Censorship at UnitedCardists

[CBJ]

How can the other mods stand by and watch this happen??

This goes against everything a forum is supposed to be. Mike deletes anything negative that affects his projects... how is this fair to every other project on this site???


Jay

[Loop Cuts]

I can see why your mad about it but he is just asking us to take our differences to another thread.

[Mike Ratledge]

How can the other mods stand by and watch this happen??

This goes against everything a forum is supposed to be. Mike deletes anything negative that affects his projects... how is this fair to every other project on this site??

Jay, that's why I asked you to take it aside, and not try to ride herd on other things. Right now you seem dead set on shining a light on anything that I do that isn't 100% to your likings, and that - in itself - is fine. What's not fine is you deciding you can do whatever you please and just taking the whole mess down the tubes.

If you want to talk about things, hell - if you just want to bitch at me - that's perfectly OK. I'm just not going to have it riding down everything else in the process.

[CBJ]

Robert,

I did have it another thread, and Mike deleted it.


Mike, same answer +... yes, deleting/censoring content off a forum is 100% not to my liking.

[CBJ]

2 mods have already stepped down, what does it take to make you realize you're in the wrong Mike??

[Loop Cuts]

Is this where I can vent and get away with it? GREAT!


I find it so sick that I go out of my way for you CBJ and this thread has more posts than the ONE YOU WANTED. Lets reveal it all since that is your style.

I'm going out of my way and your turning me away when no one is watching...

[CBJ]

Robert,

Feel free to post anything I say to you, because it's the same thing I would tell you to your face.

I really have zero interest is chatting with you one on one, and you know that... so I have no idea what posting our conversation accomplishes... did I say something wrong?

We're you trying to catch me doing something? Are you really in a position to vent after all you've done??

How did you go "Out of your way" for me? I want nothing to do with you at all.

[Loop Cuts]

Dude, you rant, demolish and crap on anything I'm near because you are stubborn! I've posted a thread that explains EVERYTHING from what happened years ago. Do I feel Like i'm in a position to rant. ABSOLUTELY! This is me, my name that you've worked so very hard to ruin. And you've taken every ounce of effort when you can to do so. I have friends that won't speak to me in fear that you'll behave this way. YES, I was an ass years ago, Yes I should have to answer to it. But not the way you expect me to. I am a human being and I will not tolerate it anymore. If you still have friends that need to be refunded, great! send them my way asap! They will know to contact me if they read my thread. I just don't know what else to say to you. Your wrong! Your very wrong and yes at this point, out of place. Get over it.

[CBJ]

This is me, my name that you've worked so very hard to ruin.

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH... whew.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH


I worked so hard to ruin your name?


Robert, I say this in all honesty. I am never letting it go.... period.

You are not a trustworthy person, and the deletion of all the thread/comments/complaints just makes it 1000 times worse.

[Loop Cuts]

You are never letting it go? That speaks a lot of you... I think we can close this case then. If you have enough self respect, could you please let those friends of yours that I owe come forward? You may be a lost cause but I'd at least like to help them.

[volantangel]

let those friends of yours that I owe come forward? You may be a lost cause but I'd at least like to help them.

The only line in the whole thread worth reading, please make right your wrongs, butler i know you have records of things in the past. look for them, not just let them come to you, thats the way forward.

[Loop Cuts]

I thought I had Volant, If I knew who was left... I would gladly go to them.

[Loop Cuts]

I usually don't participate in forums for this reason. I'm going back to facebook now. If I've not contacted you... It's because I don't know about you. Please come to me and I'll gladly help you any way I can. I have no interest in continuing all of this chaotic conversion. CBJ will never stop and no one took the time to actually comment on my thread. I've tried the best I can with the current knowledge that I have.

IF you need me you can contact me here: https://www.facebook.com/bobby.butler.908579" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cheers

[Eoghann]

Believe me, Jay. This has been a very hot topic at the mod section for weeks now. But there is simply no easy fix to this. We've implored, demanded, begged Mike to quit stomping out any negative instance of Butler..because it just looks bad, the truth shouldn't be suppressed or swept under the rug and he doesn't need bad press right now. He's agreed to it. To some extent. Having you, Mike, sinjin and Butler make every thread here into a battlefield just won't do. And I'll agree with Mike on that. Keep it focused to one section. This thread will remain open so you and everyone else willing can vent to their heart's content. But everyone keep it god damned civilized.

Sinjin, I need you to look on a thesaurus for a synonym for rape, I can't have you throwing that around willy nilly to illustrate your point for god's sake.

Butler: you've poured out your heart apologizing to everyone and their mother but as they say, actions speak louder than words. You've already offered to do right and make ammends. Jay, if you know so many people that have been wronged by Butler, send them his way. Isn't that what you want afterall? Justice? If he is willing to make things right why can't you collaborate? We don't do stake burnings anymore, so this will have to do. I'm not asking you to turn a page and forgive him. I'm asking both of you to work together to solve this. Butler says he's taken care of people he has wronged to the best of his ability, Jay says there's still people missing...it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

Butler, everyone is keeping a VERY close eye on you. Don't screw this up.

[Loop Cuts]

I SWEAR I WON'T SCREW THIS UP... Consider what I have on the line.... A serious last chance or I'll really be burned at the stake! I take this very seriously.. .Just let me work.

[CBJ]

Let's put RObert on the back burner for a sec, and talk about all the censorship.


If all the mods are totally against the censorship, how can Mike continue down this road????

[CBJ]

I usually don't participate in forums for this reason.

Let's be honest. You didn't participate in forums, because all the crap you did gave you a horrible reputation.

[sinjin7]

I agree that you have to control your boards to a degree so things don't run amok, but you just can't selectively remove or edit posts because you don't like it or feel its threatening your business venture, while valid criticisms of other business ventures are left alone, otherwise it reeks of conflicts of interest. We are potentially going down a VERY bad slippery slope here with this deleting or editing of posts.

We need to just put this issue of Robert Butler in one comprehensive thread, in the proper forum instead of hidden away and swept under the rug in an obscure forum, and just hash it out once and for all. Then hopefully we can all move on after this.

As far as my comments referencing rape, I understand its primary meaning is about a violent sexual assault on a woman or man, but I feel the term has become colloquial enough to be used to describe being taken advantage of in general. I certainly don't mean to offend anyone or be insensitive, but I certainly hope the PC police hasn't invaded this place to the degree where a colloquial term not even referencing race, religion, or gender is going to be put under such scrutiny. Having said that, if you have received complaints from others, or are personally offended yourself, please send me a PM.

[montecarlojoe]

Jay you know i was on the wrong end of Mike Ferrante's recaction rampage when I said things he didn't like - so you know how against this I am - and believe me and Eoghann says we are doing what we can - hot topic doesn't even start to describe it.

It's a very difficult question. Nobody likes it - we even drew up guidelines to govern it. But Mike has the keys and is prone to knee jerk reactions - but usually only when his buttons are pushed, and be honest you know you push 'em good!

The guidelines aren't fine tuned yet - but I wan't to include them with the forum rules when they are. Personally I think the whole thread should have been moved / locked pending a discussion of what to do had the notion of deletion been raised. But what happened happened.

Unfortunately the un-deletion of posts is more or less the only thin that's impossible on a PHPBB forum. Arguably that's a design flaw, but it's the case none-the less. If we could we most likely would recover deleted content - or at least enough to make the point.


Re "Rape" it has a perfectly valid definition that fits well here: an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation.
Having said that it's also a term designed to bait, so lets everyone try to dial back the antagonism, please.

[CBJ]

Jay you know i was on the wrong end of Mike Ferrante's recaction rampage when I said things he didn't like - so you know how against this I am - and believe me and Eoghann says we are doing what we can - hot topic doesn't even start to describe it.

It's a very difficult question. Nobody likes it - we even drew up guidelines to govern it. But Mike has the keys and is prone to knee jerk reactions - but usually only when his buttons are pushed, and be honest you know you push 'em good!

The guidelines aren't fine tuned yet - but I wan't to include them with the forum rules when they are. Personally I think the whole thread should have been moved / locked pending a discussion of what to do had the notion of deletion been raised. But what happened happened.

Unfortunately the un-deletion of posts is more or less the only thin that's impossible on a PHPBB forum. Arguably that's a design flaw, but it's the case none-the less. If we could we most likely would recover deleted content - or at least enough to make the point.


Re "Rape" it has a perfectly valid definition that fits well here: an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation.
Having said that it's also a term designed to bait, so lets everyone try to dial back the antagonism, please.

Wouldn't the RObert Butler/Lee Zarro thread be in the automatic archives Mike was talking about.

Couldn't you go back and retrieve that whole thread?

[montecarlojoe]

Not from within the boards or ACP - maybe from the CPanel but I don't have access.
I suspect it would be too late now anyway - a rolling daily backup of approx 7 days is a usual set up with maybe one monthly backup file. By now the back up that could have been recovered has been replaced with a more recent one.
And since it isn't a feature of PHPBB it would likely be an all or nothing situation - essentially rolling back the whole forum.

[Ben Taylor]

I haven't been active here for a while, so I haven't seen a lot of what's going on.

I remember a Sherlock deck after Jackson's. There was a question about whether it could be done legally after some agreement Jackson made with the estate. Then bam, thread locked, no more talking about this.

It seems to me that Mike's sole purpose for this forum is to milk money from the members. I feel like the community here has crumbled because of this.

[Eoghann]

I haven't been active here for a while, so I haven't seen a lot of what's going on.
It seems to me that Mike's sole purpose for this forum is to milk money from the members. I feel like the community here has crumbled because of this.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I would implore it be an informed one at least.

That said, I'd have to disagree. Community is livelier than ever and constantly growing. While the current atmosphere isn't one anyone is comfortable with, we're taking steps to resolve it.

How is he milking money if you don't mind me asking? Donations are voluntary, cardlauncher is a business like any other, and I've yet to see an instance where he's squeezed money out of people involuntarily.

[Ben Taylor]

I haven't actively posted, but it doesn't mean I haven't dropped in and looked around.

Anyways that's the impression I get when visiting this forum now. Having lots of posts doesn't automatically mean it's got a solid community spirit.

When Mike bought this forum, I thought he was an enthusiastic collector trying to preserve the community, and at that time, maybe it was true. But everything coming from him now seems to be about some new business venture.

[sinjin7]

I won't go as far as to say all Mike's trying to do is to milk UC members for money, but I do believe that all his various business ventures (that should be completely separate from UC) have started to negatively affect things here. And you can see evidence of this in Mike's posts and conduct over the past month.

A good example of this is the Cardy Awards. This has nothing to do with UC and competes with UC's Deck of the Year awards. Most people are uneasy (or outraged) about Robert Butler's involvement in this venture and I don't see much support for this, yet not only is Mike pushing on, he's got this irrelevant Award featured in the Announcement section on every single forum page. Again, this has nothing to do with UC, its a private business venture by Mike with a questionable partner, so at best it should just be a regular thread in the New & Custom Decks forum. It has no business being featured as an announcement on UC.

Another example is Mike's consulting business affiliated with CardLauncher, the Refinery. One of the main benefits of prospective deck designers getting involved with UC is the fair and honest critiques of their work. The collective knowledge of all the members here have proven to be a valuable asset in helping designers take their deck to the next level. How do designers know they'll get a fair shake now if they're not involved with CL? And even if they use CL, why pay for services they can get free here at UC? Is Mike going to forbid or censor advice here? Will the UC mods who are in business partnership with Mike on CL now stop giving advice as they had done in the past because they now have vested financial stakes in Mike's company outside of UC? This would be a tragic conflict of interest.

Based on Mike's posts and selective censorship of posts and threads, I don't see how other companies or deck designers not involved with Mike's other personal business interests can think they'll get a fair shake on our forums. If Mike or his mods read something they don't like or feel is a threat to their businesses, they're just going to delete or modify posts, or lock threads, or move them to obscure parts of the forum now? All these conflicts of interest are throwing up big red flags. All I know is once I see unreasonable or rampant censorship, I know this isn't the place for me. I'm not saying Mike and his mods won't ever find the appropriate balance, but it is a very fine line and I don't know if the direction things are heading is giving me much confidence.

[Mike Ratledge]

But everything coming from him now seems to be about some new business venture.

I'm pretty busy right now, Ben. I'd love to read and comment on every single thread, but I simply don't have time.

[Eoghann]

Jay's situation notwithstanding, I'd love to know who else we've been hushing. Victor's banning was obviously a mistake. But the man has a way of getting under people's skin, yet the banning was uncalled for so it was reversed.

If anything, the one we're working around the clock to censor is Mike. Who at the moment is prone to unleash comments that ruffle some feathers.

As for the Deck Refinery, give us a little credit sinjin. Of course the users involved wouldn't stop from providing free feedback to anyone visiting the forums. The Deck Refinery is a more in depth approach than just stopping by once in a while into the forums and offering a few pointers. The idea is still in its infancy. And the main objective is to provide guidance from the drafting phase to project management.

As it is right now it's still a concept.

We're also already trying to migrate any cardlauncher, deck refinery, cardy awards and anything business like away from UC into it's separate websites and forums. You're right, it has no business here and we're taking steps into fixing that up.

Just bear with us guys. While most of these ideas were given birth here in UC, they will eventually be their own entity.

[albinodragon]

Based on Mike's posts and selective censorship of posts and threads, I don't see how other companies or deck designers not involved with Mike's other personal business interests can think they'll get a fair shake on our forums. If Mike or his mods read something they don't like or feel is a threat to their businesses, they're just going to delete or modify posts, or lock threads, or move them to obscure parts of the forum now?

This is a big reason we rarely post here. The few times we did after Mike took over and we pointed out he was wrong on an issue, our posts were deleted.

[Cbkimble]

Would there be a way to make it so that no one person could delete a post or thread?

[Strag]

If Mike or his mods read something they don't like or feel is a threat to their businesses, they're just going to delete or modify posts, or lock threads, or move them to obscure parts of the forum now?

Woah, let's not throw the mods in that bucket. In many cases the mods are quite vehemently against some of the content that was posted and the mixing of the various business interests. In part this is why CBJ and myself both stepped down. I know there are other mods that don't agree with everything (or even the majority) of Mike's posts and to Mike's credit he is finally taking a step back and listening. Mods have been known to move/delete Mike's posts as well (although perhaps not as often as should have been done).

I am taking a wait and see approach but I do have hopes that things are looking better.