V
Very civil or you to explain all these things . I totally understand the things you say and can consider forgiving him . But the damage he did was very real . We had a nice thing here , I even had folks I looked up to like @donhollinger . But rampage destroyed all that. Nevertheless pretty nice of you to set the record straight.
The Bay Area folks were the worst affected by his purges. We were banished entirely and went to the other website (zh141.com) but in the migration lost some good people I used to look up to. It’s not the same…
I really didn't want to come into this thread and read all the comments, but you know what they say about curiosity, so here I am.
And so, because I believe in transparency and setting the record straight, and separating fact from fiction, I will address the things that I know to be true, as well as rebut some of the false statements and rumors and speculation.
Rampage was removed from his role as a moderator on this site about a year ago, after he had done extensive damage to the site by mass-banning many, many members for very trivial things, or anyone who disagreed with him (or dared speak up), or even members just being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Fact.
I am not here to defend him, nor condone what he did. Like his handle, in the last 3-6 months before he was removed, he did go on a massive rampage to ban an inordinate number of members, but that was solely something he decided to do on his own. He did NOT have support from anyone to do what he did, and he basically went rogue. Fact.
He didn't care what anyone else thought, not other mods, and not even TJ, and while the other mods (including myself) did our best to try to limit the damage as much as possible (in the background), he was basically left unchecked for awhile. There's a few reasons for this including other mods and other members reaching out to TJ (which admittedly went unanswered for some time, until it was finally addressed about a year ago), trying to reason with rampage, undoing some of the things he did silently and in behind the scenes, etc. but the truth is, we ourselves (the rest of the mod staff) were afraid of getting banned ourselves from him. And if that happened, there would have been a mass quitting of the site by all the staff, and ONLY would rampage would be left, and we couldn't let that happen. So we were careful to not push him TOO hard either. In essence, we were trying to keep the site afloat and bide time until TJ came back. Which he did about a year ago. Those are the facts.
Those members who claim that the rest of the mod staff or TJ himself "didn't do anything" or "enabled him" @alwayshorny81 @Koondog are speaking from a misinformed place, without any background info, context, or even an attempt to understand the situation before they spew pure BS. Those members who have communicated with me directly or any of the other mods are aware of these facts. But some people aren't interested in the truth, and only believe what they believe, facts be damned. Anyway...
The reports of "lonely loser", "no job and lives with his mother in his basement", "software expertise", "fake NY tough guy" and "mentally deranged (for the most part)" are all false. I don't know the size of his dick, so I can't attest to that, nor do I want to.
And though I did "know" him better than most, many of our veterans who have interacted with him in the past (before his rampage) found him to be quite smart, witty (especially when he would ban someone for good reason with a farewell message), provider-friendly, principled (believe it or not), and in the beginning and the middle of his tenure, he was an effective moderator and really helped the site out a lot (even before I became a mod myself). He held a pretty respectable, white-collared profession (which I know to be true), and from what I experienced, he was a pretty sociable, seemingly well-adjusted dude. A normal dude. Those are facts.
I do not purport to know exactly what set him off, but I can think of a few reasons that are my own, personal opinions and assumptions. Like @Pinkbuttholes speculated here:
That's definitely a part of it.
Another aspect is that during the early and mid-days of Covid, life was challenging for most, and he wasn't immune to the stresses of it either. I won't get into his personal life to protect his privacy, but he was dealing with some serious, real-world issues that were not at all easy. And that's understating it a lot.
Also during Covid days, there were times where he was the only mod online and doing most of the mod work on this site by himself. I've had instances where I had to step away to focus on my personal life, and so did other mods too. Frankly, it's a lot of work, and it ate up a lot of his time and energy. I respect him for sticking through it and holding down the fort, virtually by himself, and not just walk away. But I also think that left a bad taste in his mouth, and it further expanded his resentment towards the site and its members.
It still doesn't excuse his behavior nor did it give him the right to do what he did, but I think those outside factors most definitely contributed to the point where he went off the rails, and he took it out on the members here. He just lost it...is it because it's online and on a message board and not "real life" that made him do what he did? Or is he capable of a similar action in the real-world? I don't know the answers to these questions, but for the latter one, I don't believe so...but that's just my personal opinion.
After TJ came back, righted the ship, and rampage lost his mod privileges, there was a lot of work to be done to undo the damage. But a year later, I think the site is even better off...we have even more members, more reviews, more quality content, and it's continuing to grow and thrive. Yes, there still exists hard feelings (as evidenced by this one thread alone), but I think the current board is stronger than ever, and even brighter days in the future. I think TJ and the rest of the staff stepped up and repaired as much as we could, and I believe we've come a long way. There is still more work to be done, but it's much more focused on growth, rather than damage repair.
If anyone has any further questions, ask away, but let's let bygones by bygones and not have to continue to attack someone who's not here anymore. He obviously had many faults (fatal ones too), but let's try not to diminish his past, good work too. We obviously cannot change what happened in the past, but let's learn from it and never let it happen again.
And so, because I believe in transparency and setting the record straight, and separating fact from fiction, I will address the things that I know to be true, as well as rebut some of the false statements and rumors and speculation.
Rampage was removed from his role as a moderator on this site about a year ago, after he had done extensive damage to the site by mass-banning many, many members for very trivial things, or anyone who disagreed with him (or dared speak up), or even members just being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Fact.
I am not here to defend him, nor condone what he did. Like his handle, in the last 3-6 months before he was removed, he did go on a massive rampage to ban an inordinate number of members, but that was solely something he decided to do on his own. He did NOT have support from anyone to do what he did, and he basically went rogue. Fact.
He didn't care what anyone else thought, not other mods, and not even TJ, and while the other mods (including myself) did our best to try to limit the damage as much as possible (in the background), he was basically left unchecked for awhile. There's a few reasons for this including other mods and other members reaching out to TJ (which admittedly went unanswered for some time, until it was finally addressed about a year ago), trying to reason with rampage, undoing some of the things he did silently and in behind the scenes, etc. but the truth is, we ourselves (the rest of the mod staff) were afraid of getting banned ourselves from him. And if that happened, there would have been a mass quitting of the site by all the staff, and ONLY would rampage would be left, and we couldn't let that happen. So we were careful to not push him TOO hard either. In essence, we were trying to keep the site afloat and bide time until TJ came back. Which he did about a year ago. Those are the facts.
Those members who claim that the rest of the mod staff or TJ himself "didn't do anything" or "enabled him" @alwayshorny81 @Koondog are speaking from a misinformed place, without any background info, context, or even an attempt to understand the situation before they spew pure BS. Those members who have communicated with me directly or any of the other mods are aware of these facts. But some people aren't interested in the truth, and only believe what they believe, facts be damned. Anyway...
The reports of "lonely loser", "no job and lives with his mother in his basement", "software expertise", "fake NY tough guy" and "mentally deranged (for the most part)" are all false. I don't know the size of his dick, so I can't attest to that, nor do I want to.
And though I did "know" him better than most, many of our veterans who have interacted with him in the past (before his rampage) found him to be quite smart, witty (especially when he would ban someone for good reason with a farewell message), provider-friendly, principled (believe it or not), and in the beginning and the middle of his tenure, he was an effective moderator and really helped the site out a lot (even before I became a mod myself). He held a pretty respectable, white-collared profession (which I know to be true), and from what I experienced, he was a pretty sociable, seemingly well-adjusted dude. A normal dude. Those are facts.
I do not purport to know exactly what set him off, but I can think of a few reasons that are my own, personal opinions and assumptions. Like @Pinkbuttholes speculated here:
That's definitely a part of it.
Another aspect is that during the early and mid-days of Covid, life was challenging for most, and he wasn't immune to the stresses of it either. I won't get into his personal life to protect his privacy, but he was dealing with some serious, real-world issues that were not at all easy. And that's understating it a lot.
Also during Covid days, there were times where he was the only mod online and doing most of the mod work on this site by himself. I've had instances where I had to step away to focus on my personal life, and so did other mods too. Frankly, it's a lot of work, and it ate up a lot of his time and energy. I respect him for sticking through it and holding down the fort, virtually by himself, and not just walk away. But I also think that left a bad taste in his mouth, and it further expanded his resentment towards the site and its members.
It still doesn't excuse his behavior nor did it give him the right to do what he did, but I think those outside factors most definitely contributed to the point where he went off the rails, and he took it out on the members here. He just lost it...is it because it's online and on a message board and not "real life" that made him do what he did? Or is he capable of a similar action in the real-world? I don't know the answers to these questions, but for the latter one, I don't believe so...but that's just my personal opinion.
After TJ came back, righted the ship, and rampage lost his mod privileges, there was a lot of work to be done to undo the damage. But a year later, I think the site is even better off...we have even more members, more reviews, more quality content, and it's continuing to grow and thrive. Yes, there still exists hard feelings (as evidenced by this one thread alone), but I think the current board is stronger than ever, and even brighter days in the future. I think TJ and the rest of the staff stepped up and repaired as much as we could, and I believe we've come a long way. There is still more work to be done, but it's much more focused on growth, rather than damage repair.
If anyone has any further questions, ask away, but let's let bygones by bygones and not have to continue to attack someone who's not here anymore. He obviously had many faults (fatal ones too), but let's try not to diminish his past, good work too. We obviously cannot change what happened in the past, but let's learn from it and never let it happen again.
The Bay Area folks were the worst affected by his purges. We were banished entirely and went to the other website (zh141.com) but in the migration lost some good people I used to look up to. It’s not the same…
