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stantonjtroy

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There has been a bit of huff over the moderators doing their job. Not just the most recent incident but the past few months. I am not prompted by the moderators nor do I act as their representive. I'm just another modeler who enjoys sharing his thoughts with like minded folks and is a little tired (like many) of the whining, rudeness and generally imature behavior shown by a few. There seems to be an asumption among some members that this forum is their personal back yard, or at least some form of journalistic publication protected by the first amendment. IT'S NOT. This is a privately run and managed forum put out there for our benifit, by fellow hobbiests. As such, the administrators have made clear what can and can not be posted. Like many I share the site with my children and am surprised by some of the attitudes (and occasionally language) I see. Yes, everyone is entiled to their opinion but NO they are not always entitled to force it on others. This is rocketry folks. Come on.
When I first introduced my wife and kids to rocketry I told them, and experience bore out, that the rocketry community was made up of the best people one could hope to meet. Perfect strangers are welcoming and generous, with their knowlege and their resources. Real friendships form instantly reguardless of age, gender or station. For the most part it has been this way on the forums. I for one am thankful to the moderators for keeping it this way. If you think it's unfair or unconstitutional or narrow minded or whatever, Start your own forum. Establish your own rules, do as you will.
If the moderators choose to edit or remove this, I'm ok with it. I might not get it but I'm ok with it. They'd have their reasons and that's good enough for me. For those who want to provide an oposing opinion, go ahead. I won't, however, get drawn into an argument for arguments sake. In short, show the same respect on the forum that you would at a launch, club meeting or any other face to face encounter.
My two cents.
 
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Very well said!

Rocketry will go on with or without TRF so its all relative in my opinion.

Ben

P.S. get my PM the other day?
 
/climbs on soapbox

The Freedom of Speech thing has NOTHING to do with what we say about ANYTHING EXCEPT what we say to the government. Period.

It's our Constitutional protection from government prosecution for criticizing what they do or say. It was enacted due to the European Monarchy's, all the different ones, way of dealing with desent. Usually by jailing desenters. Sometimes by killing them.

The laws that deal with what we say or take and use without permission of the owner are covered by slander and liability laws for what we say about each other and copy write and trademarks for intelectual properties.

Owners of a forum are not bound by law to allow anything more than what they will allow so all forums have different sets of rules from no moderation to totalitarian rule.

It's their football, their rules.

/climbs off soapbox
 
There's also things that people don't know about going on.

And no, don't ask me. I won't say.
 
"Something else is going on, but I won't say what it is."

What's the point of that?
:confused:
I think it has something to do with the Knights Templar, the Priory of Sion and the Merovingian Dynasty.

MarkII
 
I must have missed something as I'm not sure what prompted this thread at this time. I can agree with most of the original post to a point, as long as things are moderated fairly, but then that comes down to the individual moderator's sense of fairness and to be frank, there have been times in the past where I thought a moderator was a bit over zealous, and then other times a bit lax. Is it a tough job? Sometimes, but those who have accepted the job know that.

I enjoy TRF most of the time, I mainly read and only post if I think I have something to contribute. I also understand this is not a completely adult level forum as it's intended rating is at most PG-13. I don't have a problem with that and I think all most people would want to see and know is that the rules of the forum are applied equally and equitably, regardless of who "owns the ball" and "who's yard" we're playing in.

While I love to read about "Calvin Ball" in the comics, I do not enjoy seeing real people caught up in "Calvin Ball" on ANY forum, it happens all too often. Or playing "if you don't like Calvin Ball then go away" and that's pretty much what I got from the original post.

Verna
www.vernarockets.com
 
I had a link to a movie forum removed and was left wondering was it the link or could I have just posted the name and would that have been ok?

I looked through the forum rules and could find nothing about not linking to a movie site and the post was in a thread about movies..

There was a time in the old forum that every time I saw Bob Krech's name I kind of cringed, thinking, ok, who's thread got locked now... True though all he was doing was what he was supposed to do.

Some things are a little looser this incarnation of TRF but sometimes things seem a little...uneven. Depending on who's doing the moderating.

I also have posted in an online game, Dark Orbit. The mods will assume their god-like stance, answer a question, then lock the thread. No discussion. I started a thread saying they should let threads die on ther own...it got locked :p
 
I had a link to a movie forum removed and was left wondering was it the link or could I have just posted the name and would that have been ok?

Sorry; that one was my fault, and I obviously did a lousy job of explaining the "why" to you.

The movie was fine, the subject was fine. The reason I removed the link is that it was a link to a site that's more about sharing of commercial videos, which leads me to believe it's a piracy site.

Let me add that if a thread is locked or a message edited, there will always be an explanation provided. If you don't get one, ask. And remember, if you don't agree, there is a policy on arbitration.

In regards to your comment that it's "uneven". That, unfortunately, is a reality, no matter how hard anyone tries to make it even or consistent. Multiple people doing the work causes some of that, as does the mood someone is caught in.

Catch me when I'm having a bad day, or if you're someone who just pushes my buttons, and I'm more likely to be a bit more stern. But then, for that reason, that's why there are some folks who, unless they post something that requires action now, I will defer them to someone else -- I know they're someone who rubs me the wrong way, and I may well overreact.

I'm not perfect, I don't claim to be. I'm also not afraid to say I've made a mistake.

-Kevin
 
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Well, your certainly right about one thing, it IS a pirate site. Very much so but NONE of the movies are hosted there, they are all links.

I don't know how many movies there have Russian subtitles, Iron Man did. I even saw the bootleg X Men where some of the scenes were digitally blocked in showing a part of movie making never seen outside Hollywood.

I like movies, I just hate the prices. We have an IMax here and because of QSS I'm going to see AVATAR there. What I saw was one of the most beautifully crafted stories I've seen in a long time and am really looking forward to seeing it in the theater, soon as school starts back up 'cause I HATE kids in theaters( I always get the screamers :p )
 
Rocketry will go on with or without TRF...

Without TRF, no one will know what to do, all the rocketry folks will turn to collecting stamps, and the world will come to an end!

Seriously, for a forum like this one, with long-standing rules, and all the history and experience that's been packed in here in a (relatively) few short years, it amazes me that we continue to have some people that don't understand how to behave. And to top it all off, they run to other forums so they can continue bad-mouthing TRF admins and members, acting for the most part as though they are well under the "PG13" rule of thumb.

If you are writing anything to post here that makes you wonder if it might get pulled, you probably shouldn't post it.

If you write something to post here that made you wonder if it might get pulled, and it did, you probably shouldn't fuss at the admins.

If you are close to collecting the maximum number of "violations" before you get sent to the corner to cool off, you should probably be wondering whether you are really as mature as you think you are.

The TRF rules just aren't that hard to live with. Troy's original post (as well as many others here) are right on the mark. I have given in to the dark side myself a few times and joined in with inappropriate posts, and had my hand slapped, and the admins were probably correct to do what they did. So either you learn to move forward or you should be looking at other forums.

I refer lots of folks to this website as a place to get help, advice, guidance, etc in model rocketry. I can't say how much I hate seeing some silly bickering and 3rd-grade behavior splattered all over the threads, and thinking about the impression that first-time-TRF readers must get.

The moderators and administrators do the best job they can. I am impressed that they have any time to mess with keeping this running, since they all also have "real" jobs and have to squeeze TRF into their spare time. You folks get a big thankyou from me, and I wish there was something the rest of us could do to return the favor.

Wait a sec, there is.....we could all behave ourselves.
 
If you are writing anything to post here that makes you wonder if it might get pulled, you probably shouldn't post it.

If you write something to post here that made you wonder if it might get pulled, and it did, you probably shouldn't fuss at the admins.

If you are close to collecting the maximum number of "violations" before you get sent to the corner to cool off, you should probably be wondering whether you are really as mature as you think you are.
I'd like to also add that if a post of yours gets edited or pulled, and you get really upset and/or defensive about it, then the moderator's action was probably justified. I've had a post or two either edited or removed, and the moderator's action was justified.

Explanations of the moderators' actions aren't always as quick and complete as some members would like, but they *are* doing the best they can, on a volunteer basis, and in their spare time. So let's all give them a break.
 
[prolly off my rocker]
Idea. May or may not be good, or practical, or even possible. Or may be already done - I haven't been around long enough to be sure.

If a moderator needs to say something as a moderator, rather than as a forum, member, they post in 'mod voice': bright color and bold. If something's wrong with a post - truly objectionable content, someone getting really angry, whatever, then the moderator writes so, in mod voice, on the offending post. And signs it. That way, you know what mod you should PM, and angry discussion stays off the regular threads.
[/off my rocker]

I originally accidentally typed 'And sings it'. Which may or may not be an excellent idea.
 
While on the subject; I've held back in the past & have witnessed some personal attacks by members & godderators alike.
Everyone has a bad day now & then, but to drag other people down just so they can feel like a king for 5 sec. is just wasting bandwidth.


My biggest problem is unilateral policy enforcement. All people should held to the same standards. By not doing so makes things worse, not better.
If a mod steps out of line then they should be put in the corner like everyone else.


It's a hobby not a Debate Club.


JD
 
What is so funny to me is when some of those same people who bad-mouth TRF on those other forums make fun of things like deleted posts, when the VERY forums they are posting to also DELETE POSTS.

But sometimes those other forums call it something else, like “moving a thread” to a place it can never be found (so in theory it is there but nobody can ever get to it). So that they can use Orwellian “New Speak” wording to cover the fact that if it walks like a deleted thread, and quacks like a deleted thread.... it’s a deleted thread no matter what they call it. 100% hypocritical.

Yet the detractors of TRF ignore it when the OTHER forums do it. They cannot even see it when a site owner gets into such a personal snit that he takes down his entire forum for awhile, and later posts the excuse that the entire forums had to be taken offline in order to edit a few posts in one single thread (would seem to be incredibly bad forum software if it really did require taking the whole forum offline for many hours just to do THAT). Or the ones who do see it for what it is, just do not care and figure the site owner can be as petty and unfair as he wants to since he owns it. Yet they still pick on TRF when the site they are posting from does stuff like that?????

Holy _____ !!! [word I’d love to post but won’t - George]

Such people should have been forced to communicate on the (unmoderated) rec.models.rockets around 10-15 years ago, and then they might have a better appreciation for why a moderated forum is a GOOD thing. Unfortunately a few who used to be on RMR back then also post here and seemed to have learned nothing, or else think this is RMR 2.0

Also on TRF, no moderator has banished anyone due to that one moderator’s personal whim. I think that many who are familiar with other forums out there can think of one forum pretty quickly where the site owner plays like pretty much anything goes, unless *he* doesn’t like it, and then out comes the sledge-hammer.

And a few have purposely come onto TRF to just cause problems. I won’t name a name, but a few months back a person posted an avatar here that they KNEW wasn’t going to be allowed. They knew better, but did it anyway. So of course they complained about the result on one of the other forums, and posted that provocative Avatar in their message, but only that message. But the funny thing was, if they really liked that Avatar so much, then WHY didn’t that poster use THAT avatar as their personal avatar on the other forums? Obviously because they did not really want to use it as their personal avatar elsewhere, they just had wanted to do it on TRF to cause a problem on TRF that they could then complain about elsewhere. I had given that person the benefit of the doubt before that.

I am also glad to see that TRF is trying to keep things about rockets and not politics or religion. Those are heavy issues that become very heated.... and there are OTHER places for that. While this is supposed to be a rocket forum, and while there is room for OT stuff, some think that OT means they can just post anything at all, no matter how bad, like THEY own the place, as though they think the name of this forum is "The Rocketry, Politics, Religion, and Jerks Forum".

I came pretty close to leaving some other forum over the drip-drip-drip political “junk” that a specific poster kept insisting on doing, and a few others also had their fill and some were close to leaving too. This guy became so emboldened as to go from doing it about once a week, to nearly daily, to doing several a DAY. I do not mean replies to posts, I mean starting up new threads which he did not even reply to, he just wanted to stir up political “stuff” (throw the grenades and then run away). Not sure exactly what happened when this finally came to a head and enough people complained, the forum mods said nothing had changed, no official actions had been taken, but that guy stopped posting his political “stuff”. Still, the whole chain of events turned me off enough from that forum that I purposely stayed away for a couple of months. I did resume making posts there, but not as much as before.

And I post very little to the other online web-based forums (not counting Yahoogroups).

On a different group, I did leave. On Yahoogroups, there is the Space-modelers forum (for static models, not flying), and a spin-off group called Space-modelers-EVA. The “EVA” group is for “Off-Topic” stuff. Well, a year ago the EVA group got so bad that things like political rants and “jokes” such as one about redneck police killing immigrants were considered OK there, so I had my fill of such “stuff” and left it. I’m still on the Space-Modelers group though, only left the “EVA” group meant for OT. So whenever inevitably I post something on the Space-modelers group that is considered OT and someone tells me to take it to the EVA group, I’ll remind them why I’m not on the EVA group anymore, because over time they allowed the EVA group to become a cesspool not worth subscribing to (I get the Yahoogroups messages via e-mail).

- George Gassaway
 
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My biggest problem is unilateral policy enforcement. All people should held to the same standards. By not doing so makes things worse, not better.
If a mod steps out of line then they should be put in the corner like everyone else.

My policy is that the same rules apply to everyone, including me.

-Kevin
 
This is the only rocketry forum I go to much less post in. I don't even remember why that is but it is. One of the reasons is that Just J***y guy, I despise him and know he's already been banned here. Dude completely believes he invented rocketry as it is today and we all should bow down to him.

Yeah, sometimes things flare up around here and I've been known to fire a broadside at a group, damn the torpedos. If I think something is being done wrong to someone I have no qualms about setting people straight as I see it and when I've done it here the threads have been locked but I got my point across.

Kind of straight shooting Western thing(I'm related to John Wayne :D )
 
What is so funny to me is when some of those same people who bad-mouth TRF on those other forums make fun of things like deleted posts, when the VERY forums they are posting to also DELETE POSTS.
(cut to save space and eyestrain)

Ok, now we all know you're talking about me.

The avatar in question WAS used on the other forum for several months. So you've already been proven wrong.

I actually didn't think the avatar was bad. I didn't think the "previous administration" would have such a poor sense of humor as to yank it. But now, rather than just yank the avatar and post a "demerit", with no explanation, Kevin just asked me not to use it. So, I didn't. I used something else. Something Kevin actually liked.

As far as the political stuff, that wasn't me. I didn't agree with it, but that's a subject I take with a grain of salt. That subject will always be a super charged one. And best left for other places.

And as far as "badmouthing on other forums" the reason was because had it been said here, we would have been banned. In fact some of us actually got unofficial warnings to knock it off or else here, even though they weren't posted here. A couple were even banned.

Now see, just a short time ago, all of this would have been locked, and several demerits issued. Things are getting better. Besides, if someone doesn't push, how do we define what the boundaries are? Kevin and the mods aren't in sync yet, so I'll continue to push it, so they can define the actual boundaries. But I won't be too much of a jerk about it.
 
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i've been following this thread whilst looking after my 2 and 5 year olds, and as i've just asked them after a fight about a Thomas the Tank Engine toy
"can you all play nicely?"
thought that it was relevent here too.
TRF is the main forum that i post on, and it it the only forum that i recommend to people, mainly because on the whole it's a friendly place, and i think it is well moderated - but i know that i am not in full posession of all the facts - but i enjoy being here.
 
Quote from ' MysticalRockets':
"Ok, now we all know you're talking about me.
The avatar in question WAS used on the other forum for several months. So you've already been proven wrong."

I don't think George was refering to you concerning the avatar. An infamous attention seeker and pot stirrer, who will not be named, came to my mind.

Tim
 
Quote from ' MysticalRockets':
"Ok, now we all know you're talking about me.
The avatar in question WAS used on the other forum for several months. So you've already been proven wrong."

I don't think George was refering to you concerning the avatar. An infamous attention seeker and pot stirrer, who will not be named, came to my mind.

Tim

Well, if it wasn't me, I offer my most sincere apologies.
 
Ok, now we all know you're talking about me.

The avatar in question WAS used on the other forum for several months. So you've already been proven wrong.
You posted an avatar representing yourself, which showed a woman's bare backside wearing a thong, did you? :)

No, it was someone else. No point in getting into the name of who. Suffice to say they are no longer allowed to post here, as they had used up several "last chance" opportunities to behave.

- George Gassaway
 
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You posted an avatar representing yourself, which showed a woman's bare backside wearing a thong, did you? :)

No, it was someone else. No point in getting into the name of who. Suffice to say they are no longer allowed to post here, as they had used up several "last chance" opportunities to behave.

- George Gassaway


Oh.

Ok, as I said, I do most sincerely apologize.

I'll be over here, hiding under this rock...
 
That is not true, historically. But the former moderator and the former owner are no longer here, fortunately.

Not sure if this was referenced in my direction as I fit both descriptions but, "yes" I am here . . . . I always have been. Am taking a different direction in life, due to life circumstances outlined elsewhere.
 
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Not sure if this was referenced in my direction as I fit both descriptions but, "yes" I am here . . . . I always have been. Am taking a different direction in life, due to life circumstances outlined elsewhere.

I was confused, as well, at first, Troy, then I realized that he was likely referring to folks from before you took over.

-Kevin
 
Don't forget -- there is a "moderation arbitrator" who you can always appeal to.

If the incident in question was a post made in response to one of mine, in which the responder included a link to a possibly (probably) illegal video streaming site, don't worry -- I didn't even consider clicking on the link. I'm not at all interested in any of that. Besides, it is doubtful that my system could have even handled the load.

MarkII
 
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