Kingsnake.com... Again...

[midnightline]

Well, it looks like the pot threads have been removed (a good thing IMO)... I was surprised to see how many people were willing to subject their animals to breathing that nasty stuff. Sometimes I wonder about people...

-Kat Hall

 

[Glenn Bartley]

Well here we go again, beat that horse cause it ain't dead yet! According to LDRS PETS Meliss over at AOL Reptiles Community forums, in her message to me on the snake board under king and milks, I have been banned from kingsnake.com by the owner of that same site. I was kind of surprised because I would have thought that if I had been banned, then the people at kingsnake.com would have informed me of this. Well, I got to that site in time to post a farewell message under their General Snakes forum. I also wrote to the webmaster asking for an explanation, I'll let you know what comes of that. My email to the webmaster is quoted below:


"Hi,

I have been a user of kingsnake.com for a few years now. I have made a few purchases from your advertisers, and frequently use your forums. I post herp info with which I try to be helpful and have pointed out when I believe others have given info that could be harmful or was wrong. My opinions have not always been popular, but I do not ever give information or opinions that I know or believe to be wrong.

Today I was very surprised to discover that I was (or am about to be banned) from using kingsnake.com. That is your prerogative, it is your site, and if I violated your TOS, then I guess you should make that call. What surprised me however; was the manner in which I discovered I was banned. I was on another site, the AOL Reptiles Community forums. A host at that site, identified as, "LDRS PETS Meliss" told me that the owner of kingsnake.com had banned me. Here is a quote from her posting: "If you want us hosts to take you seriously, well, tell us why we should, given all the crap you've been dumping about us on FaunaClassifieds, and KS (before you got yourself banned there - not by the hosts, btw, but by the owner of PH/Ks, the same man who has owned PH and Ks since he first started these services in the early 1990s)." You see, I was surprised that you guys did not inform me yourselves; I would imagine that would be the normal course of business.

Well, if I am banned or about to be banned, then so be it, it is your site. I have posted a farewell message in your General Snakes forum, I hope you are not offended by it, I don't think I said anything to offend anyone, and I am hopeful you will leave that last post of mine up.

If, you do not mind all that much, would you please let me know exactly why I am being banned; just a couple of months ago it was requested that I become a moderator on your site, and I was sent an email by one of your moderators telling me to keep up the good work. I don't think I ever violated your TOS. I have criticized some of your moderators on another site, but that is my right and privilege on that site. I was also somewhat critical of (and amazed about) an article linked to your site about a woman who breast fed puppies. I am after all entitled to my opinion as you are entitled to ban me from your site based upon your opinion of me. I would like to point out though, that I have also stood up for your site, a number of times, on that same other site. If you read all of my posts there, regarding this issue, in their entirety, then you know this to be true. Well, all I am asking for is an explanation of why I am being banned; I hope that is not too much too ask. Thank you.


Best regards and have a Happy Holiday Season,
Glenn Bartley"

The way I look at it is it really is their loss. I gave their advertisers some business and was always willing to share my herp knowledge with other users on their site. Now that they have the wonderful bunch of moderators they have (some of who are also moderators on the AOL forums), maybe it is better I stick around here, because the way they do business, in my opinion, really is scary.

Best regards and Happy Holidays,
Glenn

 

[Seamus Haley]

I'm going to try and get this up here, hopefully it'll fit and hopefully it doesn't end up violating any copyright laws.

I'll give it a shot anyway.

Here is a screenshot of the last portion of Melissa Kaplan's post in response to Glenn...

 

[Seamus Haley]

Sorry about the size it causes the forum windows to become and the duration of time it might take for some of you to load it... Unfortunatly I'm about to do it again...

This post is again by Melissa, who works as a volunteer moderator on AOL, KS and who only knows where else, uses her status as nothing more than a self promulgation machine, linking every single post she makes to her website which is, conveniently enough, plastered with images of her book and links to places to buy it.

Another poster accused Glenn of being a "plant" for Fauna, implying that there was something malicious or devious going on and that Fauna as an internet entity was somehow interested in damaging AOL's reptile message board credibility. This obviously shows that the person has no idea what Fauna or the BOI specifically are about as they failed to realize that, while individual fauna members may have a problem with or dislike AOL, it's certainly not a characteristic that can be attributed to the group as a whole... Here's Kaplan's response to a correction of that individual's misimpression...

 

[Seamus Haley]

I do have quite a few more screenshots saved at this point of telling things that the HOSTs that act in a double capacity for AOL and KS have said, things that directly contradict a number of the principles Kingsnake was founded upon and have an impact on the ability of Kingsnake to generate revenue...

Like Kaplan's statements that stop just shy of accusing Jay over at Prehistoric Pets of knowingly spreading IBD simply because she doesn't like the gentleman... Gee, isn't he one of KS's biggest accounts in terms of banner ads, a classified account, Being linked prominantly on the KS mainpage and so on?

Does Jeff not realize that these people he has asked to perform in the capacity of moderators do direct damage to his livelyhood as well as the livelyhood of the people who support him and the industry that he uses to make a living?!

I have, at this point, collected maybe a dozen really telling screenshots and have a few others avaliable if anyone would like them sent as an attatchment or embedded in e-mail, please drop me a message at [email protected] and I'll respond with a number of them.

 

[WebSlave]

Just for the record, I guess I should mention here as well that the BOI has officially been banned from KS. (Again??)

I got that directly from Jeff himself in relation to a bit of a confrontation over my retaining Adam Block's thread on the BOI, and Jeff's desire to have it removed from MY site.

I've always had a lot of respect for Jeff Barringer, but .......

 

[HerpVenue]

Oh sh!t.
Melissa Kaplan is slowly perfusing through all the sites.
Soon she will have control of all the sites.....
Then people will believe her just because she has control.
Then when she finally has control..............BAM you will finally see that she is nothing more than an animal rights activist.

Don't worry Melissa.
The only reason you talk bad about Fauna classifieds is because you have no control over it.
You are not able to stop people from excercising their first ammendment rights over here.
you can't delete people's responses over here.
You find it hard to admit that the people who come here as well as other sites are actually inteligent and knowledgable about the herps they care for.
You and your fellow moderators on AOL and a couple on kingsnake know nothing about herps.
you are all animal rights activists pretending to be reptile lovers.
We know you are for the reptile BAN.
So cut the **** already.
Oh yeah.
You will only be moderator for Kingsnake and AOL and maybe a few others....wanna know why?
You are moderator for AOL because the owner has no clue.
You are moderator for kingsnake becasue Jeff is not about reptiles....Jeff is about money. So he does not care that you are for the reptile Ban.
As for other sites out there.....The owners of those sites are real reptile lovers....I know.. They are my friends. So do not worry. You won't control any more sites than the ones you already do.


To you Jeff
Gee Jeff...you do not want Adam to post about your site on the BOI
BUT
You sure do want people to post about "other" sites on the BOI

You do not want to see the name kingsnake on the BOI...
BUT
You sure do not have problems trying to get people to post about other companies do ya? know what I mean?

 

[HerpVenue]

Wait a second..I think I missed somthing.

Glenn do you mean to tell me you got banned from kingsnake for your actions on another site?

So you got banned not because you violated any TOS but because the animal rights activists deemed it so?

plese correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Uffern]

Someone on the forum I frequent coincidentally mentioned the BOI today. I wonder if she will be an innocent bystander victim of Jeff's raging ego and lack of business ethics.

Hope I don't get banned for saying that....

 

[Ken Harbart]

After checking the General Snake Forum, it appears that Glenn was lied to in the AOL chatroom. In addition, it appears that Ms. Kaplan is continuing her lies, now to the tune of "I never said he was banned". Go figure- lies to cover up a lie!

Ms Kaplan's replies that Seamus was kind enough to post above are examples of nothing more than pseudoreasoning and boldfaced lies at their worst. Then again, I would have been overly optimistic to expect anything different.

Up until I read that Jeff has "banned" faunaclassifieds over the Adam Block fiasco, I had a good deal of respect for him. Hell, I've even gotten into some heated debates while defending kingsnake against all those folks ( Adam brings the grand total of those banned for TOS violations up to five out of a possible 3,260- which can also be expressed as 0.0015%) here in the "Land of the Banned".

This "ban" appears to come about as a result of spite... spite that Rich is running this site in accordance with its rules, and will not compromise the integrity of the BOI by deleting a post that conforms to those rules. Rather than handling this matter logically, he's going at it emotively.

Granted, it is his site to run as he sees fit, but banning others out of nothing more than spite seems rather Joe Pee-esque. That being said, I don't know what form of retribution to expect, if any, for expressing my opinion.

 

[Glenn Bartley]

My head is ssssspinningggg. I am confused. Here is what happened in a big nutshell:

I posted a question at AOL Reptile Boards about temps in a snake room, not saying that they were for brumation, a sort of test to see what answers I would get or if someone would ask if I was brumating. I like to check on the quality of responses I get to decide if a site is worth my trouble. Yeah I know, lots of people do not like tests but that is not the point.

I was given one pretty good answer to my initial inquiry, then all of a sudden I was identified as ‘Glenn Bartley troublemaker’ and as ‘a plant from faunaclassifieds’ (spy like not flora like), before anyone was even aware that I was doing my test thing. Well I was not being sneaky because, if I recall correctly, as usual I posted my name at the end of my post "Glenn Bartley". I think you are all aware I virtually always do so. I would also imagine that is how they figured out I was Glenn Bartley, makes sense that if they saw my name in my post they could ID me, doesn't it?

I was then accused of being a troublemaker on the AOL forum as well as on the kingsnake.com forum. Next thing you know good old LDRS PETS Meliss one of the AOL moderators starts telling everyone that I had been banned on kingsnake.com by the owner of said site. This was news to me. I went to ks and immediately posted a goodbye message to see if I had been banned, and guess what - my post was accepted. I then wrote an email to ks.com and got a reply that they had not informed me of my ban because I HAD NOT BEEN BANNED. Wow this was really making my head spin. I have often disagreed with people over the forums before, but never knowingly gave wrong or false info on anyone, as apparently was just done to me.

I go back to the AOL forums and posted that I had not been banned; that such was misinformation. I got a reply, from LDRS PETS Meliss, in essence saying that: ‘I was wrong, I assumed you had been banned because of your troublemaker posts and because you had not posted on kingsnake lately’ (not a quote but the essence of it for sure). Well I post on kingsnake regularly, so it looks like more misinformation about me. I can only guess the identity of LDRS PETS Meliss; as she is apparently for some reason hesitant to use her full name in her posts. I brought this up to her in one of my posts and she accused me of doing the same - that is not using my full name. Well, when I sign onto the AOL boards it is using my AOL screen name, but I sign virtually every post (as I mentioned above) with my name "Glenn Bartley". I am 99.9% certain that my initial post on the AOL boards was signed that way; and would bet money on it because the moderators at AOL immediately pegged me for none other than the notorious troublemaker Glenn Bartley from faunaclassifieds. BUT when I went back to look at my posts, my name was missing from them. Isn't that funny, there must be a glitch in the system that caused my name to dissolve or something - or is my memory becoming so bad that I forgot to post my name as I usually do by force of habit! I could see myself forgetting to sign one of my posts, but not all of them in a thread. It makes me wonder if someone deleted part of my posts out of convenience to make their own point stronger? Is that possible for a moderator to accomplish? Would someone be that low to do so?

There were a couple of other really nice (I am being very sarcastic now) people over at AOL who also made comments about me: some guy Dave referred to me as the faunaclassifieds plant and if I got it right as a buffoon (how does he know me so well I wonder). Some guy Ratz was also uncomplimentary. Some others actually defended me, and some gave answers to my initial inquiry.

All in all I was quite happy to see I was not banned from kingsnake.com. Now that I notified the people at ks that the AOL moderator LDRS PETS Meliss (who also supposedly moderates at kingsnake.com) readily gives out misinformation about the actions of the owner of the ks site, I am hopeful someone at ks will take appropriate action.

I may be unable to comment on this for the next week or so. My hard drive on my pc at home is sounding like a car engine with no oil each time it starts up and I think that not good. If it crashes I imagine I will not get it fixed till next weekend after Christmas.

I really cannot wait to see what else was written about me on those AOL boards. What truly amazing stuff gets written there, supposedly by mature adults. LDRS PETS Meliss actually called me GLENNNY, and also told me 'she could say she is rubber and I am glue' referring to a comment I made about her. I have not heard talk like that since my kids were in first grade or before. I certainly have never heard a mature adult saying something like that before I saw it in her post. I cannot believe the level of what, in my opinion, is gross immaturity shown on those boards by the moderators.

Thank goodness and Rich for this site. Sure we argue here too, but stuff like: I’m rubber you’re glue” PLEEEEEEASE give me a break from that kind of thing. I also have to give thanks to kingsnake too. I don't find it as bad a site as many of you others do. I know it is not perfect, and some of the policies are very restrictive about posting, and I certainly do not agree with their moderators on many things and am grossed out by links to articles about moms who breast feed puppies, but it is yet pretty good nonetheless. Nowhere nearly as good as this site though, please don't get me wrong about that!

Best regards and happy holidays to all,

Glenn Bartley (there I go again with my name, can you believe it)

 

[HerpVenue]

and just to let you know....
I test my password every several days on kingsnake adds.

Guess what I got today when I tested my password?

Error: Sorry, username not found in Database

Does this mean I was banned?
How can that be since I have not posted anything in 2-3 months. So there is no way I can violate any TOS. Plus I was not even informed that I wa banned.

 

[HerpVenue]

Granted, it is his site to run as he sees fit, but banning others out of nothing more than spite seems rather Joe Pee-esque. That being said, I don't know what form of retribution to expect, if any, for expressing my opinion.

Umm Ken? do you have a ks classified account like I used to?

 

[jbuncc]

hey richie, you sure your account hasn't expired because you haven't renewed it? just want to eliminate the easy possibilities first, ya know?
jb

 

[HerpVenue]

Unless I am wrong it should not expire untill next year.
Do they usually send reminders before it expires? cause I never got one. I am still waiting to hear from someone over there.
I wonder where my e-mails go?

 

[HerpVenue]

okay....

From: Jeff Barringer <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826
X-Accept-Language: en,fr
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Fwd: Fw: Message to kingsnake.com Site Coordinator from [email protected]]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I am showing that the classified account
under the username RitchieReptiles is
active and valid until 2/9/03

I am showing no bans under this username.
I know that we were working on our dbase
on and off all day and it has been offline
for several periods of time. Perhaps that
accounts for your inability to log in.

I know when I jump to conclusions..
I know when I am wrong.
I hereby publicly and humbly apologize for doing so.

 

[MarcAntony]

Glenn you old terrorist you!! I knew when I met you last year at White Plains that there was something funny about you. Now I know what it is. You are out to undermine the "real" reptile lovers. You know, the ones that kiss their lizards on the lips and teach their Burmese to fetch.
I am truly in awe that I was so close to Osama Bin Bartley, the scurge of the reptile world! Sorry pal, I couldn't resist because I am LMAO!!!!

 

[Janie Manaski]

Lordy lordy

I thought I would comment about this because I have had an AOL account for about 8 years. I am new to snakes-- today is the first anniversary of buying my first corn in fact! I did months of research before buying a snake on husbandry as well as patterns and mutations, etc because I'm an artist and I was using my snake as a model. Anyway, the first "big" reptile site I came across was Kingsnake. And in the "general snake forum" one name popped up quite a lot to answer various questions. That name is, of course, "Glenn Bartley." I never read an answer from Glenn that seemed contradictory or wrong. On Kingsnake we all know there are plenty of replies that just get murdered because of the inaccuracy of the poster. Well, to me, a post by Glenn was always something worth reading. There are a lot of posters on KS, but you get to know who knows what pretty fast. To name a few along with Glenn: MsTT, Darin Chappell, Serpwidgets, Clint Boyer, Rob Carmichael, etc, etc along with big name breeders who post often over there.
And yes, I stupidly have kept an active AOL account for eight whole years. I would not think-- and still do not-- of asking a snake husbandry question over there. Why? Because the "AOL Community" is like high school. That is the best comparision I can think of. It's set up so every idiot can use it, afford it and abuse it. It's like the Internet for people who don't know what the Internet is capable of, and sooo many families with younger kids have it. To become a moderator there all you really need to do is have a tolerance for every idiot who comes along and be able to enforce their stupid TOS. Oh and have like 8 hours a day you spend on AOL anyway. It makes sense to me that Kaplan would host in AOL. The average type of AOL user is probably the average person who goes into a pet shop with NO prior knowledge of herps and brings home a kingsnake, a ten-gallon aquarium, a heat rock and a bag of crickets. So Kaplan can more than likely get a lot of "proof" of why people shouldn't own herps. This is not to say everyone on AOL is a moron, because I know they are not-- hell, I have it. But AOL is easy, marketed and hyped and basically the ISP for the lowest common denominator. You have to wade through a lot of crap there in the chats, boards, or even e-mail. Fauna is lfilet mignon to their hot dog!

 

[Glenn Bartley]

Janie,

Well, all I can say is that I am really feeling humbled. Thanks for the very nice comments about me and my posts at kingsnake.com. Despite your compliments, I know I sometimes do get a bit carried away with a kind of holier than thou attitude, but usually only when I am up against a nonsinner and saint like those who tell people it is ok for them to keeps herps but not for anyone else to do so because most people are ignorant boobs. Yes I get pretty upset when I see such implied in a post. I would rather give people info about what they asked, and how to care for their animals of choice - I am not there to tell them they are idiots for making a choice. I really do just try to give good info.

I also really do appreciate your kind words about me, that was very nice of you.

****************************************************

MarcAntony,

Now as for you MarcAntony and your comments, 'Osama Bin Bartley the scourge of the reptile world' indeed! I have not laughed that hard all week and maybe all month! I love it, I may have to sign up with that screen name at AOL and start posting on their Reptile Community boards under that name. Moderators at AOL would likely use such to try to prove I truly am a faunaclassifieds plant, but it would be lots of fun nonetheless.


Best regards and happy holidays to all,
Glenn

 

[Glenn Bartley]

Is it my imagination, or does this thread keep changing between here and the general Business Discussions?

Well anyway, I have taken a liking to my new AOL screen name of OsamaBinBartley and have posted my first question on the AOL Reptiles Community Forums under the King and Milk Snake sections using said screen name. I signed my post:

Osama Bin Bartley, aka: the scourge of the reptile world, or just another faunaclassifieds plant

I actually asked a legitimate question too, and am awaiting replies with some anxiety.

Best regards,
Glenn Bartley

PS: see what the power of suggestion will do when combined with a nice glass of Merlot!