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Where we keep all the boring tidbits about the PHPDN site, the news, and what not.

Moderator: General Moderators

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jayshields
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Post by jayshields »

Personally, I think this whole matter is getting out of hand. As far as I'm aware, this is just a forum online where people get help with PHP problems, OK, people put a lot of time and effort into it and sometimes it becomes like a real community.

When I stand back and look at all this all I can see is the problem being made worse. As I said, this is a place where people get help with PHP problems, but you have gone and revoked the posting rights of the people who are the most helpful on here, leaving people with unsolved problems, giving them a bad impression of the forum as a whole.

Without new members joining and contributing slowly a forum like this would never work, an online community works similarly to carrying a bucket of water with a small hole in the bottom, while the water leaks out, more water gets put in to keep the balance right.

I can't really see where all this came from, OK, if 2 moderators have opinions that go against each other then no real problem should arise from it, but it has been blown out of proportion and it is being read into far too much.

This is just my opinion, from an outsiders point of view.
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trukfixer
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Post by trukfixer »

The best thing to do is for McGruff to step down as admin. The community will not stand for a dictatorship. If a mod or admin is personally involved in a thread or argument, they should allow *other* moderators to moderate the discussion , and when the mod team all agreed that McGruff should step down and back off, he demoted them. For those that don't already know- McGruff does not own this domain, or this board... Jason does.

Suppressing Dissent is not a fair nor equitable form of governing a board. Suppressing Dissent while publicly proclaiming open-ness is the worst kind of two-faced hypocrisy. Regardless of whether the dissent is public or private, it *is being suppressed*.
foobar
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Post by foobar »

trukfixer wrote:The best thing to do is for McGruff to step down as admin. The community will not stand for a dictatorship. If a mod or admin is personally involved in a thread or argument, they should allow *other* moderators to moderate the discussion , and when the mod team all agreed that McGruff should step down and back off, he demoted them. For those that don't already know- McGruff does not own this domain, or this board... Jason does.

Suppressing Dissent is not a fair nor equitable form of governing a board. Suppressing Dissent while publicly proclaiming open-ness is the worst kind of two-faced hypocrisy. Regardless of whether the dissent is public or private, it *is being suppressed*.
Amen to that.
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hawleyjr
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Post by hawleyjr »

McGruff wrote:I really can't say much when the other side doesn't have the opportunity to reply.
Also, in PM you told me your not sure how to use IRC. You can download a free IRC client called mIRC at http://www.mirc.com/ which a monkey could operate.

Feel free to speak, The following are blogs posted by banned (and non banned) members. They can talk via there blog.

Sami: http://m3mn0n.blogspot.com/
Roja: http://www.kabal-invasion.com/bugjuice/ ... v-net.html
enygma: http://blog.phpdeveloper.org/?p=20
Feyd: http://feyd-psych.blogspot.com/2005/11/ ... n-ith.html
Timvw: http://timvw.madoka.be/?p=436
TruckFixer: http://phplogix.com/codefool/?postid=14
Burrito: http://www.burritostand.com/burrstake.php

Also big shocker if you delete this post or ban me for posting this "non-rules-breaking-post" As far as I can tell, that has been your MO thus far.
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shiznatix
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Post by shiznatix »

i heard of another forum called the duce. im just looking for someones opinion on it, http://www.devnetwork2.net what do you think?
McGruff
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Post by McGruff »

Thanks hawleyjr but it's as much "can't be bothered" as not having used it before.

And thanks for the link shiznatix. I guess we're going to have some competition. Yet more thanks for keeping it civil.
McGruff
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Post by McGruff »

PS: don't take "can't be bothered" the wrong way. All I mean is that I think I can guess what's being said about me.
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hawleyjr
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Post by hawleyjr »

Basically there are tons of allegations towards you however; you have failed to even defend yourself. Makes it hard for anyone to understand why you did what you did. As far as I know, every person removed was illegitimately removed.

To be honest, I was surprised you even allowed this conversation to happen.

IMHO – Your actions have affected thousands of people, none of which are backing you.
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patrikG
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Post by patrikG »

McGruff,

you're probably deleting this thread anyway, but whatever.

So, you've created your little OOP Academy here in a coup d'etat. Wow, this is pretty unbelievable.

You know, it won't hurt if you grew up.

patrikG

edit: just read your post below. I am truly sorry, but with this, you've lost the last quarter-inch of respect I had for you somewhere. You can't really believe that you will achieve what you're trying to do here? Chilling, Noel. Simply chilling.
Last edited by patrikG on Sun Nov 13, 2005 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
McGruff
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Post by McGruff »

Hawleyjr: OK.

I have looked at a couple of the links posted but not all. Of course I've got wind of some of the stuff being said but I can't be sure I know everything.

First, the site was down for maintenance for several hours on Friday night. Genuine, announced-in-advance maintenance which the other moderators knew was planned, although I hadn't specified which day. It had already been put off longer than it should. Although this seems to have been perceived as some kind of dastardly plot, if you think about it an admin doesn't need to put the whole site offline just to change a few permissions.

The site had to be disabled in order to avoid the possibility of losing posts. If something went wrong with the update I'd have had to roll back (which also means grabbing an sql dump and verifying it in order to have something to roll back to: that's the main reason why it took so long). If something sensitive was lost there would have been hell to pay. Either way I can't win.

The next bit is purely my personal interpretation of recent events.

OOP v procedural topics need to be tightly moderated. The discussion frequently degrades into squabbling but I'd like this to be the one board on the planet where discussion takes the form of a technical debate. If someone gets out of line I'll warn them. If they ignore warnings I'll start moderating. I'm going to give away a secret now to anyone who might one day be on the receiving end: what I'm looking for is evidence of good faith. Nobody's perfect, certainly not me (recently I nearly got banned on another board after I weighed in to some satanists who, to my shame, turned out to be very nice people but that's another story). However, I do expect you to sort yourself out. I remember banning someone in the past, receiving a much more reasonable email shortly after, and reinstating them as quickly after that. On the other hand, bad faith - ie deliberately spoiling for a fight - gets short shrift.

It's really very simple: geeky, techy talk good, flames and rants bad.

When things go wrong, the worst thing is that someone who asks a question gets caught in the crossfire. Nobody gets a chance to learn anything if the technical issues are buried under a mountain of bile. Members become scared to ask questions in the first place for fear of starting another fight.

I'm usually taking part in these discussions myself and I have repeatedly been accused of censorship or of abusing my moderator powers in order to win an argument - and not just from the individual who got moderated, which always happens, but also by other moderators. The situation came to a head recently when an individual (whom I'm not going to name) made a problem post despite several previous warnings from myself about similar behaviour. We eventually got to a point where disagreements were spilling over into the forums and threats were made to remove me from my position. When things get to that stage it's no longer possible to work together. The situation has to be resolved one way or the other. I slept on it for a night but the options seemed just as stark the next day. As the senior admin, I resolved it.

If I felt I had acted badly I would have resigned but frankly I think it's a lot of fuss over nothing. To me, the real issue seemed to be that some people (not from the moderator team I should say) wished to kick OOP discussions off the park and I was determined not to allow that. It's far too important. I'm not entirely blameless; it's never that simple. At times I could have expressed myself better than I did but it all comes back to good faith again. You've got to find it in yourself and you've got to look for it in other people. Some just seemed to be spoiling for a fight. It's always like that in OOP v procedural.

Several moderators were demoted to ordinary members. Most of these also had their posting privileges removed until they could assure me that they would not discuss the matter in public. In the heat of the moment it's all to easy to let off steam and this was a hot one alright. After that, we negotiate.

At one point someone asked which of us was mad. I replied: "No-one. Everyone. Who can say?" But something had to be done. We couldn't run a forum as we were.
McGruff
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Post by McGruff »

Patrik: snide comments are not going to help anybody. Please, let's not go down that track.
d3ad1ysp0rk
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Post by d3ad1ysp0rk »

One thing I'm confused about. I can see where you would be justified in demoting others when it comes to arguments about random things, but when the issue is whether you are right or wrong, I don't feel you should be the one doing the moderating.

Also, has it ever crossed your mind that maybe it isn't that everyone else is out to get you, and instead, you may be overreacting, or wrong?

Just my opinion.
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hawleyjr
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Post by hawleyjr »

If I felt I had acted badly I would have resigned but frankly I think it's a lot of fuss over nothing.
How is banning & demoting the majority of the main posters NOT acting badly?
The next bit is purely my personal interpretation of recent events.
Your personal interpretation does not grant you the right to make a unilateral decision against the will of everyone on this board
I have repeatedly been accused of censorship or of abusing my moderator powers in order to win an argument - and not just from the individual who got moderated, which always happens, but also by other moderators.

We eventually got to a point where disagreements were spilling over into the forums and threats were made to remove me from my position. When things get to that stage it's no longer possible to work together. The situation has to be resolved one way or the other. I slept on it for a night but the options seemed just as stark the next day. As the senior admin, I resolved it.
Yes and here is everyone’s problem with what you did. As soon as there was word of you being asked to leave (by the other mods) you booted them! And that is why you are being compared to people such as Hitler. This forum isn’t your stage or your change to run a dictatorship.
We couldn't run a forum as we were.
So instead of resolving it the way that would make the most sense and the way that was elected by the governing power of the board, you decide to take action into your own hands and destroy the body that makes this board work...oh wait, apparently in your own little world you are the governing power of the board...

You don’t own this board. This board is owned by Jason and the users who contribute to it.

I HAVE NEVER HAD ISSUES WITH YOU UNTIL YOU DID THIS. CONGRATS ON TRYING TO RUIN A GREAT COMMUNITY.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

To me it still seems silly that this awesome community would be made to suffer because of something so stupid as conflicting opinions on coding style. Some of the most knowledgable and willing developers moderated this forum. Someone asked a question. Others responded (the way this community should). Someone said something that other users felt was offensive (I believe the response could have been worded in a more thoughtful way) and all hell broke loose.

Now the brightest members of this community are developing their own community and splitting what was previously the ONE place you could go to get PHP development help at any time of any day. I am on my way over to devnetwork2.net myself only because a single person, who is not the owner of this web site or community has been given power to make an owners decision and has yielded that power to the detriment of the people that the community serves.

Jason: I hope you get this thing straightened out quick.

McGruff: I suppose you have to do what you feel is right as the senior admin of the board. Just please take into consideration the number of developers this single decision is negatively impacting.
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

I find OOP vs Procedural debates funny, amusing, and thoroughly useless. They are two different approaches. There are supporters exclusive to each, as well as the fence sitters like myself who use both (depending on circumstances)

This however is definitely not funny. I keep checking the calendar, but it doesn't seem to be April 1.

A unilateral action by a single participant and moderator on a forum against the majority of other moderators leads to obvious conclusions in the vacuum of dependable open evidence. When the obvious is backed up by participants who are now demoted (and in some cases apparently banned) it stinks to high heaven.

Being banned and demoted lends a huge amount of weight to their POV - since I never saw THEM breaking the forum rules in public. So how is their removal justified? What rules did they break? What happened to openess?

Will I ever get a legible direct honest answer to these questions?

McGruff made a comment. It was a stupid comment. No doubt unintentional. It was made in a useless debate where there can be no winners. There were complaints. Moderators tried to enforce the rules (that's how it reads in public - so I don't particularly care what happened behind closed doors). They failed and were booted.

The rules are therefore broke, and the one provable case of their breaking remains.

It's a bad situation.

Until its resolved by people who act like adults in the real world, I refuse to participate in a helpful way on these forums.

The power of a forum lies in its participants - not its moderators. That people think otherwise is a grave miscalculation.
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