QB Express #10 Released

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Fling-master
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Post by Fling-master »

Hrm. I didn't want to get involved, but this topic has kinda ticked me off enough that I feel I will say something.

I'm just going to say this.

As I've bitched about previously on NeoBasic (a little while after the first AAP incident)... QBN had been running smoothly up until Nek came back. I don't really think this is mere coincidence. I also find it funny how TBN was formed as a result of this shit being stirred up at QBN (and don't even try to deny that... it's quite obvious that that's why TBN was formed... the fact that the same people who all had big problems with QBN and were stirring up shit were all the founding members of TBN is proof enough in my opinion... especially given the "Freedom reigns supreme" or whatever the heck that slogan was that you guys had... I can't remember exactly, but it was something like that. Not saying that Freedom of Speech is bad, it just helps proves my point in this case).

The fact that TBN is revived all of a sudden after Nek has supposedly left permanently (LOL what a joke that was) is really just perfect timing. I don't believe that you weren't really trying to get visitors from QBN as you guys have always been throwing Freedom of Speech around like it's a weapon.

Oh and when TBN was shut down... I don't believe that bit about it being because it had served it's purpose. In fact I seem to recall you posting on TBN giving it a week to see if the site got any more use and if not, then it would be shut down. I don't think it had finished serving its purpose, because with the continual bitching at QBN, you guys quite obviously still needed a Toasty forum to backstab the QBN admins and AAP.

Just my random thoughts... frankly I think this whole thing is funny in a way. Though, I do find it sad that you all beat up on Plasma like this.
Blarg!
Z!re
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Post by Z!re »

Well, it is kind of a fact that if a website, which has a forum, that relies on it's members, go to hell.

It is the ADMINS that are to blame.


They are responsible for keeping order, no matter how you try to twist the situation in the end it is always the admins responsibilities.


If you resort to blaming others, you are unfit as an admin.


Plasma does insult people, he drags up two year old issues that has nothing to do with current events.

Also, TBN closed because it had no visitors, Nek left it up for a week to see if anyone came and wanted it to stay, noone did.


And really, trying to blame all this on Nek?


If you want to blame someone then atleast target a member who was around at the time, such as myself, lurah, MystikShadows and others.


Not that you care, either you fling nor plasma..


Fling, you claim you were around on QBN a lot.. so why didnt you act to improve the deteriorating situation?

The same one you admit yourself.


So, what did you do?


Oh ya, NOTHING.
Same as the other admins and mods of QBN..


Sucks to be you, being responsible for all this..


Knowing you could have prevented all this fighting, prevented the downfall and possible death of QBN..

Must suck..


You go ahead and blame Nek all you want.. most people are actually intelligent enough to understand whose fault it really was..



EDIT:
Damn, I forgot you dont care about QBN, either one of you (plasma, fling)
You can just dissregard this post.
I have left this dump.
Fling-master
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Post by Fling-master »

Ummm, we did do stuff to try to make things better. Apparently no one paid attention. That's good.

Anyway, We added Oracle as an admin, and VonGodric as a moderator to help ensure the forums were moderated properly.

We revised the rules, and made sure that there was no way anyone could miss them by posting them as a global announcement (now, just in the Site Issues forum). Why were the rules revised? Well, people were complaining about things being locked without reason, and that we were just acting on our own free will with no rules to run things with. So, the revisions were made (probably best to call them clarifications I suppose... meh) so that there could be no confusion.

We added a Debate forum. Not quite Toasty, but then again we also don't want the kind of bitching that TBN's Toasty is known for. People did want to discuss some sensitive topics, so the Debate forum allowed this.

There are plenty of things that we did to try to correct the problems.

Oh.

Wait, I'm sorry... the one thing we didn't do is convert it over to a complete Freedom of Speech forum. Damn, guess we missed that one.

Plasma isn't bringing up irrelevant events. Those are quite relevant. They are events contributing to the state QBN is in today.
Blarg!
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Post by Nodtveidt »

This will be my final post regarding this issue or any other issue in the Qmunity. Since you both want to keep this subject going, I figure I might as well just throw out any shred of tact I had left in me and just let loose.

Plasma and Fling, you can both just go fork yourselves. I don't have to answer to either of you; neither of you make a shit's worth of difference to me, so you can both get bent. My life and my decisions are NOT subject to EITHER of your approvals and I could give two rat's shits what either of you think of me, my intentions, or what I do, either online or in real life. And that's never ever going to change no matter how much of big shots the both of you think you are. I knew I should have stayed away from the Qmunity two years ago when barok contacted me, and I was right...the whole reason I left the first time was because of this kind of bullshit. And just because I brought back TBN doesn't mean I was coming back into the Qmunity in the first place; my actions do not revolve around this scene and I do things for my own reasons which have nothing to do with you and again, are NOT subject to your approval. So feel free to think what you want, because I sure as hell do.
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Post by Fling-master »

I don't recall EVER asking for your approval. Quite frankly, I don't need it. I'm confused as to why you would've thought that I was wanting it. I'm just stating my opinion on things based on things I've seen happen over the past two years.

I must admit... I laughed a bit when I finished reading your post. Your reaction was so.... you. Heh.
Blarg!
Z!re
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Post by Z!re »

Fling, you missed my point..

Nvm..
I have left this dump.
Fling Not Logged In

Post by Fling Not Logged In »

I don't really think I did (but correct me if I'm wrong here, I don't claim to be perfect)

You said we did nothing to try to improve the situation at QBN. I told you some of the ways that we DID try to improve things. You said not to blame Nek for it all... while my above posts make it look like I'm only blaming him, I don't. I blame the bunch of people who continued to steer QBN down the road it's on today. There was never just one person involved. Everyone knows that. For you to blame in all on the admins is really silly because you're proving that you don't even know that we DID try to make things better.

So what did I miss?
Z!re
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Post by Z!re »

Ofcourse you "tried"

But obviously you didnt do enough.


I'm not blaming anyone, I'm stating a fact..

When a forum goes downhill, the admins are supposed to step in and correct it.. Thats their job, thats what they are there for.

The admins and mods of QBN didnt/couldnt fix things.


It's as simple as that..


Ofcourse you can say you expect more of the members, but if you did, why do you have rules in the first place, and/or admins/mods?

You expect people to break the rules, which is why you have the rules* and the admins to enforce them.


Bad example:
If plantasy got spammed, or there were flamewars daily, we (as in me, zap or kitten) would hand out warnings, and if it goes on, just ban the people who dont follow the rules.

This is hypothetical, PS dont have any forum.



A proof of the bad handling from te admins of this whole situation is when I got banned.
Sure, I've done LOTS of things to warrant warnings which could have gotten me banned a long time ago.

But I never got any warnings (yes I know I did long time ago, I mean recently)

And wildcard has admited he only banned me because I was a "PIA", I dont blame him.. I am a pain in the a.. but giving me an instant ban was not warranted.
And if you think about it, the only reason I was a pain was because I told you (read: the admins of qBN) to start acting and do something about the situation.


Ofcourse people will react if you ban someone they like for no reason, so people reacted.
And things went way out of hand, wildcard was unable to handle it, and shut the forum down. Again, I dont blame him for that, I think it was childish, and could have been done in other ways, but I understand why he did it, same as with banning me.


Adding the forum didnt really help, because QBN is such a strict place (compared to others) and I dont say that as something bad.
The debate forum quickly became a haven for personal insults.
It was just a matter of time before people started sneaking in hidden messages in their posts in the other subforums.

Flamebaits..

And some people caught it..


Now, assigning VonGodric as a mod was a step in the right direction.
But why wasnt it done earlier?
If you are still admin on QBN, you can check the PM logs, and see I PMed wildcard twice about it, he assigned VG the day after the second PM


Wildcard again tries to fix the situation by revising the rules.
Not good.

It means he is blaming the members for the situation, people dont like being blamed for things they feel they didnt do.

All of the members of QBN had become used to the flames and personal insults, it was the way of the forum, and for about 6 months, the admins did nothing (that helped) about it.

Suddenly, you tell them all they've done wrong, after 6 months..

Ofcourse people go a bit mad and ask: Why the hell didnt you say so earlier, before we got here?


And thats where you as admins went wrong. You didnt do anything (read: not enough by far)


I've broken the QBN rules, I've cursed, gone around the wordfilter, flamed and personally insulted people.

I didnt get a warning for either one.


What I did get a warning for, back in the day, was my open post about AAP, almost two years ago.


And one warning in regards to the whole TBBQ bussiness, which got removed.

Oh ya, just remembered, my thread about FireSwordSoftware, where the other members carried it way out of hand, and I got warned for being the topic starter.
It too got removed.



So why didnt you admins follow your own rules?

I mean, I deserved a lot of warnings, just like a lot of other people.
We never got any..


Then, the owner and founder of the site breaks the three warnings rule and instantly bans me.. for what?

Being a "PIA" to him?


Ofcourse I am, I wanted QBN saved.. I think I sent three or four PMs to wildcard about it, he ignoed them all, and my public posts, and banned me instead.



Just my two cents about admins.
If yu dont act from the beginning, be very very carefull when you act later.



* "which is why you have the rules*"
What I mean is not that rules are meant to be broken. What I mean is you dont expect people to behave on their own, the rules are there to guide us, and t help you correct violations without people saying: Hey, I didnt know!


NOTE: I bring up wildcard banning me because it shows how far the situation had gone. The owner of the site knew it had gone to hell, literally, and banned the one who spoke out about it and demanded he do something.

And like I already said you (read: qbn admins) have had lots of reasons to warn and ban me, but didnt.



EDIT: We can both agree that I broke the QBN rules, correct?
So, if you "DID" so much, why didnt I notice, as being, apparently the only person who is such a "PIA" that I deserve an instant ban (meaning the admins broke their own rules)
So, what "DID" you do that changed it all and made it the members fault?
You made a few posts in the admin section?

Good for you.
I have left this dump.
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Pete
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Post by Pete »

There's a huge flaw in your argument here, Z!re.

You claim that forums go downhill if the admins don't take care of them.

That's simply not true.

Forums depend entirely on the userbase. If the users in a forum go bad, the forum will suck, no matter how great the admins are.

Forums go downhill when:
(A) the users are assholes and flame each other constantly, or
(B) the (intelligent) users abandon them

A forum with essentially no moderator or admin can go on forever and thrive as long as everyone gets along and behaves him/herself.

Take NeoBasic. It has no admin or moderator (Marcade has forgotten the passwords, and there has been no moderation on the site for years.) And yet, it's a great, unified community.

What about the Qbasic.com / Network54 forum? That one has nobody in charge, and yet it's doing great as an autonomous collective.

This site also has basically no moderators / administrators... I have never deleted any posts except for stuff by the poker spambot, and this forum has been a nice, happy place (until this thread, of course).

The reason QBN went downhill was because the userbase as a whole became a bunch of douchebags. If everyone got along, admins and moderators are unnecessary.
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Post by Z!re »

I didnt mean every forum.

And I decided against including my rant on the n00bs that replaced the old people tenfold..

And people will always fight, break rules and act like assholes.. If we didnt we wouldnt need laws.. :P


Besides, I didnt claim a forum went downhill, I claimed that the admins job is to prevent it from ever going downhill. Sorry if I was unclear.
(B) the (intelligent) users abandon them
Yes, and why did they leave?
As an example, a news item wasnt displayed until almost two weeks after the news post was made.
Read that again, and let the implication settle in..
They couldnt even bother to verify a news article..

Old timers (read: intelligent) left, n00bs took their place and spammed out HOW DO I LOAD A BMP LIEK PLZ!!!1 which in turn made more of the old timers leave..

Where were the admins then? It's in the rules not to make help topics like that, or how about all the duplicate posts? "How do i get rid of the console window?"

Many small things lead to the downfall, all of them avoidable if the admins had acted.
What about the Qbasic.com / Network54 forum? That one has nobody in charge, and yet it's doing great as an autonomous collective.
Actually Mac is mod/admin/whatever of the nw54 qb.com forum.
And in all honesty, that place is as elitist as it gets.. newbs posts gets ignored or flamed.. If that is what you call a good community/forum.. well.. hmm..

and this forum has been a nice, happy place
I wont bother finding the other spam and flame topics/posts, but here's a recent example: http://www.petesqbsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=615


And before anyone try to go that way: I'm not blaming you, so dont even bother replying with that.

It's your job, you failed. Simple.

Feel free to give the same speech to me if any site where I'm admin go down the same road.
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Pete
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Post by Pete »

Z!re wrote:
and this forum has been a nice, happy place
I wont bother finding the other spam and flame topics/posts, but here's a recent example: http://www.petesqbsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=615


And before anyone try to go that way: I'm not blaming you, so dont even bother replying with that.

It's your job, you failed. Simple.
My forum went downhill and I failed because of that one meaningless post that nobody take seriously? Give me a break. How many people are going to leave this forum because of that post? None.

Now I can understand people getting pissed off and leaving because of *this* topic, which is full of flames. But you had a major hand in this topic too. (Don't act so high and mighty about flaming...you're involved in it just as much as anyone else.) Nek, Fling and Plasma might not come back over this, which is a shame.

But I guess it helps prove my point. If four users in this forum decide to get in a pissing match, there's not really anything I can do as an admin other than hope that they resolve the issue on their own. Closing, deleting or editing posts pisses people off even more (and I also think it's wrong), banning people *really* pisses them off, and issuing personal warnings is just time consuming and ineffective. It's better to just let it happen, IMHO.

If I keep on crushing every argument or critical post like some kind of dictator playing Whack-A-Mole, this forum will suck just as much as it does when there are a bunch of flamebaits here.
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Post by lurah- »

Pete wrote:My forum went downhill and I failed because of that one meaningless post that nobody take seriously? Give me a break. How many people are going to leave this forum because of that post? None.
Yah, true that no one prolly leaves here because of that. But if there would be lots of more those, then situation would be way different.

Anyway, i like this site/forum so lets keep this as an "flame free"? 8)
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Post by Z!re »

Pete, I never said this forum is going downhill.. I was simply pointing out that there has been spam and flamebait posts.. as there are on all forums..
It's not a problem here, yet.. and lets hope it never will be..


And I'm not flaming, if I was flaming there would be a lot more curse words in my posts, coupled with bold, italic underlined, uppercase and so on.


If you think I'm flaming here you havent seen a flamewar..


And I never said I was above anything... Infact, if you read my posts again, I think I make it very clear I deserved to get banned. It was the admins breaking their own rules that made me upset, not the ban itself.


I've been posting in the same style since day one, never got a warning for it. Then suddenly I'm a flamer and should be instantly banned?
Which just happened to be when I decide to PM the admins about the crappy situation..


Pete, come over to TBN and the toasty, and we can have a real flamewar..

This is a discussion.. although Plasma and Nek went to flame instead of discussion, dont try to drag me into that.


But fine, point me to where I flamed anyone in my posts in this topic. As I'm not aware I've done it.
I have left this dump.
Jocke The Beast!

Post by Jocke The Beast! »

I don't see your problem z!re...you knew the rules of qbnews...you broke the rules...you got banned... It's pretty easy to understand...

If you had a forum, where you had rules that members must follow, and I broke your rules and got banned as a result...tough luck for me... I don't think I would go to TBN and post shit like:
fork you wildcard, this must be the most childish action you could possibly make.

Grow the fork up!
I find that very disrespectfull...remember that we are many who still has great respect for Wildcard and for his kindness over the years...
Guest

Post by Guest »

Z!re's point was that the ban she got defies the admin's own policies for banning members. There's little sense in making rules if you don't follow them.
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Post by Z!re »

Thank you Guest.


EDIT: I had a long post, but decided against posting it.
Jocke, if you actually care about this issue, then PM me or catch me on MSN
Same goes for you Pete..

Anyone else, dont bother.. I wont send it to you..
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Post by Jocke The Beast »

PM sent.
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Post by Anonymous »

Damn, and just when I was going to start checking out the boards again, there's a huge thing, and I miss it, without the chance to even take sides, and argue points I either can't back up with evidence, or points I don't personally beleive in myself. Oh well.

The only reason I chime in at this time is that I find it an interesting situation to sorta like, individually, many of the people on the various boards (sorta being a function of how much I actually know them, from personal exchange to just reading the posts), and yet, how venomously they despise each other. I was going to say it was funny, but it's not... so I'll go with interesting, for now.

As for the actual issues, I've been a little out-of-it for about, hmmm *checks watch*.. five years, so I'll jump in now. It's everyone elses fault, or it's only my fault... either of those is fine.
Marcade

Post by Marcade »

19day wrote:Damn, and just when I was going to start checking out the boards again, there's a huge thing, and I miss it, without the chance to even take sides, and argue points I either can't back up with evidence, or points I don't personally beleive in myself. Oh well.

The only reason I chime in at this time is that I find it an interesting situation to sorta like, individually, many of the people on the various boards (sorta being a function of how much I actually know them, from personal exchange to just reading the posts), and yet, how venomously they despise each other. I was going to say it was funny, but it's not... so I'll go with interesting, for now.

As for the actual issues, I've been a little out-of-it for about, hmmm *checks watch*.. five years, so I'll jump in now. It's everyone elses fault, or it's only my fault... either of those is fine.
*lol* Yeah I seem to have missed all the fun too.
Take NeoBasic. It has no admin or moderator (Marcade has forgotten the passwords, and there has been no moderation on the site for years.) And yet, it's a great, unified community.
*lol* thanks pete. Now everyone knows NeoBASIC is unprotected. :shock:

Small sites with a base of people visiting barely need admin. Big sites with a lot of people simply do need admin. I wouldn't want to compare NeoBASIC board with QBN board, because QBN board simply receives more visitors who don't yet know eachother yet.

At NeoBASIC almost all the forum people know eachother for like .. years .. now .. *lol*
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Post by MystikShadows »

Well I posted a few things on that thread...and I think many of them can apply...and the earlier they are applied (as in a board that is growing but not grown yet) builds good foundations for the upcoming issues ahead. Like I said on QBasicNews. They have 1650+ members, with that member count comes a very varied points of views and opinions and belief systems present and not everyone tend to take a certain post about a certain subject the same way. Some might laugh at the post, some might just questions their own thinking, some might not like the very same post but not say a word, others might at least let us know they didn't like it, others will flame you down 6 feet under for daring to say something like that.

What i'm trying to explain is that all these people with all these different system of beliefs are all good people, but they take things at heart at very different levels. My major complaints about QBasicNews was there wasn't enough staff for the demand. In a way I agree with Pete here, where indeed the users should at least try to moderate themselves, atleast at first. But because of this difference of opinions and difference of level of agravation between two people reading the same post, moderators, atleast, are needed more and more as the userbase grows. For that reason I tend to agree with Z!re on that part too. It's all human nature really. Any community would become quite boring if everyone believed in the same thing, thought the same thing about the same subjects. Without variety and individuality, there is NO community.

At another level, not everyone interprets written words in a post the same way either. It's not always obvious to read emotions and frame of minds in a written sentence. That too contributes to debates. I believe in the balance of powers. Extreme Good must have Extreme bad in order to exist. Likewise people will interpret written text either extremely well or extremely bad, be it they don't speak good english, or are having a bad day and everything they read will be at their worst that day. For those particular situations (and the more members in a forum, the more often they occur, I won't say it grows exponentially, but it grows faster than the member list grows which means it's more and more needed) that's when mods are needed more and more. Of course they are needed for those that are just bluntly looking for trouble too ;-).

Still today people think they can handle everything and often realize they need help after it's too late because they thought they could handle it. Prevention is always the best policy. Atleast in my humble opinion :-).
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