Eric the Red
Team HuskerBoard
I will be posting this later tonight, probably around 10pm tonight - Out of respect to all of you, I wanted you guys to be able to read it first.
It’s amazing to think we are headed into Huskerboard’s 13th Husker signing day. I can remember the first one, taking the day off of work, scanning any website I could get to to see who committed and post it on our site to the nine or 10 members we had. Funny thing was half of those members were me and my partner Blackshirt, doing everything we could to get this site off the ground. To think, I wasn’t married, no family and living in a one bedroom apartment beginning a career. Now I’m pushing mid-life, going bald, grey hair and shuttling mi familia around in the minivan.
Now that is all an afterthought due to the tremendous support we have from many of our members who bleed Husker red and only want to help their fellow fan. Information is posted here quicker than ever. People are thankful they have a free place to view, participate and discuss their beloved Huskers. We are well over 10,000 members strong and there is absolutely nothing else out there like this message board that doesn’t cost a dime. This is something our whole team, members, moderators and administrators are very proud. Simply awesome!
It takes a lot to keep this thing afloat. It’s not just financially, but much more the time to keep things running smoothly. To think of all the generosity that has been handed over to this site it’s really phenomenal. Just last week Zoogies and AR Husker Fan amongst others freely donated their time to fix our malware intrusion. If we had to hire a private firm we’d be looking at a bill of several hundred if not several thousand dollars. Or when there is a potentially theft of ad space, someone trying to post for the competition, Knapplc is right there “Johnny on the spot” to cut them off. How about Mavric spitting out one tweet after another as soon as it leaves the recruits finger tips? We also have huskeraddict, who provides us with so much of the graphics that give Huskerboard its look, not to mention the yearly Schedule wall paper. BIGREDIOWAN and Rawhide and all the Moderators that keep the site clean from spammers. You can’t ask for anything more, certainly not anymore time. Every single one of these moderators has a career and obligations outside of this message board. All of these members are well educated, articulate, realistic and logical.
There is also the financial burden of running a board with this much whipping past us on a daily basis. We are almost our own worst enemy so to speak. We have grown so large it simply cost more to keep it up. This site is no cash cow by any means. There have been several months where Blackshirt and I have put in our own money to get to the next month. We used to have a steady flow from our clothing store partner, but we believe a “mistake” was made when the distributer sent out catalogs of their primary store to all of our members and we lost quite a bit of revenue to pay our bills. We are desperately looking for advertisers. We have recently purchased software to allow a very quick transaction to take place to get advertisers up and running on the board. Please reach out to me if you want to know more.
Of the recent bans, let me try and help.
What gets someone banned? I think it's simple, act as if you are face to face with someone meeting them for the first time, not as if your actions have no consequence because you’re sitting behind your computer. If you do, there is a chance you’ll be asked to leave.
We understand that you are curious as to what precipitated the bans. We will not allow anyone to personally attack anyone, ANYWHERE! This includes not only the forums, but also any aspect of the Huskerboard software, including the Personal Messenger (PM) service. And it was the PM service in which much of this took place. That’s the reason that this seems so abrupt. AR Husker Fan and I located several incidents of the PM system being abused, with acts that would be impermissible in the forums. This is about being civil to each other on a message board, including those you don't like, whether it’s the forums or the PM system.
Please know that there was considerable thought on these decisions made by AR Husker Fan and me that included lengthy correspondence with some of the members banned.
A member released what was a highly truncated, and very slanted, version of the full PM string between me and a few other members. I had politely asked them to modify their behavior. That request was directed toward the use of a phrase. The phrase itself was not the issue; had it been, we could have easily modified it as we have certain other phrases, such as vulgar or highly offensive terms, through the “bad word” filter. The reason we didn’t is that the term itself isn’t offensive; it was being used as a means of personal attack, outside the Woodshed, towards anybody that disagreed with the users’ opinions. Rather than use the “bad word” filter, those members were simply asked to refrain from using the term outside the Woodshed. We’ve done this before; we’ll probably do it again.
It was a reasonable request. It was made in a civil manner. We expected that we’d get a reasonable, civil response.
Instead a harsh, intense one sided backlash ensued with attempted bullying, most of which was conveniently left out of the document that was released.
Now, in that document I stated that the use of the term, in addition to being a personal attack in the way it was being used, sounded “gay.” I did say that, and not I’m not running from it. It was an attempt at levity. I try and bring humor to these things and my attempt at using a Seinfeld reference came off as an insult to some. Please accept my apology, I screwed up and I apologize.
Subsequently, other members – close friends and relatives of the first three banned – themselves started using the PM system in ways that were not permissible. For that, they were also banned.
At this point, AR Husker Fan and I need to clear up some points. Most of them understandable, given the circumstances. But they need to be addressed.
First, the Moderators were not involved in this. This was an action taken by AR Husker Fan and me.
Second, this did not result from a member complaining or reporting anything.
Third, the members that were banned know full well what led to their bans. They are the ones that used the PM system in ways they should not.
We understand that this response will elicit a number of different views. Some will be satisfied (although its human nature to want to know all the details); others will not. For the latter, it is their decision to stay or go. We sincerely hope they stay, but if they elect to leave, we understand and appreciate the time they have spent on Huskerboard. We ask two things. First, and foremost, that any discussion concerning this message be civil. Second, please confine that debate to here. It is certainly on-topic here; it is not elsewhere.
Again, we did not do this lightly. This is the third time in our history that, unfortunately, these steps had to be taken at this length, but for the good of the board, it was necessary.
This is the first time in over two years I personally felt someone had to be asked to leave. I hate doing it, it’s the worst part of this and I hope we can all get back to discussing the reason we are here. That is our love of all things Huskers.
Please realize we cannot and will not be able to be everything to everyone. We cannot and will not be able to be everywhere and see everything. Be our eyes and ears and lead by example. Huskerboard.com in the proud to be the Heartbeat of Huskernation. Or members are excited and many want to promote their passion for the Big Red. Do it here, do it loud, and do it often. I’m overwhelmed at what we have accomplished in the first 13 years, excited to see what the next 13 have in store for us.
It’s amazing to think we are headed into Huskerboard’s 13th Husker signing day. I can remember the first one, taking the day off of work, scanning any website I could get to to see who committed and post it on our site to the nine or 10 members we had. Funny thing was half of those members were me and my partner Blackshirt, doing everything we could to get this site off the ground. To think, I wasn’t married, no family and living in a one bedroom apartment beginning a career. Now I’m pushing mid-life, going bald, grey hair and shuttling mi familia around in the minivan.
Now that is all an afterthought due to the tremendous support we have from many of our members who bleed Husker red and only want to help their fellow fan. Information is posted here quicker than ever. People are thankful they have a free place to view, participate and discuss their beloved Huskers. We are well over 10,000 members strong and there is absolutely nothing else out there like this message board that doesn’t cost a dime. This is something our whole team, members, moderators and administrators are very proud. Simply awesome!
It takes a lot to keep this thing afloat. It’s not just financially, but much more the time to keep things running smoothly. To think of all the generosity that has been handed over to this site it’s really phenomenal. Just last week Zoogies and AR Husker Fan amongst others freely donated their time to fix our malware intrusion. If we had to hire a private firm we’d be looking at a bill of several hundred if not several thousand dollars. Or when there is a potentially theft of ad space, someone trying to post for the competition, Knapplc is right there “Johnny on the spot” to cut them off. How about Mavric spitting out one tweet after another as soon as it leaves the recruits finger tips? We also have huskeraddict, who provides us with so much of the graphics that give Huskerboard its look, not to mention the yearly Schedule wall paper. BIGREDIOWAN and Rawhide and all the Moderators that keep the site clean from spammers. You can’t ask for anything more, certainly not anymore time. Every single one of these moderators has a career and obligations outside of this message board. All of these members are well educated, articulate, realistic and logical.
There is also the financial burden of running a board with this much whipping past us on a daily basis. We are almost our own worst enemy so to speak. We have grown so large it simply cost more to keep it up. This site is no cash cow by any means. There have been several months where Blackshirt and I have put in our own money to get to the next month. We used to have a steady flow from our clothing store partner, but we believe a “mistake” was made when the distributer sent out catalogs of their primary store to all of our members and we lost quite a bit of revenue to pay our bills. We are desperately looking for advertisers. We have recently purchased software to allow a very quick transaction to take place to get advertisers up and running on the board. Please reach out to me if you want to know more.
Of the recent bans, let me try and help.
What gets someone banned? I think it's simple, act as if you are face to face with someone meeting them for the first time, not as if your actions have no consequence because you’re sitting behind your computer. If you do, there is a chance you’ll be asked to leave.
We understand that you are curious as to what precipitated the bans. We will not allow anyone to personally attack anyone, ANYWHERE! This includes not only the forums, but also any aspect of the Huskerboard software, including the Personal Messenger (PM) service. And it was the PM service in which much of this took place. That’s the reason that this seems so abrupt. AR Husker Fan and I located several incidents of the PM system being abused, with acts that would be impermissible in the forums. This is about being civil to each other on a message board, including those you don't like, whether it’s the forums or the PM system.
Please know that there was considerable thought on these decisions made by AR Husker Fan and me that included lengthy correspondence with some of the members banned.
A member released what was a highly truncated, and very slanted, version of the full PM string between me and a few other members. I had politely asked them to modify their behavior. That request was directed toward the use of a phrase. The phrase itself was not the issue; had it been, we could have easily modified it as we have certain other phrases, such as vulgar or highly offensive terms, through the “bad word” filter. The reason we didn’t is that the term itself isn’t offensive; it was being used as a means of personal attack, outside the Woodshed, towards anybody that disagreed with the users’ opinions. Rather than use the “bad word” filter, those members were simply asked to refrain from using the term outside the Woodshed. We’ve done this before; we’ll probably do it again.
It was a reasonable request. It was made in a civil manner. We expected that we’d get a reasonable, civil response.
Instead a harsh, intense one sided backlash ensued with attempted bullying, most of which was conveniently left out of the document that was released.
Now, in that document I stated that the use of the term, in addition to being a personal attack in the way it was being used, sounded “gay.” I did say that, and not I’m not running from it. It was an attempt at levity. I try and bring humor to these things and my attempt at using a Seinfeld reference came off as an insult to some. Please accept my apology, I screwed up and I apologize.
Subsequently, other members – close friends and relatives of the first three banned – themselves started using the PM system in ways that were not permissible. For that, they were also banned.
At this point, AR Husker Fan and I need to clear up some points. Most of them understandable, given the circumstances. But they need to be addressed.
First, the Moderators were not involved in this. This was an action taken by AR Husker Fan and me.
Second, this did not result from a member complaining or reporting anything.
Third, the members that were banned know full well what led to their bans. They are the ones that used the PM system in ways they should not.
We understand that this response will elicit a number of different views. Some will be satisfied (although its human nature to want to know all the details); others will not. For the latter, it is their decision to stay or go. We sincerely hope they stay, but if they elect to leave, we understand and appreciate the time they have spent on Huskerboard. We ask two things. First, and foremost, that any discussion concerning this message be civil. Second, please confine that debate to here. It is certainly on-topic here; it is not elsewhere.
Again, we did not do this lightly. This is the third time in our history that, unfortunately, these steps had to be taken at this length, but for the good of the board, it was necessary.
This is the first time in over two years I personally felt someone had to be asked to leave. I hate doing it, it’s the worst part of this and I hope we can all get back to discussing the reason we are here. That is our love of all things Huskers.
Please realize we cannot and will not be able to be everything to everyone. We cannot and will not be able to be everywhere and see everything. Be our eyes and ears and lead by example. Huskerboard.com in the proud to be the Heartbeat of Huskernation. Or members are excited and many want to promote their passion for the Big Red. Do it here, do it loud, and do it often. I’m overwhelmed at what we have accomplished in the first 13 years, excited to see what the next 13 have in store for us.
