general discussion

Dude, It saddens me that they have completely stifled political discussion on this site. I have had some good verbal sparring matches with a variety of good well meaning men.
This has sharpened my debating skills and given me valuable insight into the reasoning of others. I been out of pocket for a little over a week and couldnt wait to get back to the forum to chat it up once again. Imagine my horror when I find the posts by Mr. Hansen, our admirable editor in cheif. Maybe I am speaking a little early and should cool down a bit before I react strongly, but I am highly upset at the action of this website and its moderators. I really wish I could have posted this in Mr. Hansens post before he locked it trom further discussion. Good day gentleman.

M1: General discussion will stay in its current position for the time being.
Critr: I liked the political discussions, too, but they were getting out of hand--the tail wagging the dog. I let people vent about it (a natural part about dealing with any change) for several days in the announcement thread, but once the major points had been made--multiple times--it was time to move on, hence the lockout. Whenever you have comments about the site, you can always drop me an e-mail.

Basically when the moderators got tired of people having their own views and opinions about closing the OT threads, they went ahead and locked that thread as well. Why not, they are on a roll. No worries Critr, I missed the shindig too, and also was locked out. It sucks not being invited to the party. Honestly I must say that I learn the most from the people I disagree with, than the people I do agree with. This time, I learned a hell of a lot!

At least we still have our heads!!

LOL....yeah.....we do still have that. Welllll........some of us anyway.

You guys thought things were unhappy before? One person leaves the forum and another complains about off-topic posts in the off-topic forum? Take a look around! How many are unhappy now? How many have left or are here less now?

Here's a thought ... why don't you guys just admit you made a childish, knee-jerk reaction to a non-existent problem and put things back the way they were and we can go back to enjoying things around here.

One of the forums I help administer (yes, there is more than one) has an area called the "War Room". It has a big notice under the title that the posts in it may be inflammatory and argumentative. Any threads that start to get out of hand simply get moved to that forum area. If someone complains about a post in that area we simply ask why they were reading it when they knew it was going to be inflammatory or argumentative.

The difference is that we encourage free exchange of ideas. We realize that not everything is going to be "On Topic" and it doesn't matter. The WORLD is off topic, and it would truly be boring if everyone traveled down the exact same narrow lane.

Edit ... I forgot to mention that our "War Room" is not visible to casual browsers of the forum, only to registered members after they have logged in.

Good for you Kik and MusicCity!!!
Same old narrow lane to get to the same old office everyday is boring!! "The WORLD is off-Topic" is so right-on!!! Truthfully I was insulted by M1Abrams insinuating I was fighting with larry dunn when he was insulting me and I was trying only to rationalize with him!! The forum got locked so I never got a chance to explain myself to M1! But why should i feel the need to explain myself to a 15 year old implying that I was being a troublemaker when I was only trying to be the peacemaker!! I miss you guys!! But it was my time to bow out, because my feelings were getting in the way!! I want to help, not give people that don't think things all the way throught or look at the whole picture, the wrong idea!!!!
Take Care Ev1!!
Love Ya!!! Kelley

Folks, I really think ya'll are being quite unfair to the FSM crew here. You each have valid points, but to continually cry "oppression!" about what happened is a bit extreme in my opinion.

To rashly conclude that those decisions were made based solely on one person's complaints, or that the "moderators got tired of people having their own views and opinions" is an extremely short-sighted and one-sided conclusion, I believe.

In my opinion, here's the bottom line (and it's been said time and time again by others): we do not have any "rights" here at FSM, and we are not "owed" anything by the FSM staff. What we do have here is the priveledge of sharing our interests about modeling with people from all over the world, thanks to our gracious host, FSM.

There are plenty of other websites that cater to political, religious, or whatever kind of debates and discussions you are interested in, and we are all free to participate in those as we wish. Just because we can't engage in "heated" socio-political discussions here at FSM anymore is no reason to cry "oppression." I believe I can get (and have gotten) to know and enjoy the company of other members on this site via all my discussions on this site. I don't feel I have to yell at or get yelled at by somebody to "know" them.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that there's a time and place for everything, and it has been decided that FSM is not the place for such discussions (and there are indeed places for them).

To call this "oppression" or to accuse the FSM staff of not caring about people's opinions is, in my humble opinion, unfair. Websites have rules, these are FSM's. If you can't abide by the rules, then you are free to not participate.

Anyway, that's my two yen.

I debated long and hard with myself about whether to reply to this topic or not, but I felt I must respond to what I perceived as very unfair comments towards the FSM staff and the recent decisions made.

And before you reach for your keyboards to flame me for this opinion, please remember that I do respect yours, and I did acknowledge that you all had valid points.

Right, that's that. Now I'm off to talk about models!

That's the thing I've never engaged in a heated political debate from the OT Section!! I only played the games!! Which are sorely missed!! Their is no whining on our parts!! Please J-Hulk!! I just miss my games!! What Is Ironic is I didn';t get into any argument with any member until I was giving my opinion about the OT being removed!! I was so lucky to have my say behind a man named Larry Dunn!! This man wrote me insulting letters and used low blows!!! Unfortunatly between the shock and shock of the OT being deleted I fed into this guy who was instigating an argument!! And we did argue! The point I never had an argument until the OT was removed!! So the argument I had wasn't even in the OT!! I give in to political debates should be on a political forum not a modeling forum!! Like I said I never so one or got into one!! I just played my games!! That only led to me making some very wonderful friends that have a great sense of humor!! It just seems to add insult to injury when FSM says their members can make posts about what they did on the weekend or a picture they took!! Thats what the games were to us!! I wish all of you a good night!! Sweet Dreams!!
Kelley G.

Thank you, J-Hulk, for those two yen. I don't think any of us here could have summed up the situation better than you have.

We saw the forums as a whole were being pulled by the OT area in a direction we didn't want them to go. To some degree things on OT got further out of hand than we wanted them to simply because we were loath to pull threads. If a "problem" thread (or post) looked like it was losing momentum, I usually opted for letting it disappear of its own accord rather than pulling it.

Even after we "removed" OT (more like re-launched it), Dave went back on his own time and moved many of the still-active threads from it to the new Odds-n-Ends area. So the healthy parts of OT were saved after all.

The point is that we wanted to make sure we stayed focused on our core mission: Providing a fun, informative web-based modeling community.

After I gave it a lot of thought and allowed my emotions to cool off, I decided that what FSM did WAS the right thing to do. If I hurt anybody feelings with my remarks, I am sorry. The OT had to die because it was becoming a breeding ground for a lot of bad remarks, hard feelings and the such.

J-hulk...... Well said.
Lawrence.....You guys continue to put on a quality product.
Roadkill...Well said. Thanks. Not often someone can be big enough to show a little humility. Well done.

Despite the sophomoric sarcasm from some lately I still continue to look at this site as a premier site in this genre. Those that choose to leave, your modeling input will undoubtedly be missed. Although churlish in my opnion, I guess you have to do what you feel is right. Some have left this forum because of your actions, some have left as a result of adminstrative decsions that don't fit with their ideology. Frankly with 37k+ that signed up for modeling info, not games or political dialogue, will probobly not mourn the passing of the 5 or 6 that leave. Not to make light of your exodus but I'm sure new gurus will take your place. I'm already seeing a changing of the guard, so to speak.

I guess its a question of adaptability. We can all either adapt to the format, regardless of the changes or move on to areas that are more accomodating to our particular desires, interests and foibles.

I continue to enjoy this forum.

QUOTE: Originally posted by renarts I continue to enjoy this forum.

Same here, Mike! Well said on your part, too.

Thank you, too, Lawrence. I really had to think long and hard about posting that, but I'm glad I did.

Kevin, it's all cool, bro!

Kelley, I'm certainly not begrudging you or anybody else some fun and games, but we have to respect the decisions made by our hosts, even if we don't like them. Of course, we can let our hosts know what we like and don't like about the site, and I'm sure they appreciate that, too.
I have no idea what occurred between you and Larry, so I can't (and shouldn't!) comment on it, but it is regrettable that you two haven't had a chance to iron it out. Have you tried emailing him? Just a suggestion. Life's too short to let misunderstandings go misunderstood.

Well folks, I actually have a two-day weekend this week, so time to get to work on that Osorio!
Or sleep...

Brian: Well stated.

roadkill_275:

Kelly: I don't know what transpired between you and Larry either but I have found him to be a reasonable person so pop him an email.

QUOTE: Well folks, I actually have a two-day weekend this week, so time to get to work on that Osorio! Or sleep...

I vote for the Osorio but I know I sure can understand the sleep part.

To re-focus and centralize the discussion, I'm locking this thread and I invite everyone to participate in the new thread.

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