Why the new colours? (Important message- please read!!!)

Hey guys. I just wanted to fill you all in on the current situation between the board owners and the moderators of TF.N.

Originally posted by Raven:


I?m going to come right out and say what the problem is between the Mod Squad, the Old Folks Home, and an element of site ownership. An element of site ownership has told the entire Mod Squad that we must provide him with our real names and addresses and such by registering at another message board and then passing on our user names there to him through G-S. If we do not, we get demoted. All future moderators will have to provide this information. This may be expanded to cover City Representatives as well.

The Mod Squad and Old Folks Home have two major issues.

1) The security of the information and the purpose behind the information gathering. As everyone is probably well aware, the Mod Squad is about as leaky as the Titanic. This has fostered worries about how secure this information would be, even though it?s being stored elsewhere. No system is perfect, and there is the worry that that information might come out and what might be done with that information. And we?ve yet to be told why we need to give it (though the guess that it is something along the lines of ?if LFL sues, it?s on the shoulders of the moderators?).

2) The way that this has been handled by site ownership. More than anything else, I think that?s what?s at the heart of this. The feeling in the Mod Squad and Old Folks Home is that an element of the site ownership does not care about the message boards and the users and moderators here in any way at all. We as a group have not been provided with reasons why the information is needed; we feel that we?ve been threatened; we feel that we?ve been insulted; and finally we feel that we?ve been ignored.

Since that post was made, a number of JC and FF mods were demoted for refusing to give the site owner this information. They were:

Darth Sapient
sideshow212
stinrab
Mr.Neck
Protege-of-Thrawn
Rogue1-and-a-half
Bria
strawbary
Nabooty_Call
Jeff 42
Obi-Dawn Kenobi
VoidDancer
HawkNC


The following mods have voluntarily resigned:

jp-30
Krash


Bria will be returning as a moderator soon hopefully ? she has submitted her data.

Currently, we have no Head Administrator. For the immediate future, Raven, KnightWriter and Grilled-Sarlacc will share the position.



Many of the remaining mods are uncertain whether it's more ethical to stay here and try to rebulid the JC or to also resign as a show of solidarity. A number now have their names in black for this reason.


If you would like more information, or just feel the need to read TFN drama, check out the following thread in Communications: Drama

If you'd like to join us in protesting this absurdity, "strip down" your icon, and add the line in my sig to your sig.

 

Just to let you know, there is talk of the FanForce groups splitting off from TF.N boards- especially if they start demanding CR info too.

I was thinking that we should start looking into getting our own boards somewhere so that in the event that we split, we still have a mode of communication for our group.

 

Here's an update.


Posted by Philip Wise:

I'm starting this topic so what it will be clear what happened to some forum mods yesterday and why.

The site theforce.net and the forums are owned by me and Josh Griffin. We have a contract with IGN where they provide hosting in exchange for allowing them control of the advertising. Neither I, nor Josh, or the entity TF.N LLC earns any money from IGN for this. IGN does pay some expenses directly related to running the site and occasionally we are compensated for affiliate advertising, such as from All Posters.

Last week I asked for each of the volunteer mods to provide me their name and mailing address. Many mods complied, some however did not. Concerns where raised about the reason for the request and some were concerned with privacy issues. Though I addressed these issues, some still did accept them.

Those that were either fearful of my having the information or worried about the security of their name and address being in our files enough, refused to provide the information.

Those people are no longer moderating for the forum.

Contrary to some opinions I've read, I value the work volunteers do very much. This is not my way of thanking them or casting their efforts aside as unimportant.

Unfortunately, as much as I care about their work, I care more about the future of the forum, the tf.n staff, and our relationship with Lucasfilm, than I care about those

who are fearful of my having their contact info. It's a fact that some people who participate in forums anonymously, including moderators, can and do feel more free to say and do things they would otherwise not do if they were known. In the end, I am confident the forum mods will be more comfortable with each other than they are now.

Based on some hate mail I've received as a result of this, it looks as though there might have been mods among us you might not want around your family. People that say these kinds of things have no business pretending to be decent people and every reason to fear disclosing their name and address.

Thanks for reading.... Philip

I say he's a turd who just wants to sell everybody's private info to some third party company. I've also heard that part of his reason may be because in case he is sued by LFL, he can channel some of the blame on us. Not cool either way, IMHO.

 

A turd huh? Interesting way of putting it

Thanks for the info Jayna!

And on that note: Yavin Base

The thing that gets me the most is Phil only has 18 posts. Perhaps if he'd taken a more active role in this forum, people would be a little kinder. But I degress...

 

As you all may know, P.W. also owns the Star Wars autograph store. Let me tell you a small story about Mr. Wise. I met him at GenCon last summer, where he was running the Star Wars autograph area. How exactly that all works, I'm not sure....I know the stars have agents, perhaps PW provides the autograph area and star treatments for a percentage of what the stars charge per autograph...anyway, getting off topic.

Amy Allen was signin there and I showed up in my Aayla Secura costume. We took some pictures with her own camera. Then the Star Wars Insider photo guy showed up and wanted some pictures, and PW stuck his hand in front of the camera and said, "There's been enough pictures taken here." So THANKS, PW, for ruining my chance to be in the Insider. Guess there was no $$$ in it for you. Phhhhhhbbbbt!

-Karma

PS- Sorry for the bitterness rant, couldn't help myself!

 

i just joined the yahoo thing as NADMC77,just wanted to let u know.

 

Is PW the guy who ran the autograph stuff from CII? I remember many people having problems with that whole set-up and several people who payed big bucks for autographs that never came. I was just wondering if it was the same guy.

Just to let you guys know, we have started up a little board of our own to use in the case that we end up splitting off from TF.N. It is located here. We will continue to use these boards for our main discussion, but I encourage you all to register for those as well.

 

Yeah, Jayna set up an awesome discussion board, so let's not use the yahoo group to communicate. I'll leave it open as a redundant back up and may use the calendar feature in the future, but definitely check out the new bbs.

 

Hey gang!

I think it is great that you folks have a board to go to in case you need it. But right now, I'm asking everyone to keep operating as if nothing has happened. As far as I know, these boards aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

If something comes up, Jayna or I will let you know.

Thank you so much for your support!

 

hey hey, not a problem. I worked too hard on these graphics to abandone it now!!

 

Absolutely. Our home is still here.