Hello there xris ! Hope all is fine over there on your side.

I wonder, really, what might be the 'beef' for this particular thread. I can see that you are dissatisfied, but have no clues as to exactly why; what might be the details, if you don't mind my asking?

Certain members including Salima have been banned and my private messaging has been stopped because of false claims by the owner of this forum. He will not confront the issues or even debate them. I have spoken to at least one of those persecuted and they have denied the spamming charges. I have known him for two years and he is very honest individual. I have lost many good friends and I have seen what was an exceptional forum reduced to trivia and the usual silly exchanges. My small protest may have no effect but at least it goes some way to reminding certain individuals you cant buy everything in life.

It's better than nothing.

nothing does not exist, so its not better.

Thanks for responding, xris. Oh, I see, that issue. I had kind of thought that that had rolled on down the shore line with the other pieces of wood, netting, plastic, and loose seaweed.

Did you ask your friend if they had sent any PMs to any number of folks informing them of a new forum in the process of being set up? Did you ask how many PMs had been sent? We can of course understand how there might be a problem of definition....some might not have seen sending even a couple of hundred of PMs as 'spamming,' you see; while others may have.

I am very certain, xris, that this matter has already played itself out, and we really, really, should not be fretting over that any more. The evidences and character witnessing has all been done, and the verdict has already been handed down. We DO have this space, as well as the regular A2K space that we can get back into by clicking on our username which appears at the top of the page, and then clicking onto 'my posts' from there...thus crossing over. Any one of us, however, has no need of crossing over...if we wish not to.

I had thought that maybe someone had been giving you a hard time directly. If there is anything that I can do to help you get over that now settled event, I would really like to help out. Sure, I had on-line friends too, but none of whom I have actually been disconnected with simply and only because of either the merger, or the course of action taken due to the spamming event.

The point I am making ,is that, it has not been thrashed out. Those who have been banned are not allowed to air their views. I never received a spam only one personal notice telling me of a proposed new forum, did you receive more than one, as has been claimed? If you see friends of many years being abused and leaving this forum, with no moderator prepared to defend them, then the result will be that many will seek refuge in another forum. I object to the idea that for a few bucks a forum that was built and maintained by certain standards can be so easily destroyed. What purpose did it serve? I will protest and will defend a community that meant so much to many contributors. There are hundreds of forums such as this where you can act as you please but a moderated forum with so much to offer has been destroyed and I personally grieve its passing. Justin was a gifted man but his judgement let him down.

I can feel (I do believe) your emotional hurt being expressed, xris, and I yet wish to ask you to exert your highest mental concentration here, please. I am not against you, per se, but do wish to be accurate--it really seems as though you have missed something, or have made an error in your reasoning-through process. Please, xris, it is always a good thing, and always will be, to get all the facts, weigh them among the several patterns of interpretation, and adhere to the one which best fits...not that any one pattern is going to fit perfectly...that seldom happens in historical reconstruction, but that will fit best.

I did not get a single PM,as best I can recall, informing me of another forum. (or if I had, I simply peered at it lightly, and went on...thus having absolutely no memory of it at all). By way of a separate route, however, I did catch wind of such a forum being possibly in the works...no biggie. Somewhat later, however, I also (and it didn't hit me until the scene went down at the original A2K), had inadvertently gotten some information--via another route--about some activity which seemed strange to me--I didn't learn of the content of the activity, but just the time and energy involvement and the rush to finish it quickly. I had obviously received that information due to a type of error (we could say memory error), and though I didn't follow up on it at all, after the scene at the original A2K, putting two and two together, I realized what it had been.

For any member of an internet forum to recieve a PM from another member of that same internet forum, about another and separate internet forum being created--so as to inform and invite--is not a big deal at all. No problem there.

For any member of an internet forum to send, in meditative collaboration with any number of other members of that same forum, a very unusually large number of PMs with the very same content and implicit intent (as per the above paragraph), there is a problem. It would be the same anywhere, for almost any forum. That's the way it works xris, and the action taken against such always unacceptable activity on any internet forum, was fair enough.

It may well be, we can consider, that a bit of collateral damage has occurred in the response; such is hard to avoid. It may be that a certain participant in the activity, has a very different emotional frame of reference for having taken part in that activity--regardless of essentially knowing that such is simply not something that one does on internet forums--and would like to make a case. The facts, however, clearly speak against such possible, lack-of -balance-in-weighing-the-course-of -action chosen, as being case worthy. Do you understand this xris.

However, xris, there is one thing that you must accept, even if you cannot come to be able to wrap your brain around it at all, and that is, that there was no fault in Justin's need and decision to sell his property. There was no fault in Robert's purchasing that property, regardless of estimations on future courses of action. There was no fault in Robert's suddenly having to merge the two forums--yet in the unprepared state that both were in. The real fault for the results, that are history now, lie exactly and squarely in the hearts of the ill-willed in society who do things like break and enter other people's properties in order to steal and take booty.

Xris, your anger and your disgust should go towards those who do the real wrong !! Those criminals are the ones who exactly set the stage for the events which led to some forum members making some hasty, and not well thought out, emotional choices--resulting in a certain degree of collateral damage which affects an additional percentage of forum membership. The case, however, as been thrashed out, and has been closed. It's done, xris. Maybe I don't like the shape of what came to be, in some ways either--for example our friends' rather rash choice, when more thought and proper avenues had surely been available--but the case is closed now, and I have seen the degree of accuracy of the report and accept it. I hope you can see that too, xris.

For the first time in years, I must agree with Xris. Justin passed on his flok to a poor shepherd, who now blames his flok for spam, when it seems like a ploy.

I havn't recived any spam, and have had my PM feature removed, now after almost 1 year, PM's are still not active for a great amount of chatters, as I understands it.