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    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

New forum needed?

I know what you are saying man...................

I would like to offer any help I can. I read Fauna all the time. I know the BOI is your main thing and it put you on th map. I feel the ones that hate it are the "bad guys".

IMO you have something special here.

But like you said you can always try it and if it does not work click the delete button.
 
Is there such a word that would mean "Hell" and "garbage" all at the same time? Perhaps that would be a better term for such a forum as I am envisioning.
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As a school teacher, I recently showed the movie Labyrinth to my students as a sort of reward for good behaviour. I saw the movie four times over, and it took several days, so I've been kind of living and breathing that movie.... if you don't want to call it Hell, you could always call it the Pit of Eternal Stench. Just a thought
 
Providing a new forum for flaming will only give the impression that it's appropriate and welcome behavior.
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In my opinion Terese brings a good point. The "worst day" in the BOI is probably better compared to some of the flame wars that occurr in some of the other sites.

Regards.
 
Rich a Hell forum might not be a bad idea but not a good one either. I do not envy your task at hand. Sometimes in these flame wars though true ferreting is done and bad guys are really shown after much heated debate.

I think what you did with Wes and Neil for example and giving them their own forum to play in is a better solution to flamers then a Hell Forum. Or perhaps that is a good forum for two persons to settle a dispute that really no other members are participating in.

Placing that in the BOI for all to see though is not helping the BOI either. Perhaps a private E-MAIL to the <cough> contributing parties is a far better choice giving them a link to their new sandbox in the hell forum. Knowing they were singled out directly for their actions might make them stop and think about how foolish they were becomming. At wourse it wont be on the BOI to stink it up.

Scott Bice
 
Sasheena said:
... if you don't want to call it Hell, you could always call it the Pit of Eternal Stench. Just a thought
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Perfect name - need an evil laugh to go with it when you say it.

Gads that was a great movie. It's been a long time since I last watched it. I think I may have my upcoming weekend movie picked out already ROFL.


Adrian
 
"Is there such a word that would mean "Hell" and "garbage" all at the same time? Perhaps that would be a better term for such a forum as I am envisioning."

If you will permit a little Biblical referrence here from the Old Testament, the word often translated in English versions of the Old Testament as "Hell" is the Hebrew "Gehenna."

Gehenna was actually a huge trash pit outside of Jerusalem in ancient times, wherein all of the garbage of the city was taken and burned. The fires were nearly continuous, due to the huge population of the city, and the smoke and stench were awful! To the inspired writers appealing to those who spoke Hebrew, there was no better visual aide concept for Hell than "Gehenna!"

It may be too unfamiliar a name for many (most?) people to get the idea, but if you are really looking for a word that refers to garbage burning in Hell ... it doesn't get any closer than "Gehenna."
 
Actually, I misspoke myself a bit. "Gehenna" is a Greek variant of the Hebrew word of which I speak, and it is in the New Testament that it is predominantly used. "Sheol" is the common Hebrew word for "Hell" in the Old Testament.

Just want to keep everything straight ... sorry for brief inaccuracy there.
 
Seems a solution is really already at hand...

Much like Rich saw something which people could benefit from and created it, Gary has put together a forum where you can yell and swear and be offensive and really don't have to justify your petty minded nastiness to anyone.

I use it... check it at least every couple days, it's a good place to blow off steam and fire off all those witty (well... vulgar really, but they seem witty to the people involved) insults and back biting remarks.

Much like when there was common ground between ssnakess.com and fauna and the Canadian BOI was created... perhaps Gary could be allowed to offer his services a bit more blatantly. A message from Rich telling combatants to take it over to the War Room on the Reptile Room does three things... Gives the angry folks a place to take their dispute, gets Gary's forums a bit of credit (the reptile forums there ARE pretty good, just a little underused) and takes the entire thing to a place where those not wishing to see it don't have to. Keeps the BOI clean and everyone wins.

The only thing which might be important is a bit more of a disclaimer about the war rooms... Some people seem to take them seriously, many others use the chance to blow off a bit of steam and then treat it as what it should be. Quoting war room forums on the BOI would be pretty out of line... It must be understood that the war rooms are a place for exaggerated anger and treated as such. It's an area DESIGNED for flame wars and an individual's conduct on that forum really has little or no bearing on their conduct in other places.

Oh... and Kelli can be MEAN when she wants to.
 
Seamus - unfortunately, your suggestion would not help much at all here. There is no way for me to MOVE a thread from the BOI onto an external site, nor does it do a darn thing about the people HERE intent to engage in feuds and urinary dueling.

I am even contemplating making the suspension and fine penalty accompanied by the limitation that such people will ONLY have access to that HELL forum here. Maybe eventually, I can do a Donald Trump and try to trademark the phrase "GO TO HELL!".
 
Well, I set up that HELL forum, simply because the thread I created in the Just For Laughs forum for the Pollock vs Gubitz feud just got rapidly out of control. One member got suspended from the site and has already paid his fine. I think more were on the brink, but one of my moderators knows more about what was going on in there than I do.

Rather than sully the intent of the Just For Laughs forum (since that thread really wasn't funny after all), I decided I needed to move it somewhere else, and in a hurry.

For now NO one can create a new thread in the HELL forum, only reply to existing ones. I may or may not keep it that way. But at least this will give me a little bit more breathing room to think about the advisability of such a place on this site.

Darin - I like your suggested name, however, I think it may be a bit above and beyond most people who would most likely frequent that forum. But I'm not ruling out using it anyway....
 
I don't think the Hell forum is the best idea.. I have a suggestion that should work just fine... How about letting the mods do the job of monitoring the activity, and DELETING or editing off topic/innapropriate posts. I for one have given up multiple times while trying to read threw a thread because of the fecal matter that is thrown and allowed to be thrown with little to no actual repricussions(sp?)


Later
 
I think a HELL room is a good idea. The feuds do not belong in sound off nor in the just for laughs sections.
Perhaps a lowly dank place where people can go to really let loose.
I do not think whole BOI threads should be moved to it, only the people in which are deserving to go there. Too bad you couldn't zap a person or people in a forum as easily as you can move a thread. Just the thought of someone typing and then finding themselves in HELL is just humorous to think about.
The rules for the BOI should definitely stay in place and probably not so much slack given, as in "next time" and four times later that person is still here.
The problem with not opening it to new threads is that people may feel they have to start something somewhere else to get to HELL.
Rich, I do not envy your job here.
 
I think it should be embarrassing . . .

. . . to have to create this sort of adolescent room.

In my opinion, it only serves to strengthen the idea that herpers in general are a bunch of ill-mannered neanderthals who lurk on the underside of society.

The BOI has done much to change the dark side of herping. The War/hell room just gives it new life - like a festering boil.

Get rid of it - please . . . tell the adolescents if they want to swear and rip on people that they can ride the school bus and do it . . . .
 
It has long been my opinion that giving someone enough rope will eventually show their character to all. Deleting such evidence of self strangulation is not really in everyone's best interests, I believe. As has been pointed out time and time again, many people learned more about a person from the responses they gave to a situation rather than from the situation itself.

So, perhaps this HELL forum can be considered as a room full of ropes. It will be instructive to see how many threads are moved there and which contributor is most often determined to be the person who initially caused the thread to veer into HELL.

As far as opening the forum for any member to create their own threads there, I am undecided about this. Do I really want people to intentionally start threads with the intention of causing a flame war? Or by my not doing that, do I intentionally give them no other choice but to drag a constructive thread over to that area? I am leaning towards keeping that forum as a public trashcan that only myself or the mods can move whole or partial threads to from other areas of this site. But if someone can give me one or more darned good reasons why opening it to new threads by members would be a good idea, I am open to the discussion.

And yes, I can set it up so that particular members would be limited to the HELL forum. But I'm not sure I would ever do this. In my opinion, anyone who deserves to be stuck in there probably just needs to be suspended anyway. But heck, I don't know. This is a new idea for me, and probably a bad one, but I need a place where I can dump some of the crap that goes on here without deleting it, leaving it visible for people to view to form their own opinions about the actions of the participants.

And of course, I really don't expect everyone to agree with me, no matter what I do. But I am willing to strike a balance between what I think is best, and when the majority of the people here think is best. But bear in mind, I will not always agree with the majority. Sometimes I have to prove it to myself that I am wrong......
 
Well, if you want a place to "dump" the trash, why not make a read-only room called Hell?? Then, you wouldn't be condoning the poor behavior, or inadvertenly encouraging flame wars...but rather, it will be a hall of embarrassment, like some stores do by posting pictures of thieves and what they stole. Will that work?
 
FWIW

it only serves to strengthen the idea that herpers in general are a bunch of ill-mannered neanderthals who lurk on the underside of society.
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creating an environment for this type of behavior will only serve to condone it.
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Providing a new forum for flaming will only give the impression that it's appropriate and welcome behavior.
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I agree with these members. Giving these infantile, chronic verbal sewage-slingers their very own arena is simply enabling them. We who have to put up with them are the ones in HELL!!! It's a good thing I am not Webslave, because I would simply apply the "three strikes, you're out" law, and they would have been gone a long time ago.
 
Seamus

I would help out in anyway. If Rich wanted to do that, it is ok with me. Thanks for the compliments! It means a lot man....
 
Re: I think it should be embarrassing . . .

Monte said:


Get rid of it - please . . . tell the adolescents if they want to swear and rip on people that they can ride the school bus and do it . . . .
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so to sum things up you would like to see basically what the kingsnake moderators have been doing for some time now to the adolescent-like and behaviorily challenged individuals on their site and as a result are getting ripped on by those boasting about having been banned from the site by the "nazi moderators" ?

I think that either a site has rules which are enforced or it does not. It serves no purpose to have rules by which people should abide by in regards to their behavior on a website if those rules are not going to be enforced both consistantly and fairly across the board by the person running that site - in this case Rich and his moderators. I think the more that they work to attain that goal the more problems they will encounter in people ripping on them and eventually calling them nazi's I am sure.

It is possible that maybe a good way to keep the rule breakers on this site in check is to actually provide a single no-rule, no-holds barred forum for the behaviorily challenged to play on and if they choose to take their games outside of that arena then they surely can have no one to blame but themselves if they get kicked out completely. It would seem that a hell forum could fill that purpose or at least provide the chance to experiment to see if it works or not. Yes?


Adrian
 
The Hell Room

I think it is a good idea. Put a warning on it so that people understand what they will see when they go there.

And remember people YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO THERE and read it.

As long as it doesn't spill over into the professional areas of the BOI, I think it is great. But it needs to be very clear that any spillage would mean serious consequences.

I did go and visit this "War Room" place and I have to say that I have a new lack of respect for many people from what I have seen there. But, if that is what they want to do, so be it, they found a place.
 
And remember people YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO THERE and read it.
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I'm in agreement with you Wendy. I was there once and probably for the last time. Nothing constructive going on in there.

Regards.
 
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