A loss

[Howard Durand]

Bill, I am sorry you are leaving us. I was hoping to meet you in person sometime.

 

[WadePatton]

Bill is pretty covered up with email right now. Give a day or two to catch up. His account is "closed" here. He can't even read this thread at home.



He didn't sell his truck. You'll still be able to meet him sometime, I reckon.

 

[MWBrooks]

We have lost quite possibly the best moderator we ever had! I hope he comes back, but I doubt he will. A damn shame for sure.



Do us ALL a favor and save the political BS for somewhere else.



And grow up. If a thread gets personal take the high road and don't inflame the situation.







This really ticks me off.







Mike

 

[Mike Ellis]

It's not the political discussions that are a problem, the same thing has happened in non-political threads like one of the previous posters pointed out. We've seen people bail out over transmission threads, oil threads, Wal-Mart parking threads. Nothing new here, the same thing has been happening since the earliest BBS days. I still remember watching the teletype printer at school buzzing out the debates line-by-line as people argued about PDP-11, every line getting a little hotter until tempers flared.



If men get together, they are going to argue and debate - just human nature. The only way to prevent things like this is to have either real-time moderation (not feasible) or delay broadcast of all messages until they receive moderator approval. This is how the moderated Usenet groups work, but it sure puts a strain on the moderator. Don't know what would work better for TDR, guess the best approach is for guys to just try to keep it civil.



Can't we all just get along?

 

[JTBMC]

Maybe its all this censorship stuff creating the problems, I know things can get heated but grown men should be able to handle themselves like men and not as though this was a Kinder Care Nursery.

When we lose members the likes of Bill, we are really losing the whole site one member at a time. I for one hope that Admin can get with him and ask him to reconsider.

Bill we have always been TDR friends and I will miss you.

TJ

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Written by TDRadmin

Bill made demands of me. His expectations were not met.

Subsequently, he took actions based on his personal dissatisfaction. Those actions were unacceptable. Bill's remaining subscription has been refunded, and he will not be returning to the TDR website.

I think most of you are missing this fact. Bill made demands on Robin. Those demands were not met. He then took further actions on the forums which were unacceptable. His subscription was then refunded. He will not be returning. Out of respect for the contributions Bill made to the site over the years we will not go into further discussion or detail.



One thing I would like to clarify is that there seems to be a perception that we made major edits to the political thread in question. Let me be clear we deleted one post that contained an extreme expletive which was not aimed at Bill and the posts relating to that single post. Anything that might have been construed as a personal attack has been left there. The few times that we have tried to edit political threads the people involved on both sides of the argument were adamant that we should let them fly. Since both sides have always felt that way we do our best to stay out of them.



-Steve St. Laurent

Lead Moderator

 

[C. Harlan]

Any time you have rough times, or are lost on what to do; just ask yourself:



What Would Willie Do??



-Chris-

 

[tntway]

for whatever reason......

things happen..... Bill is gone permanently... . we will miss him.



we need to pray for Nowell's recovery and return here.



and btw Steve... i haven't forgotten about your situation either, you are STILL in my prayers for a good recovery when you have it done.



Tim

 

[KBennett]

This stinks...

I am a fairly new member here and really depend on the knowledgeable veterans to keep me informed. I posted my thoughts on the thread in question but I only bashed a couple politicians, not any of the other people that posted on the thread. To lose a guy like illflem because of someone making the thread personal is truly sad. In the future I will try to respect my fellow TDR members and I would ask that they would do the same for me. If I ever do offend someone I would ask that they PM me so we can work it out off-line.



illflem I didn't know you personally but I am sure you helped me out on one of the threads I read or posted. Many thanks to you and God Bless.

 

[loncray]

I'm one of those few people on this board that has tended to side with Bill and CF on most of the political discussions. I've never taken any of the things said there personally, and I respect just about everybody here regardless of political affiliation. I don't know what made Bill leave, but it must've been pretty bad - you've got to have pretty thick skin to be a moderate or liberal on this conservative board. Vaya con dios, Bill - I think everybody here is gonna miss you, regardless of whether they agreed with you or not.

 

[GeneA]

What Ioncray said.

 

[Jumbo Jet]

I've disagreed with both CF and Illflem more than I have agreed with them, but I support their right to communicate their position. I have received valuable information from both of them regarding the real purpose of the TDR. I hate to see anyone go.



Shoot, my wife and I have been married for 31 years and I don't agree with her all the time either, but I don't guess I'll kick her out - or let her kick me out!



Freedom.

 

[Old Man]

Adamant to let them fly

Steve, since you were also involved in the political thread, I can understand where you are coming from. Let's not limit the attitude "Adamant to let them fly" just to political threads. You are being discrimitory. Let's let that attitude be extended to threads relating the blacks, wenney washers, mexicans, and welfare queens. How about our good neighbors to the north who wave a different flag than ours. "Let's let it fly". With this attitude, it got personal, real personal. We attacked a man's character, even down to his inner fiber. Let' take it even farther and include religion, even if his religion makes him a better person or an asset to society, "Let's let it fly". It's been mention several times about the Ford and Chevy sites how they "eat their own alive". Seems like we are doing good job here. Let's don't call it the "Open Forum" any more. Consider the name WW RAW, instead of the motto, "Let's get it ON" to "Let's let it Fly". Some of you will say, if you don"t like it LEAVE!. I am, I'm going to push this keyboard away and not return here for several months because it got personal, real personal. Some where you are going to have to make decision if the thread is going down hill and shut it down regardless what other people think or it's going to get personal again and more people will leave. OM

 

[fkovalski]

Thanks Steve, for the clarification.

I happen to be following the thread in real time when illflem refered to "For Unlawful Carnal Knowlege" to "ewe" and knew it would be edited. If you state that this was the only post deleted then it still leaves me wondering (as when I originally saw it imediatly posted) as to what irked our departing member? I have read and re- read the thread but without knowing what was said in the parties respective PM's, I do not know what was so upsetting? Granted meanings can get lost in the written word and perhaps that is what happened here. It would be an alwful shame if this is the case. I did not know Bill, but the respect for him as noted in subsequent threads is very evident. And, for that I will miss his knowege. -frank.

 

[wcaldwell]

Hopefully we can all learn from this situation. There's a quote in today's Federalist Digest from St. Augustine that seems very appropriate:



"All kinds of things rejoiced my soul in the company of my friends -- to talk and laugh and to do each other kindnesses; read pleasant books together, pass from lightest jesting to talk of the deepest things and back again; differ without rancour, as a man might differ with himself, and when most rarely dissension arose, find our normal agreement all the sweeter for it; teach each other or learn from each other; be impatient for the return of the absent, and welcome them with joy and their homecoming; these and such like things, proceeding from our hearts as we gave affection and received it back, and shown by face, by voice, by the eyes, and a thousand other pleasing ways, kindled a flame which infused our very souls and of many made us one. This is what men value in friends. " --St. Augustine



Let's learn that we can all agree to disagree and not let it come to this point again.



Wayne

 

[kiwi bird]

Sorry to hear about this.



I'm not sure why it all happened as I use this as a diesel board and, although I read the Other forum, I tend to stay out of political discussions unless I am face to face with someone - and even then only occassionaly.



Good luck wherever you wind up Bill - be it on another forum or doing good work in Afganistan.

 

[Johnboy3]

I don't have any official word on what happened for sure, but these are the facts as I know them:



In the political thread everyone here keeps talking about, Illflem took serious issue with what Sled Puller had said in a previous post (I believe he misunderstood what was being said). Somewhere in that thread after that I saw a real nice post from Illflem dropping the f-bomb, fire trucking, or screaming Fudge You. (hope you get the picture) Near as I can tell, Illflem must have asked Steve or Robin to rid the TDR of SP. SP's post was ruled to be nothing that broke the rules and perfectly ok.



The next morning a post in the products/acc forum and perhaps more that I didn't see of SP's were changed from a normal post to one insinuating that SP was boldly homosexual. Interesting part about it was that the post was changed about half hour after SP had left to go out of town. A few of his friends read the post. They were pretty sure it wasn't anything SP would post and called him about it. He had no idea what was going on since the posts were made after he had left home. Someone had very quickly reported the post and SP was banned from the TDR.



Between the time that the bad post was discovered and I came home that night I can only speculate what happened. Illflem was removed as a moderator and a member of this site for which I gather is all summed up in this quote:





"Bill made demands of me. His expectations were not met.

Subsequently, he took actions based on his personal dissatisfaction. Those actions were unacceptable. Bill's remaining subscription has been refunded, and he will not be returning to the TDR website"





Although I'm only guessing because everything fits into place, I assume it was Illflem that somehow changed the posts. I'm also assuming that someone else was in on it with him so that the post would be reported to Robin or Steve right away before SP or someone who knows him would tell him about it and then he would be able to change it or contest it before being banned. I'm not sure how they figured out behind the scenes that Illflem was behind it though.



I'm not sure what happened, but when I looked back on the post, it had been posted onto by TDRadmin. But the funny part was that the nasty part of the post was still there and it said "This post is acceptable" by the TDR. So I can only assume that it was edited again after Robin posted on it by the same person.



I realize that the powers that be didn't want to tell the whole story for whatever reason. But I can't sit here and read this crap about what terrible loss it is for Illflem to DECIDE to quit the TDR. He may have been a knowledgeable member, but he went way across the line of simple personal insults to the realm of defamation of character or worse. Especially since that thread was linked to on several different discussion sites after he changed Gene's post.



I spoke to Gene briefly about this whole mess and advised him to get a lawyer, but he said he liked Illflem and didn't want to cause him any trouble, nor did he want to lose his membership from this site.



Anyhow, it had everything and nothing to do with politics and the thread you all were trying to figure out the problem with. Hopefully I don't get tossed off the site for posting my own speculations and observations here.

 

[tntway]

whatever went on... i don't really care... it's just a shame that it all had to deteriorate into what appears to be REALLY childish behavior by more than one member.



remember this..... with Nowel's passing, this political garbage and the oil/ transmission wars really seem to be a bit trivial, don't ya think???

 

[shendren]

i guess as a moderator you must act like one. he probably got caught up in the thread when he should have been moderating? i don't know. i wasn't there. seems like a loss of knowledge. i believe he can still read the tdr though right? he just can't post? correct me if i'm wrong.

 

[Steve M]

He can't read the "other" forum. Turn off your cookies and re-open the round table. That's what you see when you're not a member.