Apologies to the regulars.......

[Oriental]

Oriental,

Before you go and spit your dummy like Eric has done. (and make yourself look foolish as well) It would behoove you to do a little reading instead of making assumptions. If you had read the posts correctly, nowhere did anybody say anything about Eric being banned.

Even the last post by "Cheekybeek" before you posted indicated that he left (not banned). Please read the posts.

Thanks
sms

And had you read my post properly you would have realised that I was merely asking a question.

I even elaborated on the reason for my question and brought forward my views on what a possible censorship on this forum would generate of action from my part.

As I recently obtained information that Eric had previously been banned from this forum I wanted to know if the same had happened now.

I really like this forum and have used it on and off with much joy. But I cannot and will not accept censorship of voiced opinions that are not in breach of any Laws. The right to offend is a part of the freedom of speech. Whether one chooses to use that right is not for others to decide. Personally, I am not in the habit of offending others as I find it most times to be both stupid and unnecessary. But I will never suppress other peoples right to free speech and thus implicitly the right to offend.

[joop]

To all the usuals suspects and regulare,
I have stopped visiting the site as much as i used to. The primary reason is that i felt like something was lost during the first time Eric's name was banned several weeks ago - and i felt like some type of community spirit was lost - and i just felt less good about visiting the site - and so have drifted away. While Eric may be going a little overboard by deleting all his posts, i feel that a wonderful contributer will be lost - and that hypersensitive site monitoring is to blame.

Rgds, Wham from New Amsterdam

PS Can anyone tell me who as the spineless squid that banned him the first time?

It would be best if you could show some basic courtesy when you ask for certain information, Eric has apologised for causing nuisance in the beginning. So who's kicking up an old fuss now?

And Eric is now editing his post by putting on '.' on all his posts, and what do you think such childish pranks are for?

This board is meant for serious discussions and people like yourself or others may have treated it as a chatroom tete a tete corner, scaring people off the beauty and career threads, and thus may have discouraged many forumers to this board.

If you feel you are a avid supporter of Eric and you do not like the mods and admins here, then it's best for you to just stay away from the board. Since that's what you been doing and I guess that's the best option for you.

As for Eric, please..don't ask him to come back if he doesn't want to. He's a grown man and he can decide for himself.

Get over it.

[Oriental]

And Eric is now editing his post by putting on '.' on all his posts, and what do you think such childish pranks are for?

Perhaps to make a statement, which is his right.

This board is meant for serious discussions and people like yourself or others may have treated it as a chatroom tete a tete corner, scaring people off the beauty and career threads, and thus may have discouraged many forumers to this board.

And who's to decide what is serious or not? You?

If you feel you are a avid supporter of Eric and you do not like the mods and admins here, then it's best for you to just stay away from the board. Since that's what you been doing and I guess that's the best option for you.

Maybe I will. That is within my rights to do so!

And if it is imperative to you to keep this forum “pure”

[Plavt]

Oriental,
Joop was answering Wham's post not yours.


Plavt.

[Oriental]

Oriental,
Joop was answering Wham's post not yours.

I know. However, Joop's post had, in my opinion, such general implication that I felt compelled to answer. Had it been strictly a “for your eyes only”

[Mary Hatch Bailey]

This board is meant for serious discussions and people like yourself or others may have treated it as a chatroom tete a tete corner, scaring people off the beauty and career threads, and thus may have discouraged many forumers to this board.

If you feel you are a avid supporter of Eric and you do not like the mods and admins here, then it's best for you to just stay away from the board. Since that's what you been doing and I guess that's the best option for you.

As for Eric, please..don't ask him to come back if he doesn't want to. He's a grown man and he can decide for himself.

Get over it.

Joop, I hope with a little time and some distance you will see this as unduly harsh. I realise this has been a stretch of bad road for a lot of us, the mods and admins especially. But you know there is no play book, no safety net for we forumers-- we get admonished for bad behavior but no positive example is set. Your comment about the chatroom tete a tete makes me wonder if I too am on the outs with admin?

How are we to know? Seems at times, not always, but at times you guys keep letting out more and more rope until one of us hangs ourselves. If you're going to treat us like children then you need to act like parents.

[Vaucluse]

Eric has not been banned - he had a 'difference of opinion' with another forum member and has apparently decided to leave the forum and delete all of his posts

Not only that, he got the hump about his soccer thread being moved to the sports section and then made a post referring to me and sms as 'a couple of dorks' yet I never even read that thread let alone move it - unbelievable.

Plavt.

And you object to being called a couple?


As probably the primary reason why Eric spat his dummy, allow me to explain his second departure.
Eric disagreed with something I said, which is completely his prerogative, he then said he would leave forever and ever.
Shortly thereafter he returned to criticise the moving of the Football thread and called Plavt and SMS a 'couple'. (Hmm, why be upset at that?!)

I guess it's not that easy to erase one's history - which funnily enough was pretty much what our initial discussion that started the dummy-spitting was about.

Life goes on, I can't see anyone being censored - except for my Mr. potato-head thread in the Plastic Surgery Forum - - which I would have deleted anyway.

I wish Eric would have stuck around simply because he was nicely abrasive, but if you make your bed you must lie in it.

Can we just drop this now as it is getting out of hand.

Joop, I do agree with Mary, though, in that we are playing this game pretty much on the fly.

[madwolfie]

...This board is meant for serious discussions and people like yourself or others may have treated it as a chatroom tete a tete corner, scaring people off the beauty and career threads, and thus may have discouraged many forumers to this board... ... Get over it.

I really think this is uncalled for and sure, I'm getting over it...

[PhantomX]

This a whole lot of 'much ado about nothing'.
Seriously, is this worth all the aggravation?
Eric has absented himself and here we are trying hazard a guess about he's being banned or he's undergoing exorcism rituals leaving him dumb, unable to speak or defend himself.
And then what happens??.... All and sundry get excited tripping over each other and making silly accusations of censorship rituals being initiated without ever so much as a regard for those with freedom of speech sensibilities.
I mean seriously... is there life outside of this Forum or is this IT for all of us? If it is It would be a sad....sad.....commentary of what we return to when we're out of the Board... a vacuous emptiness... and perhaps that's why we react the way we do when we feel our turf incurred into..Solution.... End your misery here and stop talking about this from hereon.

[tiki]

This a whole lot of 'much ado about nothing'.
Seriously, is this worth all the aggravation?
Eric has absented himself and here we are trying hazard a guess about he's being banned or he's undergoing excorcism rituals leaving him dumb, unable to speak or defend himself.
And then what happens??.... All and sundry get excited tripping over each other and making silly accusations of censorship rituals being initiated without ever so much as a regard for those with freedom of speech sensibilities.
I mean seriously... is there life outside of this Forum or is this IT for all of us? If it is It would be a sad....sad.....commentary of what we return to when we're out of the Board... a vacuous emptiness... and perhaps that's why we react the way we do when we feel our turf incurred into..Solution.... End your misery here and stop talking about this from hereon.

..you could have used, 'let's move on'.

May I know what will happen if one doesn't want to stop?

Just a question.

[Grim Reaper]

As most of you are aware, our departed Eric has decided to edit his posts (as all of us have done - but not to this extent - bar one young lady about a year ago). He has approached Pal apparently and had his nick edited to 'dot dot dot' and is currently in the process of deleting all traces of himself (or trying to) including the deletion of the titles of any thread he happened to initiate (He cannot actually delete any of his postings but can edit any of them to have no content.

This is Eric here, as this is my only live account I have now, for whatever reason (either you yourself or the other moderators or the admins may explain the reason) the Dot Dot Dot account no longer works.

You of all know sms, why I have asked first you and then Pal to have my name changed. I have told you clearly why I wanted my posts deleted and / or my name changed, very personal reasons totally not having anything to do with arguments on this forum or any people on this forum.

I therefore am shocked to see you post this message.

And since you knew the reasons for me asking to change my name, and Pal having changed my name for me, I now find it quite disturbing to see you make the change of my name here publicly known. Makes no sense now to had my name changed...

I spent over 4 straight hours last night splitting the remainder of the posts from these threads that were edited and renamed "." I've only gone back as far as around Nov-Dec of last year. This has made a few threads (4 or 5 at most) unreadable and I have deleted those threads (most only had 4 to 9 replies and were threads of no consequence). The rest of the threads while maybe the first 2 to 5 replies do not make sense, enough of us have the habit of "Quoting" to make his whole exercise kinda sad as that defeats the whole point of the exercise.

Again: Why?

Why go through an exercise of 4 hours?

I informed you and Pal of my concerns, I then edited all the postings, you and Pal knew that.

Then I edited some of the titles of the threads I started, changed them in "."

Why? Again for the personal reasons, you know them.

I didnot edit the active threads I started in "."

Why did I not chaneg the active threads? So you all can still find and read those threads, I didnot want to disturb you people.

The reason for this message it to hopefully forstall any complaints (saw one yesterday already) and to let you all at least know what's happening. Should you dredge up any old threads and find you want to bump the thread and it has been retitled "." Just send me a PM and I'll rename it in a new thread, eliminating Eric's original Post.

sms

Why, O why...

You could have asked me to explain to those complaining, you could have pm-ed those who complained (Wham and just a few others). It then would have stayed low profile, no fuss.
You could have just let the 'story' about me die slowly.

I could have explained the reason leaving here, but chose not to do so, simply because I chose not to be seen or called as having such a big ego to make myself heard when leaving. Simple as that. And the reasons are too personal to write down on a public forum.

I have sent sms a PM with this same info, but no reply so far. Therefore the question here, the same as in my PM to sms: Please delete this whole thread, it serves nothing, it is implying the wrong things.

Eric