Pm's

[walkers101]

has this been looked at yet? as i have not done anything wrong why am i still being punished?

 

[Verminator89]

Kind of fitting isnt it with all the "jailed when not guitly" stuff is splashed all over the news.

Hope you get it resolved soon Chris.

The forum doesnt seem as fun lately, knowing my little circle of people i enjoyed the contact with have upped and left over something i clearly have missed.

 

[mattlee]

i agree with james.

i do however know the ins and outs of the situation but as you said its clearly not the same as it was up until a few weeks ago especially in the new world section.....

lets hope that this can be sorted out soon.

 

[Verminator89]

Wills, Star4 and Walkers101 (the three i've noticed gone + others), I'm devastated to see gone. Its not worth going into, but suffice to say i clearly missed alot being inactive during February. I come back and all my buddies seem to have left.

Well i hope things turn around, would be good to see them back, but seems unlikely things will go back to how they were Post-Feb.

 

[angelfishguy]

Could someone fill me in? Havent heard from star lately. I hope she aint gone.
Hope we havent lost another valueable member like truck and others

 

[walkers101]

cheers for the support guys but i would rather keep this to an info thread if i could do it privatley i would but as this is the only way i can contact admin/staff.

 

[Verminator89]

Lesley has unfortunately upped and left the forum i do believe. I emailed her yesterday asking why she had been so inactive. She wouldnt divulge into detail, and i wouldnt want to pry, but something went on during february. For those who werent involved it doesnt really concern (myself included), but suffice to say they have been made to feel disheartened by their treatment from the forum and have moved on to other forum(s).

Its not the same without the old bunch. Wills for his amazing knowledge of Cichlids, and Geos especially. Guy was a legend. And Lesley, well, I've met her twice. When she bought fish from me, and a few months after when i went to hers to buy some of her rotties. Amazing woman, and a credit to the hobby. Devastating to lose them, and the others. I reckon others have left also, some who i may not have spoken to or noticed much. The forum seems quieter these days.

Hopefully time will heal any wounds, but i won't hold my breath. Optimistic as ever, as its a great forum, with great members.


EDIT: I'll leave this thread now Fingers crosse dfor you Chris.

 

[mattlee]

there is a topic that was started on here somewhere that explains everything.

wills, walkers and star along with others are no longer allowed to send or accept pm's due to reasons im not going to go into again (try and find the topic if really interested) and only the mods on here can sort it out if they feel the time has come.

the forum hasnt really been the same since they left but they are all still about on forums elsewhere should you wish to find them.

im gonna shut up now as i dont want to get into bother myself, maybe a mod can explain or maybe not

 

[walkers101]

There is no need on the mods part to explain anything as matt has said there is a thread about what happened etc

the only info i want is why am i still pm banned

that is all

 

[simonas]

Hi Walkers

I;ve posted a link to yoru thread in the MOD section so you should get an answer tonight mate

Simon

 

[walkers101]

ta very much pal much appreciated

 

[angelfishguy]

it all seems abit sad..

 

[NativeKeeper]

it all seems abit sad..

I seem to be PM banned as well, which really dont tear me up so bad, i come here mainly to read, if participation is not required or desired im cool with that.

The stuff about not being able to read PM is bull, i can go to my CPanel and read every PM ever sent on my forum, so dont be fooled.

And for anyone thats so paranoid about someone stealing members have a

and chill

 

[Bignose]

And for anyone thats so paranoid about someone stealing members have a

and chill

It is not a question of paranoia or similar. It is a question of breaking rules you agreed to when you chose to become a member, and it is a question of respecting this forum and its admins and owner.

Let me say up front, that obviously, we don't take away privileges of people who are members of other forums. There is plenty of room for lot of forums. Also, linking to forums is a grey area. There are many other forums of a much more specialist nature that have information we don't generally have here. Posting links to those other forums is almost always welcome.

We do ask that pointing links to other forums for information that is also available here, to point links to the other threads where that info is here.

However, actively recruiting members from this forum for other forums is explicitly against the rules.

No promoting of other competing sites either in the forum, chat room or private message system.

The fact that it is against the rules should be enough. The rules of the forum are the rules you explicitly agreed to when you signed up for an account.

As a meta-note, the rules and their enforcement really determine quite a lot about the health of a forum. If the rules were too harsh, people don't stick around. For example, the rule could be that anyone who uses the letter 'e' will be banned. It is still possible to communicate without the letter 'e' ( there has been a whole novel written without it: http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsby_%28novel%29 ) but I suspect that people would get tired of it pretty quickly and the forum would be dead.

I also firmly believe that the reverse of the rule is true, too. That the fact that we have an active forum means that the rules, as written and enforced, must be hitting the target at least reasonably well. Are we perfect? No. But, that's why we have a Board Announcements and Suggestions area, and why we try to participate in discussions about the rules as candidly as possible. We want feedback on how to make the forum better for you, the users.

Back to the main point: the fact that recruitment for other forums is against the rules should be enough of a reason for the moderators and admins to be intolerant of it. But, I also wanted to expand on it a little more to help understand why we don't allow it.

Consider a situation where you owned an independent coffee shop. If a person came in and asked where the nearest Starbucks is, what would you do? I think that most coffee shop owners would try to tell the person that whatever coffee drink the person wanted, it could be made right there right now, quite possibly cheaper and better.

In other words, you don't actively schill for your competition. You want a healthy environment all together, be it fish forums or coffee drinkers, but you don't use your resources to advertise for the competition.

Just like the owner of a Starbucks would not allow the local independent coffee shop put up signs on Starbucks' door or parking lot, we don't allow people to use our resources to advertise for competing general fish forums. And, it is a use of our resources: the server and bandwidth and forum software are all paid for by the admin. And you are not charged to use them at all. It is totally unreasonable William should even consider the use of the resources he owns to actively advertise for other forums, especially since he's made the rule not to.

If the other forums wish to advertise, they can take out ads on the Internet (or TV or radio or newspapers or etc.) like any other entity. This forum does not accept advertising at this time. And we don't allow the resources we are providing for free to be used for advertising -- of any type really. That is also explicitly in the rules you agreed to when you signed in. There are scant very few exceptions that have been cleared with the owner William before they were allowed.

And that's it really. We just don't want our freely available resources to be used directly for our competition -- a policy that darn near every single other resource owner will also agree to.

We ask you show this forum and its owner the respect of not using what he has made freely available in a way he's pretty reasonably asked you not to use it.

If you wish to discuss this further, please feel free to post more in this thread, or engage any of us moderators or admins in an email if you wish the discussion to be more private. As I wrote above, we welcome feedback, and we'll do our best to be as candid as possible in the discussion. There may be privacy issues that don't allow us full disclosure. But, there may be aspect of this discussion that we haven't thought of or considered -- and if you think you have valid contrary points, please don't hesitate to post them. We've changed policies based on user feedback in the past, and probably will do so again in the future. So, don't be afraid to speak up and get your point of view heard.

Thanks,
Bignose

 

[Bignose]

I seem to be PM banned as well, which really dont tear me up so bad, i come here mainly to read, if participation is not required or desired im cool with that.

Oh, and users with less than 10 posts don't automatically get access to the PM system. This is primarily to prevent spammers from creating accounts and then PMing everybody with spam. We've had this trouble in the past.