Ruan Lambrechts wrote: Ok, excuse the essay, have had a bit of a think about this recently. This is my honest opinion.
To start, I am going to ruffle some feathers (Especially Taki I think), but I will not be flaming anyone or telling lies, this is just how I feel. So realise this is my opinion (What forums are for) so either ignore my post or take it with a pinch of salt.
Before I start (referring to an above post), I agree that newbies asking newbie questions should not be humiliated or told to search, but I will touch on this later...
You say that but that has always been my issue with you from the start, your sarcasm towards people that you think have inferior knowledge to yourself
Ruan Lambrechts wrote: Reasons why I don't post here:
Firstly, I am full of sh1t but despite what people think, I don't look for conflicts. I don't get along with Taki in general and feel that despite the fact that admins and mods should be impartial, there are a few of them that are part of a little group (Taki, Dimitri and Ayal) and look for issues when I post and then gang up on me. Yes, I am most definitely not innocent in this, but I don't feel like posting if I am going to get gang flamed. Please note, this is MY OPINION.
Let's clear the air around here once and for all shall we. Your problem with me started when the forum was running on autopilot due to personal reasons on my side in not having time to look after and upgrade it when my previous partner pumaman on the site, had personal issues and left the hobby, he was the IT guy in our partnership and I therefore could not do the necessary upgrades etc to the site. That's when you phoned me and I learnt from you that during my hiatus from the site, you, Riaan, Patrick (in disguise), Eva and a couple of other people who have slipped my mind atm, had been looking after the site during my absence. You then asked me to sell you the domain to which I said no. That's when you started your personal dislike for me and I really could care less......
I had a new person come into our family at that time (Dimitri) who was an IT guy and I asked him if he could possibly help me out with the forum which he duly did (admirably I feel) and has taken the site to a whole new level.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciated what you guys did and even let most of you remain admins after I was back and the site was back up and running properly again. I had a big problem with you and Riaan blatantly lying to me about the true identity of Johan Du Plessis (Patrick) when I suspected who he was and you, Riaan and Eva all blatantly lied to me and kept his identity a secret. Never the less, Riaan was man enough to talk to me honestly about it after Patrick (also man enough replied to me straight forwardly in a pm when I asked if it was him posing as Johan Du Plessis) and we actually became quite good friends. You on the other hand obviously took the site selling rejection to heart and have argued with me ever since. Eva disappeared at about the same time so didn't really make any difference but I will touch a bit more on her shortly...
Ruan Lambrechts wrote: Secondly, and my main reason why I don't post here, is because of an issue I had with an admin member in the past. After a fight with an admin here, where they said I haven't done anything for the hobby, I got pissed off and deleted a breeding report.I was then told in no uncertain terms that once I post any info or pictures on this forum it belongs to the owners of the forum. That is something I was never aware of and didn't want any part of it, so I deleted all of my breeding reports and moved my pictures. This is why some forum sections can't be edited anymore I assume. This is also why I host all my pics on photobucket and I am then free to move them if I feel that I am not happy with the reasons that I originally posted them. I feel that those info and pictures are my personal property and would like to have some sort of control over them. Yes, like I said, I am full of sh1t, but thats the way I feel.
For that reason you should not even be on the forum at all, basically you're hear to cause arguments and use the forum for your personal gain by advertising your stock that's for sale. Right or wrong?
Ruan Lambrechts wrote: Then reasons why I think the forum is so dead at the moment:
As Cascade says, facebook is the new in thing when it comes to tarantula forums. I was discussing this with someone else the other day where the spider club has become very quiet, but the facebook page has rocketed. People want the interaction and want instant answers, whereas here, posts lie unanswered for days at a time sometimes. IMO, if the tarantula site wants to survive, you should up the activity on the fb page and move people there.
Secondly I think people get way to worked up here for no reason at times. People really need to thicken their skin. Like was said earlier, maybe think before you post and retaliate. Again, I have been guilty of this is in the past but if you look at the reply I got yesterday after my first post on the metallica thread, it was really over the top and not necessary. Yes, by asking him about selling at R20 I maybe hit a nerve, but 90% of the post by Ray had nothing to do with anything the thread was talking about.It was a pure personal flaming attack. On that note, I think admin and moderators should be consistent and warnings should be given out and people suspended/banned if needed. I have obviously been on the receiving end of this in the past (And I deserved to get banned), but if Ray were to attack me like that on arachnoboards, he would be looking for a new tarantula forum to frequent today. FACT.
Admin and mods need to be respected members, which I feel is not the case right now other than maybe Jake.
Then lastly, as much as certain people hate this, you need the 'know it all experienced guys" to be active.
If there are no experienced guys then it is a case of the blind leading the blind. IMO the forum went down when the following members left:
Myself, Rian and Patrick (Personal issues with the admin)
Eva (Issues with the admin and life got busy)
Hendrik (Assume life is just busy)
Taki (Life is busy)
Dirk (Life is busy I think)
Without these people posting and giving their experience, or new knowledgeable guys posting their experience, the site will not pick up.
Although some of that is valid and we do have facebook linked to the forum, I really don't care that facebook has changed the forum landscape, I'll keep the forum going in it's correct format for as long as there's any life in the tarantula hobby.
As for the people you quoted as having left for various reasons:
Yourself: You haven't left and continue posting, mostly informative and useful stuff but too often argumentative and advertising stuff.
Riaan: He left because of his association with you and thereby conflicting with me. That and of course other personal reasons which I might not be aware of and his seemingly blind obsession with dominating the 'blue spider market' which caused him to lose sight of how I wanted him to administer the site at times.
Eva: Here's the really interesting one, I never had any issue with Eva other than she getting upset with me over the Johan Du Plessis issue until I heard via the grapevine that she was accusing me of 'cheating' her out of T apophysis slings in a breeding loan I had with her, I have tried to contact her on numerous occasions to clear that up but she blatantly and cowardly has avoided me. The story goes as such, she brought me her T apophysis femake to live at my place while I attempted the breeding. All went well and my male mated her perfectly which resulted in an eggsac (which I cared for desperately well as I REALLY wanted it to be a success) but around the 40th day, she ate the sac!
I told Eva the bad news which at the time she seemed to accept only for me to hear years down the line that she was telling people I ripped her off and lied to her about the female eating the sac. Now here in the open forum, please by all means if there's anyone anywhere in the WORLD that bought even a single T apophysis sling from me EVER, please by all means mention it here so that those "imaginary slings of Eva's' can finally be put to rest .........
Hendrik: He is busy but more than that, I think he hates this sort of sillyness more than most and I susoect that like MANY others, just keeps to himself.
Myself: The only one you got right, just tremendously busy.
Dirk: No idea, also seems on a mission of his own,
Ruan Lambrechts wrote: To me the only time I post on here is for advertisements and where I feel my opinion is needed when it comes to my personal experience with permits and the law. As was said, there is lots of activity on here, but that means nothing if there are no new posts or questions go unanswered. I am personally on the site a few times a day, but because of wanting to keep my intellectual property my own, if there are questions regarding for example the identification of local species or true spider I pm the member and give my ID or else email them. Because of this I get around 20 emails a week regarding ID's, and I am more than happy to help out. This is my reason for still being around in the public hobby and I feel it is my duty to help out where possible, without going against what I believe.
As I said, I don't feel any of this is flaming, just a case of facts and my opinion. Hopefully the admin can take this as constructive criticism.
I have no idea why you would ever want to even be on a forum if you want to keep your 'intellectual property' to yourself??
Lastly I will say this, if I were to ban people for this sort of thing all the time, you and half a dozen others would be gone from the forum!
I've decided that it's not worth my frustration, at the end of the day I keep coming back to the fact that this is a FORUM and I guess I have to accept that people act foolishly over the interweb!
I'm hoping that as time goes by, people will eventually evolve to use a forum how it was meant to be,,,,,,,,,
Till then, I IMPLORE you all to try and get along and help people in a forum manner so as to promote the beautiful creatures we have a passion for!!!!!
So no bannings this time BUT while I am willing to try this approach for a certain period of time to see if people do indeed learn to get along and respect other people's opinions, if this kind of behaviour continues I will eventually just start using the 'ban' button with the slightest breach of forum rules and that will be the end of that. After that, I won't give a flying hoot as to who stays and who goes, after all I personally and a few good men and women will always be around without conflict to help newbies and ehtusiasts alike as much as possible. :thumbsup: :spider:
