25. TERMINATION
(a) By ProBoards
WITHOUT LIMITING ANY OTHER PROVISION OF THIS AGREEMENT, PROBOARDS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO, IN PROBOARDS' SOLE DISCRETION AND WITHOUT NOTICE OR LIABILITY, DENY USE OF THE WEBSITE AND/OR SERVICES TO ANY PERSON FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON AT ALL, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION FOR ANY BREACH OR SUSPECTED BREACH OF ANY REPRESENTATION, WARRANTY OR COVENANT CONTAINED IN THIS AGREEMENT, OR OF ANY APPLICABLE LAW OR REGULATION.
I'm not a faithful reader, but at worst I'd characterize that forum as 'grumpy, with a slight chance of defamation.'The Joy wrote:I've asked on the blog. I have no clue what happened.
Evidently, if you want to create a Wikipedia criticism forum, you have to own the site, the domain, and the server with the doggone thing being hosted in country apathetic to Wikipedians, lawyers, and the insane (but I repeat myself). I was on the Titanic, then the Britannic, and now apparently the Olympic has been scrapped.
Tl;Dr:
Oh, there was plenty of defamation... libelous content, to be specific.Zoloft wrote:I'm not a faithful reader, but at worst I'd characterize that forum as 'grumpy, with a slight chance of defamation.'
Hmmm. Greg? Did your crack team of briefcase-wielding ninja lawyers file something?
Welcome back, The Joy -- third post here in about six months. It's good to see you.The Joy wrote:I've asked on the blog. I have no clue what happened.
Evidently, if you want to create a Wikipedia criticism forum, you have to own the site, the domain, and the server with the doggone thing being hosted in country apathetic to Wikipedians, lawyers, and the insane (but I repeat myself). I was on the Titanic, then the Britannic, and now apparently the Olympic has been scrapped.
Tl;Dr:
Thank you. I had thought I wasn't welcomed here anymore.thekohser wrote:Welcome back, The Joy -- third post here in about six months. It's good to see you.The Joy wrote:I've asked on the blog. I have no clue what happened.
Evidently, if you want to create a Wikipedia criticism forum, you have to own the site, the domain, and the server with the doggone thing being hosted in country apathetic to Wikipedians, lawyers, and the insane (but I repeat myself). I was on the Titanic, then the Britannic, and now apparently the Olympic has been scrapped.
Tl;Dr:
I'd estimate that about 30% of the Wikipedia Sucks forum posts violated at least one of those three guidelines.Posts that purposely belittle other members, causes or organizations will not be tolerated.
If you cannot be civil when replying, then do not reply.
Treat everyone with respect, even if you do not agree with their opinion or decisions.
Well, Auggie is already calling you a "classless, basement-dwelling wiki-douche", Rogol, so it looks like his ProBoards days may be numbered, too.Rogol Domedonfors wrote:I cannot say that I am very sorry to see it disappear. I decided not to continue participating after quite a short time, when two other contributors decided to start disrupting every thread I posted in by following my postings with hostile or grossly offensive replies. Quite a lot of the traffic appeared to come from a contributor claiming to be or represent an Indian group with a very definite line of Indian politics, with postings that did not always seem to be relevant to Wikipedia. I do not know what happened after I ceased to participate, though.
I am also suspected of having had the forum shut down. For the record that is not true either.thekohser wrote:Well, Auggie is already calling you a "classless, basement-dwelling wiki-douche", Rogol, so it looks like his ProBoards days may be numbered, too.Rogol Domedonfors wrote:I cannot say that I am very sorry to see it disappear. I decided not to continue participating after quite a short time, when two other contributors decided to start disrupting every thread I posted in by following my postings with hostile or grossly offensive replies. Quite a lot of the traffic appeared to come from a contributor claiming to be or represent an Indian group with a very definite line of Indian politics, with postings that did not always seem to be relevant to Wikipedia. I do not know what happened after I ceased to participate, though.
What I notice to be true, Rogol, is that you have become the #1 non-admin poster on the new island. That seems very strange given what you say above. Are you a radioactive smurf, Rogol? or is that not true either?Rogol Domedonfors wrote:I am also suspected of having had the forum shut down. For the record that is not true either.thekohser wrote:Well, Auggie is already calling you a "classless, basement-dwelling wiki-douche", Rogol, so it looks like his ProBoards days may be numbered, too.Rogol Domedonfors wrote:I cannot say that I am very sorry to see it disappear. I decided not to continue participating after quite a short time, when two other contributors decided to start disrupting every thread I posted in by following my postings with hostile or grossly offensive replies. Quite a lot of the traffic appeared to come from a contributor claiming to be or represent an Indian group with a very definite line of Indian politics, with postings that did not always seem to be relevant to Wikipedia. I do not know what happened after I ceased to participate, though.
I think that Eric was a leader/manager of the site, but not its founder. There were blog posts, but I suspect that it was the content of the message board forum that prompted their site's closure. Lots of defamatory speculation and falsehoods about real-named people issued forth from pseudonymous users. I would imagine that ProBoards didn't want to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit from a disgruntled target who was unable to find a responsive real-named owner of the site to prosecute against.Earthy Astringent wrote:Was that Eric Barbour's site? It was mostly gripey blog entries, no?
My free advice to Strelnikov is to spend his money on Fatcow.com services. It's practically turnkey and their chatline techs are quick and skilled. He could have a secure forum up in three hours. Our set-up handles a greater load pretty well, but has a more complex structure.thekohser wrote:I think that Eric was a leader/manager of the site, but not its founder. There were blog posts, but I suspect that it was the content of the message board forum that prompted their site's closure. Lots of defamatory speculation and falsehoods about real-named people issued forth from pseudonymous users. I would imagine that ProBoards didn't want to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit from a disgruntled target who was unable to find a responsive real-named owner of the site to prosecute against.Earthy Astringent wrote:Was that Eric Barbour's site? It was mostly gripey blog entries, no?
I see now that one guy has offered "$25" to help with hosting costs if a new site were constructed, so maybe they are well on their way toward building a vibrant new discussion community?
You still owe me five bucks!Vigilant wrote:I wonder what might have happened...
Run your mouth at me some more, Eric.
No, I'm not back but I had to stick the fork in.
Thanks for stopping byVigilant wrote:....
The hope is to keep the current WR Proboards alive long enough for a new forum to surface. I've been made a mod and am working to keep the peace there. Auggie, Flip, and I have been researching ProBoards and their actions against other similar forums... and it's not good. ProBoards is very much a "no drama" and "no even slight possibility of legal talking" institution. Even if no one complains, a ProBoards administrator visiting a forum can determine it already violates the ToS for disrespectful behavior and delete the forum. Mutineer never even received a warning from ProBoards. It just shut down.Zoloft wrote:My free advice to Strelnikov is to spend his money on Fatcow.com services. It's practically turnkey and their chatline techs are quick and skilled. He could have a secure forum up in three hours. Our set-up handles a greater load pretty well, but has a more complex structure.thekohser wrote:I think that Eric was a leader/manager of the site, but not its founder. There were blog posts, but I suspect that it was the content of the message board forum that prompted their site's closure. Lots of defamatory speculation and falsehoods about real-named people issued forth from pseudonymous users. I would imagine that ProBoards didn't want to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit from a disgruntled target who was unable to find a responsive real-named owner of the site to prosecute against.Earthy Astringent wrote:Was that Eric Barbour's site? It was mostly gripey blog entries, no?
I see now that one guy has offered "$25" to help with hosting costs if a new site were constructed, so maybe they are well on their way toward building a vibrant new discussion community?
Get your own site, set up WordPress securely (there are nice articles on how to do that), set it to autoupdate, and go to town. We'll link you to give you some SEO love and a few thousand pageviews. You can always run a few guest blog posts here and then move them over when you get it set up.The Joy wrote:The hope is to keep the current WR Proboards alive long enough for a new forum to surface. I've been made a mod and am working to keep the peace there. Auggie, Flip, and I have been researching ProBoards and their actions against other similar forums... and it's not good. ProBoards is very much a "no drama" and "no even slight possibility of legal talking" institution. Even if no one complains, a ProBoards administrator visiting a forum can determine it already violates the ToS for disrespectful behavior and delete the forum. Mutineer never even received a warning from ProBoards. It just shut down.Zoloft wrote:My free advice to Strelnikov is to spend his money on Fatcow.com services. It's practically turnkey and their chatline techs are quick and skilled. He could have a secure forum up in three hours. Our set-up handles a greater load pretty well, but has a more complex structure.thekohser wrote:I think that Eric was a leader/manager of the site, but not its founder. There were blog posts, but I suspect that it was the content of the message board forum that prompted their site's closure. Lots of defamatory speculation and falsehoods about real-named people issued forth from pseudonymous users. I would imagine that ProBoards didn't want to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit from a disgruntled target who was unable to find a responsive real-named owner of the site to prosecute against.Earthy Astringent wrote:Was that Eric Barbour's site? It was mostly gripey blog entries, no?
I see now that one guy has offered "$25" to help with hosting costs if a new site were constructed, so maybe they are well on their way toward building a vibrant new discussion community?
Personally, I am looking at starting a blog about Wikipedia and get away from the drama of forums (no offense). I don't plan my site to go deep into personalities like Selina's WR or Wikipedia Sucks did, but I don't want to start a blog and spend so much time and energy on it only for it all to go away because of a call/e-mail to the site host that I'm a "meanie." I already lost a lot due to WR's and now WS's demise.
Correct, the software. Bluehost is fine, we use it here. They are doing a great job, have improved their throughput and such.The Joy wrote:We are talking about WordPress.org (the software) and not WordPress.com (the blogging platform), right?
I have a Bluehost account and I've looked at Dreamhost. Both are WordPress friendly. Any recommendations?
I did not buy the Dedicated IP option (though I have a stable IP) nor a SSL certificate. It was a student project website I made years ago with basic HTML and CSS. Strangely, I thought I had bought the SSL at the time.Zoloft wrote:Correct, the software. Bluehost is fine, we use it here. They are doing a great job, have improved their throughput and such.The Joy wrote:We are talking about WordPress.org (the software) and not WordPress.com (the blogging platform), right?
I have a Bluehost account and I've looked at Dreamhost. Both are WordPress friendly. Any recommendations?
Do you have a dedicated IP and a security certificate?
Do you think your team would like my help? I think I could lend a hand as a moderator.The Joy wrote:I've been made a mod and am working to keep the peace there.
Tell me about it. ^^Dennis Brown wrote:I want my 5 minutes back.
thekohser wrote:Do you think your team would like my help? I think I could lend a hand as a moderator.The Joy wrote:I've been made a mod and am working to keep the peace there.
The former address is registered to "Dildomail", so that inspires a lot of trust.Rogol Domedonfors wrote:...namely wikipediasucks.co and wikirev.org.
Wikipedia Sucks was truly a worthy successor to Wikipedia Review — defining "worthy" in the loosest and most ironic way possible.Rogol Domedonfors wrote:I suggest that a reason for the ineffectiveness of WS before its demise was an insistence on ideological purity, around the "hasten the day" or revolutionist banner, coupled with a tendency to view ideological and analytical differences through the lens of the personal or tribal, a disdain for analysis per se, and a touching belief that exposing or expounding the ideologically correct line was by itself enough to bring [about] an effect. The tribal element was largely expressed by defining themselves as the opposite of, and better than, this site, in which some members demonstrated a surprising amount of interest. It seemed that being both a contributor to both their forum and this one, and a newcomer to boot, places one in such a lowly position that almost any amount of abuse was tolerated, even encouraged, by the management. Intolerance of new and diverse opinions is enough to doom all the successor sites.
Dildomail.com is a domain owned by ED sysop Hipcrime/Badmachine (T-C-L). He's a friend of Eric's.thekohser wrote:The former address is registered to "Dildomail", so that inspires a lot of trust.Rogol Domedonfors wrote:...namely wikipediasucks.co and wikirev.org.
I know that I was regarded by some in the WS crowd as a Wikipedia true believer.Rogol Domedonfors wrote:I was a member. So my guess is that the fragmentation will lead to all of them falling below critical mass (see what I did there). I suggest that a reason for the ineffectivess of WS before its demise was an insistence on ideological purity, around the "hasten the day" or revolutionist banner
The more active posters there did seem to hold a somewhat common belief that the people (on Wikipedia, if not on this site) are the problem in and of themselves, rather than the inevitable byproduct of a system that (by design or otherwise) attracts and rewards bullies, hypocrites, narcissists, pseudo-intellectual buffoons, self-promoters, and even what some people might refer to as "moral degenerates."Rogol Domedonfors wrote:I suggest that a reason for the ineffectivess of WS before its demise was an insistence on ideological purity, around the "hasten the day" or revolutionist banner, coupled with a tendency to view ideological and anlytical differences through the lens of the personal or tribal, a disdain for analysis per se, and a touching belief that exposing or expoundint the ideologically correct line was by itself enought to bring amount an effect. The tribal element was largely expressed by defining themselves as the opposite of, and better than, this site, in which some members demonstrated a surprising amount of interest.
“All through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was."
"No," said the old man, "that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.”
Most likely this lunatic.Rogol Domedonfors wrote:...recovered by HRA1924 (who they?)...
Who is also banned.
