user friendly. The reason I said farewell, as it says in my post, was basically because I am lending support to those who have been banned and because I could no longer stomach the restrictions and monitors at kingsnake.com. A link to my post follows:

http://forum.kingsnake.com/bsnake/messages/7808.html

Yesterday, I pulled all my photos off of the kingsnake.com photo gallery members photo forum. I hope that got them out of all the forums.

Today, I sent an email to Jeff and the other mamnagement at kingsnake.com via their "contact" link. Hopefully the proper person at kingsnake.com, namely Jeff, will get to see it. In it I ask to have my forum users account closed down. If you would like to read it, it is pasted below.


My email to Jeff follows:

"To Jeff B. and the rest of the Management at Kingsnake.com,

Would you please tell me how to delete my account from kingsnake.com so that I would no longer be a registered forum user. I would like to make it so that all my user information is deleted including: all profile information, my email address, my user name and anything else associated with my name (except for posts already posted to forums) and so forth.

I will no longer be posting on your site due to, what in my opinion, is the demeaning manner in which you treat forum users; and due to, what in my opinion, is an extremely overzealous and restrictive reign over forum content. Sure it is your web site to do with as you please; just as it is my prerogative to use your site or another. I guess you folks think yourselves pretty big - but you seem to forget whom it was that made you so big. Too bad you guys have not realized that your main customers - they would be your advertisers - make a lot of their money from your forum users - thereby making your forum users a very valuable lot of customers. Now you seem to be losing a lot of them!

That is really too bad, because once upon a time, kingsnake.com was the best herp related web site out there; that, in my opinion, is not true anymore - not by a long shot.

With sincere regrets,
Glenn Bartley"


Maybe they will get the picture, maybe not. Here at faunaclassifieds.com, it seems that Rich has already gotten it developed and enlarged and it looks great. I was a kingsnake.com junky, but not anymore.

One last thing: Over the past two days I have been answering quite a few emails from people who had also been kingsnake.com forum users inquiring about 'that other site' I had talked about in my farewell message. That other site, of course, is this one. It looks as if a new rash of members is on the way. Funny how kingsnake.com pulled lots of references to faunaclassifieds.com, but sort of missed mine when I typed that it would be time to start looking for 'fauna at other classified sites'. Thats all I have to say, except now I feel better - and welcome to all the new people here at faunaclassifieds.com.

Best regards to all,
Glenn Bartley

Hooray I am banned again

I did it purposely this time.

My classified account runs out on Feb 9 2003.
I do not think it will be renewed.

So tell us about the smoke and mirrors already.

I have somehow managed to avoid being banned despite being quite outspoken in my dislike for most of the more recent practices of Jeff Barringer and the very existance of many of his forum moderators. My posting over there is very infrequent but I do generally post things that are more severe than many of the actions performed by a few of the more recent ban-ees, questioning the credibility of moderators mostly.

I have considered physically abusing kingsnake, assembling a few of the random computer bits around here into something functional, dragging it outside, loading up KS and smashing the computer with a shovel in frustration though... which has to count for something.

Fortunately this website allows me to post my opinions without the threat of being banned and I truly respect that. I also admire Rich a great deal for having the guts to do what Jeff B is afraid to do. I will not hold this forum against this site in any way, and it will in no way lessen my appreciation for the service Rich is providing, However.

I have not been banned from KS and as far as I know I am not even close to being banned. I can understand the way you all feel about what you consider to be being singled out, and I am not saying that is not what happened. Personally however, I feel that this forum is a detriment to this website.

Rich may have other reasons for starting it but to me it was started out of spite. Can you tell me what possible benefit this forum can provide to members of this website. I doubt if anyone is so seriously broken up over being banned by KS that they need a support group. If they are then I would guess they have larger issues to deal with. It looks to me like a place people can come to to talk bad about a competitor, and Rich, I alway thought you were above this

I doubt if this site will ever take over KS as the number one site on the web but it does have the potential to become the best site for reptile information, simply because of the freedom that Rich does allow. I doubt that this site could reach the levels of KS without Rich relenquishing (or delegating) some of the authority he has. He has taken a few steps in that direction but unless he wants this to be a full time job I can't see how he can grow much larger and still hang on to all the reigns. Still, I refuse to feel guilty about participating on KS just because a few of my friends (and I do consider you friends) are not allowed. I will not deny myself that source of information if I think it will help me learn more about my hobby. I do feel that banning people only serves to make a website worse in most cases as it denies the expertise of many well informed and well intentioned people. That is why, as annoying as some people on this site can be, I really do not support banning them.

Sorry for the long windedness of the post but thanks for allowing me to post it.

Steve Schindler

No Steve, you took this all wrong.

This was set up as a JOKE! I was highly amused by the goings on over at kingsnake.com. Just as I am amused at Jeff banning the posting of any site he feels threatens his turf.

I think most people recognized this as such.

You see there is a differnce in philosophy between Jeff B and myself concerning our websites. He does it for a living and is apparently scared to death he will lose it. I do it because I like to play around with this web stuff, but I have my SerpenCo business paying the bills, so I really don't have any need for this to be a money maker for me. As long as it pays it's own way and is not a big drain on my pocket book, that is all I can ask of it.

So, this was certainly not done out of spite. Maybe a nose tweaking, but certainly not being spiteful about it.

Hey Rich, as you may remember, I pretty much relegated myself to just lurking here, but I would just like to make one point. We know this forum is just a joke (isn't there another forum for jokes, btw?), but someone looking for a serious, unbiased, and informative site may not, and they may see it as petty and spiteful. (Again, personally, I think it's funny). Combine this with some of the camaraderie (that's the nice way to put it) on this site and it begins to look less like what it's intended for and more like some site for teens.
Another recommendation I can make would be to (and I've suggested this before) move the BOI to a different site and have the fauna classifieds as a stand alone site so the "fun" on this site doesn't interupt or color the seriousness of the BOI.
Just something you may want to consider. Have a good one Rich!
JB

oh, btw, where's the TV guy?

Rich,

I did get the feeling that this was meant as a joke, and after I read my post I should have said that it could apear that it was made up out of spite. I do not believe that is what you intended. I also find it funny but my main concern is for the credibility of this website. As jbuncc said, newcomers may not recognize it as such.

Now if this were a forum where people could post things like "check out this ad on KS" type posts to keep them out of the other forums then it could serve a useful purpose.

Steve Schindler