Idris wrote:Tinman wrote:I don't always read every thread.
Shame on you, Joe! Call yourself a Moderator?
I was conscripted by Nick to do the job.
I know I'm only being teased, but there can be some stress and unpleasantness that goes with moderating a forum.
Since the MCCH was already mentioned, I'll bring up a story about that forum and this forum. Mark Curtis (owner of the MCCH) was fond of constantly saying that he never read other model car forums and only had time to deal with the MCCH. When Nick made me a moderator of this forum, I got an angry phone call from Mark Curtis (who obviously was reading Nick's forum). He told me he had an unwritten rule that his moderators/admins could not be moderators or admins at other sites at the same time as they were moderators/admins on the MCCH.
My reply was fine, then make me a regular member of the MCCH because Nick asked me to help and I really believed in what Nick was building. He went on for at least half an hour trying to convince to dump on Nick and stay only on the MCCH. I refused his not so polite ultimatum.
At that time I was a Super Admin for Mark's site and things were already starting to go sideways for him. I didn't see much future for the MCCH and the main reason for that was that Mr. Curtis was becoming more and more unstable with his personal choices, decisions and actions with each passing week. Previous to this incident I had already told him I was becoming more & more uncomfortable with many of the things he was doing and how he was behaving with regard to his online presence/attitudes.
I told Curtis that if I had to choose between one or the other, I would take Nick's offer to help out his site over moderating or admin chores at the MCCH. Truth be known, the way things were going at the MCCH, it was becoming constant work to keep down infighting and to make any rational sense of things that Curtis was doing.
Besides, I already knew that his unwritten rule was made-up nonsense and that he was just trying to do anything to hinder success of Nick's site. Mark Curtis claimed Nick's site was direct competition to his own and that if it continued to grow it would harm his site. As a collector and matchbox enthusiast, I figured the more the merrier (besides Nick was rapidly heading in a wonderful direction with all the variation information and information on all the ranges ... something Curtis already very publicly failed at attempting to do).
For example, Mick Flack had his own web forum for MOY and he wasn't attempting to "threaten" Mick with such nonsense. Curtis even went so far as to say that Mick's site sounded like some kind of a "gang of thugs" because he used a Z instead of and S in MOY Boyz. He also was very free with his opinion that a MOY site would die from lack of interest just like the MOY series of models did (further showing his ignorance about collectors and their passions).
Curtis decided to "see how things go" and left me as an admin for the time being. All too soon (within a few short months), the crap would hit the fan and both Mick and myself would be all to eager to get the heck out of the MCCH ... with Curtis claiming we (Mick, Nick, myself and a few others) were attempting to destroy the MCCH, he banned us for life. I can truly say I was pleased to make a clean break from Mark Curtis (the vast majority of his members were great people and collectors, but Curtis was going mental).
From that point on, I vowed not to bother wasting time on any hobby site that wasn't educational as well as a fun place to be. There have been a few people here that tried my patience (and took the fun out of things), but those issues have resolved themselves. I will mention only one of those people (but I dare not speak her actual name), lets just call her the self appointed Queen of the GALAXY (one of many names she used).
That person caused me to block all mail from G Mail users as her private email insults and attacks had become relentless (not to mention too numerous, boring, obtuse and quite mentally unstable). So, I do what I can here and I if it gets unpleasant or bereft of fun, then I just back off and take a month or two break. It's a hobby, it's supposed to be fun. So, these days, I only read within my areas of interest.
