Some Memebers Have Gone On To Greener Pastures.

[mushrat]

For the time being, due to extreme unhappiness with the forum and it's management/moderation team, Kornkitten,zerodynamic,and smiley have taken up sole residence in the new www.hookahpro.com forum.

Please feel free to visit them there.

[billy]

............ :/

[Scheetz]

Yes, I have noticed this. But ummm, what the fuck is going on?

I seemed to have missed the beginning of this issue when I was MIA for 3 weeks.

[symptom CY]

Noo, my Kashmiri brother, Zero!

I hope they did something more than post links to hookah pro in their signatures... you know, something to break the rules? I know we wouldn't ban them simply for being unhappy with forum management...

[mushrat]

we did and they did. Feel free to go say hi..you CAN be a memebr of both, heck *I* am. Just remember what you say will be seen by both forum's members.

[AinSophAur]

I believe they were crying about how this place sucks. So mush kicked them out. Seems resonable. As for Smiley just look at his post history. You can see why he was banned.

[ASUSEAN1]

all this drama is pretty shitty.. i mean cmon wasnt the point of the forum to pass on information to are fellow hookah smokers. well i have not been around to see the recent gossip and what not but how about lets make all the bull shit disappear.. un-block everyone.. and keep the damn company shit on the phone and in emails.. not in the forum.. whatever..

im going to hookah pro for awhile til you guys sort it all out.. peace Edited May 30, 2007 by ASUSEAN1

[chinamon]

im going to hookah pro for awhile til you guys sort it all out.. peace

sort what out?
i follow the rules and i dont notice anything wrong with this forum.

[yashman19]

Eh this forum always has some sort of drama going on. Big, small, theres always going to be some unhappy people. What makes it a good community though is being able to eventually move on and continue with our discussion of the greatest device on earth, the hookah

[AinSophAur]

im going to hookah pro for awhile til you guys sort it all out.. peace

lol thats like jumping out the frying pan and into the fire. You wont find less drama there.

[DrunkenWizard]

Amen.

[skiracerj1]

as a member of both forums, i implore everyone to please just chill out, smoke a bowl, and live in hookah harmony. I just want a place to discuss hookah, but lately BOTH places have been more about bitching than hookah, im not bashing either forum by saying that, just sayin we all need to calm down and remember the saying, fighting on the internet is like running in the special olympics, even if you win your still retarded

[angemonkwj]

as a member of both forums, i implore everyone to please just chill out, smoke a bowl, and live in hookah harmony. I just want a place to discuss hookah, but lately BOTH places have been more about bitching than hookah, im not bashing either forum by saying that, just sayin we all need to calm down and remember the saying, fighting on the internet is like running in the special olympics, even if you win your still retarded

+100!!!!

[yashman19]

Don't worry guys, give it time. Like I said this sort of thing isn't new to us old farts. We just have to roll with the punches, and like you dudes so accurately pointed out, we just need to relax for a bit, and things will eventually calm down.

I'm not worried, but maybe thats just because I'm smoking a bowl of Naklah choco-mint! HEY I'M RELAXED!

[ASUSEAN1]

im going to hookah pro for awhile til you guys sort it all out.. peace

lol thats like jumping out the frying pan and into the fire. You wont find less drama there.

yea well its stupid that people are getting kicked out and it really just all goes back to the retailers who started the forum in the long run so i dont know what to say about it..

[skiracerj1]

Don't worry guys, give it time. Like I said this sort of thing isn't new to us old farts. We just have to roll with the punches, and like you dudes so accurately pointed out, we just need to relax for a bit, and things will eventually calm down.

I'm not worried, but maybe thats just because I'm smoking a bowl of Naklah choco-mint! HEY I'M RELAXED!

lol, thats funny im smoking the same thing right now too!

[chinamon]

Eh this forum always has some sort of drama going on. Big, small, theres always going to be some unhappy people. What makes it a good community though is being able to eventually move on and continue with our discussion of the greatest device on earth, the hookah

once a forum gets to a certain size, drama is inevitable.
smaller forums lack drama because its usually a small group of friends (or people with similar interests) that start it off. once it starts to grow then cliques begin to form. people just gotta learn to not get involved with the drama. read it and laugh at it then ignore it.

[Scheetz]

So lets kick all the new immigrants out.

[mgcsinc]

I haven't been around nearly as long as some people here, but I've been around (staking and not posting) for longer than plenty of the newer members, and this shit is unnerving. We need to have an open dialog about possible changes to the way things are run, including the power of the mods. If people have a problem with things are here, then it should result in very public, nearly-unmoderated discussions HERE. It's the only way to make things work in the long run. If post and thread deletions continue, then it stops being our forum, and starts being Mush, Yash, etc.'s forum.

[symptom CY]

I never really disagreed too much with the moderation here, but with all due respect, this whole dispute itself brings some disheartening issues to the table. The fact that people are being permanently banned for criticizing the forum indicates to me an eschewal of the freedoms that can make the community a comfortable place for rule-abiding members. Why should I have to feel as though I'm risking my membership by making this post? It seems obvious that too many personal feelings are influencing the decisions that are being made here.

I don't know much about this whole conflict or about Hookah Pro, but I believe it was created during that debacle a few weeks ago which resulted in much drama and many lost accounts. I lost my account, which I paid $15 for, and have not received any response to my inquiries regarding its status. And while I'm not quite about to go running off to find myself a new place to talk about hookah, it's more than easy to understand why creating an alternate forum for discussion might be a good idea.

mgcsinc said it right -- if members can't voice criticism of the way this forum is being run, the forum no longer belongs to the members. I wonder, how many people here believe that the United States should deport all law-abiding citizens who voice disagreement with the government? Edited May 30, 2007 by symptom CY

[yashman19]

I haven't been around nearly as long as some people here, but I've been around (staking and not posting) for longer than plenty of the newer members, and this shit is unnerving. We need to have an open dialog about possible changes to the way things are run, including the power of the mods. If people have a problem with things are here, then it should result in very public, nearly-unmoderated discussions HERE. It's the only way to make things work in the long run. If post and thread deletions continue, then it stops being our forum, and starts being Mush, Yash, etc.'s forum.

So what do you want to do about the spammers/advertisers who arn't here for the discussion, and instead only to plug their products? Do we ask them to come have an open dialog with the forum so they can hear us let them know they are unwelcomed?

I agree that changes wouldn't hurt, but who are we going to rely on to get rid of the clutter/spam, the admins? Psh...Good luck with that.. Frequent a few other online forums. Check out the ones that are horribly regulated and see what sort of content makes up a majority of the pages. There is quite a bit more that goes on behind the scenes that most people don't know about. We've been getting pretty good at nailing these assholes before they can spam every thread in every section with their OMGZOR DESIGNER PURSES! before anyone really takes note.

In an ideal world, we wouldn't even be needed, but because this isn't a perfect world, people decide to take advantage of our online community, and all we're trying to do is keep things in line. We can't make everyone happy all the time, but we'll do our best.

Edit*

Words

Ya if I paid money for a premium account and it got deleted, I'd be pretty upset too. Not sure you caught it, but Adrock replied somewhere saying that it was a problem with some sort of database stuff. It's been a while, but I have no clue whats going on with the accounts.

Also just to clarify, the drama that happend a few weeks ago with account bannings wasn't at all related to this stuff, but like I mentioned Adrock has been having database problems, and he's been trying to get answers from his people. My account was one of the ones that got deleted as well, but he was able to salvage mine along with a few others.

Sorry mang, I'd just sit tight for now, and if nothing more happens in a few weeks, I'd start asking for my money back. Edited May 30, 2007 by yashman19

[symptom CY]

I don't think he was trying to say that this place should be total anarchy. There are rules, and I believe they are important in maintaining the quality of this enviornment to the benefit of its members. However, to say that members abiding by these rules can't question forum management places a dangerous restriction on the quality of this community and the experience of its members.

edit: I saw adrock's general message to all who lost their accounts, but I suppose (at least, as a premium member) that I expected some sort of response to my inquiries through PM. In any case... I'm honestly not all that upset about it and it's not really what I meant to discuss in this thread. Edited May 30, 2007 by symptom CY

[yashman19]

Point well taken. But I can't answer most of these questions as I too am still trying to piece together some of the events that occured.

But please believe me that none of the mods would ever ban someone without worthy cause. It may not sound fitting, but more than likely we don't know all the information that has happened, until then, I'm just going to step back and continue to try and keep the peace. Edited May 30, 2007 by yashman19

[symptom CY]

I mean, I didn't want to jump to conclusions and assume that they were banned simply because they were voicing disagreement with the forum management, but I (indirectly) asked mush:

I know we wouldn't ban them simply for being unhappy with forum management...

and he replied:

we did

If there's more to the story as to why they were banned, I think it would be helpful to include a more thorough explanation in the original post of this thread.

[mgcsinc]

I don't think he was trying to say that this place should be total anarchy.

Right.

What I am saying is this:

I have over 100 posts, and I've been here for more than 6 months. I am clearly not a spammer. Thus, I should be able to ask for and debate changes that could happen, and I should be able to do so in a fairly unlimited fashion (unless it gets to the point that it's all I do - clearly that would never happen, because I'm busy most of the time telling people why (I think) they're wrong about things

If you want, move all threads relating to grievances to the forum comments forum and make it clear that the discussion should continue there, but don't delete threads and don't ban people. If you do those things, you're asking to end up with users who feel disheartened and disenfranchised.

One more thing: nothing that's said outside this forum should affect a user's membership on this forum, unless it stands to directly hurt this forum. No personal problems with mods outside this forum should result in a ban, either. If I'm on hookahpro inciting people to do a DoS attack or SPAM the hell out of this forum, then fine, ban me here. But short of that, I should NOT be banned.