Jon, Please Leave The Forum

[FrugalRefiner]

I've had an exchange with Jon via PM regarding his recent attacks on butcher. He said if he could find some way out of this endless cycle, he would. I sent him the following reply:

If I could find some way out of this endless cycle I would. Believe me.

That's easy enough. Stop attacking people.

When you were allowed back on the forum you told me you would keep your posts like Deano's. Just factual, helpful information. Obviously that hasn't been the case.

Look at the thread that started this latest shit storm I lost 7g of gold. The OP had some questions. I tried to gather some additional information. He asked about the proper ratio of acids to make AR. I gave a brief answer because I was dealing with trying to repair some damage to my home caused by a recent storm. jarlowski tried to provide some more information on how to deal with his current problem. I agreed that my post wasn't how to clean up his mess but how to proceed in the future. But you decided to single me out about reducing AR to syrup, even though I hadn't given that advice, and you took a shot at Harold, even though he hasn't been here for nearly 4 years. butcher stepped in and the shit storm began.

When I finally had time to split that thread, move the crap to the Debates section and clean up the original thread, you attacked butcher again in Precipitation for newbs. butcher tried to give some rough guidelines on how much acid it takes to dissolve a gram of gold. But instead of reading the parts of his post about using up to 1 ml of nitric, that in most cases that would be an excess, and that there would be a high loss of nitric in off gasses, you had to continue your grudge and ask if he really thinks it takes 1 ml to put a gram of gold into solution.

That's not something Deano would ever do.

So if you really want to end the cycle, do what you said you were going to do. Provide factual, helpful information. Stop attacking people. Stop criticizing the way the moderators do their job on the open forum. Stop carrying grudges.

Your behavior is not at all like Deano's. If it was, the cycle would end.

Now I've given you the courtesy, and a fair amount of my time to tell you how to end the cycle. It's up to you to decide what to do with that advice.

I don't expect a response from you, and I will not respond to you if you do. I'm done.

Dave

I received this PM from Jon today:

You'll still read it.

You think it's mature debate to say "I've said my piece and I won't listen to yours?" Well that's just f***ing (edited to remove Jon's profanity) emotionally immature but hey its the mantra of the liberal left. You silence people who don't agree with you it's what you have done for time immemorial.

The hardest bit is that you personally called Harold out for the way he ignored all the rest of the moderators and went and did his own thing. Yet now you're behaving like him.

Power corrupts you know that right?

Refusing to listen to another's perspective is just childish and demonstrates what a limited man you are.

You're not reading this so I can say what I like but personally I pity your lack of awareness. I also cry that you can't stand by your own morals and you should be ashamed of yourself for failing to see another's point of view as relevant.

You're a fundamentally weak man. I'm not. I can accept my faults and apologise for them. You don't even have that in you.

That given I wish you well quoting wiki chemistry as guidance.

By the way what I have written here is not a patch on the stuff Harold wrote to me, nor a patch on what you and Butcher have said to me on open forum so man up and take it. Alternatively ask me to leave the forum. I'll do it. Just have the balls to do it openly not in PM.

Why do I even suggest that- you don't have what it takes.

OK Jon, I'm asking you to leave the forum openly.

I apologize to the rest of our members who have had to read this.

Dave

 

[galenrog]

Dave,

As a moderator, you have a lot of authority. Discuss with other moderators, if you feel a need. Any decision on this matter is yours. Proceed as you think best for the Forum.

Time for more coffee. And a nice slice of dark European Rye.

 

[anachronism]

Fine

You and Butcher have both broken the rules with regards to keeping pms private. You've both had a crusade against my credibility and allowed people to get away with saying things to me that you wouldn't allow for anyone else. For years.

Double standards.

Whilst I didn't expect you to go all out and breach to confidentiality of PM this time I have to admit you did ask me to leave as requested. I'm gone.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I'm not aware of a "rule" that PMs can't be shared on the open forum. It's been done many times in the past. While I personally try never to share PMs on the open forum, you breached that "rule" yourself recently when you shared your PM exchange with niks neims, so obviously you didn't really consider it a rule.

Besides, you're the one who asked me to request you leave on the open forum. It would be unfair to all of our other members to ask you to leave without the associated context.

Dave

 

[silversaddle1]

Well, this ranks right up there in the top 5 stupidest posts ever.

 

[jarlowski1]

Dave did the absolute right thing here. He took Jon aside and discussed his issues with him saving Jon from embarrassment however Jon asked him to publicly engage him in front of everyone, so Dave did. I respect Dave for how he handled this situation. When I read Jon's attack at Butcher at first I was upset and felt it was completely "uncalled for". This forum is not supposed to be about attacking one another and I felt Jon was pretty abrasive.

 

[silversaddle1]

In the old days, Harold would have just kicked ass. No posted drama, just one warning then out the door.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Well there is a lot that can be said of this forum, almost all positive.

But as a forum we are made up by people and people has a strange property to them, they are all a bit different. The tolerances for some of these differences is what makes up a community/society.
A really dynamic society can not be homogenous, in order to drive the dynamics we need some "ruckus" to happen.

Therefor as most soceties in the world we have a police to keep us all from hurting each other and the society as a whole. Within our magnificent society there has been forming informal groups, as all societies do (from the beginning I guess). The problem is that these are not balanced and sometimes this infringe on what should have been fair treatment of all.
Some members has been shoved into the corner and have much less slack than others just by beeing who they are. And others again by adhering to some of these structures (accidentally or conciously) are given much more leeway.

Even if someone is behaving like a stick of dynamite from time to time, they still may be a significant asset to the forum.

In order to be given legitimity the "Police" (in lack of a court) needs to adhere to the rules as well as uphold them, AND they have to be considered fair and impartial.

This is not always true, there is within our "Police" a cultural and geographic center of gravity
that do not mirror this forums global precense.
If my oversight is correct, we have ONE non American moderator,
which have the potential to impose an incorrect cultural impact to the act of moderating.
It will at least give a black spot of precense, timezone wise,
I think I have pointed in this direction a couple of times before.

Humor and what is considered proper behaviour may differ considerably from one region to another.
For example, Europe is a quilt of different cultures that has been "forced" to interact,
due to their inherent lack of size and resources, together we have all the recourses but not alone.
I like to think that we have evolved a wider understanding of others this way, but it is not all true.

We (I) have however a bad habit of thinking of others, like Americans, Africans, Asians, Russians and so on, as a homogenous group regarding culture and humor, which is of course plain wrong.
There may or may not, be a bit stronger homogenosity amongst US population,
since they have had a common government for so many years, but I guess that is wrong too.

So like it or not, cultural and regional preferences impact our view and understanding of the world and hence this forum. This will impact our Moderators too, since they are a product of their culture, education and human nature, amongst other factors. Even if they may be very good at overlooking it.

I have seen what I consider a product of this happen at least once,
when what i saw as an attempt to an ironic comment ended up with immideate banning.

So please all, step back a couple of steps,
look at yourself to check what kind of chips you have on your own shoulder before you comment on your neighbours. Sore feelings should not be a reason for either banning or leaving, at least not for proven members.


Another thing is: PMs should be just that, Private Messages.
We are all tempted to let a few safeguards go when we assume a message/chat is for another persons eyes alone.

I have broken this once, but that was because it was a pure processing question.

Also sprach Zarath.... Well this time it was just me :lol: :mrgreen:

Sorry guys, don't take all things too serious, life is to short for that, why don't we all kiss and make up?

 

[niks neims]

Jon is like the crazy goth chick that'id bang for the fun of it and later avoid (until she'd probably torch my car)

Dave is like the nice cheerleader from suburbs, the kind you take home and introduce to your mother...

I have feelings for both, tho

one is more fun, other is better for you (GRF) in the long run....

....

I've made up my mind to be consistent publicly and take Daves side, I would probably be banned if not for him, so I always got his back, regardless of who he is up against, be it some random troll, Jon or the NOX himself...

So, if you'd put gun to my head to vote regarding the topic, there you have it

.... that being said, Dave, I see two possible ways:

1. Involve highest levels of administration - the members as a whole are too divided - Jon has his pierced-tongue, crazy-eyed bad-boy charms around too many of valuable members, you risk great damage to forum by banning/kicking him out yourself unceremoniously publicly, and he is too well liked for that to be orchestrated by you alone, behind the scenes - look how it went down with Harold... If the owner of this internet resource stepped in and said that in his judgement said member is bad for forum he in fact owns, that would end the subject matter once and for all, it is his decision to make... I don't like and don't advise for you to proceed this way, though

2. What I would advice - leave it as is, let him hang around, and don't try to kick him out or make him leave or whatever:
a) Once in the blue moon the guy actually shares something usefull, and, though he haven't personally helped me at all, judging from the fierce loyalty of his clique - he must have helped them in one way or another at some point....
b) The drama he brings is actually good for forum, livens the place up, extends it's content further than just dry technical information... I know, I know, high ranked professionals, engineers, men of intelligence and science pretend that it is childish to be entertained by antics like this, and I call bull-crap to that. We are all human, I'm not afraid to admit, that I find a guilty pleasure in reading some of these confrontations - this place is not supposed to be a dry, referenced, peer-reviewed library, a static suppository of knowledge - it should be a live community, with live people, with characters and personalities, you can't have it both ways... And let me be honest - I might not represent the majority of this forum, since I have little interest in pure gold refining (for me it is just a side product of e-waste bussines I'm building) - The compulsion to come here somewhat regularly and browse through the new posts, comes, in some part, from emotional investment, need to be entertained..."let's see whats Jon up to", "he should not have said that", "oh boy some guy is about to be chewed out", "I feel some drama brewing", etc... and I call out everyone to finally admit that the hypocritical facade of "forum is to discuss gold refining only", and rhetoric argument of "it takes attention away from things worth discussing" has been worn out. For a forum to be alive it needs to be sprawling, dirty, messy place, then the members will feel invested enough to contribute, views need to be challenged, feelings need to be hurt, then it will continue to grow, otherwise just print the whole damn thing out and place in shelf next to Hoke...
Our prince-albert-in-cheek friend brings a lot of that kind of energy to this place, let's face it, it is fun, and it is OK to be entertained by it, just don't take it too seriously, you wouldn't get angry at some stand-up comic for his antics, would you?
Almost every "alive" forum has some kind of internal stress, division or bully at-least - it is natural, Jon fits the role, is it better when Harold was bullying people around beautifully with power of establishment behind him? Is it better that Jon does it in messy, rebel kind of fashion? I don't know, but I do know, thast even after him - the slot of "jester/executioner" won't stay vacant for long, not unless you put the lid on the human emotion and smother this place for good...

and after all, it is required to be able to take a little abuse now and then on the internet, if you can't - either grow a thicker skin or unplug the damn wire....

 

[niks neims]

I actually typed my above post before carefully reading through the entire thread (can't keep my fingers still midst good drama enfolding) so I failed to see this bit

I'm gone.

So it feels kind of pointless to argue the topic if he's already gone... For what's it worth - I believe he'll be back, just ask "spaceships" ... also not that it would be a bad thing

also, Dave

I'm not aware of a "rule" that PMs can't be shared on the open forum. It's been done many times in the past. While I personally try never to share PMs on the open forum, you breached that "rule" yourself recently when you shared your PM exchange with niks neims, so obviously you didn't really consider it a rule.

It is sweet of you to notice, but, for the record, it didn't bother me one bit, in fact - if any member wishes to publicly disclose, quote or interpret anything I've wrote to them in PM - unless it pertains to business interests or commercial-secret-type information - please feel free to do so now or at any time in future

 

[markscomp]

" Another thing is: PMs should be just that, Private Messages.
We are all tempted to let a few safeguards go when we assume a message/chat is for another persons eyes alone. " by Yggdrasil

I should hope that PMs are just that Private - I should hate that I share something in confidence only to be leaked to the press (or all our members) when that was not my intent.

 

[Lou]

Well it's over and done with now.

Thread locked.