My thoughts on some of the latest happenings

Posted with Thunder’s permission

I’ve recently become aware of a few disturbing facts. One of which is the “recruiting” coming from mods here at Thunder’s- essentially telling the mods at PEForums to abandon PEForums and focus on Thunder’s. That’s terrible! I for one have never considered Thunder to be a competitior…on the contrary! He has always helped my when I needed it, and he still continues to do so from time to time. He was also one of the people who helped me get involved with the PEForums in the first place. I will always be forever grateful to him.

Double-talk, hearsay, and misinformation. It’s crap like this that has a lot of people jumping on the “Thunder’s VS PEforums” bandwagon. What a terrible thing for the PE community!

Some of these same mods may also be mods at PEforum. One or more mods are posting information from our mod/admin section to Thunder’s mod/admin section. If you’re one of the mods doing that, please don’t! If you have a problem with something going on in the PEForum, please PM or email me.

In the same vein, I keep seeing members here posting things like: “Thunder’s is the only ‘free’ forum” while bashing PEForums. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. That’s fine; but some of you may not realize that there is NO such thing as “free” with forums like Thunder’s or PEForum. Server costs, maintenance, tech issues, excess bandwidth charges, etc. All of those things cost MONEY! Somebody has to pay for that. Thunder’s supports his forum with the help of donations; I advertise. Before we had any advertising on PEForums, the expenses were coming out of my pocket! Either way, none of the members are being *forced* to *pay* anything there. The information there is still free.

About DLD: Some people think that I’m banning people left and right because of things that were being said about DLD. I have NOT banned anyone lately, except for a few suspicious new members with recorded troll email addies. I have DEFINITELY not banned any PEForum mods. Do I consider DLD to be a friend of mine? Yes. That does not mean that I will ban someone that gets on his case. If that were so, I would have banned a couple of the moderators and more than a few veteran members. I have always been more fair than that! I don’t like seeing that kind of stuff on the main forums because it does nothing but detract from the subject at hand- PE.

Just for the record, DLD and I have not done any sort of business together. In the future, if I decide to put links up to his site on the PEForums, it’s because he’s always been helpful to other members, and he’s been a good mod. If DLD and I do decide to do business on some level, it’ll be for those reasons. DLD has always respected PEForums, and that’s what I’m concerned with.

I hope that this clears a few things up.

BA,

What is your view on PEForums now?

A lot of people feel it is going down the drain, what with a lot of good posters leaving, and the high level of advertising or affiliation or whatever it is called.

Some also think that DLD opening his ‘free’ forums, it might be the final nail in the coffin.

Are you still interested in keeping PEForums going? You cant deny that the place has gone very much downhill since the good old days.

SS4

Why is it a “nail in the coffin”? DLD has the right to open up his own forum. Initially, his forum was supposed to be for the members of MOS only. This strange feeling of loyalty that some people have towards any one particular forum is one of the reasons for the decline in member participation there (membership participation took a sharp decline several months ago. Although PEForum has made a small comeback in member sign ups and participation, it is still not at its best levels.) Read the posts scattered throughout this forum to see what I’m talking about.

Everyone is sure to have their favorites, but why does anyone have to be “loyal” to any one particular forum? Each forum has its own strengths and particular personalities that make them unique. Take the good from each one, and use it for your own benefit.

I am definitely interested in keeping PEForums alive. I have always been open to input from members. I remember “the good old days”, as you put it. There was a much more solid feeling of “PE community” between the two forums. There wasn’t as much “us vs. them”, drama, and “political” BS like you see today. While a major thing, the only thing that we really worried about back then were trolls.

I appreciate the way Big Al has handled this matter. Some people are wasting too much brain power on this vindictivness.

PE forums is awesome, and always has been.

BA,

>Why is it a “nail in the coffin”? DLD has the right to open up his own forum.<

I didnt say it was, just that is the view of some, like, MOS may pull the regular posters that are left.

>Everyone is sure to have their favorites, but why does anyone have to be “loyal” to any one particular forum? Each forum has its own strengths and particular personalities that make them unique. Take the good from each one, and use it for your own benefit. <

I hear you about the loyalty, but I think that is is more a matter of people posting where the traffic is, and where the best regular posters are. It just makes sense to post more at a forum with more people and information.

>I am definitely interested in keeping PEForums alive. I have always been open to input from members. I remember “the good old days”, as you put it. There was a much more solid feeling of “PE community” between the two forums. <

I’m glad to hear that, I would hate to see PEForums die. I see both forums as being the best online when at their best, each has its own approach.

> While a major thing, the only thing that we really worried about back then were trolls.<

That and cocky ezboard people.

I think that both forums, PEforum and Thunder (and also DLD’s place), need to evaluate what is going on. I signed up a little more than one year ago and in the beginning there were lots of interesting threads an a real community feeling. Lately, the standards of the postings have dropped considerably. A lot has to do about this “shit throwing” between PEforum and Thunder’s forum and DLD’s forum; “does he lie about his size”, “are they corrupt on the other sites”, “we are better here”, “they ban people on the other site”, and so on.

I think that all persons involved, mainly moderators and forum heads, need to sit down a straighten out their priorities. Try to come to some kind of agreement between the forums. I feel that the latest events are harmful to everybody, you loose focus on the important things and also loose people by this nagging. Look, there are not that many sites and all should be able to exist. If you cannot calm down I feel that a lot of people will leave the forums all together. And the rest that stays will only have some meek, uninteresting copies of the old forums to turn to.

I have been a member on both forums and feel, as Big Al puts it, that with the different people they provide different information, however, equally beneficial.

Priapos.

I started about two year ago lurking a P.E. forums, and spent 99% of my time there. Is was (is) a very good forum. But in the later months, not much has happening.

There was a post about the LOT at P.E. Forum with a link to Thunders. That link made me realize that there was much more action here then at P.E. Forum. My latest decision about not wanting to be a part of P.E. Forum, is because of DLD is a moderator over there. As as shall not go into that discussion here, but that dude really played us all, and I think he gave me a pretty rough ride, with threats and sh.t. Okey, I do not believe him, but I tried to keep an internal thing.

Priapos

That’s pretty much what we have been trying to do, but somebody will start a new thread and bring up all the bullshit again and it just keeps it going.

BA

If I have caused you any grief it was not on purpose, I don’t know why anybody would tell the peforum mods to come over they all are already as far as I know. Also as far as mod stuff getting posted over here I haven’t seen it and I’m at both and so are most of your mods.

Dino

Big Al,

I was banned from PE Forums. I was not new member. I did question DLD in a very direct way. However, I was not trolling or flaming. Please explain to me why I was banned.

“the only free site” I believe they were refering to the freedom of speech and opinions issue, not money.

*my posting history is at PE Forms for everyone to see.

I happen to like both forums very much. I started on PEforum and then heard about Thunder’s Place. For some reason I no longer get email notification from PEforum. That’s one of the main reasons that I don’t frequent as much as I would like. Plus the spell check dose not work there. Thunder and PEforum have allot of the same people. I feel very comfortable and gratefully for both of them. I have learned so much about PE this past year because of these two forums. I try to get on the forums everyday sometimes several times a day.

Nether one of them have ever charged me a Dime. So that’s what I call FREE.

When I come on to the Forums it’s like going to a Family reunion. Some people you look forward to seeing some you don’t really care much for, and others you might want to get to know better. But it’s still a Family a PE Family.
PEACE

I am new to this site, and I really appreciate Thunder’s & other moderators’ efforts. I’d say DLD’s decision to make a paysite/forum is driven by vested interests. That’s the bottom line, although he has definitely been helpful on this site. If he really was selflessly devoted to popularising PE (as he claimed), where was the need to split, & then come up with a pay site! What’s more? He alleges that the mods on this site have vested interests!

Oh my god! Peteysuncle has just PM’ed me, it’s all true. The mods here do have vested interests: what’s best for the members and for the PE community! What a conspiracy?! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;)

Some of the things that has come up lately is a bit saddening, but at the end of the day I have to admit I don´t care all that much about it. What I do care about and what worries me is that all this could really harm the community as a whole. It probably already has.

I found out about PE from the old ezboard PEforums, then I found Thunder´s. I still visit both and I want to do so even in the future. Please guys, clear out the remaining misunderstandings and shake hands so we can continue talk and read about PE - at both places.

Just my worthless 2 c.

/sizemoore

Wol0003,

According to one of the mods at the PEForums, you were banned for posting nothing but flames. Unless proven otherwise, I have to respect the decisions of my mods/admins. Without them, I could not run the forum very effectively.

“‘the only free site’ I believe they were refering to the freedom of speech and opinions issue, not money.”

I believe that many here mean that BOTH ways. Thunder and I have very similar rules. “Freedom of speech” on these boards does not include the right to harass other members. Even so, I have been quite liberal lately with what’s been going on.

As far as DLD opening up a paysite- so what? What is so wrong about trying to profit from your knowledge? From what I’ve seen, his site is informative, unique, very well put together, has excellent videos, and the bonuses are good too. he definitely put a lot of hard work into it!
Remember- to me, his site may be viewed as “competition”, and I am NOT receiving a penny for saying any of this. I am just giving my honest opinion.

Some of the members and mods here had (and some still do) the same opinions about me. It was even said that I was trolling and disrupting my own forum for profit (however stupid that idea may be)! All of this without a shred of proof! Some of you may remember that Thunder’s and the PEForum were linked together, and I even held moderator status here. Because too many people here thought that I had a hidden agenda for being here, my mod status was taken away, and the links to the PEForum were removed.
That’s what started creating the rift between Thunder’s and the PEForum. It became an “us vs. them” thing, and the PEforum was starting to be seen as a “commercial whore”. As I stated in my first post- Thunder and I both do different things to support the forum- he focuses on donations, and I rent out ad space.

What really makes me sad is that I see almost the exact same thing happening to DLD! People are sending him some really nasty emails- insulting his girlfriend, making fun of his condition, and even threatening him. There is NO need for that kind of behavior! What’s funny is that almost the same thing happened to me-the threats against my family, threats to hack my sites, and the backstabbing double-talk. !t’s history repeating itself!

Make of my post what you will. That’s my “excuse”, and I’m sticking with it!

makes Phat think about getting off the boards.

It seems no walk of life can escape the vanity of humankind.