Forum Politics

[Flippers4pups]

I have personally encountered threads where members came off the rails and I posted the standard " Please keep the discussion civil" directed towards all in the thread, not singling out one particular member. This is a attempt to be neutral and not engage directly.

If I posted some advice and a member took issue with the advice and voiced their disapproval, my response would be " We will have to agree to disagree, respectfully" and disengage from the discussion. I will not force my opinion on anyone, as there is many different ways to have a successful reef tank. I might learn something from it.

Any and all members that engage in disrespectful, aggressive, use of profanity, bullying and trolling members to harass them in other threads will be reported. Reporting is a way to bring attention to the staff a potential problem. It does not mean that there will be action taken at that time, but can allow the staff to monitor the situation and if needed, reach out to the member to discuss the matter.

I do know that the staff and moderators do the best they can to oversee the forum everyday, as do the reef squad. We all have responsibilities outside of the forum and volunteer our time here. We don't know everything under the sun when it comes to the hobby, but individually have expertise in different areas. We do the best we can.

We are the collective of the forum, each and every member here. It is up to all of us to make this the best reefing forum on the planet or the worst. Its up to all of us.

 

[mattzang]

idk if this thread is a response to something general on the forum or the specific thread i also posted in and had my post deleted

i forget if i noticed it was in the vendor forum or i knew and just went with it anyway, but when i saw my post was deleted i wasn't surprised. that's the rule for that forum. the old guy mad at liveaquaria is what it is, i joined in on poking him at fun, which probably isn't good and it's moments like that where moderators do need to step in to make people feel welcome, but to be fair my gif was excellent! if some old guy wants to start a thread on here to yell at the sky, so be it. sometimes you just gotta vent your frustrations even if they're irrational

 

[JoshH]

I tried another forum after going thru a major illness. That other forum was full of, well u know what’s. I would notice and miss if people in this thread dropped out of here

I do think that's the primary issue here though. We are starting to see some of the "Good ones" leaving the forum for whatever back room nonsense that has gone on. And if I'm being honest, Theres a few others I've spoken to who are on the verge of jumping ship as well. To me this signifies a serious issue that needs to be addressed openly. A lot of people relate R2R to a big online family, even family's have issues every now and then, we need to work it out and not try and sweep things under the rug so to speak.

Things still find a way of rearing there heads and even though they can be hidden here, they can't be hidden elsewhere. So I think it's better to work it out than to leave everyone with a bad taste in there mouths.

 

[Paul Sands]

There was an article by a “staff” member here posted a few weeks ago that started with a clear swipe at the folks that assist in the fish disease forum. Seems like a lot of people left around that time. I think it’s hard for this site to claim to be “friendly” when the moderators are bashing each other openly in such a brazen and disrespectful manner. IMO, that article should have been deleted immediately. It’s not surprising that humblefish isn’t around after that either. I understand the point of discussion and different viewpoints, but that thread was clearly written to misinform and to advance an agenda.

As for me, I came on this site looking for some new coral vendors. I’m always a little disappointed with forums. They could be a good resource, but ultimately, there is so much misinformation that I think they do more harm than good for the hobby.

People in my local reef club reached out to me after seeing some of the discussions I engaged in and said R2R was best enjoyed by ignoring about a few key people, so I followed their suggestion and agree that they are right.

 

[revhtree]

I do think that's the primary issue here though. We are starting to see some of the "Good ones" leaving the forum for whatever back room nonsense that has gone on. And if I'm being honest, Theres a few others I've spoken to who are on the verge of jumping ship as well. To me this signifies a serious issue that needs to be addressed openly. A lot of people relate R2R to a big online family, even family's have issues every now and then, we need to work it out and not try and sweep things under the rug so to speak.

Josh there’s no “back room nonsense.” People leave for various reasons. I’m not going to defend the hard decisions we make after many many many painstaking discussions we have as a mod team and with certain members. We do what we do as we see best for the forum as a whole. It’s not always the right decisions but all of them are done with much thought and consideration. There will always be two sides to every story. You won’t hear much ours because we’re not going to get into private issues we have with certain members. And then there are those who just leave for unknown reasons. But alas we can’t please everyone even with the best of intents.

 

[revhtree]

There was an article by a “staff” member here posted a few weeks ago that started with a clear swipe at the folks that assist in the fish disease forum. Seems like a lot of people left around that time. I think it’s hard for this site to claim to be “friendly” when the moderators are bashing each other openly in such a brazen and disrespectful manner. IMO, that article should have been deleted immediately. It’s not surprising that humblefish isn’t around after that either. I understand the point of discussion and different viewpoints, but that thread was clearly written to misinform and to advance an agenda.

As for me, I came on this site looking for some new coral vendors. I’m always a little disappointed with forums. They could be a good resource, but ultimately, there is so much misinformation that I think they do more harm than good for the hobby.

People in my local reef club reached out to me after seeing some of the discussions I engaged in and said R2R was best enjoyed by ignoring about a few key people, so I followed their suggestion and agree that they are right.

Paul please report the article you are referring too. This is the first I’ve heard of anything like you speak of. Would like to see what you’re talking about.

Also we don’t want to lose any members but as bad as even a few members leaving is, our community remains strong with very knowledgeable members and community numbers growing larger than ever before.

We are not defined by one or two members. We are defined by our membership as a whole.

 

[JoshH]

Josh there’s no “back room nonsense.” People leave for various reasons. I’m not going to defend the hard decisions we make after many many many painstaking discussions we have as a mod team and with certain members. We do what we do as we see best for the forum as a whole. It’s not always the right decisions but all of them are done with much thought and consideration. There will always be two sides to every story. You won’t hear much ours because we’re not going to get into private issues we have with certain members. And then there are those who just leave for unknown reasons. But alas we can’t please everyone even with the best of intents.

I feel as if we need to agree to disagree on this matter.

And that's as far as I'll go to keep things within the forum rules

 

[JoshH]

Josh there’s no “back room nonsense.” People leave for various reasons. I’m not going to defend the hard decisions we make after many many many painstaking discussions we have as a mod team and with certain members. We do what we do as we see best for the forum as a whole. It’s not always the right decisions but all of them are done with much thought and consideration. There will always be two sides to every story. You won’t hear much ours because we’re not going to get into private issues we have with certain members. And then there are those who just leave for unknown reasons. But alas we can’t please everyone even with the best of intents.

I feel as if we need to agree to disagree on this matter.

 

[Paul Sands]

Paul please report the article you are referring too. This is the first I’ve heard of anything like you speak of. Would like to see what you’re talking about.

Also we don’t want to lose any members but as bad as even a few members leaving is, our community remains strong with very knowledgeable members and community numbers growing larger than ever before.

We are not defined by one or two members. We are defined by our membership as a whole.

Sorry I can’t help. It was written by one of the people I had to ignore and so I can’t even search for it anymore without making changes to that. Frankly, I saw the article for a week or two on the forum and since I had ignored the author, I didn’t see what started the discussion until the end. If you want to PM me, I can tell you who wrote it.

 

[revhtree]

I feel as if we need to agree to disagree on this matter.

You’re welcome to disagree at anytime and it’s not against the rules at all I promise.

You are also free to believe what you are told by others and I’m free to believe what I know to be the truth from my first hand experience.

Have a good night.

 

[revhtree]

Sorry I can’t help. It was written by one of the people I had to ignore and so I can’t even search for it anymore without making changes to that. Frankly, I saw the article for a week or two on the forum and since I had ignored the author, I didn’t see what started the discussion until the end. If you want to PM me, I can tell you who wrote it.

PM coming..

 

[JoshH]

You’re welcome to disagree at anytime and it’s not against the rules at all I promise.

You are also free to believe what you are told by others and I’m free to believe what I know to be the truth from my first hand experience.

Have a good night.

Well with only one side of things being (barely) shown and the other hidden, it's kindof hard to understand or believe the side of someone who refuses to share there side of things, truth or not.

But you're right, have a pleasant evening.

And please don't take it personally I'm not trying to attack anyone directly or anything, just sharing my thoughts

 

[revhtree]

Well with only one side of things being (barely) shown and the other hidden, it's kindof hard to understand or believe the side of someone who refuses to share there side of things, truth or not.

But you're right, have a pleasant evening.

I’m going to say this with all due respect to you and I mean that.

It’s not that I refuse to talk about it, it’s that it’s really not the business of anyone outside of our moderating team as it involves issues that are private to people. Even though people will say things that are not true about decisions we have made we’re not going to defend ourselves by trying to prove we are right by throwing them under the bus.

 

[revhtree]

There was an article by a “staff” member here posted a few weeks ago that started with a clear swipe at the folks that assist in the fish disease forum. Seems like a lot of people left around that time. I think it’s hard for this site to claim to be “friendly” when the moderators are bashing each other openly in such a brazen and disrespectful manner. IMO, that article should have been deleted immediately. It’s not surprising that humblefish isn’t around after that either. I understand the point of discussion and different viewpoints, but that thread was clearly written to misinform and to advance an agenda.

As for me, I came on this site looking for some new coral vendors. I’m always a little disappointed with forums. They could be a good resource, but ultimately, there is so much misinformation that I think they do more harm than good for the hobby.

People in my local reef club reached out to me after seeing some of the discussions I engaged in and said R2R was best enjoyed by ignoring about a few key people, so I followed their suggestion and agree that they are right.

So this article was not written by a moderator of R2R. Just to clear this up. No moderator has written an article bashing another moderator.

 

[justingraham]

Been on here for almost three years and I’m finding myself coming in here less and less

I feel the problem is people on this site trying to hard to be perfect or part of the cool group Someone will respond to a question that people don’t want to hear not that it’s wrong or anything and a mod or rev will post something and get like 10000 likes

Seems also like R2R/Rev is trying harder to push products for us to buy I get it u have bills but ah I don’t like

I’ve also have sent pms to rev multiple times before he became big REV aka trade show rev Neptune rev ... and he always responded back then but not now
Recently I have sent him pms multiple times as I won something on this site and it broke in the mail and for multiple messages as they told me to get back to them now I’m just pm’ing myself and have a cracked sump in my garage
And this isn’t a bash about rev he’s just the face so the good comes with the bad and there is plenty of good with rev also but he says he’s here for us and I think he is but when I first joined he was actually here for everyone of us then you hear from people at trades shows saying he has thousands of unread messages a couple of them are mine

Then the last thing that turned me off was a thread last week that got locked twice and I followed it refreshing every second watching post get edited and deleted right in front of my eyes getting molded to what looked good for the website while I agree that thread had no reason getting to that point it was sad to watch everything they were complaining about happen

So yes i Agree in the past six months something has happened to this site that just makes me not want to log on is it more people maybe is it the core people I care to enjoy no longer here prolly as well is it the fear that if I say something that doesn’t fit what a majority of the people feel that I will be typed down to or be told I’m wrong that as well it’s just not the same site I remember and it’s okay things always evolve

These are my opinions and I truly like rev and his family met them multiple times and he is truly that nice will even give u some popcorn but as the site grew his reach did as well and he can’t do everything he used to and it shows if he could I think this site would be like it was but when you have other people enforcing your beliefs it very rarely works out

 

[Michael Gilbreath]

I’m new to reefing and new to r2r, but I am not new to forums and honestly this is the nicest most supportive forum I’ve ever seen. You guys are awesome and amazing and totally make someone struggling feel like they’ve got this. I am in the mommy blog circles and post on some forums as well... people are nasty. No matter what I post, what question I ask, what opinion I give I have at least a handful of people telling me I’m a terrible mother. I obviously haven’t read every thread here, but I do read a lot and the few times I’ve seen someone get rude/aggressive 50 people jump to back the person who was attacked, it’s amazing. I really think this community is great and I appreciate everyone who ask questions and gives answers.

... this probably wasn’t the place to air my appreciation, but I’m going with it.

This is the perfect place for your post that is what this thread is for the positive and not so positive were working the issue out in a civilized manner with respect.

 

[JoshH]

Been on here for almost three years and I’m finding myself coming in here less and less

I feel the problem is people on this site trying to hard to be perfect or part of the cool group Someone will respond to a question that people don’t want to hear not that it’s wrong or anything and a mod or rev will post something and get like 10000 likes

Seems also like R2R/Rev is trying harder to push products for us to buy I get it u have bills but ah I don’t like

I’ve also have sent pms to rev multiple times before he became big REV aka trade show rev Neptune rev ... and he always responded back then but not now
Recently I have sent him pms multiple times as I won something on this site and it broke in the mail and for multiple messages as they told me to get back to them now I’m just pm’ing myself and have a cracked sump in my garage
And this isn’t a bash about rev he’s just the face so the good comes with the bad and there is plenty of good with rev also but he says he’s here for us and I think he is but when I first joined he was actually here for everyone of us then you hear from people at trades shows saying he has thousands of unread messages a couple of them are mine

Then the last thing that turned me off was a thread last week that got locked twice and I followed it refreshing every second watching post get edited and deleted right in front of my eyes getting molded to what looked good for the website while I agree that thread had no reason getting to that point it was sad to watch everything they were complaining about happen

So yes i Agree in the past six months something has happened to this site that just makes me not want to log on is it more people maybe is it the core people I care to enjoy no longer here prolly as well is it the fear that if I say something that doesn’t fit what a majority of the people feel that I will be typed down to or be told I’m wrong that as well it’s just not the same site I remember and it’s okay things always evolve

These are my opinions and I truly like rev and his family met them multiple times and he is truly that nice will even give u some popcorn but as the site grew his reach did as well and he can’t do everything he used to and it shows if he could I think this site would be like it was but when you have other people enforcing your beliefs it very rarely works out

THIS /\ /\ !!!!!!

 

[revhtree]

Been on here for almost three years and I’m finding myself coming in here less and less

I feel the problem is people on this site trying to hard to be perfect or part of the cool group Someone will respond to a question that people don’t want to hear not that it’s wrong or anything and a mod or rev will post something and get like 10000 likes

Seems also like R2R/Rev is trying harder to push products for us to buy I get it u have bills but ah I don’t like

I’ve also have sent pms to rev multiple times before he became big REV aka trade show rev Neptune rev ... and he always responded back then but not now
Recently I have sent him pms multiple times as I won something on this site and it broke in the mail and for multiple messages as they told me to get back to them now I’m just pm’ing myself and have a cracked sump in my garage
And this isn’t a bash about rev he’s just the face so the good comes with the bad and there is plenty of good with rev also but he says he’s here for us and I think he is but when I first joined he was actually here for everyone of us then you hear from people at trades shows saying he has thousands of unread messages a couple of them are mine

Then the last thing that turned me off was a thread last week that got locked twice and I followed it refreshing every second watching post get edited and deleted right in front of my eyes getting molded to what looked good for the website while I agree that thread had no reason getting to that point it was sad to watch everything they were complaining about happen

So yes i Agree in the past six months something has happened to this site that just makes me not want to log on is it more people maybe is it the core people I care to enjoy no longer here prolly as well is it the fear that if I say something that doesn’t fit what a majority of the people feel that I will be typed down to or be told I’m wrong that as well it’s just not the same site I remember and it’s okay things always evolve

These are my opinions and I truly like rev and his family met them multiple times and he is truly that nice will even give u some popcorn but as the site grew his reach did as well and he can’t do everything he used to and it shows if he could I think this site would be like it was but when you have other people enforcing your beliefs it very rarely works out

Ahhh man I’m done with this thread. I can’t win. I’ll just enjoy all the good comments from thankful people tomorrow at the show like I did today. Aka tradeshow rev has to get some sleep. Not sure what the Neptune comment was about. But I’m sure I did something else wrong.

I’ll never be able to please a few of you but for every one of you there are 10 who appreciates us/me. Yes I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve but I can’t help it, I’m human, you win.

Still not mad..... night

 

[smiley28]

So this article was not written by a moderator of R2R. Just to clear this up. No moderator has written an article bashing another moderator.

I’m curious what article you guys are referring to? I’m pretty surprised by how much effort you put forth in interacting with members in general @revhtree. I think you and the mods do a pretty good job. I do however feel like there is some behind the scenes stuff that happens and leaves people wondering what’s up.

 

[JoshH]

I do however feel like there is some behind the scenes stuff that happens and leaves people wondering what’s up

Not at all