jared isnt a hardman, he just likes to play with hard men ;-*

he was a long time ago but turned good ages before he got permed.

[QUOTE=Kalmah;13665855]I suppose, but now you have to go through the hardship of being the 06 "noob", whatever the hell that means[/QUOTE]

I don't really care. It's just a forum. The people that know who I am or are in the process of figuring out who I am, are the only ones that matter anyway.

Seriously, make me mod, been here 4 years, I'll sort the place out.

Long ago, I asked for a simple change in the way we accept members.

Anyone caught with 2 accounts be permabanned. IP ban em as well. Even though you childish losers find workarounds, thats ok too. Just keep banning them. We never allowed 2 accounts or 3 accounts per user, and we banned people for it. Why did that change? How hard is it to query an IP address and match them up? Based on WHOIS and DNS lookups, you can always tell someone who's using a proxy. Ban them. No questions asked. I don't care if this affects losers who post on school time. So sorry, post when home from now on.

Every single user who signs up MUST use a valid email address, and it cannot be used again. Yeah I know hotmail accounts are easy and free, but if someone is willing to go through all that trouble just to have multiple accounts, their issues run a lot deeper then banning them would solve.

Close the spam areas. FOREVER. Just keep the Instrument forums and the Genre forums, and that's it. Keep a "Penthouse" for users with VALID reputation and/or membership length, and thats really it. With the way users abuse rep like it's a popularity contest, it's no surprise to find spammers and hackers with massive amounts of rep.


The fact that anyone would maintain this place for you ungrateful co[size=2]c[/size]ksuckers is almost shocking. Jeremy was truly nice and professional back in the day. Now you d[size=2]i[/size]ckheads proved you deserve none of it. I mean really. It's not serious business, but it aint like anyone is making money of your idiocy. This place was once truly enjoyed for music and players and musicians alike. Beinding to a whim of illegal tabs? Should Jeremy go to jail because you suck at transcribing?

I swear I'd shut it all down at this point.

Haha quite petty really

[QUOTE=DBoon's Ghost;13665899]Long ago, I asked for a simple change in the way we accept members.

Anyone caught with 2 accounts be permabanned. IP ban em as well. Even though you childish losers find workarounds, thats ok too. Just keep banning them. We never allowed 2 accounts or 3 accounts per user, and we banned people for it. Why did that change? How hard is it to query an IP address and match them up? Based on WHOIS and DNS lookups, you can always tell someone who's using a proxy. Ban them. No questions asked. I don't care if this affects losers who post on school time. So sorry, post when home from now on.

Every single user who signs up MUST use a valid email address, and it cannot be used again. Yeah I know hotmail accounts are easy and free, but if someone is willing to go through all that trouble just to have multiple accounts, their issues run a lot deeper then banning them would solve.

Close the spam areas. FOREVER. Just keep the Instrument forums and the Genre forums, and that's it. Keep a "Penthouse" for users with VALID reputation and/or membership length, and thats really it. With the way users abuse rep like it's a popularity contest, it's no surprise to find spammers and hackers with massive amounts of rep.


The fact that anyone would maintain this place for you ungrateful co[size=2]c[/size]ksuckers is almost shocking. Jeremy was truly nice and professional back in the day. Now you d[size=2]i[/size]ckheads proved you deserve none of it. I mean really. It's not serious business, but it aint like anyone is making money of your idiocy. This place was once truly enjoyed for music and players and musicians alike. Beinding to a whim of illegal tabs? Should Jeremy go to jail because you suck at transcribing?

I swear I'd shut it all down at this point.[/QUOTE]

"This place was"
"Jeremy was"
"There was a time"

No offense man, because you know I respect you and your opinions on here, but you've been here since 2001. You've been here only two years longer than I have and you make it sound like this place was a paradise and I know that it sure as hell wasn't when I signed up. If the forums went downhill that fast, in just a couple of years, that suggests that the staff is doing something wrong to provoke negative changes.

unfortunately, I don't think anyone that is guilty of this, to some degree, would even pay attension to this thread.

I'd say be harsher

mx should have a secret police, like unnamed mods who just look like regular users with low post counts. They can perma ban and temp ban people and not get bitched at because peopel won't even know who they are. Seriously, they can have all the features of a regular user.

[QUOTE=Apollyon;13665926]"This place was"
"Jeremy was"
"There was a time"

No offense man, because you know I respect you and your opinions on here, but you've been here since 2001. You've been here only two years longer than I have and you make it sound like this place was a paradise and I know that it sure as hell wasn't when I signed up. If the forums went downhill that fast, in just a couple of years, that suggests that the staff is doing something wrong to provoke negative changes.[/QUOTE]

I take no offense, as I trust your opinion and respect you as well bro, and you know that. I just think everyone was a lot "closer" knit, and it was less of a spamming flamefest and more of building a good place for discussion.

However, as far as popularity, the place blew up and got a lot more popular. It was never a paradise persay, but we had this place under lock and key. We didn't have too many issues with hackers, because the spam wars were kept in check because of good moderation and excellent communication among the staff at the time. Hacking was never a problem for us until certain users, who oddly enough are more or less still members. What happened to permabanning people? Criteria has also changed apparently for picking new mods. Popularity overruled sensability.

You won't get a good quality forum when people are able to join on their own accord.

Apollyon, I think its incredibly misleading to suggest that people posting p*orn pictures of my girlfriend is somehow my fault.

Here's my "welcome to the real world": MusicianForums is my hobby, not my life. Your statements suggest that you think I could spend about 10 hours a day policing the forums and adding all sorts of nifty features for people, pro bono. I go to school, have a life outside of the websites, and do this for fun and not as a job (I don't make any profit). So the whole "it's all your fault because you don't work hard enough" argument is ridiculous and fails to account for the true "real world." It's not my job to clean your guy's diapers, and it's not unreasonable for me to ask for a change. If you were paying me, maybe I'd owe you something, but you're not, not even with ad revenue, which doesn't cover hosting expenses. So pinning it up on me is really a copout.

Maybe if you guys were actually nice and at least somewhat respectful I would be around here more...almost everytime I post I get the opposite. No real incentive to help you guys, eh? Especially when some of the same people who made prank phone calls to my family and mauled pictures of my girlfriend are asking for features and changes! No thanks.

[QUOTE=Stevie;13665969]You won't get a good quality forum when people are able to join on their own accord.[/QUOTE]

Which is why you don't let people post until they verify their email address by clicking on a link in their mailbox. How many times would anyone really do that if they were just setting up spam accounts?

[QUOTE=mx;13665178]So what I'd like to ask is.. why? Did we moderators screw up by not having enough oversight to begin with? Is there just an influx of members who are too young? Is there a bad culture on the boards? Are there too few rules, too many?

In short, what's it going to take for you guys to shape up? We need to have a board where people can have fun, but that also has rules and where moderators and members are respected. There are plenty of examples of successful boards across the internet where this is the case... I honestly spend my time at these boards instead of at my own when I seek conversation. This shouldn't be the case.

So I guess we have two options:

1) Moderators and me can become draconian and enforce our authority (which does exist, and has to exist to keep the site running). We can go on banning sprees, delete posts entirely, and clean up spam by deleting anything remotely close to it.

2) You guys can stop acting like jerks to the moderators and members at the site, and create a peer-supported culture that discourages trolls, hackers, and flamers. This means that instead of laughing or posting spam posts in spam threads, you tell people to stop. Pretty simple. It's perfectly possible to have fun without being idiots.

Right now #1 is probably going to happen very soon if things don't shape up. We've lost the impetus to explain our actions to the community, hence the removal of the site forum. We're close to the end of the line.[/QUOTE]

I would start with #1. Perhaps after people see that this crap won't be tolerated, then #2 will begin to happen on it's own. As it is right now, #2 will never happen though without something to kick start it.

I also think it's good that you got rid of the site forum. People shouldn't have a place to whine about why they were banned. The fact that they were banned should be enough of a reason for them to improve their act and prevent further bans.

I also think your bans are way too short. If anything but the smallest rules were broken (double post, a single post of spam, etc) then permaban or at least ban for a couple of months. If people repeatedly cause trouble then ip ban them or permaban on sight. I'm not around as much as I used to be so I don't know the whole story but some of the programming forums that I frequent have stuff like this in place and I [I]never[/I] have to sort through a bunch of garbage like I do on here.

That said, I would definitely understand if you took the forums down. I would of probably done when mxtabs went down.

[quote]Which is why you don't let people post until they verify their email address by clicking on a link in their mailbox. How many times would anyone really do that if they were just setting up spam accounts?[/quote]

There are a lot of gimmicky email sites that are set up just for this purpose.

[QUOTE=DBoon's Ghost;13665899]Long ago, I asked for a simple change in the way we accept members.

Anyone caught with 2 accounts be permabanned. IP ban em as well. Even though you childish losers find workarounds, thats ok too. Just keep banning them. We never allowed 2 accounts or 3 accounts per user, and we banned people for it. Why did that change? How hard is it to query an IP address and match them up? Based on WHOIS and DNS lookups, you can always tell someone who's using a proxy. Ban them. No questions asked. I don't care if this affects losers who post on school time. So sorry, post when home from now on.

Every single user who signs up MUST use a valid email address, and it cannot be used again. Yeah I know hotmail accounts are easy and free, but if someone is willing to go through all that trouble just to have multiple accounts, their issues run a lot deeper then banning them would solve.

Close the spam areas. FOREVER. Just keep the Instrument forums and the Genre forums, and that's it. Keep a "Penthouse" for users with VALID reputation and/or membership length, and thats really it. With the way users abuse rep like it's a popularity contest, it's no surprise to find spammers and hackers with massive amounts of rep.


The fact that anyone would maintain this place for you ungrateful co[size=2]c[/size]ksuckers is almost shocking. Jeremy was truly nice and professional back in the day. Now you d[size=2]i[/size]ckheads proved you deserve none of it. I mean really. It's not serious business, but it aint like anyone is making money of your idiocy. This place was once truly enjoyed for music and players and musicians alike. Beinding to a whim of illegal tabs? Should Jeremy go to jail because you suck at transcribing?

I swear I'd shut it all down at this point.[/QUOTE]

I was going to post something like this, but wasn't sure, so I didn't.

Yes, there should be more banning. None of that temp ban crap. Just ban problem users straight out. We've got an admin that can undo the ban if it perhaps wasn't justified. The temp ban serves no purpose whatsoever.

Yes, only one account per member. I think you need a unique email address as it is, anyway. But there's no reason to have more than one account. There should be a waiting period before you can post. There should be a longer TIMED waiting period before you can start threads. Not based on post count, but how long you've been here, like a week or something.

Not sure if this is possible, but there should be a limit to the number of threads a user can start in a week. Seriously. If you can only start two threads a week, you're not going to waste them on stupid bullshit that makes this place suck. I hate it how a thread is here one day and gone the next. Threads should stick around on the front page for at least a couple days before being bumped off. I mean, if I don't post for a couple days, then all the threads I'm involved with are gone when I come back. So what's the point in even posting?

Threads should be deleted, not closed. I don't see the point in keeping a useless thread around, taking up space on the front page.

Mod elections.

there just needs to be some other source of internet drama

[QUOTE=mx;13666010]There are a lot of gimmicky email sites that are set up just for this purpose.[/QUOTE]

Yeah I know. It's ridiculous the extent people would go to just to spam a message board.

It's almost like you should make it private and make membership a much tougher process somehow. Like having to be referred and approved or the forums are unreadable and you cannot post as a guest.

I dunno man. People really do benefit from it and enjoy it. It's not fair to make 1000 suffer because 100 a stupid.

[QUOTE=mx;13665977]Apollyon, I think its incredibly misleading to suggest that people posting p*orn pictures of my girlfriend is somehow my fault.

Here's my "welcome to the real world": MusicianForums is my hobby, not my life. Your statements suggest that you think I could spend about 10 hours a day policing the forums and adding all sorts of nifty features for people, pro bono. I go to school, have a life outside of the websites, and do this for fun and not as a job (I don't make any profit). So the whole "it's all your fault because you don't work hard enough" argument is ridiculous and fails to account for the true "real world." It's not my job to clean your guy's diapers, and it's not unreasonable for me to ask for a change. If you were paying me, maybe I'd owe you something, but you're not, not even with ad revenue, which doesn't cover hosting expenses. So pinning it up on me is really a copout.

Maybe if you guys were actually nice and at least somewhat respectful I would be around here more...almost everytime I post I get the opposite. No real incentive to help you guys, eh? Especially when some of the same people who made prank phone calls to my family and mauled pictures of my girlfriend are asking for features and changes! No thanks.[/QUOTE]

I had nothing to do with any of that. If you want to take that out on me and everyone else then so be it. It isn't just your fault, but you're not free of blame either. Your methods for picking staff members are laughable, your public relations are nearly non-existent, and then you want to sit back and say, "It's all your guys' fault! I did nothing wrong!" It's pretty much a one-sided debate on both sides of the spectrum and no one is ever going to gain any ground with attitudes the way they are right now.

Anyway, thanks for blowing up on me when all I did was reply to your thread with much the same mindset that you seemed to be in when you made it.

[quote]There should be a waiting period before you can post. There should be a longer TIMED waiting period before you can start threads. Not based on post count, but how long you've been here, like a week or something.[/quote]

Right now it's a day. I don't want to discourage new, legitimate users that much

After reading some of MXs posts, I have to say I'm alarmed he even throws this place a bone after a while :/

[quote]I had nothing to do with any of that. If you want to take that out on me and everyone else then so be it. It isn't just your fault, but you're not free of blame either. Your methods for picking staff members are laughable, your public relations are nearly non-existent, and then you want to sit back and say, "It's all your guys' fault! I did nothing wrong!" It's pretty much a one-sided debate on both sides of the spectrum and no one is ever going to gain any ground with attitudes the way they are right now.

Anyway, thanks for blowing up on me when all I did was reply to your thread with much the same mindset that you seemed to be in when you made it.[/quote]

I'm not taking it out on you, I'm just pointing out the reasons why the administrator is disillusioned. Would you honestly feel inclined to help out more if things like that happened to you when you were trying to help? It's not like I see pron pictures and all of a sudden get thrilled at posting in the pit. You are suggesting that I get more involved every time people attack me personally. It's not a logical equation. I am not doing this is a job, it's not a duty. If you want me to be here and involved, don't be an *** to me and the moderators.

Of course I realize that my running of this forum has not been perfect. But that doesn't mean that everything a user does in violation of the rules is somehow my fault, or that nothing needs to change around here.

[QUOTE=mx;13666052]I'm not taking it out on you, I'm just pointing out the reasons why the administrator is disillusioned. Would you honestly feel inclined to help out more if things like that happened to you when you were trying to help? It's not like I see pron pictures and all of a sudden get thrilled at posting in the pit.[/QUOTE]

Hey man, I think it was way over the top too. I'm not disagreeing with you. I mean, if you really think that going completely Hitler on this place is going to improve it, or that it's even worth the effort to go to that extent, then by all means, go for it. I like to think that I'm an alright member here anymore, so I'm not too worried about doing anything that will get me banned.

All I'm suggesting is that you approach the situation from multiple levels. The staff, the board set-up, the user/moderator interaction and moderator duty execution - don't just take one course of action and be pissed off and disappointed if it doesn't work the way you hoped. If this place is too hard to administrate by yourself, then by all means get another admin. But really pay attention to who the users would like to see in that spot. There are a ton of ways to improve this place, but all of them involve making decisions [i]with[/i] the community.

Jeremy,

Have you never been actually able to take legal action? I remember you talking about how mx is a business and hackers interrupt that business. Or is there just no point, I guess there may not be. I mean I remember Jim telling me they were going to do something about Plexi, like legally... That never amounted to anything I guess. I remember when a mod called Adam's Dad and told him what he was doing lol...

But wow phone calls to your family... Damn, that's like harassment =/...

Really MX...

It all comes down to what motivated you to start this site to begin with. If you had a goal in mind, or something to gain from it (directly, or in-directly) you'd have to ask yourself if you are still getting some sort of benefit from it.

I personally don't see any need for justification if a course of action is set into place, whether it be banning users, or making changes 'for the better'. Sure, people will question it, whine, troll, etc, but those are ultimately the people you are attempting to target in the first place

I think I should renew my self appointed position as the MX Narc. It seemed to work for a little while.

[QUOTE=mx;13666039]Right now it's a day. I don't want to discourage new, legitimate users that much[/QUOTE]

yeah I thought of that. But I think there's a point where your priorities should shift from getting more members to having good members. The SA forum charges $10 for a sign up, and that doesn't discourage people from signing up. Not saying you should charge money, I'm just saying that if someone thinks this forum is worth their time, they'll wait a few days. If not, then the forum isn't really worse off without them. Combined with permanent bans, I think this is a good way to deal with people who cause trouble. If it takes 10 seconds to ban someone, and three days for them to get another working account, then the moderators are going to win over time. The user might persist, but they're going to grow tired of it before the moderators do.

I think he should just remove the pit and the ask mods thread for some time. It doesn't seem to help create a community, which is ultimately why it was created, nor is there any REAL discussion

There's no community in GD.

Kurrpt has theories!