As many will know this messageboard has as Duke stated in Brannigan 'Become a little unfriendly'. Over the past month there has been quite a dip in posts made because of this factor and this has become very obvious over the last week and it is partly down to the board not being what it was at Christmas and before(more friendly with a variety of topics flowing with great conversation). At university in order to improve subjects that we are taught we have a critical assessment half way through the semester to state what we like/dislike about it and what needs to be improved on. I am suggesting something similar for this board something, which all users can participate in and not feel too daunted by. I think it was either Author or Roland who suggested the introduction of a policy to deal with what should and should not be discussed i.e. 'Politics' and if it is to be allowed what boundaries should be incorporated. I think this is something, which needs to be developed. I would like to see more transparency within this board i.e. the BrianB/Monique matter should not have been covered up by people whom had power namely the moderators, they may have acted with good intentions but I feel it was naive to think the rest of us wouldn't smell a rat. I made a post about getting the picture game up and going again but had no feedback which was disappointing I feel that the moderators again could have made an attempt here to do something to ignite more interest I feel the 1000 post mark seems to be of more interest. The moderators also seem to have lost touch with some members on the board and this has become apparent via the politics discussion, I would suggest either another moderator or a go between the board and the moderator/hierarchy someone like Roland(Straight talking and knowledgeable) or Smokey(Friendly and intelligent) or even Chance(Great person very sensible and un confrontational) wouldn’t be bad
As Roland mentioned in a previous post names is becoming more tricky with a huge amount of members using Duke or his characters names etc, can something be done about this.
I am posting this topic to try and heal wounds that may be annoying many and yes I realise that some may feel that I was the perpetrator of many these wounds :D but I don't accept full responsibility. My claim about irregular members was a genuine one which I still maintain and I hope everyone on this board is still conscious that there is the possibility of shady members on this board with ulterior motives (that’s all I will say on that). This post is not aimed at pointing the finger at anyone(I know I have given the moderators a little bit of stick but they do a good job at the same time and come across as nice people with a genuine interest) but it is about trying to regain feel-good factor this board USED to have but which it has sadly lost and become a lot more cynical. I hope many will contribute to this discussion and help the board become the great one that it once was and can be again.

I submit this post respectfully
Robbie

:agent:

Robbie,

And to rest of the board, I'd like to address this issue that Robbie seems to be confronting to me and the other moderators (namely Chester who is approaching 1000 posts). I'd like to say first of all that I am offended that you would tell Chester and me that our only interest is to get to 1000 posts, or that we are not interested in what is happening on the board. You are third in line on this board on total posts here. Looking at the daily average on your profile, you have a rating of 2.2 posts per day. The same as Chester and myself. You came on this board later than we did. I have never criticized your posts here, and have never discouraged you at this board. If you think that we are having a contest on who's doing the most posts, only to post points, then I must say that you don't have a very high opinion of what we are doing here.

If you looked at all the threads here, and read what we read, you may not be posting as many as we are posting, but you are posting just as much if you look at the daily averages. Most of my post are not one liners, so I think that you are highly mistaken by the fact I am posting just to be posting. By the way I didn't respond to itdo's post on the politics section. I'm not sure why he would be so offended by political behavior since we have discussed politics since the beginning of this message board. Go back and see what I'm talking about. I will agree with Kevin that name calling to members on this board will not be tolerated here, and I will be more forceful in dealing with this issue.

We (Chester and I) spend time almost daily looking throughout the board for anything that may be a problem. I have personally closed threads, and moved them off the board when I find something inappropriate that violates the rules. We put members on notice and put them into a moderation site for review before they are put on the message board. Those that have been put on notice were contacted by e-mail and/or pm for the violation. They have not returned to this site. I don't think we owe you or any one on the board any explanation for decisions made here. We are here to protect you and this message board.

Going on, I wish you would drop the BrianB/Monique incident. I have explained to you until I'm blue in the face about that. We were not aware of any of this until the untimely death of BrianB, and not sure until a few months later about Monique. I know that you had conversations with her about different things. You were upset with the outcome of this incident. We were totally unaware of this. And most of the members moved on. I would like to not have to discuss this any longer. I have told you everything I know, and so have the other moderators and Kevin. There is nothing else to discuss. And we did not remove her from this board!

As for getting other moderators for the message board, that is a decision Kevin will make. He may ask us for input, but he makes the final decision. You may pm or e-mail him with this request and he will be glad to respond to you.

Now, we can heal the wounds here, but don't attack Chester or me about things you don't fully understand. We are here to serve you and the others here. We want everyone here to have a good experience while visiting this board. If we see things that are in violation to the terms and agreements, we will deal with it. I do appreciate it when you bring to my attention something that doesn't seem right. I don't ignore the pm's or e-mail's (if I did, I'm sorry). I look into it and respond in a timely manner to your concerns. If I feel that someone is not violating the agreement, I will not bother them or contact them about the situation. I will not suspend them from the board because you may question something you may not agree with. If that was the case I would have done that to many of you. I may not always agree with your beliefs, but I respect what you have to say here.

In conclusion, I have no problems with evaluating the progress of this board. Kevin will make the necessary changes at this site to make it better, and easier to use. And we will continue to monitor the contents on this site. But if you don't like a subject, skip it and move on. If you don't like it, either ignore it, comment on it or don't stay. That's a choice we all make, and that's alright. Sometimes getting away is best and things get better when you return. But don't try to conform people here.

I am flexible, and love to hear about different places, and views of John Wayne especially all over the world. I have great friends all over the world because of this site. We are culturally different, and our politics are different. I try to understand, and learn a lot from you, as my hope that you will learn a lot from me.

Cheers, Hondo B)

Hondo, you ROCK!

Dittos on everything you said!

I would like to add something here, for those who are wondering what the "Brianb/Monique incident" is. As Hondo has said, there's really not much to tell. Brianb became a member early last July, and posted 60 posts in his first 24 hours on the board, much to the envy of some on the board. He was a security guard in a closed down casino up in Washington state, and he had LOTS of time on his hands during his work shift. He appeared to be knowledgeable about military aircraft, having had a military background. He was truly a John Wayne fan of the first order. A little over a week later, Monique became a registered member of the board, and started posting like crazy. She introduced herself as a 25 year old black female living in Vancouver, British Columbia. She had a web site that had her picture and many pictures of the Duke. She really lit up this board in the short time she was here. The third week of August, a post was made by Big Jim, fellow casino employee and registered member of this message board, informing us of the untimely death of Brianb by massive heart attack. It was a terrible shock and saddened us all. Noticing Monique's absence, we emailed her to let her know about Brian's death (but never got a response). Shortly after Brian's death, I made a few phone calls, one to the Tulalip Casino and spoke with the supervisor of security. Brian DID exist, DID work at the casino, and really DID die unexpectedly. I also spoke with Big Jim, who confirmed the same things. Around that time, Kevin noticed that for some reason Monique had a number of posts with the casino IP address (for those of you who don't know, an IP address is something like a computer fingerprint, and is very individual - you all have one, and the moderators and Kevin can see it and can compare it with others - it's how we learned that Red Witch, chuckee chezze, johnboy, and Stryker were one and the same - another story for another day). In any case, suddenly we had a mystery on our hands. Further phone calls to Big Jim and the casino indicated that there was no one with the name Monique, or matching her description, who worked there. Upon further investigation, it seemed that not only did Brianb and Monique share the casino IP address, but another one as well (presumably from a home computer). Monique's last post came hours before Brian died at his home, and nobody has heard from "her" since. It would appear that Brian had more time on his hands than we could have imagined, to have created two vastly different profiles, Monique's complete with profile photo and web site and a very definite style of posting. All this being said, we saw no reason to say anything at the time, as it didn't seem at that time that any harm had been done, nor does it now. Nor did we want to denigrate Brian's memory. Except for a very occasional post wondering where Monique was, it didn't seem to matter to any one that she was gone. There is no subterfuge, no conspiracy, no "rat to smell" - it is what it is, a very strange circumstance that we didn't feel the board at large had a need to know. This has been explained to Robbie in detail, through PMs, yet he persists in pushing the issue as though there is something being hidden. So there it is - now you all know. Do you care?

When we registered to become members of this board, each and every one of us had to hit a button that says “I accept” after having presumably read a paragraph which includes the following:

Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary.

The best way to contact us is to hit the “Report Post” button, available on every single post. When you do that, you send an email to every moderator and the administrator of the board (Kevin). There is also space for you to voice your specific concerns regarding the post which you are reporting.

We may not catch everything on this board, but we try. :D

If ANYONE has a concern about ANYTHING on this board, please contact the moderators and/or Kevin directly.

Robbie, if you feel that your PMs have been ignored, I apologize (although I have copies of at least a dozen PMs I have sent to you, regarding this and other concerns). Regarding the picture game, I am personally not capable of posting the pictures very well, as Baron did. I don't know what happened to him. I have sent several emails and gotten no response (and no notification that his email address doesn't work either). I have contacted another member of the board that I think is capable of resurrecting that area, but that member has not responded to me. I think Kevin's work schedule has an affect on the amount of time he has to be here, as does Hondo's and mine.

Originally posted by Robbie@ Mar 8 2004, 03:49 PM
My claim about irregular members was a genuine one which I still maintain and I hope everyone on this board is still conscious that there is the possibility of shady members on this board with ulterior motives (that’s all I will say on that).

Robbie, and anyone else, if you have substantial information that anybody on this board is shady, with ulterior motives, please give that information immediately to the moderators and Kevin. So far, any concerns expressed privately about specific members have been looked into as best we can, with no specific complaints or information, and no problems have been detected. Talking among yourselves is not productive, and seems to perpetuate more suspicion and concern when it appears none is warranted.

Now that Hondo and I have spent at least a couple of man-hours of our free time on a Monday night explaining this instead of having fun on the board (yes, I still think this place is fun), hopefully this and Hondo's comments will put all these concerns to rest.

Respectfully,

Chester and the Mrs.

Hondo and Mr. Chester

Your replies to my thread were very defensive and it seemed that you both seem to be very out of touch than I imagined.

Mr. Chester you ask do any of us care about the BrianB/Monique incident, well I for one did I fel that it was a well execeuted con that you attempted to hide and a con which took everyone on this messageboard in. Don't you understand that the reason why I am pursuing this issue is to prevent it from happening again, and to try and ensure nothing else is being concealed.

I also made to statement about my PM's being ignored I don't know where the both of you got this from.

Regarding talking with other members regarding shady posts it seems to be the only way that action can be taken as information was given to the moderators but resulted in an empty sack, so it is wrong to discourage this. I was also disappointed that people whom posted comments regarding shady members were pm'd by moderators accusing them and demanding to know why they made certain allegations.


Mr. Chester you may be in the minority if you think this messageboard is fun at the moment this is not the case as there is certainly a deep rift in it and one that will take a while to sort out.

I made many suggestions that neither moderator dealt with such as policies on topics etc. Its time to get back to the main discussion of an evaluation of this messageboard because something has to be done to heal the rift if won't just go away automatically.

:agent:

It has been some time since this subject was active -
Hi everyone -
As I approach my seventh month here as a member, I would have to say that members on this board are among the most congenial around. I realize from some earlier posts that this was not always the case (see earlier posts on this subject as well as some others) - that politics became a source of contention (though IMO it does not have to be). Also that some discussions (not necessarily politics) tended to get out of hand. This does not seem to be the case now.
I have visited other boards covering other subjects and found some of their posts get downright antagonistic (one board's subject was Pernell Roberts of "Bonanza" fame - I couldn't believe the vitriol spewing out).
I don't know if it has a great deal to do with the subject of our attentions, John Wayne. But it just seems that everyone of the posters here are generally fair-minded and civil, like the Duke, and many will go out of their way to answer questions or just communicate with others readily. Maybe some of his attributes have, just maybe, rubbed off on us, his admirers.
Anyway, that's an observation from a relative newcomer who enjoys the relaxed friendliness found here.
Cheers - Jay :)

Likewise Jay,
I have found the members on this site, helpful and considerate,
you of course my friend being one of them!
You and I have exchanged, some banter, and it's been fun.
Hopefully, the members and their posts, continue to stay that way,
for the benefit and interest, of new and old alike.

Hey guys,

That was great to bring this up. I am always wanting to make this very civil and I think I do speak for the other moderators when I say that they'd like to keep it that way as well. We are here to discuss different things here, and sometimes politics do come up. I am not very interested in the direction you are in your political beliefs and I may not agree with you on those issues, but I want to keep this civil. We can talk about this without attacking each other. Name calling is a sign of immaturity and we will keep that out as much as we can. That does include us mods.

Duke had his problems in the political arena, but he kept it civil as possible and then fought it when needed.

We are interested in your comments and suggestions always. I hope that this message board is a place you can go to and enjoy for a long long time. We are very glad to have you here.

Thanks for the great posts here Jay and ethanedwards.

Cheers Hondo B)

Hi Ethan and Hondo -
Thanks for the kind words. I've been wanting to voice a general assessment of the board and ran across this topic, so rather than make a new one, used this.
Cheers - Jay :D

Here is my general assement of the board: If I didn't like the people or the atmosphere here I would have left long ago!!

With that being said I give a great big thanks to the mods and Kevin for "directing" us in our day to day postings. Thanks guys for being there.

hi all

hondo stated in an earlier post that we come from all over the world so we are different in many ways. about the politics well what can one say except that every country has different ways of doing things and when (excuse the expresion ) some of the members get on their soap boxes and i dont understand what they are talking about i just skip it and move on. we like any group have our down times where there isn't much activity but this is to be expected as we all live in different time zones and we all have responiblities that we have to forfill. i have to say that in all the time that i have been here i dont think that i have had too much trouble and when i have the people that i contacted helped me out to my satisfaction.

my only problem is i have to remember to use the words that dont offend others as some words down under mean one thing but in another country they mean something entirely different and if i do do this at anytime then i am sorry that i have offended you but it was a mistake.

keep up the good work all of you who post and to those who look out for us keep it up as your work has made this a site that my little bloke can come to and i dont have to worry about him seeing something he shouldnt have.

so a big THANKS

cheers smokey

I couldn't think where to post this observation, without starting a new one.
Thank you stumpy for your last post,
but where has everyone gone??
It gone awfully quiet on this site!!
There are hundreds of members,but I can count on two hands,
the ones that are keeping things going!!
Come on you other guys, let's have some imput!!!!

Originally posted by ethanedwards@Jun 4 2005, 07:25 PM
I couldn't think where to post this observation, without starting a new one.
Thank you stumpy for your last post,
but where has everyone gone??
It gone awfully quiet on this site!!
There are hundreds of members,but I can count on two hands,
the ones* that are keeping things going!!
Come on you other guys, let's have some imput!!!!
17172


Well, Ethan, several months ago I became very disgusted and disillusioned by an unpleasant (for me) experience on the board, which is why I seldom post anymore.

I had posted a personal opinion which, though strongly expressed, was not in any way profane, libelous, argumentative or directed toward another member. Yet my post apparently offended someone because within a day or two, it and all other posts within the same thread were deleted, obviously by a moderator or, as I now call them, the "Thought Police".

I don't like censorship of personal opinions, especially when its' done anonymously with no consultation beforehand. If a moderator doesn't like something I've said, they should at least do me the courtesy of informing me of that fact and giving me a chance to rebut their criticism. As the French philosopher Voltaire said, "I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it". I agree wholeheartedly with that position.

It's always been my belief that the only reason these discussion boards have moderators is to ensure that no filthy language is used, and to arbitrate bitter disagreements between two or more opposing parties. In other words, to prevent what is called "flaming". Their duties should not include censorship of personal opinions.

I forgot that I posted this topic but at the time the board was very volatile and I had several issues with it.

I think the BrianB/Monique saga was handled incorrectly and I was criticised for stating this I do not however want to go over this again.

One problem that I had when I started this post and which is still a significant factor is moderators not returning pm's regarding issues on this board.
I pm'd Chester about posting a certain topic and would it interfere with censorship he kindly replied sating he would pass on the message to other moderators and I would have a swift reply. That was well over a month ago and I am a little disappointed that my pm's seem to be ignored. I believe if I had posted the topic before consulting a moderator if they had disagreed with it, it would have been promptly removed and I would have been pm'd regarding it.

However on a whole this messageboard it very good.

:agent:

hi stumpy

please dont stop posting, even if i didn't understand some of the things that you spoke about i read them anyway as i think this is the only way to learn things about each other. just remember we :wub: you no matter what.

cheers smokey

Originally posted by smokey@Jun 6 2005, 10:53 AM
just remember we* :wub:* you no matter what.

I love you too, darlin'. Wish I was about 20 years younger - I'd come over there and pay court to you.

Yeah I agree with Smokey, keep on posting. I didn't even know that you did have a issue with a particular post till you said something. And like Smokey, I still like you, love might be a strong word though!! :lol: Plus, I don't go that way!!!

Anyways, keep on posting Stumpy, I think we can handle anything you dish out :)

hi stumpy

you rouge what will the mrs say :lol: had a good laugh but still love ya catch up one day

cheers smokey

Does anyone else find, that if they visit the Chat Room,
there's never anyone else there but themselves, being welcomed??

To my knowledge the chatroom has been dead in the water since Chance limited his posts here back in January of February 2004.

:agent:

Hello All
I wonder if anyone would like to PM me with a proposed time to rendesvou in the chat room. I am willing to try and be available to chat between 6 am and 9 pm. With a weeks notice I can juggle My schedule to do this any day of the week. On the near horizon I am going north for thanksgiving. No Offence to south but sometimes getting out of the city can reboot the hard drive leaving the dust behind. Further to previous posts on this topic, I enjoy it here. more then I can say ( without writing a book ). As for BrianB/ Monica-- I note that he chose the city I grew up in to locate this representation of dual citizenship. Perhaps he visited here at one time. If so and if he liked it, he would not be the only one. It seems like a great many folks come here to visit or live. There are times when you can water ski and snow ski the same day. Like the US we have folks from everywhere here. Over 60 % of the students in high school ( ages 12 to 18) speak english as a second language. Back to moderators I'm not sure if the pop up ads and banners generate any financial subsidy for Kevin or wether he is out of pocket for the costs of running this board. Nor is it any of my business. I am satisfied that the moderators try their best and any one on the planet without compromised mental facilities knows that the more folks involved the more perspectives there are. Taking the context and what I presume to be the intent, into consideration , I have not found anything posted that appeared designed, to be hurtful. For example on discussions of terrorism the term Raghead was used. I choose to believe the intent was to demonstrate anger at the cowardly act of terror perpetrated on innocent victems. If I felt the source of those comments was promoting hatred of a group of people by the criteria of race or religion, i would have been sad, and I would have requested that the moderators consider intervention. As I said in another post there are weak lost and dangerous people in every nation, race, religious group, etc. Stereotyping an entire group is not usually an accurate way of sharing information. As for censoring, this apparently happened some time ago and I don't have much to go on so I will repeat that nothing I have read here offends me, and I am glad Stumpy and Robbie and all yall keep posting. As for Brian B/m i say rest in peace.

Hi Kilo would be pleased to chat what about next Saturday but whats 6am and 9pm English time.

Hello All
Hi chance how is Christmas shaping up? murray :newyear: