Important, please read

[eXhale]

this is the kind of post i've always wanted to avoid but there is no more choice:

today we (the editors) have taken the decision to ban ***** from this message board. this come after long recurring discussions on the matter. his recent messages (especially this one (http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?action=showpost&postid=12576)) made it clear to us that he had very little to contribute to this community and his attitude was just making other people avoid the forum. (those who have been on the pre-***** era probably know what i'm talking about.). ***** may attempt to come back under another name but he'll be banned again as soon as he's identified.

to make it clear: this website is not a public space (it is hosted on a private, paid server) and, even though we try to be as open as possible, we've the right to decide to exclude a member if we feel he's harming the project. a lot of us have put a lot of efforts into this project and the kind of comment ***** made just doesn't reward those who brought positive contributions on that site. ***** is free to create his own message board if he wishes.

this decision doesn't come from a single action though. since he came here we've been trying to "accomodate" him by creating new forums for him (the backstage, the legal issues) and then by letting him moderate these forums. however it only worked the time we bent down to his requests and then he asked for more, and became threatening again when we did not do more. as the one who gets all the PMs when there are problems, i can say this has been nothing but a power game since he's here, and like the other editors, i'm way tired of all this.

as some have noticed yesterday ***** posted loads of articles on vjcentral, maybe in an attempt to prove his worth here, but we have found out that almost all (if not all) of these articles had been reposted from various other places (especially http://www.studio1productions.com/articles.htm) without the permission of the original author, something which is not allowed so these articles will be deleted shortly. i won't comment on the paradox of this situation.

we've also taken this opportunity to finally post the terms of service (www.vjcentral.com/tos.php). read it as you must agree with it to continue to post or visit VJCentral or VJForums. most of it is here to protect VJC (basically by stating you are solely responsible for the content of your posts) but there are also a few guidelines as for how to behave in this community. mostly a matter of maturity and respect but it's good to read it anyway.

if you have any question or issue regarding this and don't want to post it here, then email us at editors@vjcentral.com, this is a new email address which has been set up today and which forwards the email to all editors so we can discuss about it.

hopefully we can put all this behind and start moving forward again.

[kommy]

good call
his motivations were plainly obvious from the get go
this is a fucking great site and its good to not let destructive people try to ruin it.
nice one

[fisheye]

tough descicion but completly understandable

[syzygy]

I share eXhales regret that things have come to this.

However, this decision had to be made.

Sometimes, differences between people can be put to one side for a common good. At other times, unfortunately, the differences in opinion are just too great and they get in the way of good things happening. At times like this, people just have to move on to somewhere new.

I'm sure we've all left a bar soon after entering, when we realise that we are just not compatible with the people there.

It has become clear that VJForums is just not the place that ***** wants it to be. He is not prepared to compromise in order to fit in. That is fair enough - noone is forced to fit in - everyone has the right to leave.

In this case, ***** has chosen to post threats against members rather than simply leaving a place that he doesn't seem to like all that much anyway. He has also posted copyrighted material to VJCentral. These are thinks that are no acceptable.

If enough people share *****'s views then a new site will, I'm sure, spring up to serve them. If that is the case then I for one wish it well. The growing VJ scene is going to need a diversity of places to meet up.

Dan.

[complexvisuals]

Tough call eX. It is good to have a bit of a debate going on, but, *****'s style of slander, mocking and abusive posting/chatting has no place here.

If you didnt boot him I think people would have stopped visiting.

Well done

Cian
COMPLEX

[scarab]

Originally posted by eXhale

as some have noticed yesterday ***** posted loads of articles on vjcentral, maybe in an attempt to prove his worth here, but we have found out that almost all (if not all) of these articles had been reposted from various other places (especially http://www.studio1productions.com/articles.htm) without the permission of the original author, something which is not allowed so these articles will be deleted shortly. i won't comment on the paradox of this situation.


so much for the copright issue he is so hard fighting for!!!

[charlielangridge]

As fun as it is to take the piss, i think it's a bit tight. He's gone, let's end the matter there.

[fluchtpunkt]

respect for what was surely not an easy decision to make.

[holly]

***** was single-handedly responsible for forcing out at least 6 female VJs (all who contacted me personally) and probably more who never posted, after he hijacked the thread Female VJs??? with threats and insults against women. One of the VJs who left was the originator of the thread foryoureye! These women have made it clear that they have little to no interest in coming back or contributing again. They were offended not just by him, but that others defended his "right to free speech" and even complained about censorship after something was finally done about it. There was never a free speech issue. He led a deliberate and vehemont campaign to shut women out of what he felt should be his domain. It'll take a while for the forum to recover.

He managed to threaten, insult, and degrade everyone who raised their hand at some point or other, and EVERYONE did their part to try to reason with him. His goal was to be a disruption, the center of attention, and to proclaim his dominance over the rest (? wait, those are my goals as well.... hrmmmm) and almost nothing more. Unbelievably, he even started a campaign that forum hosts should be more equal than members! (Orwell's words, not *****'s) He was just an ass.

There was a suggestion a while ago that since I'm always posting so much anyway I should do my part and host a forum. I didn't because of him, and because the mysterious authorities of VJF seemed to refuse to take the necessary action to stop him. It was something he thought you would never have the balls to do (his words, not mine), and because of that he just became more of an ass and more confrontational. I had lost all faith that the forum was going to last ? I think a lot of people did. Everyone has been raw and tense and expecting a fight for the slightest comments. Now maybe we can all breath.

Thank you for restoring my faith in this project and community. I hope to be able to commit more time and resources to it in the near (and far) future. Don't you dare regret or apologize for finally taking necessary action. It will take some time to rebuild the bonds we lost, but now we can get back to business. (and hopefully start having a good time again!)

[michaelheap]

here here holly,

I for one fealt threatened, not physicaly as to anyone who has me can testify, but on a emotional issue, as an artist i make statement, contriversial or not to get a rise out of people, this is partialy why i started the copyright thread, beyond all reasnoble argument ***** steams in and starts spouting SHI*E about this that and the other and questioning peoples profesionalism.

there are any number of profesionals here and the only definition of profesional i know is you rely on what you to feed you & pay your rent. a number of people do that.

what i resent, is the amount of time and money, i spend behind the scenes in the uk to promote Vj culture, above and beyond the call of duty, then some one questions what i do & how profesional i am, i realy got close to pulling the plug, shutting up shop and giving up.

please remind me the nextime ***** shells out a shedload of cash from his buisness to pay for a Wine & Demo for the heads of industry, including representatives from panasonic, roland, pioneer, arts funding bodies & government agencys, to the tune of ?15,000.

And the next time he runs an event for VJ's by VJ's to showcase tallent, or runs a Vj competition in partnership with deisel - u - music again trying to promote vj's remind me not to bother next time.

[Anyone]

You're gone 24 hours and the whole VJC world changes...!

Really happy with the decision, glad to see someone had the guts.

I guess we should take a lesson out of this and remember to respect each other on one hand and also to be more firm with members being out of order, on the other hand...

will he be back? ("I'll be back":cool: ) carefull about *****'s alter egos!

Ne1

[LEVLHED]

911 footage = a terrorist?
oh please, thats really grasping at straws...you can't be serious...
Don't kid yourself about this being all about eX vs. G either...***** has been asking for this since day one, from all of us.

[holly]

Oh, just delete her dumb post. She asked you to. NO, on second thought, keep everything they ever said and change their member status to "revoked" or "abuser status" or some sort of ephigy in the town's square. That statement is just as asinine as they are, and if anyone ever wonders why they were excused it will be obvious.

As someone who LIVES in NYC and breathed burning steel, asbestos, and human remains for months after 9/11.... Ugh. Whatever. Like everyone doesn't already know that eX is working on a nightly-news-cover-up-government-conspiracy project.

Two words, Debz:
buh-bye

[many2]

It even seems like the atmosphere is already much better here, I feel that pronoia (the opposite of paranoia, i.e. you feel everyone just want to help you) thing coming back.

A second advantage to *****'s ban is that it has established a standard here. The message will be clear now : don't act like ***** or you'll get banned, as simple as that.

As for the terrorism and other attempts to change the subject of the current thread, please have my full moral support. You built this virtual house for us Exhale, and today you've made it a better place to live in.

Many-2

[Primebase3]

have to agree with complex: debatting should be done like gentleman (with alittle bit of hoodrat :)) G had points but linking to something like 9-11 is simply sota man : not done. I was going to object and ask more for why: but draggin' 3000+ deaths to dis ex is wack,pure and simple.


it's not a decision I would/ or even could have made, but I see why it would have come to that: if only you could communicate better with the peeps here ,shit would be mad tight. damn shame...

[holly]

Can you believe that crackpot just emailed me her dumb 9/11 post?
Two more words, Debz:
Block Sender

Time for more green, Prime. I almost understood you that time.:p

[Primebase3]

im working on my wordplay to uphold the TOS lol :)

[fisheye]

17:20:43 [fisheye] *****, it would be impossible for ya to create some footage, your on this forum day and night typing the longest loveletters i've ever seen...

17:23:20 [*****] fisheye> dickhead.. Im sitting here with a render fame and prolly more lappy layin about than you could imagine. which is why I can say from experience that VJing on a lappy is wank

How happy can you get ????

fI

[PilotX]

Just wanted to say fair play to eX and the others involved in the decision to boot *****. It's a shame that not all people can get on, but at the end of the day every effort was made to accomodate *****, and he didn't respond in a way that helped the community.
Bitter-sweet day really. (although it will be a calmer place round here.. )



Tom
syzygy visuals

[eirenah]

you've got 100% support from me about this hudge decision, and i would like you (eX and editors) to consider to ban Debisioux also. she's pure copy/paste of ***** and will keep spreading negative vibe same as he did (she allready does!).

eirenah

[holly]

And while you're at it the lapdog is barking, too.

[Rovastar]

JUst to say that alhough ***** has left us i wish to thank his contribution to the forums.

Admittedly (and and would say it to his face) that sometimes he was over the top and ffencive about what he was taking about, he had valid points.

He was trying to bring Vj'ing more professional. this is a difficult task,in the current climate,and one that we should all realise.

*****s actions where not always pretty we his objectives often were.

This is not a defence post of ***** but more of a realistic reponsentation what happened here.

and aI am drunk......:)

I would like us more to show more respect I understand that X had difficult dissisions (and I am glad you are still with us X after your pressures on VJC/F and that is good maybe less PM's now. :) ) but please be fair about what good things *****has done foe us...:)


later

Rova

[MoRpH]

Honestly mate I don't think anyone would disagree that there were nuggets of gold in *****'s posts unfortunately after repeatedly being asked he would not (or could not) state them in a no offensive way :(

[Mattbot]

This decision to kick ***** has my support; he was certainly affecting my enjoyment of VJC and the enjoyment of many others it seems as well. X's handling of the situation seems responsible and I appreicate his openness on the details of his decision.

However, other people mentioned banning some other offensive members as well but I don't think that is called for or helpful. With the sheer quanity of *****'s abrasive posts it was just about impossible to ignore him. I don't think anyone else has gotten close to that point. Removing ***** was removing a clear threat (self-declaired) to the VJC online community; removing a few people based on a handful of annoying posts is less justifable censorship. I'm willing to tolerate the occation blowhard until their voices begins to dominate a good portion of the threads on the boards such as ***** did.

I also like the idea of a "banned member" flag appearing with the banned's old posts; it clearly shows the community standards. I hope it's technically feasible.

[KillingFrenzy]

I think we all will miss *****'s info and tips, but I'm afraid I can't say I'll miss *****. The admins have been more than patient, so I'm sure they'll keep banning to appropriate cases.
Thanks for providing the site, and thanks for making tough decisions.
I somehow missed the whole incident with the "thread hijacking," but I would suggest that anyone that knows someone who left the site from that incident please let them know that as a community we could probably be given a second chance. I find it a shame to think people are completely disenfranchised with the forums, when they are very well-intended.
Perhaps we can get some proper, spirited debates going. I'll think we'll see something more interesting then ***** vs. his perception of the rest of us. I'm looking forward to disagreeing with somebody else for a change.

Sleeping a little more peacefully tonight,

[MatFx]

Support your decision eX.

[brain]

100% support

that he hadn't been banned earlier makes me respect this place and people for tolerance + nerves.

that he had been banned at all makes me love this place and it's people for showing guts and the ability to defend and prevent this forum to be turned into a useless powerplay arena.

right on!

brain

[ristuuk]

Sometimes you may think so but its not all bad in belfast.

[naiveHQ]

hard call to make...but it goes to show someone has a vision worth
standing up for. 100% support.

[InsideUsAll]

I think most people who I've spoken to who've had anything to do with this site would agree, ***** has upset too many people now. That last post which Ex highlighted at the start of this thread was plain offensive. He may have had some valuable input at times, but theres plenty of other people around to fill the gap he left.

I'm sure he's still around somewhere though, [maybe the phantom hexstatic post?] if your reading this G here's a picture for you...

http://www.btinternet.com/~dginside/visuals/divide.jpg

copyright: Les Edwards 1994 [thought I better add that]

[audioillusions]

Is it me or have all of *****'s posts been removed! Particualry form the latest additions section, where the the answers to relevant technical issuse have been deleted.

Is this *****'s revenge, or an act of VJC, as an example of what can happen when people go too far with their posts?

Either way it's kind of a shame, i personally support the banning of ***** from future posts, even though i have been here for a relativly short time i already was in the habit of skimming past what he had to say, not becuase it was irrlevant, but his attitude towards trying to help people just bugged me from day one...

and how come his VJ Karma shot right up aswell? can anyone explain how the karma thing works here...

Cheers,

OpTrix

[sleepytom]

***** asked for his posts to be removed

The vjc karma thing works by giving you points for contributions to vjc - each artical gets you some points. ***** copyed and pasted a load of very good articles from the studio1productions (http://www.studio1productions.com/articles.htm) website - however these too have now been removed - ironicly we had to remove these articals as we suspect the ***** didn't have permission to repost them from the copyright owners!!

[BrainStove]

Originally posted by jaffa808
Before judging *****'s standpoint too harshly, we must remember that his income, mortgage, food on the table etc comes entirely from his business (i.e. he has got something to lose if things go tits up for a few weeks). Just imagine that reality for one moment and you may have a different viewpoint.

The above quote comes from the Jaffa?s post in the "Law & Ethics Discussions > copyright or copy left its your choice" thread.

However also, someone said once this: "Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes then you will be a mile away and you'll have his shoes!"

So, put yourself in other people shoes...

Yeah that?s true, but to understand better all the situations/positions; the key and hardest part here is wear those shoes not thinking/being like you are, but thinking/being like the original shoes owner really is.

[KillingFrenzy]

Hmm...

I just don't see how the shoe-wearing example applies. I think of all the little decisions/epiphanies I've had in my life about how to treat other people. I think ignoring these, or worse, purposefully choosing a path that is focused on being a self-serving debaser are beyond "put yourself in their position" and extend into "why do they put me into this position?" Putting yourself in someone elses shoes in this case would imply some sort of victimization of the original shoe-wearer, whereas constantly feeling put out makes you the victim. ***** was constantly portraying himself as some sort of victim, while really I think he was making us the receivers of his abuse. I chose to remove myself from most arguements with him, because I didn't want to feed into that. I felt mediating that one issue with NE1 was my effort to "give him the benefit of the doubt." I think his abusive relationship grew to encompass the whole site, and the site admins made the wise decision to sever that relationship. Very reasonable. No more "victimized" *****, and no more site under abuse. We're losing one voice of insight among many, whereas he loses a whole community of information and ideas. I'd say he made some bad decisions. The shoes don't make the man.

[brain]

*** brain's official LAST ***** post ***

a lot of time and patience was used trying to get along with him.
he decided to be offensive instead of cooperative.

he had been given a lot of chances and he blew them all.

his business was not endangered by the community, although many times he tried to make it look that way.

at least no one here said he would like to see other people starving on the streets - like he did.

now he's got much more time to take care of his business and "true Vjing".
good for him, good for us. :cool:


brain

[foryoureye]

4youreye is back!
But not because ***** is banned, I simply have been on holiday:) people like him can`t keep me away from this forum.
But you can believe me, I won`t mourn for good old *****!
Ciao *****, Ciao!

cu,
eva

[WordVirus23]

wow... I made honorable mention on his hit-list. LOL
..james...

Originally posted by eXhale
this is the kind of post i've always wanted to avoid but there is no more choice:

today we (the editors) have taken the decision to ban ***** from this message board. this come after long recurring discussions on the matter. his recent messages (especially this one (http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?action=showpost&postid=12576)) made it clear to us .

[scarab]

don't you think it would be a good idea, after all *****'s posts are deleted, that this thread should be deleted too?

if somebody new will scan through all this old threads he'll get scared of us!

i think it would be fair!

[Anyone]

Originally posted by BrainStove

However also, someone said once this: "Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes then you will be a mile away and you'll have his shoes!"



*** last ***** post from Ne1 ****

Just a note ***** didnt put himself in my shoes when he called AKA to say Vectors was (suposedly) breaking the law. And he clearly said he had no interest in putting himself in my shoes. I could carry on but nuf time waisted...

Ne1

[Rovastar]

CAn we delete all the posts that ***** has done?
for 2 reasons.

Newbies wil get teh impression of a more professional forum

and aso ***** want this to happen too.

He is gone from VJC/VJF and will not be back
.

What you say.,

[syzygy]

Rovastar,

The problem with deleting all posts from a member is that doing so would render a lot a threads unintelligable.

This issue is currently in discussion so nothing has been decided yet.

Dan.

[bluntfaktory]

although i liked *****'s angry notes as we thought they where tremendously entertaining , i am a true believer in the focus of the positive . i love this forum , i think we are all in this together and it's great to hear everyones ideas and experiences . i don't think it's to much to ask people to be polite , then ask them to leave if there not , it's what i do in my house after all ! G
:nod: :nod:

[scoopmeisterTF]

This is my first time in VJC/VJF for a while. I'm back 'cos I heard about *****'s removal at Project Ozma last Friday . . . .
I can't say I'm an expert on these matters but what little study I've done into personality profiling suggests to me that the G belongs to the most combative 10% of the population, those who can only communicate via conflict. This in itself need not be an issue (plenty of my closest colleagues and friends fits this basic profile too) if it can be handled with awareness and respect for others. Last year I removed many of G's ilk, that didn't feel able to handle themselves and were draining my energy, from my (lighting designer) client book and I fear I let VJC/VJF slip in this spirit almost as soon as I had arrived . . . . Just reading the posts that are now online shows how much stale air has now been blown away. To Exhale, you have clearly shown great tact in your actions and my respect goes out to you for your approach to all this . . . .
Sorry to be a late poster on this one but just needed to show how things have improved . . . . Love to all . . . .