NYC, NY SWNYC STAFF APPROVED OF THE PICNIC

what i don't unstand is y does this have to have the swnyc title. as far as i know if ppl want to have a picnic in a park they can just keep the group to 19 ppl per group...all i'm saying is that this picnic didn't need the swnyc/nyline title. i feel that if that title was never give'n to it that all this wouldn't of happened.....

 

Well I think the main issue here was it was being discussed here on the SWNYC board, meaning it could possibly be seen as a SWNYC event, and people could take it that way.
If people from SWNYC want to have a picnic, as a get together amounst friends, I personally think that it should be discussed elsewhere and not here on the SWNYC board. Going to see AOTC at the Zeig. is one thing, but a pinic amoungst friends is another.

That's just me throwing in my .02 finally.

 

Would it be that difficult to petition the powers that be for the creation of an additional board for the NY-NJ Metro area for those who are not interested in being part of SWNYC? Wouldn't that solve all of this nonsense? That way, certain people can dig holes to China & Central Park & SWNYC would not be liable. Hasn't SWNYC also discussed creating a forum of their own on their official site? Once that's been done, will they still maintain a presence here?

 

Would it be that difficult to petition the powers that be for the creation of an additional board for the NY-NJ Metro area for those who are not interested in being part of SWNYC?

Thats why there is E-mail, and chat rooms

If there was no SWNYC, you would talk to other people in chat rooms and by E-mail and phone. Simple as that.

 

Samantha explained things perfectly...

We will have our own independant forums and we will still maintain a presence as the FanForce's official NY Area chapter.

James..the people involved asked if they could plan it amongst themeselves and I agreed wholeheartedly, even giving suggestions as to where they could easily set up a free mailing list. In fact, Cully thanked me for not asking the link to the picnic discussion be removed and I had thought that was the end of it. I had even planned on taking part in the picnic myself, both relieved to be able to not be planning something and happy a good thing would still take place without the ugly liability issue being a problem. Sadly, Cully chose to carry on about nonsense that really had nothing to do planning an outing for fans and more to do with soap boxing about nonsense. Then he sank to lower levels by threats and insults to people personally.

As far as setting up a separate forum for non SWNYC participants, that is up to the FanForce, and if people feel a need for that so be it. But it still would not change liability issues..and I doubt the fanforce wants people posting suggestions and discussion like defacing park property or attempting to put clothing on an expensive art piece which could land participants in jail.

 

Uhm, actually, it was me, not Cully that suggested and established the seperate avenue for picnic planning, (PadawanPicnic@aol.com) which is still where people should e-mail their interest in the picnic in order to be put on the private e-mail notification list. Several people have already responded and there IS still a picnic happening. It was also I who thanked you for allowing that info to remain, and who kept posting the relevant arguments, rather than the poopie-rap.

But Ladysith, despite alot of ill-informed blind support, you are still woefully, (and possibly legally dangerously) wrong about what the key issue was here and in your stance on the issue you are pushing as key.

These boards DO NOT belong to SWNYC. You've been allowed to link to them as your main board for your club to promote THEFORCE.NET and jack up their hits, without you needing to create your own boards. But, every disclaimer here absolves THEFORCE.NET (and SWNYC and NYLINEII) from anything/everything said or planned here. Your reaction to the picnic suggestion was rude and explosive overkill that DOES put THEFORCE.NET in an actionable position in and of itself. To go further in banning (the irritating and distasteful) Cully is beyond the pale. You should restore him immediately and apologize. He did nothing to deserve that and you cross the line by banning him into clearly tyrannical territory.

I'll be very surprised if this whole episode doesn't already result in a change in the moderators of this board. You are clearly unable to weigh the responsibility of moderating these boards against your officer status in your club in an appropriate way. In fact, it is a conflict of interest to ask anyone to do so. The moderators of these boards should not be Officers of SWNYC, and SWNYC should have their own sub-section within the "New York City, NY" area in order to avoid the type of abuse you've dished out here in the last few days.

This is the New York City, NY section, NOT the SWNYC section, so BACK OFF.

To quote: "We live in a real world, so get back to it" You can't get away with banning people without better cause. He's no pal of mine, but Cully should be restored.

See you all at the (fully permitted and legal non-SWNYC, non-NYLINEII) picnic!

 

Elan.. I'd watch it if i was you.. you might end up where Cully is if you don't calm down.


These boards DO NOT belong to SWNYC. You've been allowed to link to them as your main board for your club to promote THEFORCE.NET and jack up their hits, without you needing to create your own boards. But, every disclaimer here absolves THRFORCE.NET (and SWNYC and NYLINEII) from anything/everything said or planned here. Your reaction to the picnic suggestion was rude and explosive overkill that DOES put THEFORCE.NET in an actionable position in and of itself. To go further in banning (the irritating and distasteful) Cully is beyond the pale. You should restore him immediately and apologize. He did nothing to deserve that and you cross the line by banning him into clearly tyrannical territory.


If i understand this all correctly (Mysterysith or Ladysith can correct me if i am wrong) But these boards yes, belong to TFN, this section of the board is ran by Fanforce. In some cities, there are organized fan forces (IE: SWNYC, Boston Rebels) in which fanforce has so nicly allowed us to use these boards as a means of communication for those involved with that particular chapter. We use our boards to plan SWNYC activities, to get peoples opinions on certain situations, and to just communicate. SWNYC reaction to the picnic was perfectly fine. If we dig a hole in Centrel park SWNYC could be liable to pay for the dirt and the grass that was damaged. I certianly know we do NOT have that kind of money, and we could risk alot by doing so. The park, if i am not mistaken is owned by the city. Any LARGE demontrations (Like an SWNYC outting) would HAVE TO BE approved by the parks department. No buts, ifs, or an's about it. You need to seriously drop the picnic BS on this board. There will be NO SWNYC picnic this weekend. Maybe sometime in the future, when we have the proper permits, yes, but as of now its a no go. Drop it, let it go and move on already.

As for your comments on Cully, he went far enough. He was insulting members (Including myself) and he was creating controversy on the board. The in itself, is a banable offense. Insulting members is NOT allowed on the message board. ANYWHERE. Period. End of story on this one, and move on already.


I'll be very surprised if this whole episode doesn't already result in a change in the moderators of this board. You are clearly unable to weigh the responsibility of moderating these boards against your officer status in your club in an appropriate way. In fact, it is a conflict of interest to ask anyone to do so. The moderators of these boards should not be Officers of SWNYC, and SWNYC should have their own sub-section within the "New York City, NY" area in order to avoid the type of abuse you've dished out here in the last few days.

Mysterysith has been given power to do what he needs to do to stop the controversy and complaints from members on this board. So says TFN. If that includes banning Cully, then so be it. There will be no moderator changes made now, or anytime soon. He is our board moderator, he knows what is good for this forum. I personally believe if we had a moderator from some other place, it would not be fair to the moderator, or the members.


So in other words.. If you dont like what goes on here with this message board or how SWNYC handles certain situations... LEAVE. Its as simple as that.

 

Samantha seems to be on top of things.

Might I add, from the Terms of Service: User agrees not to post material that is knowingly false and/or defamatory, misleading, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, that otherwise violates any law, or that encourages conduct constituting a criminal offense.

And, from Cully's earlier post: "Will, don't start something you cannot finish." A threat if I ever heard one.

Cully violated the Terms of Service. For this, he was banned, and justifiably so.

 

Would it be that difficult to petition the powers that be for the creation of an additional board for the NY-NJ Metro area for those who are not interested in being part of SWNYC?

Thats why there is E-mail, and chat rooms

If there was no SWNYC, you would talk to other people in chat rooms and by E-mail and phone. Simple as that.

Thanks for pointing that out. Not that I'm especially devoted one way or the other, but it seems to me that the other city & region forums have a mix of both SWNYC-type groups & lone fans, depending on the organizational accumen of the fans in that area. To suggest that those who have met here not interested in being a part of SWNYC for whatever reason be limited to communication about planning of Star Wars related activities over chatrooms & e-mail kind of negates the concept of a truly open forum. To favor one group over the other seems somehow incomplete when both is better. I just thought I'd pose the question of "why not create something different" for anyone who might be moved to do so. It certainly isn't going to be me.

Handmaidens are pretty level-headed.

 

abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, threatening, that otherwise violates any law, or that encourages conduct constituting a criminal offense.

All of which, Cully was doing which resulting in his banning last night.

edit:
Handmaidens are pretty level-headed.



Now that you've met some of the people here, and you want to do Star Wars events with them, but not SWNYC stuff, Get their e-mail address and e-mail them personally, or start a Yahoo email gruop similar to SWNYC's. Simple as that.

 

I agree with what Samantha says 100%. And do not try to make it sound like SWNYC has this big GroupThink going on as you implied. If I disagreed I would openly say so.
The problem came when Cully became rude. There is another word that is more suitable to how he reacted, but it isn't allowed. I was always polite and courteous to him, but his responses back always had a negative connotation to them. I was fed up with having to deal with that attitude. His posts made me feel uncomfortable. Not only did he insult a lot of my fellow SWNYC members he was constantly suggesting we perform illegal activities. Off of the top of my head I can think of playing with an expensive sculpture as if it were a toy (yes, a wax sculpture is a work of art, they are extremely time consuming to make), digging up Central Park, and having an event without a permit. MysterySith has given him many chances without banning him. We (members of this board, not just SWNYC) got fed up with him. I think his banning is 100% legitimate according to the TOS.

 

Sam, no offense, but you are a perfect example of the ill-informed blind support. You do not understand all this correctly, so sit back, and learn something.

Cully's dumb suggestions about illegal activities in the park are not the issue. They were always dumb and ill-conceived. But, as has been clearly established, THEY DID NOT AUTOMATICALLY REFLECT THE SUGGESTION OR OPINION OF SWNYC (OR ANYONE FOR THAT MATTER) just because he blurted it out. That's what all the TOS disclaimers are FOR. So, the ENTIRE liability discussion a moot smoke-screen, detracting from the issue of appropriate interference on the boards. Take that point in, so you never have to bring it up again.

As for Mysterysith, I don't recall ever bringing him up, or even referring to him (except insofar as he's a SWNYC club officer). He hasn't signed his name to anything inappropriate as far as I can tell. It seems to me that Alan is just as blameless as the entire community here for this b.s. and has had to withstand this cumbersome conflict along with the rest of us. But, if the result is that SWNYC officers not moderate the board, then that may be the way the cookie crumbles. He'd have Ladysith to thank for that.

As for the picnic, it's already permitted and green-lit, so nobody can stop it now. Whether people want to go or not is up to them. I think it's still a perfectly fine and fun thing to do and it's nice to know that it's been permitted and IS happening, because it wouold have been a shame for this board abuse to prevent it.

With all of that said, I have no intention of sustaining an open conflict about this on the boards themselves. You won't find me taunting or posting any non-witty poopie-poems. I'm not interested in that. I, like you, want to enjoy the boards and stay in the background. But I won't fail to REACT to abuse, because it could very easily be you or anyone else that falls into that kind of pickle in the future. It's for the good of the community. If you can't handle a community that won't tolerate abuse then you too, are invited to leave (or at least keep it to yourself). But I think we'd rather all just stay here and play nice.

Unless anyone has anything else outrageous to say publicly, I suggest that any further debate over this be had privately, either via PM's, e-mail, or a conference call or in-person meeting. Because it HAS become tiresome.

And let me re-iterate that you are all invited to enjoy the picnic, without having to fear enduring any more discussion of this type at the park. (I'd actually be very surprised if Cully even showed at this point.)


See ya @ the Zieg!

 

I can smell a warning on the horizon!

 

Ok, before anybody even responds to my last post... Now that I read some more of what Star & ObiWill just noted, if Cully can be banned for other reasons, then so be it. My defense of him is on the basis of the issue of SWNYC control of the boards with regard to event planning. Indeed, apart from that he's been totally gross and negative and if THAT'S the basis to appropriately ban him then that actually rocks. I just don't want to see people pushed around.

And thechairguy seems to be seeing what I feel this incident has exposed: a need to further subdivide the boards so that future Cullies can be told to leave SWNYC space with their unapproved ideas and moved to non-SWNYC threads. Perhaps that's still the best lesson in all of this (as well as a possible review of who the moderators should be). And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Alan or Chris AT ALL. I just think this could have been handled better by Chris and exposes a need to possibly shift things around in order protect everybody and serve the club and the boards better.

 

Sam, no offense, but you are a perfect example of the ill-informed blind support. You do not understand all this correctly, so sit back, and learn something.


I understand this all correctly. DO NOT DARE tell me what to do! I am WAY more informed then i should be about this as it is.

*Waits for Alan to get home from work*


I can smell a warning on the horizon!

I smell more then that...

And as for Chris.. She is our City rep. She has no admin powers. She is our Sith protector. She handles everything in a diplomatic way and makes everything nice and peaceful around here.
Alan is the boards moderator and is the FANFORCE ADVISIOR. He used to be more then that, but he stepped down. He knows the fanforce rules better then anyone here, so when he tells Chris somethings wrong, she reacts, and handles the situation as she should.

If you want a place to talk to Star Wars fans without being apart of a group, make your own message board, email group whatever. Here is for us. TFN will not just make a social board for people who want to be apart of a SW fan group just for the heck of it.

Like i said, if you dont want to be apart of a fan group, and feel a need to continue unessicary controversy, LEAVE. Because we're not going to want you here if you continue this, and you'll end up down the same road as Cully...

Edited for adding & spelling

 

nice...nice... who needs daytime t.v. when 1 has TFN boards.......

 

abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, threatening, that otherwise violates any law, or that encourages conduct constituting a criminal offense.

All of which, Cully was doing which resulting in his banning last night.

edit:
Handmaidens are pretty level-headed.

Now that you've met some of the people here, and you want to do Star Wars events with them, but not SWNYC stuff, Get their e-mail address and e-mail them personally, or start a Yahoo email gruop similar to SWNYC's. Simple as that.

Ok, Jedi_Samantha, since you sort of combined posts there, I'm not sure how to react. Especially since I got a non-commital look after complimenting your sensible approach to the whole situation!

I don't spend all that much time here, most recently, I came in during the middle of some argument that I have no interest in seeing continue any further. Following someone else's lead (or maybe I suggested it first myself - it's too unimportant for me to want to scroll up to find out), I brought up the idea of creating an alternative forum for those not interested in being part of SWNYC here at theforce.net, which is one of the most visited SW fansites. Then there are people like me who are in it mainly for Star Wars and not the social aspects of meeting & hanging out with other like-minded fans, but still like to know what's going on in our neck of the woods.

Telling someone to "love it or leave it" seems so 1970s. I would hope that it would be possible to create an alternate NYC board for those individuals who would want one, provided they would adhere to TFN's standards & moderate it with as much zeal as the SWNYC folks moderate this one. Those interested in enjoying events with friends from SWNYC are free to do just that, those that are not, can still come here & find an alternative not under the SWYNC banner. However, this Cully character seems to have stepped over the line a number of times and hardly seems qualified.

Again, this is not something I care about either way - I was just hoping for compromise that made everyone as happy as possible with minimal fuss. It seems like so much more energy than necessary is being expended on simply enjoying Star Wars and for those who are interested, meeting with other people with the same interests.
Isn't there a more interesting discussion going on about poop somewhere we can all get back to?

 

You go, girl!

 

and they keep on comming who has time for work.....not mee......

 

I'm not going to any picnic, but I might sneak a sandwich into the Ziegfeld this weekend...I'm a risk taker.

 

Ok, Jedi_Samantha, since you sort of combined posts there, I'm not sure how to react. Especially since I got a non-commital look after complimenting your sensible approach to the whole situation!


Sorry about that! It was supposed to be a not a but i was just making the general statement after that though.


nice...nice... who needs daytime t.v. when 1 has TFN boards.......

And next week on General Controversy.....

 

And thechairguy seems to be seeing what I feel this incident has exposed: a need to further subdivide the boards so that future Cullies can be told to leave SWNYC space with their unapproved ideas and moved to non-SWNYC threads. Perhaps that's still the best lesson in all of this (as well as a possible review of who the moderators should be). And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Alan or Chris AT ALL. I just think this could have been handled better by Chris and exposes a need to possibly shift things around in order protect everybody and serve the club and the boards better.

I haven't seen a need for anything, really. I just thought that if there was one, do something about it. I'm happy as a mongoloid.

 

Wow!
I'm a Charasmatic Seperatist and this is even too much for me!

On a serious note, there was a concern on another thread about these boards getting to "Clique-y". If NYC fans want to talk Star Wars, then they should be able to. If SWNYC fans want to talk Star Wars they should be able to also.
SUGGESTION: Start a NYC board and a SWNYC board. Both will be open to whomever wishes to chat. But be warned; these boards will be for the group, by the group. If SWNYC wants to chat about the party after the HVE in great inebriated detail (lol) so be it. It is to be expected.
As an outsider looking in, if I were a new fan looking at this board, I would be very discouraged. These are OPEN forums.
In the same token, rude and crass behavior is unacceptable. People who act in this manner should be handled. Period.

Food for thought. Go Yanks.

 

SUGGESTION: Start a NYC board and a SWNYC board

Very good suggestion and i believe it is in the works and has been for awhile.


Food for thought: GO METS!

 

m u s t h a v e m o r e d a y t i m e
c r a c k