Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:50 pm
Matt founded and created RC Tankwarfare, i am more of a Technical advisor/NerdMatdragon wrote: matt and Norse ...
i founded it but it wouldnt be as it is now without norse!
RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum
RC Tank Warfare community modelling hobby forum
https://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums/
RCU FORUM
Page 4 of 6
Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:56 pm
welcome to the club matt, but you are only an honorary member until you get banned LOL ROFLMFAOMatdragon wrote: cheers mate, i just got a post deleted and i cant reply to pm's!!
great!
hahaha to think i might actually care lol
NOT
Matt
;Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:02 pm
I for one cant get in anymore and think my IP address has been logged and banned LOL
after a lengthy E-mail to rc ken here's what i recieved
Rob,
Unfortunately when something as large as RCU
is operated there are going to be situations arise that involve problems. I
realize that there was a recent situation that arose that caused some of
your friends and fellow tankers to harbor bad feelings towards RCU.
Hopefully I can explain our position and hope that maybe you can see our
side of the situation. While it may not seem like it in a situation such as
this, we do care about each and every member we have here. And we to
everything we can to help those members come together with others and
participate in the hobbies that we all love so much. I won't lie to you that
RCU do take money for advertising. It would be silly to think that an
organization as large as RCU doesn't need money to operate. We've got to pay
the bills that keep the lights on around here. But I can give you my word
that never has the desires of those advertisers come before the needs of our
customers. We have very specific rules that advertisers must follow if they
choose to participate in RCU and it's forums. And I can tell you that more
than once our owner, Marc Vigod, had shown a paying advertiser the door
because they failed to follow our rules. Marc will never put the needs of
the advertisers in front of the needs of the members. I can also tell you
that he passes these beliefs down to us moderators as well. In fact, one of
the tasks the moderators have is keeping advertisers from breaking our rules
about posting commercial posts in the forums. If RCU were dictated by the
advertisers you would expect to see them have a free hand to post whatever
they want, and that isn't the case. Our moderators are constantly removing
posts placed by commercial entites, RCU advertisers or not. Now before you
say it I know you are going to mention that these types of posts have been
running rampant in the Tank Forum lately. I'll address that separately.
Let me address you concerns that you stated to me. I'm going to answer them
one at a time and hopefully.
Commercial posts in the Tanks Forums.
Until recently we did not realize that this was a problem in the tank forum.
In fact, until I started dealing with this issue we didn't realize that
Richard L. was not active as the moderator in the Tank Forum. The position
of Moderator is an unpaid position that most of us take so that we can help
further the hobby that we love so much. And I'll be the first to admit that
it's not for everybody. It can be a very stressful position to have, and
some people do burn out. After I noticed that it appeared that Richard might
be absent I notified our Administrator, Nathan, and he is attempting to
contact Richard and figure out what his plans are. If need be, myself or one
of the other Community Moderators will cover the Tanks forum and get it back
in shape while we look for a new moderator. And if Richard does intend to
continue as moderator then we'll help him get back up to speed. We were not
aware that there may be problems in the forum, but now that we do we will
get them straightened out.
Posting links to "competing" discussion forums.
Now I know that this is one of the BIGGEST sticking points with your group.
You feel that RCtankwarfare.com is a small discussion forum specializing in
one specific hobby, RC Tanks. And that it's not a big site and definitely
isn't competition with RCU. And I don't argue that point at all, I totally
agree. But if you would please look at it from our point of view. While your
site may not be "competition" to RCU, there are plenty of larger discussion
groups that are indeed competition to RCU. For the sake of the argument I'll
use RCGroups.com as an example here. In their case they are our competition
and they are the ones that the rule was writing for. Now when we write our
rule we have to include something to cover this aspect. But how do we do
that?? Do we say something like "No posting links to competing discussion
forums that have more than 5,000 members". Or do we say "No posting links to
competing forums that have more than 5,000 posts per day"? Do you see where
I'm coming from? The only way for us to remain completely fair is to write
the rule so that it includes all discussion forums. Yes, it's not a perfect
rule. But it's the best working solution we have. Now as a side note, we
don't remove any and all references to other forums. Our rules are written
so that links to other forums may be made if they answer a question from a
thread, or they provide information that contributes to the discussion that
is ongoing in a thread. So you can see, we do welcome contributions from
other sites. If you look around RCU you will find literally thousands of
links to other forums. However, these rules are written to keep other forums
from using our resources to advertise their service. This is just common
sense. It's just like the real world. Wal-mart isn't going to allow another
store to come in and put up advertising on the walls inside of the Wal-mart.
It's exactly the same way here on RCU. We're not going to allow competition
to use our resources to advertise their service for free.
Locking of PM privileges for members
Yes, your PM rights were locked. I don't want to get into the way that it
was done, or how it was done. But what I would like to do is explain WHY it
was done. Without bragging, RCU is huge and is a huge target. As I mentioned
above, many try to use RCU to advertise their own sites or services. And
many times they will use our resources to do this. I can't even begin to
tell you how many times this has happened over the years. But I can assure
you that this is a long list. And I will refer to some of these as nothing
less then full blown attacks on RCU. And some of them have been absolutely
ruthless in their attempts. I'm talking about things like flooding members
with PM's advertising their services and flooding the forums with
advertising as well. Now I know this is going to sound like an excuse, but
trust me it's not, but rather it's an explanation of what happened. We have
learned in the past that the best way to combat these attacks is a simple
scorched earth approach. In this case we will lock down the PM's of those
that we think are involved to stop the attacks. In many of our past cases
this was the only way to insure it stopped and that we could sort out what
it happening. So now when we think something is happening we will lock down
the PM's while we sort things out. I do understand that this may sound a bit
heavy handed, but I can assure you that in many cases it is the best and
quickest way to resolve issues like this. In most cases once we sort out who
was, and wasn't, doing these things we will open their PM's back up and
offer out a huge apology. Is it perfect? No. But it's our best and most
effective tool to protect our members. And that is what we are doing,
protecting them. Nobody wants to be flooded with advertisement PM's, or have
the forums clogged with advertisements. As a final note, no moderator has
the ability to lock down the PM's of a member. This power resides with 5
people in RCU, 4 administrators and our owner. They are the only ones that
can take away privileges of members.
Unprofessional moderators.
As I said above, the position of moderator is an unpaid position. And I
won't deny that sometimes we get a moderator that does get what is called a
"god complex". But I can assure you that those moderators usually don't last
long on RCU. No moderator on RCU operates without supervision. The food
chain here at RCU is - Moderator, Community Moderator, Forum managers,
Administrators, and the Owner. All of these position are constantly watched
by the ones above them. If a moderator starts getting out of line with a
"god complex" we take action quickly. First we try to correct their
behavior, but if that fails they are removed as a moderator. It has happened
many times on RCU, and will happen if this situation repeats itself. But we
try to avoid getting into that situation if we can. Marc and Nathan have a
pretty thorough screening process before the take on a moderator so they can
avoid things like this happening. It doesn't happen often anymore, but if
does we will deal with it.
I won't deny that there are hurt feelings among your friends. And I will say
that I totally understand why they may feel that way. I do recognize that
maybe it could have been handled a bit better, but nothing was done that is
outside of our rules and policies. And it is that same thing we do in any
situation like this, regardless of who it is. I will say that I am sorry
that there are members that have a bad taste in their mouth about RCU, and
that I hope that we can smooth over those hurt feelings. I'm hoping that
this letter will let you see the situation from our point of view and see
that we weren't picking our your friends, just simply enforcing our
policies.
Please feel free to contact me if you have other concerns or questions. I am
here to try and resolve this situation if possible.
Ken Isaac
RCKen
well iam going to e-mail him back and ask why it seems i cant get into the forum at all now LOL
after a lengthy E-mail to rc ken here's what i recieved
Rob,
Unfortunately when something as large as RCU
is operated there are going to be situations arise that involve problems. I
realize that there was a recent situation that arose that caused some of
your friends and fellow tankers to harbor bad feelings towards RCU.
Hopefully I can explain our position and hope that maybe you can see our
side of the situation. While it may not seem like it in a situation such as
this, we do care about each and every member we have here. And we to
everything we can to help those members come together with others and
participate in the hobbies that we all love so much. I won't lie to you that
RCU do take money for advertising. It would be silly to think that an
organization as large as RCU doesn't need money to operate. We've got to pay
the bills that keep the lights on around here. But I can give you my word
that never has the desires of those advertisers come before the needs of our
customers. We have very specific rules that advertisers must follow if they
choose to participate in RCU and it's forums. And I can tell you that more
than once our owner, Marc Vigod, had shown a paying advertiser the door
because they failed to follow our rules. Marc will never put the needs of
the advertisers in front of the needs of the members. I can also tell you
that he passes these beliefs down to us moderators as well. In fact, one of
the tasks the moderators have is keeping advertisers from breaking our rules
about posting commercial posts in the forums. If RCU were dictated by the
advertisers you would expect to see them have a free hand to post whatever
they want, and that isn't the case. Our moderators are constantly removing
posts placed by commercial entites, RCU advertisers or not. Now before you
say it I know you are going to mention that these types of posts have been
running rampant in the Tank Forum lately. I'll address that separately.
Let me address you concerns that you stated to me. I'm going to answer them
one at a time and hopefully.
Commercial posts in the Tanks Forums.
Until recently we did not realize that this was a problem in the tank forum.
In fact, until I started dealing with this issue we didn't realize that
Richard L. was not active as the moderator in the Tank Forum. The position
of Moderator is an unpaid position that most of us take so that we can help
further the hobby that we love so much. And I'll be the first to admit that
it's not for everybody. It can be a very stressful position to have, and
some people do burn out. After I noticed that it appeared that Richard might
be absent I notified our Administrator, Nathan, and he is attempting to
contact Richard and figure out what his plans are. If need be, myself or one
of the other Community Moderators will cover the Tanks forum and get it back
in shape while we look for a new moderator. And if Richard does intend to
continue as moderator then we'll help him get back up to speed. We were not
aware that there may be problems in the forum, but now that we do we will
get them straightened out.
Posting links to "competing" discussion forums.
Now I know that this is one of the BIGGEST sticking points with your group.
You feel that RCtankwarfare.com is a small discussion forum specializing in
one specific hobby, RC Tanks. And that it's not a big site and definitely
isn't competition with RCU. And I don't argue that point at all, I totally
agree. But if you would please look at it from our point of view. While your
site may not be "competition" to RCU, there are plenty of larger discussion
groups that are indeed competition to RCU. For the sake of the argument I'll
use RCGroups.com as an example here. In their case they are our competition
and they are the ones that the rule was writing for. Now when we write our
rule we have to include something to cover this aspect. But how do we do
that?? Do we say something like "No posting links to competing discussion
forums that have more than 5,000 members". Or do we say "No posting links to
competing forums that have more than 5,000 posts per day"? Do you see where
I'm coming from? The only way for us to remain completely fair is to write
the rule so that it includes all discussion forums. Yes, it's not a perfect
rule. But it's the best working solution we have. Now as a side note, we
don't remove any and all references to other forums. Our rules are written
so that links to other forums may be made if they answer a question from a
thread, or they provide information that contributes to the discussion that
is ongoing in a thread. So you can see, we do welcome contributions from
other sites. If you look around RCU you will find literally thousands of
links to other forums. However, these rules are written to keep other forums
from using our resources to advertise their service. This is just common
sense. It's just like the real world. Wal-mart isn't going to allow another
store to come in and put up advertising on the walls inside of the Wal-mart.
It's exactly the same way here on RCU. We're not going to allow competition
to use our resources to advertise their service for free.
Locking of PM privileges for members
Yes, your PM rights were locked. I don't want to get into the way that it
was done, or how it was done. But what I would like to do is explain WHY it
was done. Without bragging, RCU is huge and is a huge target. As I mentioned
above, many try to use RCU to advertise their own sites or services. And
many times they will use our resources to do this. I can't even begin to
tell you how many times this has happened over the years. But I can assure
you that this is a long list. And I will refer to some of these as nothing
less then full blown attacks on RCU. And some of them have been absolutely
ruthless in their attempts. I'm talking about things like flooding members
with PM's advertising their services and flooding the forums with
advertising as well. Now I know this is going to sound like an excuse, but
trust me it's not, but rather it's an explanation of what happened. We have
learned in the past that the best way to combat these attacks is a simple
scorched earth approach. In this case we will lock down the PM's of those
that we think are involved to stop the attacks. In many of our past cases
this was the only way to insure it stopped and that we could sort out what
it happening. So now when we think something is happening we will lock down
the PM's while we sort things out. I do understand that this may sound a bit
heavy handed, but I can assure you that in many cases it is the best and
quickest way to resolve issues like this. In most cases once we sort out who
was, and wasn't, doing these things we will open their PM's back up and
offer out a huge apology. Is it perfect? No. But it's our best and most
effective tool to protect our members. And that is what we are doing,
protecting them. Nobody wants to be flooded with advertisement PM's, or have
the forums clogged with advertisements. As a final note, no moderator has
the ability to lock down the PM's of a member. This power resides with 5
people in RCU, 4 administrators and our owner. They are the only ones that
can take away privileges of members.
Unprofessional moderators.
As I said above, the position of moderator is an unpaid position. And I
won't deny that sometimes we get a moderator that does get what is called a
"god complex". But I can assure you that those moderators usually don't last
long on RCU. No moderator on RCU operates without supervision. The food
chain here at RCU is - Moderator, Community Moderator, Forum managers,
Administrators, and the Owner. All of these position are constantly watched
by the ones above them. If a moderator starts getting out of line with a
"god complex" we take action quickly. First we try to correct their
behavior, but if that fails they are removed as a moderator. It has happened
many times on RCU, and will happen if this situation repeats itself. But we
try to avoid getting into that situation if we can. Marc and Nathan have a
pretty thorough screening process before the take on a moderator so they can
avoid things like this happening. It doesn't happen often anymore, but if
does we will deal with it.
I won't deny that there are hurt feelings among your friends. And I will say
that I totally understand why they may feel that way. I do recognize that
maybe it could have been handled a bit better, but nothing was done that is
outside of our rules and policies. And it is that same thing we do in any
situation like this, regardless of who it is. I will say that I am sorry
that there are members that have a bad taste in their mouth about RCU, and
that I hope that we can smooth over those hurt feelings. I'm hoping that
this letter will let you see the situation from our point of view and see
that we weren't picking our your friends, just simply enforcing our
policies.
Please feel free to contact me if you have other concerns or questions. I am
here to try and resolve this situation if possible.
Ken Isaac
RCKen
well iam going to e-mail him back and ask why it seems i cant get into the forum at all now LOL
Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 12:34 am
Has his Lordship been banned as well
Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:58 am
yup wiped out the ip address i reckon
Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 4:39 am
Ya that is how they stop multiple user names by the same person.If you have more than one computer under a different name then you can get around that.A few guys on there use a computer at work with one name,and then there own personel computer with another.I have seen a couple of lame attemps by member's claiming to be someone other than themselves,but it is very obvious.
BIGMIG
BIGMIG
Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 6:52 am
In reguards to RC Kens reply---I think it was polite,bussiness like,what I would expect from upper level staff,and it explains their policy and attitude towards their rules.A little sugar coating here and there,and I will go along with 85 percent of what he said with full understanding of the meaning.My big complaint with RCU was in what has been allowed to take place on there with the lack of proper
moderation.Just to much out of control slamming that is not good for any forum.But to persue this topic any further would be self defeating in my eyes.You know the old saying "Let sleeping dogs lie" might very well apply here.Lets work on making this forum an interesting and fun place to play,and the rest will come your way.
BIGMIG
moderation.Just to much out of control slamming that is not good for any forum.But to persue this topic any further would be self defeating in my eyes.You know the old saying "Let sleeping dogs lie" might very well apply here.Lets work on making this forum an interesting and fun place to play,and the rest will come your way.
BIGMIG
Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 9:03 am
I agree BIGMIG. If they had sent out a message that said something like that before they started deleting posts and blocking PMs, I'm sure we would have a different attitude to RCU now.
Chris
Chris
Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:08 am
My opinion as well guys as chris said had they put that across in the first place things may well have been different for both parties
Let the water passed now
Let the water passed now
Re: RCU FORUM
Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 11:01 am
Hi Guys why didnt they send this or post it as a warning before they took the scorched earth approach .
This web site was set up by Matt first as a club for RCU members in the U.K. while it was a .net we had no problems since we change it to a .com we have run into trouble we are not a commercial site we do not have sponcers we are not run by a business we are a club O.K. We changed to a .com because it was cheaper and gave us more space which we needed to progress ,yes We have a forum and we do post on it anything we like when we posted on RCU we had to comply with there rules I.E. no ebay ECT.
The guys here are members of a club and as such I tried to inform U.K. residents about it by sending them P.Ms on RCU inviting them to Join our club pointing out it was free and we need there support in order to be able to organise meetings both local and national .Is this wrong I dont think so ,we were not trying to rob members from RCU, but inform the U.k.members of the RCU that we had formed a club, with the intension of holding meetings and swopping ideas how we could do this and swop/sell/buy from other members, post photos of what we are doing these are all things that happen in a club.
I admit that I sent P.Ms to other U.K. residents informing them about this site (club) and putting the website address in the P.M .But it was not my intension to rob members from the RCU or encouage them to leave or stop posting.I am the only one who is guilty of breaking the rules if I have.
The scorched earth approach that RCU have taken has upset members of this club and started an anti RCU feeling. This was not my doing but the RCU hitting at anything that dare say what are you doing why is only us Brits being blocked we are British and anyone who takes a bully boy approch it will get there backs up. There are American clubs with forums which use the RCU and openly say we are having a meeting see here for details then it will link a website which has a forum I have seen it .
If anyone should have been blocked it is me not all the guys who did get blocked they just responded in my support .
regards pete (971wright)
P.S.If anyone wants to forward this to RCU you can
This web site was set up by Matt first as a club for RCU members in the U.K. while it was a .net we had no problems since we change it to a .com we have run into trouble we are not a commercial site we do not have sponcers we are not run by a business we are a club O.K. We changed to a .com because it was cheaper and gave us more space which we needed to progress ,yes We have a forum and we do post on it anything we like when we posted on RCU we had to comply with there rules I.E. no ebay ECT.
The guys here are members of a club and as such I tried to inform U.K. residents about it by sending them P.Ms on RCU inviting them to Join our club pointing out it was free and we need there support in order to be able to organise meetings both local and national .Is this wrong I dont think so ,we were not trying to rob members from RCU, but inform the U.k.members of the RCU that we had formed a club, with the intension of holding meetings and swopping ideas how we could do this and swop/sell/buy from other members, post photos of what we are doing these are all things that happen in a club.
I admit that I sent P.Ms to other U.K. residents informing them about this site (club) and putting the website address in the P.M .But it was not my intension to rob members from the RCU or encouage them to leave or stop posting.I am the only one who is guilty of breaking the rules if I have.
The scorched earth approach that RCU have taken has upset members of this club and started an anti RCU feeling. This was not my doing but the RCU hitting at anything that dare say what are you doing why is only us Brits being blocked we are British and anyone who takes a bully boy approch it will get there backs up. There are American clubs with forums which use the RCU and openly say we are having a meeting see here for details then it will link a website which has a forum I have seen it .
If anyone should have been blocked it is me not all the guys who did get blocked they just responded in my support .
regards pete (971wright)
P.S.If anyone wants to forward this to RCU you can