New policy for the Cellar
 

From here on out, this place is no longer a Democracy.

If I feel a thread has an overall negative effect, I will delete it.

If you are really concerned about this situation, I encourage you to buy the system from me. I will entertain all offers, and work towards a smooth switchover.

If you believe that I am a poor moderator, you may not like the Cellar any longer. In truth, I really doubt that any message system can exist without a benevolent dictator, who will delete threads as needed. I urge you to consider that when offering to buy it from me. The responsibilities that you take on are enormous, much larger than you imagine, and much of the time they will only cause you grief.

At this point I am going to BEG people (and you know who you are) just to shut the fuck up and let us get back to our regularly scheduled discussions.

I love this place, and don't wish to see it melt down.

I have no social life to speak of. This is it folks. Don't screw this up.

What she said, and a subtle inference of an ass kicking in store for anyone who can't grow up on top of it all...

Whoever is causing the problem, fine, you're right about everything. Whoever is feeling victimized, you should know that you were right all along.

Now, let's get on with it, shall we?

Fuck that.

The fact that we were "free" to speak our minds what the only thing that I liked about this place.

I'm out. Sorry.

If I wanted to play nice, chat nice, be kind and considerate like some fucking Prozac overdosed care bear I'd go to the local church forum and we could all discuss what a lovely day it is, how much we all love each other and how happy we all are, then we'd eat muffins and sing kumbaya…

Already the policy causes an improvement in the user base.

Don't let the virtual door hit your virtual ass on the virtual way out.

I've got to learn to appreciate extremism, I guess...sigh.

I always thought it was entirely possible to speak one's mind without being overly harsh, insulting or personal. Guess not.

Freedom of Speech is extremism? What a sad place the Cellar has become.

For the record, *I* thought FNF was cool.

Freedom to keep and bear arms is also a Constitutional Freedom, but see what happens if you shoot some unwitting soul in the head with one.

And, for the record, I didn't have a problem with FNF, either, but then he never tried to belittle or humiliate *me*.

Freedom of speech, barring libel or defamation, is also freedom to ignore.

I've never used the ignore function before so I'm a bit fuzzy on the mechanics of it. Can you simply ignore someone in a single thread or are you stuck with a site wide ignore?

      I'm on the WTF? side of things here. With a strong leanings to everything's supposed to be up for discussion.
      This being said, take a deep breath before responding on this subject. From what I can see UT's putting a moratorium on discussions that touch his personal life. Just not saying so flatly. If this is the case then it's reasonable, just poorly handled. If it's not the case then it's a reversal in Cellar policy.
      I'm nervous, but I would like to suggest that UT has done very well for a long time. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. If I'm wrong to do so I'll know soon, and follow FNF. If I'm not I'll not notice the 'new rules'. I have trouble believing UT's principles have changed completely, so I'm staying for now.
      I'm saying give UT a chance. He's earned that much.

I think any good BBS is pretty much run as a dictatorship, and when it's not things tend to go to hell in a hurry...I never expected any different from the Cellar.

However, one of the reason I signed up here is because we can pretty much speak our mind and not worry about being politically polite constantly. Personal attacks and constant arguing are NOT what I mean by speaking your mind.

Obviously that can be a pretty fine line, but you've been doing this how many years UT? Seems you must have pretty good judgment.

Anyway, I don't even know what set off this thread in the first place. So I'll just be here watching, under the radar, plotting...

I also forgot to point out that Freedom of Speech doesn't apply to privately held entities...the owner can choose to allow whatever content suits him or her. Similarly, those who object to such moderation are free to a) start their own board, b) find another or c) quit being online altogether. How much freedom do you want? Shit, UT even offered to sell The Cellar in order for someone to continue to allow *their* conscience, or lack thereof, to rule the day.

I've been on boards where absolutely anything goes, no matter how harsh. They all end up turning into cesspools filled with tiny little minds calling each other names, making ongoing ad hominem attacks, and completely stifling any real discussion. Juvenile tripe.

It boils down to good manners. I'm not perfect at that, but at least I try, and most of my posts are not overly cutting, even when I'm at my most cynical. I think some people have no other form of expression, and that sucks, especially when it is fairly clear that said people obviously have an intellectual capacity to show some reasonable restraint, and instead choose to spew bile and venom, or to project superior attitudes and be utterly condescending.

Ick. Give me moderation any day over that crap.

I guess I'm leaving, too.

      Um, Ep? This place has been around for a while without this kind of enforcement. One of the best things was that we didn't need it. We're intelligent adults. Most of us are above that kind of crap. That hasn't changed, much. Yeah, we've had some stupid things go on of late but we don't need to be told what to say. My point is that while I appreciate you backing UT, I don't think your argument holds water. We don't need big brother holding our hands.
      This said I'm refraining from making a final decision till I see how this plays out. Again, I think UT's done enough in the past to deserve a little leeway.

Thanks, Tony.

That was a cogent and civil rendering of opinion, Whit, and that is usual for you.

I think something we all must consider, though, is that, while from our points of view, nothing has changed radically on The Cellar from the past, who are we to say that the mind set of its owner has not somehow altered? If that is the case, I then reiterate my original statement...it is his board to do with as he pleases, and we are free to react to that in whichever way we please.

I'm moving to semi-retired status. Please move the Manifestos to the archives.

Thank you.

      Agreed. I just have high expectations based on past expieriences on this board. That's why I'm here. That's also why I'm playing the wait and see game. I'm willing to give UT some space if he needs it, he's earned it. But, if he gets nutty about it then more than FNF and Juju will be gone.

Right now, the responses I am seeing seem to indicate a serious lack of understanding for whatever UT's reasoning is, and I sure do wish everyone would just chill out for awhile.

Especially those of us who have professed and shown friendship to UT in the past. Friendship is not something you just toss aside when someone does something in your toybox that you don't like.

Jesus, people. Whatever it is you think you get out of this place, I can assure you, you get significantly LESS.

You might THINK you have a social life here, but in reality you do NOT. Because when the shit hits the fan, half the people here will try to figure out whether there's a "high speed" switch on the fan, because that would be funnier and would screw up your life more.

You could even RUN the place for years and years and years, putting your heart and soul and thousands of dollars into it, and still be one message away from getting that level of support from half the people here.

It's been an enlightening day.

I guess I'm just not sure how the shit can hit the fan when ignoring someone is so easy. Or, as the Cruise Director, do you feel an obligation to read everything?

Make an offer for the place and operate it for a while, and everything will be absurdly clear.

Is there an easier way to understand? I do understand the extent of the effort you expend, which is why I am not willing to take you up on your offer, but I would like to also understand why this all blew up at this point.

Yeah, you can PM me

Maybe I don’t quite understand what’s going on, but I will say this.

I still consider Tony a friend…a good friend. One of the few “real” friends I have in Philadelphia. But as I see it, he is allowing an unfortunate personal situation color the way he is handling Cellar.

The Manifestos have been my baby for over 2 years. The thread that Tony deleted is one I worked on for a good chunk of this weekend. I was very careful in how I created my posts in there b/c I wanted to say what I wanted to say, yet word it so that there would be little or no confusion. It’s probably the hardest I’ve ever worked on any of my threads. And now it’s gone.

To be fair, I did not communicate that to Tony this morning…I merely told him that I agreed with Juju and HM in leaving the posts alone, and that I had no problem locking my thread up. Tony, I apologize for not being more expressive about this.

Having said that, I’m concerned about this sudden new turn that the Cellar has taken. I’m going to hang back and see where all this goes.

Tony, I hope there are no hard feelings. If I can help you out in any way, please let me know.

Please stop. I'm asking you to respect when a line of privacy has been indicated and back off.

A line of privacy has been crossed.

It hurts me to see this crap. So here it is for you all, my part in the whole sordid little thing. ( fans on 10). I'm sure you will be underwhelmed, because the content is not so hot, but the methodology is what disturbs me and Tony too.

This is my view, my take, I kept no personal emails or other to prove any of it. It never occured to me and I wouldnt do that shit anyway. The privacy is shot. enjoy. I no longer fucking care.

First Tony and I have known each other for 20+ years. He is like my brother. I also have been very happily married to my beloved spouse for the past 14 years.

I met a few people on the cellar and as many have, exchanged friendly off board chat and info.

I had no cause to doubt anyone's motivations until I was emailed, out of the blue, after the board crap with Dave, Tony, and syc. I didnot post any thoughts about this spat on line at all. I hoped that it would just work out.
Dave emailed to tell me, he was troubled by it he said, that Tony and Syc were saying shit about me and T romantically. Well first I'm shocked at this tale, then I realize that whats really happening here is that dave is trying to use me to get back at Tony. He's working to draw me over to his side. He tells me how much he cares and worries about Tony. But it doesnt ring for me. He is being clever, and I am being manipulated. I reply back for more information. I manipulated back. Then I email T and syc to check what is going down. Yes they said shit like guys do, and yes I dont care cause, it was shit. The thing that was bad was not the gossip, what was bad was that dave sought to play me as a pawn against Tony, and syc as well.

The manipulation was doomed because the thing is I *KNOW* is that Tony would never hurt me. He may say shit that makes me crazy, he may joke, but his aim is true . And he wouldnt hurt you either.
(Hell here he's been risking razing this whole board so as to save you hurt.)

I was drawn into this. I did not jump in.
Dave does not rate trust from me. It is my belief that dave is obsessive, manipulative, much smarter than me, and I want to just keep my head down and out of the way. He's shown something I find to be a bit dangerous. And now he knows that I know. Maybe I am paranoid. Ive been told to go with my gut.

Now you can continue to argue your ideals, but I'm done.

OK, the folks I've PMed can nod if my side was in line with that.

1) You should be thankful that warch cares enough to put that out there;

1a) You should sincerely apologize to her;

1b) You should understand why, if she weren't married and truly in love with her spouse, and thus not a violation of decades of believing in each other, and half a country away, I would pursue her, because she's awesome;

2) You should understand why Dave could continue to ask "what did I do? what did I do?" knowing we weren't going to SAY IN PUBLIC;

2a) You should reassess your ability to figure people out;

3) You should be pissed at yourself for believing that the Cellar would be anything different after the fact;

4) You should understand why moderation is necessary and why a completely free message board is utopian and maybe even undesireable;

5) If you said you were gonna outright leave, you BETTER outright leave, because you're in such deep contempt right now that I.... let's just say this keyboard might need replacing.

I'm not sure that if I were in any of your positions, I would have been so frank. I commend you all.

It was none of our fucking business, but I commend you nonetheless.

I'm now going back to the normal Cellar intrigue, if that's okay. And could we just stop talking about Dave at all from here on out? Let him come back in under a fake personna like everyone else?

There's been some seriously hurt feelings here, sides have been aired. Everybody make up your own minds about how you feel about it all and let's just carry on, please? I've seen too much of this sort of crap to want to see any more.

I think it's fair say that if someone pisses in Tony's pool, he should be allowed to clean it up. And personally, if I have to trust somebody to split the piss from the water in the pool I like to hang out in, Tony's one of the few people I'd trust to do that competently. He's a decent, open-minded guy.

Some might argue that one man's piss is another man's champaign, but that's just disgusting.

After seeing what some of the backstory is here, and thinking back to some of the things Tony has said, a lot of it makes more sense. I still don't understand completely, but some of the deep confusion has eroded away.

Well, I just came in on this, so I don't know what the deal is, but only one thing matters: This forum belongs to UT. It doesn't belong to us. We hang out here, that's all.

I'm sure UT has a good reason for whatever rules he makes concerning HIS forum; in my perusals of different threads here, he seems to be a pretty fair-minded person, and wouldn't just make up rules because he got a wild hair up his ass. People need to GTF over it. If you don't like what he's doing with his forum, create your own...then YOU can make the rules.

I'm still not a fan of deleting threads, but it's UT's decision, and dave crossed a pretty severe line. No skin off my nose, since I only barely skimmed the thread myself.

LEAVE?! are you fucking kidding me? It's just getting good!

sycamore! hey! you ! sycamoooooooooooooore!

get back on the bike!

have some understanding. cant you see this is all MY fault?!

Tony, you do what you NEED to do. warch, you didnt need to hang it out there...well, you SHOULDN'T have had to, anyway, but i admire it. now delete it.

this is largely my fault for picking the scab anyway. i spoke to tony when my confusion reached an irresolvable level, and when i was satisfied, i tried to convey it to the rest of you, but i couldnt go into detail, and it kept on growing. i have faith that tony will act appropriately. he needs to protect his personallife from this one, and that has got to be tricky. its a shame that we(myself included) couldnt leave well enough alone, but when push comes to shove, im glad to see that UT has a pair swingin. kudos, tony.

sycamore and juju, dont take it personally.....well, maybe juju.....

JUST KIDDING!!!

wow.

never a dull moment, hey?

warch- I was right about you. I can see the glow off your halo from PA.:angel:
Syc- Stop being a cunt and put the Manifestos back up so I can abuse you again.:p
UT- I put my money where my mouth is. :)

I respect Tony as the owner of the Cellar, and appreciate him hosting the Manifestos for the past 2 years. That being said, I do not feel comfortable continuing the Manifestos here with the possibility of censorship hanging over them.

Well, I'm just glad it was personal and not related to any political or religious threads. One thing I respect about this place is that there can be intense disagreements on gun control, abortion, gay marriage, and any other current and ongoing hot button topics, and in most cases, people can attack the arguments and not the people behind them.

In other words, debate.

I know that Tony and I are not on the same wavelength on a lot of issues, and for a second I thought that he might have suddenly woken up and said to himself "Wow, John Ashcroft was RIGHT!"

I'm relieved to see that his post was in response to behavior that was truly out of bounds.

I now must mourn the loss of the Whale Penis thread...sniff...RIP, Whale Penis thread.

Is that taps I hear softly in the distance?

ok, sycamore, i can see your point. But as a friend I want to tell you that this is a particularly sensitive moment on the cellar, and although your feelings are hurt right now, this too shall pass. UT was not "censoring" you per se. he was removing content that could be harmful to him and his site. you knew when you put that thread up that it could start more shit. I had already made the mistake, and you chose not to learn from it, and basically repeated it. you had your chance to defend your honor 3 months ago when it would have ben appropriate. your manifestos aside, i'd hate to see you pull a "da:censored:e" and bail out.

really.

Really man.

Bruce: Syc, stop being a cunt.
Syc: No.

I have to agree. When things tend to get "too free", then it ends up being abused by some and the tone of the board tends to change, and in most cases, not for the better. No one is saying that we all have to be "friends" or be sickingly sweet to one another, but how hard is it to be civil? :confused:

Quote:

It boils down to good manners. I'm not perfect at that, but at least I try, and most of my posts are not overly cutting, even when I'm at my most cynical. I think some people have no other form of expression, and that sucks, especially when it is fairly clear that said people obviously have an intellectual capacity to show some reasonable restraint, and instead choose to spew bile and venom, or to project superior attitudes and be utterly condescending.

Well put. Quite honestly, when it comes to people being nasty online, I tend to be highly suspect of their motives, and I try not to sink to their level.

Quote:

Ick. Give me moderation any day over that crap.

Amen to that.


To Tony, for the record, I think you are doing a great job running this board. I'm an advocate of the administrators of message boards having the final word on how their boards shall be run. I've learned this during the 6 or so years that I have been online, and now I co-admin. a board of my own. I let it be known that uncivil conversation is not allowed...period, end of story. There is always a way to say things to people without being an asshat about it. If someone doesn't like that, then oh well, get your own board and make your own rules.

As far as what you are doing now, hey, everyone has the right to change their minds about things. :)

Are you suggesting that I'm being a cunt about this?

I don't see how my thread in particular was harmful to him or the Cellar.

Agreed, though I thought the shit was going to come from Dave...and maybe FNF and a few others.

We'll have to agree to disagree...I don't think I made a mistake at all.

When the situation first occurred, I had hoped to keep it to a mild roar on Cellar. You might recall that I posted a small blurb on one of the threads encouraging anyone that wanted to know my side of the story to PM me. But after seeing one of Dave's posts over the weekend, I decided that it was time to finally say something. Again, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Though I considered it, I'm just going to hang back for a while and see what transpires.

My unsolicited (as usual) opinion is that y'all need to talk about this stuff in person. On here, you don't get the facial cues, the voice inflections, any of the stuff that makes face-to-face conversation preferable when discussing personal matters.

warch, maybe you should consider deleting your post. it explains a lot, but seems awfully personal. Yes, the privacy is gone, but you can mitigate the damage. Undertoad, you should IP ban this dave joker posthaste. If you have any fault in this, it's in allowing him any air time at all, after you found out what he was.

Fuck you, Dave, for almost spoiling a cool place. Everyone else, just kiss and make up please. Sheesh.

Jawohl, mein Fürher!


I'm still sort of in the dark about this whole debacle, but the more I see, the less I want to keep digging.

The Cellar is an idle hobby, somewhere for me to waste my time. I like the IoTD, I like the funny posts, and I like the source of political commentary, because I'm too cheap and lazy to find it anywhere else. It bums me out that people who're core to the attributes I like might leave. But, what the hell. I'm not going to call it quits because they've threatened to leave (look at dave; he's still here, I gather). Until this place no longer interests me (and a few threads of late have admittedly gone in that direction), I'll be around.

And Syc? Yeah, you're being a cunt. A sandy cunt, made out of construction paper and talking in a funny voice.

The reasonable thing to do would be to say, "Hey, Tony? I dig how you didn't like that thread, but I don't dig how you deleted it for me. At the same time, I dig that the situation was out of the ordinary. I had fun doing the Mainfestos, and I want to keep it up. In the future, could you let me know before deleting a post?"

Hissy fits are unbecoming of tall trees. Go find a shopvac, or a can of compressed air, or whatever it takes to de-sand your cunt.

(factual errors or misrepresentation of people's opinions/actions can be attributed to me being more interested in my bowl of pasta than in this thread.)

I own no halo and I wont delete anything. I should have done that sooner. but I thought it would end. appologies to all. I appreciate the kind words. I hope its over. New privacy boundaries are firmly installed.

If syc leaves I'll be mighty, mighty, mighty saddened. I hope he decides to manifesto again. Mighty saddened.
I need humor. please.
Oh and Syc is not a cunt. He's a funny, sharp, verbose, liberal who says what needs to be said, like whale and penis.

Just for the record, I have pointedly steered away from controversial topics and have yet to post a single thought on the whole dave debacle. I did not abuse April or anyone else who may or may not have deserved it.

That said, I respect Tony for his honesty and stand behind him on his decision. I will continue my policy on controversy for now.

RIP flamewars

Brian

UT you do as you see fit , this is your little slice of cyber space , rule it as you think it needs to be ruled .
All you whineing byotches that don't like it can take a long walk on a short pier .

      First off, thank you Warch. Your openness was appreciated.
      Now, with that said... No mention of privacy was made in UT's initial post on this thread. What he said was,       So all of you sounding off about privacy must have skipped the beginning of this thread. That is a huge difference. Plus, the situation mentioned here wasn't being discussed in Syc's thread. So, using this as a reason for deleting that makes no sense. I say that because I think that everyone that's coming down on Syc for his response is really not paying attention. He made a moral decision for a solid reason. If you can't understand that, well maybe you don't understand his morals in regard to censorship. That actually scares me.
      Christ, I understand some of UT's hurt now, but I don't jump band wagons just to maintain the status quo. That's exactly what I think many of you are doing. The attitude is, "Shhh, keep your mouth shut so we can keep the cellar." No, I'm not a major player here, I lurk more often than not and few would miss me if UT lined me up for deletion next, but that's no reason for me to shut up. If you think it is... I guess I didn't think the people around here were like that. If UT wants to delete what I have to say, or even my account here, he has the might. So be it.
      Damn it all though, I started posting here because of UT's philosophy on not throwing his weight around. I need to know if that's changed. That's exactly what his initial post said he'd be doing. Again, privacy wasn't mentioned originally, which I can understand, but that doesn't explain deleting Syc's thread.
      So how 'bout it UT? I've advocated giving you some space from the beginning of this thread. Still, I'd like to know, have the principles you once based your way of doing things changed or not? I can't demand an answer of course, nor would I try. I just want to know, as some guy you'll never meet in front of a monitor somewhere, what's next?

Whit, my 2 cents.
The thread in question, was at least in my case, questioning Syc's retreat from the original conflict and Dave's contributions to the cellar. Mostly painting Dave in the victim's light. Obviously I (and others) did not have the information in this thread. I'm guessing Tony decided to stop that trend of vilifying Syc and deifying Dave and take the heat himself rather than exposing warch to any. Feh, typical Tony.:) Now warch has laid it all out, I can see why he had this ongoing anger that I couldn't understand, from the original conflict. My bad, I should have just trusted his judgement and not probed when LJ or Syc brought it up again. Maybe I'm not the only one but that's no excuse and I apologize to everyone.

Syc, don't make me come over there.:p

Who is 'you'? Is 'you' me?

What are you going to do if I don't leave? Delete my posts?

I don't understand why you're so mad at me. You're really beating your keyboard? What did I do to incite this? I really would like this explained, as I've always attempted to avoid behavior that I thought would create such a reaction in anyone.

I guess to avoid redundancy, I'll attempt to guess your answers.

"You tried to figure me out!"

Oh, horror of horrors. So what? I can't be wrong? What's so bad about telling me I'm wrong, I accept it, and we both move on? It could have been that simple. It's not as if I'm holding the torch for some ill-concieved idea. I simply asked if it was true, and you got all offended. It wasn't a claim, it was a question.

Furthermore, I see nothing wrong with trying to understand people's motivations. At least I was man enough to ask you if I was right, instead of assuming so and not telling you. I knew that doing so would be a sure way to become a fool, so that's why I brought it up.

If you plan on deleting any thread that goes in a "negative direction", then the Cellar is destroyed in my mind. You might as well change the name and add avatars -- it wouldn't be the same. I don't want to leave, but if that is your plan, then I must, because it's no longer the Cellar.

I've thought about it a lot, though, and I could forsee a situation where I might react the same way if there was a discussion about my personal life. I still think that a better solution would have been to selectively delete posts and lock the thread. If it's only your plan to delete threads of a <i>highly</i> personal nature, then I suppose that I might be able to live with that. Not that you care, because you hate me, for some unknown reason..?


Anyway, sorry to post after I said I wouldn't. Don't worry.. until I'm sure that my posts won't be deleted at UT's whim, I won't post outside this thread. I sometimes spend hours composing posts. It simple isn't possible for me to invest that amount of time knowing they might be deleted. And I wouldn't invest less, because shitty posts just wouldn't be Juju.

I wasn't supposed to tell you this juju, but ....

...sorry, everyone, I'm going to tell him....

Before this gets out of hand, you should know that you're on candid camera. This whole thing was done just to try to get you to leave. But now, with your departure imminent, I find myslef remiss of the role I've played in the effort. You see, we staged the whole thing. Tony hired me to come on here, gain your trust as an active member, and then start a "fight" between two of the most prolific members. Then he pretended to react really "over the top" and then dave pretended to get mad and leave. ( he's been posting this whole time as FileNotFound, using my mother in law's address in springfield. he is a creation of mine. I picked the kind of car he drives, that he likes to drive fast, and comes from russia....dave insisted on him being rude and aggressive. He's had a hard time of it posting so much less than he was used to, but, i think he did really well. )Then we started laying the ground work for this "play" we just preformed for you. We had to find a plausible reason for tony to begin actively moderating. The psych profile that sycamore performed on you using data from your reactions to my random seeming jabs indicated that fear of censorship was your hot button. So again, we had tony react a little zealously, and at just the right moment, attack you from your blind side, and push some of the blame toward you. As expected, you took the bait, and said you were leaving. I just won $5 each from all three of these guys who said that would be your last post. i knew you wouldn't give up that easy, and would make at LEAST one final farewell post.

Boy I feel so relieved....the pressure is just melting away. Tony, you can keep my fee, my work here is done.

Then I'm not getting kicked out?

I don't remember reading that.:p

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I think Mr.N likes to think of him self as a negative influence (just a guess), therefore gone if UT's serious about enforcing this.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You and I are all sweetness and light though, therefore safe. Right Bruce? :angel:

Juju,

Please feel free to go to the other message boards where the moderation suits you. That will save your fucking precious time. God knows there's NOTHING more important than Juju's fucking time. Entire marriages are more important than Juju's fucking time.

You could start your own message board, with money out of your own pocket, and moderate it however you like.

Oh that's right, you DID do that! Please tell us, how'd it go?

Thank you for saying you understood why I did what I did.

Thank you for apologizing for posting.

Fuck you for not apologizing for anything else.

Jesus christ I wander off for a few months and someone dropped a big fucking can of napalm it appears.

For the record is appears by the end of this thread Dave(however and whoever he is now, Syc, Juju and UT are all being cunts.

Last time I was here you were all sane adults, it's a pity to see this little conflict do so much damage to such a great community.

As a nobody, unfamiliar with the exact personal circumstances of those directly involved I would like to offer a possible solution.

Undertoad has defined new rules. It's his forum.
I will worry about them in the unlikely event he ever finds it necessary to enforce them.

Meanwhile, I propose this and any "Dave " related threads be deleted.

Those who wish to leave ( or have been specifically asked) do so without fuss or histrionics.
The rest pretend it never happened until we forget it ever happened.

Simplistic, perhaps, but I don't want to see this place collapse.

UT, you didn't answer any of my questions. Don't I deserve that much?

Why are you so mad at me? What did I do?

What am I supposed to apologise for?

What are you talking about? Who's marriage is at stake? If you mean Warch's, then from what I've been told about the situation, that's ridiculous. Why would her husband even care?

1) In this case, I swear to fucking Christ almighty, there is nothing more than what you've now been told. But given that the whole thing evolved over you getting ticked off around a problem that you couldn't be told about, and that this is now clear... why on EARTH would you press this question?

2) He wouldn't care. Almost certainly not. 99.999% chance. BUT: do you like the odds? Wouldn't you do whatever you could to ensure that a completely innocent situation, aggravated by a set of morons, one acting psychotic and clearly bent on causing harm in any way possible for no reason at all -- messed with a marriage -- AT ALL?

What's more important, removing that 0.001% chance... or running a message board with YOUR concept of what ideal moderation is?