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For love. And justice.
July 28th, 2014 15:01These last two days, my friends and I made a huge decision. It was not an easy decision. Yet I heard bad rumors about us at the other side of the island. This post is not made to pick a fight with that other party and the place that I once considered "home". This post stays as a clarification and a memento, so that everyone who reads it, everyone who is involved, and for myself, to always remember the mistakes we did and never to do it again.
Forum Promotion. I found this forum when I first started my own forum and/or blog, years ago. I think it was around 2010. I did not stay long because I did not agree with a review for my blog that I requested. After I moved on from that anger, though, I found myself staying around the forum. I eventually joined the staff team as a Review Team Member, resigned in 2012, rejoined the team as a Community Team Member, and promoted to Review Team Leader around the end of 2013 until two days ago.
When and where did everything start...?
My resignation was not based in one event. It was an accumulation of many disappointments towards the owner of the forum when I was a team leader there. (I am not planning to mention any name in this post. Anybody curious can ask me for the name directly and privately.) Nobody is perfect. However, when someone with a position as high as an owner did not do anything to "pay" for the imperfection, disturbed the rhythm of other staff members' work, and disregarded their hard work, those were the very last lines of my limit. I chose to leave before I exploded.
I had fun with my job as a reviewer and a team leader. Team leader is equal to global moderators, so it is a double work. As a global moderator, I was required to also communicate with administrators and owner of the forum. There were many agreements and disagreements between us, yet we had always managed to come to terms with each other and perform our duties as usual.
I did realize the owner did not participate much in our discussions about management of the forum. To be honest that is not anything new; since the era of the previous owner until the current one, they rarely did any direct participation in forum management and moderation. It was nerve-wracking, but at least we could handle everything else. I was okay with the other administrators and us team leaders taking care of those all.
That is why, it became strange that when the owner decided to actually participate, all that he did was going against us.
As a former Community Team Member (aka the moderators of the forum) and current global moderator who had to deal with troublemakers, there is no bigger insult than looking at banned members returning to the forum all of a sudden. No notice, no reason. When the said members cause troubles once again, it was other administrators and team leaders who had to deal with the crap. Not the owner. One administrator, due to exhaustion dealing with a certain troublemaker, even left a note saying clearly that he would step down if this member ever returned to the forum. And the owner did the exact thing: he unbanned the member, gave him a sponsor membership, and enjoyed the day. I did not know the reason for these members returning, and I did not even care. I heard it was related to money, but I would not judge him with rumors.
He claimed he did not read the note. Does that make sense? This is one serious form of ignorance.
One day the owner also decided to promote someone to "Valued Contributor" group. It is a group for important people, as the name implied. Mostly for retired team leaders or those who have contributed largely to the forum despite not being a staff member. This one person was added without clear notice and reason, as usual. We were told that it was a reward in advance for the things he would do for the forum. It did not really make sense, but we chose to wait. We waited, but nothing happened. And so we questioned this decision. Other staff members caught this member doing inappropriate actions which earned him reminders from the moderators, which made our discomfort even greater. At the peak of the discomfort, the owner once again decided to give a reward-in-advance for this member in form of short user name. This kind of reward had never been given to any other member because it required edits through cPanel. This looked like a game of favoritism to our eyes. While we protested, the owner did the same thing to himself without replying to our concerns.
Am I wrong if I said that such action was equal to shouting to us that he did not care about us or what we said and that he could do anything he want?
He is the owner. I feel that such action is very, very inappropriate. To the level of insulting. I feel as if he was mocking us, who worked ourselves so hard out of love for nothing. No real life payment. In fact, we wasted our free time for the forum and its members. We kept the boards clean. And he acted as if we were nothing.
Those were two important events which drove me to my resignation. It could be different for each of those who resigned, but it was generally the same for everyone. We were tired. Very tired.
I heard that the other side of the party removed specific details of the story to manipulate the situation. I heard that he thought we blackmailed him and didn't give him time or chance to explain himself. He can do and say whatever he wants. This is the truth, though, whether you believe it or not. Three administrators, four team leaders, and four staff team members stepped down in total due to this event. One administrator and one team leader stepped down earlier because they couldn't handle it anymore. Does it seem like we didn't give him time to explain or change? Think for yourself.
I also have special message to those who choose to stay at the current Forum Promotion, whether as a regular member or as the new staff team member, including our former friends who betrayed us. My advice is simple. OPEN YOUR EYES AND EARS. WIDELY. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Watch everything carefully and see for yourself if we just made this up or not. I heard the owner said he was going to change. That is good. Unfortunately, that is also what we heard over and over again, up to the point that it is very hard to trust. So go ahead and prove it yourself. I hope this event will stop here and you will not suffer the way we did. If it does not stop, though, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Fare thee well, Forum Promotion.
Forum Promotion. I found this forum when I first started my own forum and/or blog, years ago. I think it was around 2010. I did not stay long because I did not agree with a review for my blog that I requested. After I moved on from that anger, though, I found myself staying around the forum. I eventually joined the staff team as a Review Team Member, resigned in 2012, rejoined the team as a Community Team Member, and promoted to Review Team Leader around the end of 2013 until two days ago.
When and where did everything start...?
My resignation was not based in one event. It was an accumulation of many disappointments towards the owner of the forum when I was a team leader there. (I am not planning to mention any name in this post. Anybody curious can ask me for the name directly and privately.) Nobody is perfect. However, when someone with a position as high as an owner did not do anything to "pay" for the imperfection, disturbed the rhythm of other staff members' work, and disregarded their hard work, those were the very last lines of my limit. I chose to leave before I exploded.
I had fun with my job as a reviewer and a team leader. Team leader is equal to global moderators, so it is a double work. As a global moderator, I was required to also communicate with administrators and owner of the forum. There were many agreements and disagreements between us, yet we had always managed to come to terms with each other and perform our duties as usual.
I did realize the owner did not participate much in our discussions about management of the forum. To be honest that is not anything new; since the era of the previous owner until the current one, they rarely did any direct participation in forum management and moderation. It was nerve-wracking, but at least we could handle everything else. I was okay with the other administrators and us team leaders taking care of those all.
That is why, it became strange that when the owner decided to actually participate, all that he did was going against us.
As a former Community Team Member (aka the moderators of the forum) and current global moderator who had to deal with troublemakers, there is no bigger insult than looking at banned members returning to the forum all of a sudden. No notice, no reason. When the said members cause troubles once again, it was other administrators and team leaders who had to deal with the crap. Not the owner. One administrator, due to exhaustion dealing with a certain troublemaker, even left a note saying clearly that he would step down if this member ever returned to the forum. And the owner did the exact thing: he unbanned the member, gave him a sponsor membership, and enjoyed the day. I did not know the reason for these members returning, and I did not even care. I heard it was related to money, but I would not judge him with rumors.
He claimed he did not read the note. Does that make sense? This is one serious form of ignorance.
One day the owner also decided to promote someone to "Valued Contributor" group. It is a group for important people, as the name implied. Mostly for retired team leaders or those who have contributed largely to the forum despite not being a staff member. This one person was added without clear notice and reason, as usual. We were told that it was a reward in advance for the things he would do for the forum. It did not really make sense, but we chose to wait. We waited, but nothing happened. And so we questioned this decision. Other staff members caught this member doing inappropriate actions which earned him reminders from the moderators, which made our discomfort even greater. At the peak of the discomfort, the owner once again decided to give a reward-in-advance for this member in form of short user name. This kind of reward had never been given to any other member because it required edits through cPanel. This looked like a game of favoritism to our eyes. While we protested, the owner did the same thing to himself without replying to our concerns.
Am I wrong if I said that such action was equal to shouting to us that he did not care about us or what we said and that he could do anything he want?
He is the owner. I feel that such action is very, very inappropriate. To the level of insulting. I feel as if he was mocking us, who worked ourselves so hard out of love for nothing. No real life payment. In fact, we wasted our free time for the forum and its members. We kept the boards clean. And he acted as if we were nothing.
Those were two important events which drove me to my resignation. It could be different for each of those who resigned, but it was generally the same for everyone. We were tired. Very tired.
I heard that the other side of the party removed specific details of the story to manipulate the situation. I heard that he thought we blackmailed him and didn't give him time or chance to explain himself. He can do and say whatever he wants. This is the truth, though, whether you believe it or not. Three administrators, four team leaders, and four staff team members stepped down in total due to this event. One administrator and one team leader stepped down earlier because they couldn't handle it anymore. Does it seem like we didn't give him time to explain or change? Think for yourself.
I also have special message to those who choose to stay at the current Forum Promotion, whether as a regular member or as the new staff team member, including our former friends who betrayed us. My advice is simple. OPEN YOUR EYES AND EARS. WIDELY. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Watch everything carefully and see for yourself if we just made this up or not. I heard the owner said he was going to change. That is good. Unfortunately, that is also what we heard over and over again, up to the point that it is very hard to trust. So go ahead and prove it yourself. I hope this event will stop here and you will not suffer the way we did. If it does not stop, though, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Fare thee well, Forum Promotion.