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YOU GOTTA CHECK THIS OUT on Kingsnake!

Wow! I didn't think Jeff would do that. What's the scuttlebutt on the other forums about it? Are the moderators keeping busy putting out the fires before they can become wildfires?

All that just to cover up Jeff screwing up and banning someone whom had a disagreement? I wonder how far he would go before having to back down and admit he made a mistake?

Kind of reminds me of the Blazing Saddles movie where the guy puts the gun to his own head and threatens everyone that he will shoot if they don't back off.

Unbelievable.
 
I posted on the monitor forum and the ball python forum about what was going on in the Field Collecting Forum. I said nothing about this site and only said that it was important and affected any one who uses the forums. Anyways, my post was deleted right away.

Jeff doesn't make mistakes, I already had that conversation with him.

Tony Alles
www.reptileguru.com
 
I've looked in on the cornsnake and iguana forums throughout the day, and no one is even talking about what happened on the field collecting forum. I don't know how many people even know about it yet. Everyone over there is fairly "forum specific," if you know what I mean.

:look:
 
I was just on the Bearded Dragon forum and saw this, anyone know what it's about? Weird.

BD forum post????

Just in case it gets deleted...I cut and pasted the post.
Below is not my post, but couldn't get it all into the quote thing.


Posted by Rick Staub on January 30, 2003 at 13:22:27:
Click to expand...

Posted by Rick Staub on January 30, 2003 at 13:22:27:

Again this post does not break the TOS and yes I have attempted to take this off the forums as KS.com requested, but have gotten no response to my emails.

Here's the post.

I just led in with that because I thought it might get you to read my post eventhough you said you were done.

JB:I am upset because he was abusive to our staff, questioning their motives, their honesty and their actions. I am also upset that
:Gerry posted mis-information about our intentions and actions
:regarding our beta test of the forums and what was and wasn't
:going to be included in terms of features when he in fact had no
:knowledge of what we were in fact going to release, and then BROADCAST that mis-information in a effort to sew panic among our userbase.(Which by the way
violated 2 of our Terms Of Service clauses, Spamming the forums, and being disruptive).

RS - I can understand that you were upset, but you have to ask yourself whether that affected your ability to make a fair judgement of Gerry's actions. I do not see
where he was abusive. Opinionated definitely, even defensive, but not abusive or disruptive. The following quotes from his posts show that he was in fact considerate
with his opinions. Also the notion that he violated the TOS by spamming is reaching at best. As he stated himself (quote below) he was merely sticking up for the other
K.com forum users. He posted to the 3 forums that he most frequents and the posts were certainly of interest to the users and on-topic. You have to admit that he felt
he was defending the other K.com forum users from what he felt was an unfair situation.

GB>>>"I have no desire to war with Wyvern or anyone else. If I have in some way misjudged her or this situation, I sincerely apologize - and I've nothing personally
against her or any of the rest of you in any event."

GB>>>"I'm certainly willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here, PHWyvern, and promise you I bear you no personal animosity, either. Like you I tend to be direct
(some might say "tactless" ), and that does rub some people the wrong way, but not me. I've endeavored to post about the issue rather than the people or personalities
involved, and if there have been rare instances where I've failed in that then I sincerely apologize."

GB>>>"I can say that exactly the way I DID say it: It is quite apparent that at least some PHfolk are gaining their opinions of users' views based NOT ONLY on what
beta testers are saying, but ALSO on what users of certain groups - by no means ALL groups, and NOT the kingsnake.com group - have e-mailed them privately. So,
one more time, if you want to base your opinions of users' views solely on beta testers, that's fine as long as you were fair in selecting them (I suppose whether that's
true or not is also subject to debate), but if you want to add feedback received from other than the beta testers to the mix as well, you should allow ALL groups an
EQUAL opportunity to provide such feedback. I hope that's finally clear for you; if not I'm afraid I don't know how better to explain it for you."

GB>>>"I did not go out of my way to publicly create either panic or revolt, but rather to try to treat fairly the community from which I came. I've never wanted anything
else. I have endeavored to be constructive from the very start, whether you wish to see my actions that way or not."

GB>>>"I repeat, hopefully for the last time, if non-beta testers opinions are going to have influence on decisions, then ALL non-beta testers should be given an equal
opportunity to offer opinions. It's really that simple."

JB:I don't care if Gerry was Mother Theresa in regards to his
:"regular" activities in the forums, his actions regarding
:the Beta test and the insinuations he made regarding the
:staff are inexcusable and won't be tolerated.

:Say what you want about me, but you start being abusive in any
:manner to any of our staff and I will, with no hesitation,
:ban you.

RS - While I understand your protectiveness over your staff, you should realize that Gerry was directing most of his comments at the entity of K.com and not the
individual staff aside from his later comment about the inconsistant oversight of the Field Collecting Forum. Nobody was personally attacked. In the end it appears to be
an over-reaction on both sides on an issue that was for the most part a misunderstanding.

JB:This is the last I will say on the matter.

RS - I am very sorry to hear that. I feel that the users of these forums, your customers, will only take that as a sign that you are emotional, uncompromising and
inconsistent in the application of your rules.
 
John Albrecht said:
The first thing I think we need to do is to have a general discussion thread for the purposes of describing what we really want.
Click to expand...

Hey John, we already have that here. It's in the Admin & Other Irrelevancies section, under Discussions About This Site. Please feel free to contribute. Everyone has the chance to voice their ideas, desires, and opinions, they simply have to take it.

I'm sure I can speak for all of us when I say that you and anyone else is more than welcome to come here and enjoy some freedom of speech.
 
I just left a reply to the post in the Bearded forum, as I frequent that forum more than any other. Two people had posted asking what the original post was about. It is as follows:

This is about what went on in the Field Collection forum last night. If you take a look, you will notice that the forum is no longer there. As it was, a long standing member was banned. The reasons seem dubious. Many of the forum regulars protested, some of them were banned for disagreeing. This post is a copy of a conversation between Jeff Barringer and Rick Staub concerning the banning of a forum member named Gerry.

Feel free to e-mail me for more info.

This post has not violated TOS in any way, so hopefully they won't ban me as well for stating this.
Click to expand...
 
John,

Here's a link to the forum Uffern is referring to:

Discussions about this site

Eveyone is welcome to put in their two cents there.

And for the record, let me make something clear here. Unlike some other sites, no one will be banned for disagreeing with myself or any moderators here. I, and everyone else with the ability to delete or edit YOUR messages, will be very circumspect about your rights to post your thoughts and opinions. Those that are deleted will have been given a great deal of thought about taking such a drastic step. Although there is no way to guarantee that everyone will agree with every decision, this is something that will not be taken lightly.

Being banned from this site is the result of someone being more of an embarrassment to the human race than anything that has to do with disagreements with the management.

I personally encourage everyone to copy this statement and keep it handy. If somehow in the future I become afflicted with the WebGod syndrome that is apparently running rampant, please rub my nose in this and remind me of what I have promised. At this late date in my life, it is highly unlikely that I would throw away my self respect by not honoring a promise.

The day someone whom is the owner of a website like this can walk into a grocery store and get their groceries for free based on that reputation, is the day I will be impressed with such a thing. Until then, I do believe some people are taking themselves FAR too seriously.
 
I'm glad Richard has that post deposited in his "hillbilly saftey deposit box," but you know, WebSlave, you really don't have to remind people here to jump on someone with a swollen ego! It's kind of a second nature to us all!

It's about the same as reminding snakes strike at moving, mouse-scented objects! We've got you covered! :D

:uzi:Censorship
 
The banned, the damned

It was amazing to see how fast posts were deleated from the kingsnake forums. Two of those originally banned were great contributers to the forums. One responded to nearly every question on the watersnake forum and was a wealth of knowledge. But his protests about the treatment of Gerry, who was another very valuable member - and the original bannee, resulted in his being banned. I got banned defending both, and posting a note on the watersnake forum explaining where their "Pierson" had gone.

A couple other posts saying goodbye were deleted within minutes of being posted. I suppose hundreds of posts were deleted - it must have been a very long night for kingsnake forum moderators. People kept trying to speak, and kept getting banned. By this morning the Field Collecting forum was gone. The FC forum has always been a rather rough place to hang out - lots of opinions, some rather rancorous. But as I said in my last post to kingsnake (which was deleted in less than 2 minutes), the web is a lot like this country around 1860, lots of energy, hard to control. Its not for the thin skinned and not for anyone not willing to roll with the punches.

I suspect Jeff is an OK guy, but he is trying to control a situation that is in some ways in the public domain. He has to recognize that and work with the crowds, not against them (or us). His management style is one of severe control, and through history we've seen that this never works. He needs to learn to manage people, not control them.

The forum moderators have clearly let a little authority go to their heads. There si a lesson here for all of us. But they haven't learned it yet. Although I think this latest episode has taught them something. There were a number of us who didn't mind showing them that mis-treatment would not go un-punished. They thought they were able to resort to rule with an authoritarian hand, but they were shown why that doesn't work. They closed down the forum after endless posts protesting their behavior, their pleas to stop were ignored, as they should have been.

Its easy to just re-register with a new hotmail account, so the ban is really rather silly. It just caused them endless hours of frantic activity that they could have avoided by resisiting their efforts to control.

Joe Monahan
was: spilotes on kingsnake
now: spi1otes on kingsnake
 
OK, I just posted the below message at 2:14 am on kingsnake.com's new FEEDBACK forum. I posted it to the end of another message that I feel the moderator will not really want to delete (if what is being said about them HAVING to delete the entire thread to delete one single message in it is actually true). So let's see how long it takes to get the axe.

BTW, I registered as WebSlave on the forums.

Sorry, but I do not want the thread this was originally posted in to be deleted by what I have to say.

Just as users can be banned, so too can IP addresses, website URLs, profanity, certain email addresses, and other character strings. URLs are filtered for a variety of reasons, usually (but not always) because they spammed our site, harvested email addresses of our users, or other forms of advertising. We will not discuss the reasons behind the banning of any individual user, IP address, URL, or any other character string, nor discuss any other elements that go into providing security on this site.

Well, since this is supposed to be a feedback forum, one would assume that discussion about the policies and practices of the management and moderation of this site would be of primary concern to posters here, would it not?

Basically the question was asked: Why has a particular site been banned from having the URL mentioned on THIS site simply because the owner of THAT site would not comply with a demand from the owner of THIS site?

What was the violation of THIS site's TOS? Is something that someone else does on their OWN site hereby considered to be a violation of THIS site's TOS? If not, then what other circumstances other than violations of the TOS are there that can get a URL banned?

Quite frankly, I talked to Jeff B. about my site from the very beginning, and we had an understanding, which I respected, that I would not attempt to promote it on his site. What has apparently happened is that certain features of my site have proven to be of interest to the readers of THIS site, and management here is squelching the free passing of that information among it's readers for apparently entirely frivolous reasons.

You say you will not discuss these reasons, but why not? I certainly will not be offended by those reasons, so whom will be offended by them? I have NEVER tried to promote my site here, and never will. But the simple fact is that some URL's are apparently banned from being mentioned from this site without any offered reasonable justification. I think people taking the time to post messages only to have them kicked out by the automatic filters have a right to know why, don't you?

So is kingsnake.com attempting to be the Hotel California of the herp related internet sites? They want their users to come on in, but they can never leave to check out someone else with any help of the user base here? Is that what you are trying to do?

The internet's draw to people is because of it's openness and freedom of information available. They are incredulous at the ability to jump from one site to another by the simple click of a button to pursue their interests as best they can. But kingsnake.com seems to be interested in only protecting their turf and doing its darnedest to lead the new people coming on board into believing that there is no other world outside of kingsnake.com.

So go ahead, if the reason my site was banned from having the URL mentioned here for no other reason than greed, selfishness, and the fear of competing sites, then why not just go ahead and admit it to everyone. That's what everyone thinks anyway, so the truth is not going to surprise anyone. If this is NOT the truth, then heck, what do you have to lose? The truth, then could be no worse than the rumors and suspicions, now can it?

Thank you for your time and attention in this matter.

Respectfully,

Rich Z.
Click to expand...
 
hammer.gif


No comment needed!
 
Well, it hasn't been deleted yet. Maybe my trick of putting it at the end of a thread they would rather not delete worked at least a little bit.

Heck, I even got a response. An unsatisfactory one, no doubt, but a response that wasn't just a blank space where it used to be.
 
Interesting, They keep going on and on about how in order to get rid of one offending post they have to delete whole threads, NOT... I just discovered an intact thread in the treefrog forum with only my post missing.
 
LOL>> http://forum.kingsnake.com/announce/messages/1764.html

Allthough I am sure that that post will be taken down soon also. It's this pic...

20865allthose.jpg


With this caption on it...
All those in favor of forum censorship, raise your right hand.
Click to expand...

Jeff Barringer seems to be really doing himself and ks a huge favor in "tearing" down what has been built up over time with that site.......
 
Interesting, They keep going on and on about how in order to get rid of one offending post they have to delete whole threads, NOT... I just discovered an intact thread in the treefrog forum with only my post missing.
Click to expand...

I think they stated that posts dissapear in a downward direction as it were... That is to say, when a post is removed for whatever totalitarian B.S. reason they decide to pull one for, all responses to that post get pulled along with it. That would mean that they dissapear only from the point where the removed post begins and follows through to all replies to the particular post without being an automatic kill for the entire thing... except in cases where the initial post beginning a new topic is the one which they choose to remove, in which case everything goes with it...

It's almost painful for me to say that these people aren't lying because I would love for them to be caught publicly in a few more but it doesn't seem to be the case on this matter.
 
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