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After reading this thread on Bartertown:

http://www.bartertown.com/trading/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=84877

I felt the urge to respond to some extent as to what's been going on internally over the past few months, and perhaps explain what happened the day I 'disappeared.'

You may or may not have seen my post in the misc forum on Bartertown, asking why my post had been deleted. Shortly after, that post, too, had been deleted and you never heard from me again.

I was banned from Bartertown.

A few weeks earlier, I had resigned as a moderator there and asked Lin to remove me as a member of the staff. I had expressed some of the same feelings then that MEDEVL expressed in the above thread, and that others echoed; Bartertown is turning into a police state. This sentiment was during a time when Lin was super busy at work and wasn't around much, and a few mods were basically running the show at that point, some more than others.

I wanted no part of this 'new' direction and although I was not the only other mod/watchman that felt this way, I was the only one who was publicly vocal about it.

The day I disappeared, there was a problem with my title, and I asked one of the new 'admin' if they would fix it for me, since he was online. After being given some BS response as to why he wouldn't do it (he didn't "feel comfortable"), I showed him where I was given permission to have it by the actual admin. It was a stupid title I've had for years that the site upgrade messed up, it shouldn't have been a big deal. He still wouldn't do it. We've always butt heads on things before, so it really didn't surprise me that he would hold this over me just because he could.

About an hour or so later, I received an official warning through the site software and everything, for post bumping. That's right, post bumping - when you purposefully update your thread with a message saying something to the effect of "I still have these items" and your thread goes to the top of the forums, only, you guessed it, Bartertown doesn't have that feature. The threads don't shift around when you post in them, they stay where they were, so why have a rule like that you ask? Well, that's the mystery of the ages, because no one's been able to explain it to me yet. Rather similar to the "no swearing rule" that's been verbally thrown around lately despite the fact that we have a profanity filter built into the site. It's a power thing, nothing more.

That's about when I lost my cool. I told the mod who gave me the warning, with all due respect, to go *edit* himself (which is probably exactly what he saw, considering the filter). Knowing that I would be suspended at the VERY least, but all things considered, expecting fully to be banned, I made a sort of farewell thread in the Misc forum of bartertown, which, within a minute of posting, was immediately removed with no explanation.

I wrote another thread, asking why THAT one had been removed, asking who removed it. 5 minutes later, I was permanently banned from bartertown by magickal memories, who was also the admin who removed my post, and who would not simply fix my title after I'd shown him the authorization to do so.

As it became clear in the above thread that they won't talk about me or what "happened" to me, I felt I should come here and do so myself, for better or for worse. I'd like to say that I know what I did was wrong, and I accept the consequences, and while I do not agree that I should have been BANNED for my offense, what I'm most upset about is the way I was silenced after the fact. They wouldn't even allow me to say goodbye after all these years.

You may think this post is dramatic, and that's ok. I just wanted to get word out about what happened and I wanted to say thank you to those who have spoken up about the new guard - I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking it's a bit over the top. Other mods feel the same, but they have yet to come forward with it - that's ok, too. I don't resent anyone for what happened.

To the admin os Bartertown: Listen to your users! They're trying to talk to you! We remember a time when Bartertown used to be a fun place to hang out and talk and trade and now the only place you can reasonably open your mouth without incurring some sort of violation is the misc forum, and even there, if the above is any indication, you are subject to an iron fist.


If someone from Bartertown reads this and cares enough to repost it, or a link in the above mentioned thread, I would be most grateful. If you have any questions, please feel free to write me.

Thank you for reading this, and take care.

-Insidius

I think you should message magickalmemories he is active in both forums

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/user/profile/3197.page

Out of curiosity, why would I want to do that?

insidius wrote:
If someone from Bartertown reads this and cares enough to repost it, or a link in the above mentioned thread, I would be most grateful.

O_o? because of that i guess? He is from barter town and dakka.

Having never dealt with bartertown or the people/mods on it. From your account i feel sorry for you in a Tibet sort of way with China.

Over zealous moderating is evil and i dispise it in all its forms aswell as that degree of power abuse, after all, you used to be a moderator yourself, do they forget that quickly?

Well, to be fair, I did deserve punishment; you don't blatantly tell staff to *edit* off and not expect retribution. I broke the rules. I got banned.

What I'm upset about is the silencing afterwards. I just want to make that clear.

Luna, I'm guessing you didn't read the whole thing.

Sorry i sort of dozed off and didnt read the middle part :x
( bed time lol )
I see now.

No worries.

Still missing some form of comment from barttown mod[s]

As Luna said one of them is a mod here, strange i thought he would come here and explain, he generally is good that way, but....

They probably don't know about this post. It's not looking like anyone will repost it for me, either. :(

Ah, well.

Hello all. I am a member of the staff at Bartertown. I was not a user of Dakka, heard of it, but not a user. I was invited over here by Insidius and given this link to check out.

As far as the new guard is concerned, there are some new staff members at Bartertown, mainly due to the influx of spam we were getting. We also are going through a lot of changes to the site itself, some of the forums, and adding some features as well.

We are not trying to silence people in any way or telling them they can't have an opinion. What happened in the case with Insidius was over my head as far as staff is concerned (it was handled by an Admin, I am only a Mod) so I can't really comment on it other that what I was told and the posts I saw. What may or may not happened behind the scenes, I do not know.

I did post a link to this thread in the topic in question.

Sid, I don't actually see where you got banned. Your user info is still there, it doesn't say "banned" on anything.

When did you get banned? Despite the posts of yours saying you were getting banned I don't know when/if you actually did. You certainly seemed to want to with it being mentioned in every post (about the same thing) you made.

You did break several rules, or at least the same one a few times with what you said to MM and to gpfreddette. Does Dakka have any rules against cursing at staff members when they try to enforce a rule, or if they don't do something you want? Or is Bartertown just odd for having something like that.


You said you were leaving for good, but then kept posting goodbye messages calling out staff members for some sort of interweb brawl.

I've missed you Sid, you were always insightful and helpful until before all of this. I know you didn't like some of the new staff, but you also didn't have to react the way you did to it. This isn't some party line, its just my personal opinion. Hell, I spend most of my time arguing with everyone else when they do something I think is dumb.

Be well Sid, I wish you the best.

Nuwisha wrote:
You did break several rules, or at least the same one a few times with what you said to MM and to gpfreddette. Does Dakka have any rules against cursing at staff members when they try to enforce a rule, or if they don't do something you want? Or is Bartertown just odd for having something like that.

You know, he addressed this several times in this thread, and made it exceedingly clear that he was in the wrong and deserved to get punished. I guess you missed that, or maybe just skimmed the thread? Go back and have a read, maybe.

Nuwisha wrote:Sid, I don't actually see where you got banned. Your user info is still there, it doesn't say "banned" on anything.

When did you get banned? Despite the posts of yours saying you were getting banned I don't know when/if you actually did.

I don't remember the day. Here's the message when I try to log on to Bartertown:


You have been permanently banned from this board.

Please contact the Board Administrator for more information.

A ban has been issued on your username.

I'm not sure why you are all having this conversation on this forum...

Magickal Memories is turning Bartertown into a police state!?

You don't say...

Given his posting history here I can't say I'm surprised. (do a search for zombie dong for some hilarity)

ShumaGorath wrote:I'm not sure why you are all having this conversation on this forum...

Probably because I was banned on the other and this is the only way I could talk about it since members of both forums often overlap.

Terribly sorry if I've somehow imposed on you.

Bringing up complaints about admins in public threads never ends well.

Truth, Dal'yth. However, it sounds like, if what he says is true, he is lacking the option of the more appropriate venue, and settled ifor a second choice in Dakka. And as far as veracity goes, it looks to be about as true as most of the rest of the internet, from all appearances on this side of the wire. Burden of proof online is a concept that makes me laugh myself into hemmorages.

Come on, is this really turning into a case of "What has been seen, cannot be unseen?" Really? For true?

"But you know, I've learned something today. I've learned that people who want power, a lot of power, always…end up dead."

"200 years from now everyone now alive will be dead. What's it matter if we help some of them on their way early?"

I really missed what you were quoting, Dal. Huh?

Look, this really isn't a big deal. This post was mostly for the people I know over on Bartertown, such as the people I currently had trades with, et al. I wanted to explain my disappearance since it was becoming clear that no one was going to do it for me.

Anyway, whatever. It's done and over with. Allegedly, things have been discussed on an admin level, for whatever that's worth, and certain individuals were asked to tone down the gestapo routine a bit, so all in all, great.

I'll be putting a few things up for sale here on Dakka, since I'd rather avoid ebay, and my business both here and on Bartertown will be concluded as far as I'm concerned.

The are donkey-cave mods on every forum, including here, and they do sometimes go over the top with what they do.
not much that can really be done about it.
of course, there are alot of decent mods aswell.

Actually, I have not come across a Single donkey-cave mod on DakkaDakka (and trust me, I have had a LOT of interaction with the mods ). Warseer on the other hand...

lol, i made an account on seer and its still there rotting now after me going on it once lol.


2 mods spring to mind on here, but i wont go into it

grizgrin wrote:

Nuwisha wrote:
You did break several rules, or at least the same one a few times with what you said to MM and to gpfreddette. Does Dakka have any rules against cursing at staff members when they try to enforce a rule, or if they don't do something you want? Or is Bartertown just odd for having something like that.

You know, he addressed this several times in this thread, and made it exceedingly clear that he was in the wrong and deserved to get punished. I guess you missed that, or maybe just skimmed the thread? Go back and have a read, maybe.

I didn't miss it at all. Its the fact that he has repeatedly admitted to doing something wrong, but then is upset because he got in trouble for it? He posted three topics saying he was getting banned. Now he is posting here about getting banned. I'm just confused why.

When you get banned on Dakka, do you get to post three more topics about it? Or would your posts get deleted?

I'm only posting in this topic because it sounds like he is trying to make all of Bartertown look bad. It upsets me because I always like Sid, and I agreed with most of his views about things. I still spend most of my time challenging things that I don't agree with over there. Its not fair to paint us all with the same brush. Especially when he set out to get himself banned and then threw a fit about it.

I won't try and defend his actions over on another forum because, well, going over ther and reading it all and wading through all the crap, especially across several threads (as it sounds this stretchs across) is just about one RCH beyond my interest for time investment. Just about.

I have no clue what happens when I get banned on dakka. It's not happened to me. You say he's posting post-ban, he says he can't sign on...blah.

As far as making Bartertown look bad, I'm sorry you think that. Some people seem to thing MM is a blue turban special on the Anti-Christ Web Page from what I've seen, but I have a decent opinion of him from what I have seen and read of his posts. As far as the rest of BT, I don't go there. I also don't see him as decrying the who site or it's inhabitants. I see him decrying the harshness of his punishment, and not having any other method of communicating his opinion.

I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree. Have fun with your opinion. Glad you like it.

Nuwisha wrote:

I didn't miss it at all. Its the fact that he has repeatedly admitted to doing something wrong, but then is upset because he got in trouble for it? He posted three topics saying he was getting banned. Now he is posting here about getting banned. I'm just confused why.

When you get banned on Dakka, do you get to post three more topics about it? Or would your posts get deleted?

I'm only posting in this topic because it sounds like he is trying to make all of Bartertown look bad. It upsets me because I always like Sid, and I agreed with most of his views about things. I still spend most of my time challenging things that I don't agree with over there. Its not fair to paint us all with the same brush. Especially when he set out to get himself banned and then threw a fit about it.

I'm not upset because I was banned, I'm upset because I was silenced beforehand. The post I made informing everyone why I would probably be disappearing was deleted within minutes of my having posted it. As far as I can tell, there was NO reason it should have been deleted, and as far as I can tell, Lin agrees with me - he even instructed MM to put the post back where it was before it got removed but as of this writing, as far as I can tell that has not happened. I would hardly call making this post "throwing a fit" about anything.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

Also, in retrospect, I don't recall posting three topics saying I was getting banned. I recall posting the one mentioned above, then posting another after that was deleted asking why the above post had been removed. *shrugs*

SID!!! How ya doing? Long time no see!

Seriously, as far as I know, the ban is NOT permanent. I would contact Lin and see how long of a "vacation" you were supposed to get. That is, of course, if you want to come back. I'd personally like to see you back.

Lin and I just concluded our talks a few days ago.

As far as I'm aware, the ban is permanent, however he kindly offered to reinstate my account at Bartertown for the purpose of telling my side of the story, but since posting here, I see no need for it. It's not exactly 'current events' anymore, is it?

Anyway, I appreciate the sentiment.