Nicely put after a fashion John
I think it's been said a few times before but I'll say it again. We don't have any gripe with J+ except when the Administrators blatantly attack us. For gods sake why bother to try and grab a few new users based on one article in a paper. It is and was childish and I'm sure if Dsyde could take it back he would.
I think the big difference here John is exactly what you said toward the end of your "rant", if you post anything on J+ that one of the moderators doesn't like it get's deleted or the thread get's locked. This is one of the main reasons many of us left J+, we don't like being told by a few people what we can say and who else we can talk to (Pman for example was told explicitly that he couldn't be a member on J+ AND other forums). This goes to show that J+ Admin consider J+ to be their own private domain where only what they say/like goes.
The thing we realised is that at the end of the day a community forum isn't something that's owned by a few people, a forum is ALL the people who are part of the community, whether they have views you agree with or not (as long as they aren't illegal). The forum itself is just a conduit through which the entire community can talk and share ideas and information, moderation and admin should have minimal impact on the content of what's discussed. That's how we think a forum should be run.
The other main point is that many of the J+/UKVAC membership are the same people - we realise and embrace this, you cannot say the same about J+. For crying out loud if you said I hate J+ you'd pretty much be saying you hate UKVAC at the same time. The members just want to play/talk/fix/trade arcade games, and that's all we try and concentrate on, obviously we have an emphasis on fixing, J+ is probably a better place to trade - this is fine, the members reap the benefits.
I think all the suggestions of a sit down meet between the two admin teams are laudable but frankly naive. Some of the characters involved (and I'm sure if I'm not already in the Garrotte gang I am now) just don't have the ability to sit down and talk calmly about this, and honestly I don't think they want to as that would change the status quo. Many of us here on UKVAC have tried to maintain friendly relations with our counterparts on J+ only to be kicked in the teeth for it (metaphorically). We offered to meet, talk, drink beer on many occasions just to be met with snidey comments.
Now I'm not trying to make out UKVAC are whiter than white, undoubtedly we have said things that annoy the J+ admins, the only difference is that if they want to, they can come on here and do it (as Aran did recently). If we wanted to do that how long do you thing the post or account would last?
Final point, all this is indeed tedious. I considered totally withdrawing from any community involvement in the UK when it all first blew up and again with my ban from J+. My personal collection is complete pretty much, I can repair most things I need to and have friends I can talk to directly if I need another opinion or some help. I have enough childish stuff to deal with with my two kids (both 3 or under). Keep the ideas on how to fix this coming guys!
Dan
