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Yes, that title is real.

Tau Online has been run by an internet troll known as Skylight for the better part of a year. After trying to destroy the site by switching to vBulletin, the threat of a mass member exodus made him see sense. For a while, he was content to shut up and run things from behind the scenes.

Then, things changed.

Skylight introduced a new advertising system that was invasive, annoying and often totally inappropriate (NSFW adverts). This caused quite a lot of commotion from staff and members alike.

Following this, the Moderators as a whole entered into discussions with Skylight to try and resolve this. Naturally, the internet troll side of Skylight emerged; he demanded $18,000 dollars be paid within a week or he would never allow the site to be sold. When we refused, he de-modded all the moderators, and banned the GMods and Farseer Tyross, the Co-admin.

Suffice to say, Tau Online's forums are now a collection of scat-porn pictures posted by disgruntled members, and what isn't porn is mostly people telling Skylight to go kill himself.

Thankfully, the true Tau Online, its members, have relocated to Second Sphere, where we hope to be back up and running like always within days.


This message is really to tell you all to avoid Tau Online like the plague from here on out; GW's legal department should be knocking on the door shortly asking what he is playing at using their IP to make money on the domain name, so when that particular plate of grox-dung hits the turbines I'll post an update.

Wargamer wrote:Suffice to say, Tau Online's forums are now a collection of scat-porn pictures posted by disgruntled members, and what isn't porn is mostly people telling Skylight to go kill himself.

I love the internet.

That sucks. Too easy for an admin to let the power go to his head (/me looks around menacingly). Yak and I have systems in place to ensure that neither one of us can ever take complete control, we always need two of us.

I love the internet.

In fairness, we have asked people not to do that sort of thing... but when there's no authority figures whatsoever on a site, that stuff happens.

That sucks, man. Sad to see a forum ruined by its own admin.

Wow that sucks. Only went there maybe a couple of times but it seemed good.

legoburner wrote:That sucks. Too easy for an admin to let the power go to his head (/me looks around menacingly). Yak and I have systems in place to ensure that neither one of us can ever take complete control, we always need two of us.

The Self Destruct System on the Galatica requires the Command Codes and vocal consent from both the Commanding Officer and Ex-O...



ALSO: Is Advanced Tau Tactica a different and unrelated site?

Interesting, I was thinking Star Trek.. The Enterprise needed three command ranked officers to self destruct.

Yes MeanGreen it is, that's the one J used to post on, where politeness was enforced with an Iron fist, those Tau sure know how to party....

I had never heard of Tau Online but that was a great post. A good laugh. Although it is sad to see people get a little too much power in their heads. Its amazing how stupid some people can be. Good thing that admin doesnt run a country eh?

Your letter to GW legal will fall on deaf ears... Every forum on the planet is entitled to run adverts to pay its fees... If you look up on the top right of this very page you'll see advertising. Lame argument mate.

I'm also looking forward to seeing the legal backlash after you upload the stolen database to your server Wargamer.

I thought you were of adequate intellect to realise that is against the law. TO isn't going to continue on secondsphere mate... the data in that file isn't yours to upload...

legoburner wrote:That sucks. Too easy for an admin to let the power go to his head (/me looks around menacingly). Yak and I have systems in place to ensure that neither one of us can ever take complete control, we always need two of us.

...why do I envision that both Lego and Yak need to stand at a console and turn a key at the same time with armed guards supervising?

Suffice to say, Tau Online's forums are now a collection of scat-porn pictures posted by disgruntled members.

It's a tau centric forum. Got it.

Darn shame. I guess that the Greater Good did not succeed in the end after all when the puppet master behind the Ethereals decided to rear its ugly head.

EDIT: I love the third reply to their new moderator search thread:

http://forums.tauonline.org/index.php/topic,97962.0.html

Not safe for children who don't know about the third finger from the right on either hand.

DOUBLE EDIT: On second thought, the whole range of responses after the third one are REALLY not safe for anything.

WarOne wrote:Darn shame. I guess that the Greater Good did not succeed in the end after all when the puppet master behind the Ethereals decided to rear its ugly head.

EDIT: I love the third reply to their new moderator search thread:

http://forums.tauonline.org/index.php/topic,97962.0.html

Not safe for children who don't know about the third finger from the right on either hand.

DOUBLE EDIT: On second thought, the whole range of responses after the third one are REALLY not safe for anything.

I LOLed.

It was an entertaining several posts on the first page, then things started calming down.

Browsing the forums will find that everything is in CHAOS as the Tau have now slipped into the Grasp of the Ruinous Powers.

Amusing they choose the Second Sphere as a name, given to the expansion of the Tau brought about by renegade commander Farsight who took several enclaves out of the empire and form a ring of defenses against enemies of the Greater Good.

I hate to be a callous donkey-cave but some of the stuff going on Tau Online is hilarious. I mean I always knew what it was, but damn! Skylight really f'ed things up.

Gotta love internetz drama especially when $$$ is involved.

If memory serves correctly that forum prided itself on running a tight ship by patrolling people's grammar and post content. Pretty ironic how it went from that to being a 4chan dump.

Good luck to you guys, sounds like the next site should even be better since you won't have an asshat for an admin.

Oh lord... what a gakhole, I must say it takes skill to frakk up like that indeed.

I have never been part of that community, though from the responses, I can say good riddance. I certainly don't know what they went through, though some of them are just being obtuse. The strange pictures on page three or four. Jezads polite post, followed by people calling him a tool, and basically that he should go feth themselves.

Shame that it happened though. I couldn't imagine Yakface or Legoburner (even though neither of them have complete power) doing something like that.

Wargamer wrote:Suffice to say, Tau Online's forums are now a collection of scat-porn pictures posted by disgruntled members, and what isn't porn is mostly people telling Skylight to go kill himself.

I looked at the site earlier today. its sad because we are losing too many decent gaming forums, but I havent heard of one lost quite this way.

Most grognards are just leaving fowarding addresses to various other forums, a few are leaving insults, some of which are in Tau and pictures of failboats etc. Only one or two are really crossing the line and posting extreme images but one of those is a with duplicate of the owners account.

I wish I hadnt seen the images, its not just scat its a whole lot extra I would rather not describe. Injuries, diseases, deformities etc. However in a sick way its clever. The owner clearly hasnt a clue and is hoping to rebuild with whats left of his site, the trouble is unless he cleans his content very quickly GW legal is going to be all over him while the learning curve is too steep for him to cope. I really doubt GW will tolerate having its name associated with extreme images when it finds out. I expect C&D letters by this time next week.
In the end he might have to blank and restart if the image proliferation accelerates beyond his ability to control it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Apparently the former Mods have copied the sites database and are transfering as much as possible to the new site.

http://creativetwilight.com/2010/07/the-death-of-tau-online-and-a-rebirth/

There are questions as to whether that is legal.

In a sense, this may be a good thing.

Back in the day, mtgnews.com used to be the go to site for Magic the Gathering news and spoilers. A schism started a few years back and the splintered members made a new site called mtgsalvation.com, which enjoys record site traffic even to this day.

As far as I know the admin was trying to profit from the ads and I dont think he owns the database or anything on the site just the url

Cheers!

The more I look into this, the more it confuses me.

I understand that it was completely slowed for the admin to dump an entire team, but I do not understand the assertions about 'profiteering' on the part of the admin. Both sides appear to be taking advantage of a pile of drama, so unclear, that it is next to impossible to know what happened, beyond being in that situation from the beginning.

After checking out the site, I noticed two things. First, that the mod team and supporters seem to be doing no less than using the situation to drum up the brand for their new website. Second, that the admin is obviously not doing much of anything with the site, much less maintaining it.

Both sides appear to be in the wrong to some degree, and it seems like the admin may have motivation to drop the site altogether at this point. I don't know the business side of things about this, but I encountered few ads on the site, and a whole lot of drama from the mods and crew.

A mutiny, I say!

LOL.

Well he kept increasing the number of ads and their frequency. Each hit for an ad on the website generates income. He was putting more ads than were required to maintain the forum and thus attempting to make profit. This as we all now is against GW's IP right.

Never heard of that site. Oh,well. Looks like he sucks big time. Sounds like an apocalypse on the webz.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just looked at the site.....Doesn't seem all that bad...No pronographic adverts. Lots of vets cursing skylight out though..

The more I look at the site, the sadder I get. The remaining designers are carrying on as if nothing happened, making the web page look all nice and friendly to visitors..It's kinda sad. They know that their site is completely destroyed, yet they continue to keep the site looking half nice.

MrMobiusMe wrote:Well he kept increasing the number of ads and their frequency. Each hit for an ad on the website generates income. He was putting more ads than were required to maintain the forum and thus attempting to make profit. This as we all now is against GW's IP right.

That may be correct, and it may be entirely false. What you see on the site is not evidence supporting the claims of mods and crew; it supports the admin. Again dropping the team was stupid and immature, but I don't see any evidence of those accusations being true. Maybe the admin just didn't get along with his team, I dunno, never lurked there often and it would be hard to tell either way. This reeks of politics...

As to GWs IP rights, again, I don't know. If there is evidence that the admin was keeping money for personal use, maybe? I just see accusations and sensationalism.

"Checking my laser targeting system..."

"Yep, accusations and sensationalism."

LOl, that picture of that celebrity making the BJ gesture made me LOL. Forgot his name.

Go over to the website for some moar stupidity still in progress.

It probably won't end anytime too soon.

legoburner wrote:Yak and I have systems in place to ensure that neither one of us can ever take complete control, we always need two of us.

The Nuclear Missile Submarine Dakka!

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