Re: I'd like to introduce myself

[darrelld]

We've had a lot of recent changes, recently, as I'm sure most/all of you know. But what should not change is our dedication to making this site's forums into a great place to come and discuss system optimization and other computing matters.

The person who started this and is responsible for making this a great forum can be found here http://www.techimo.com/ as well as the most of the loyal membership and community.

[Scorpio69]

Housen Maratouk, I have asked both "sides" of this issue (Gus and Scott) for their views of the story, as far as what happened here and how it happened. I have yet to hear back from Gus.

I do not want to fall prey to the herd mentality and jump ship just because most of the community is. I would like to take an objective look at what's occured here and decide whether or not I'll be staying around SysOpt. I have to say, though that I can hardly be objective with only one side to the story.

If you'd rather not post, go ahead and PM or email me. Be warned, I'm actually pretty perceptive when people try to give me the "snow job" routine.

[SadSadPanda]

First of all, I'd like to introduce myself to all of you, I'm SadSadPanda, from the HWC forums. I was the moderator and biggest reader of the HWC OT forums. Right now, I still am active moderator at HWC of the Cases, Cooling and Overclocking forums. I followed this link from the Overclockers Network (OCN) site, which I am an extremely active member at (I probably post there 20 times more often than HWC anymore). If you are not aware, OCN is a break-off site from HWC, that was created a long time ago, about 2 years ago, at the time when HWC was not owned by HWC. The social system at HWC back then was the Cases, Cooling and Overlcocking forum (CCOC) and then the rest of the site. Our forum did not have an active moderator, therefore it became a social group that is still very much alive and well today. OCN and HWC lived in peace (they were bascially the same site) until Housen came along.
Housen established a sense of order at HWC, and this caused a backlash against us in the CCOC community. Slowly, people had moved more and more to OCN. Then, Housen was nice enough to keep open the troubled OT forum which had recently been created by other Internet.com employees, before his position of Editor of Online Communities (Is that what it's called, Housen?) was created. Housen had instated another member of OCN and myself to the moderators of the OT forum, as well as adding me to be the moderator of the CCOC forum. I can tell you from personal experience, after the first 3-4 weeks, it was getting extremely monotonous and annoying having to deal with the **** of the forum. It even went as far as the other moderator quitting his job (this moderator, a somewhat famous hillbilly ). On an un-related note, Housen added another co-mod with me who is too an active poster at OCN. I was spending 2 hours a day cleaning up the **** in the OT forum, and the other mod, who was from New Zealand spent another 2 hours a day, 12 hours later cleaning up the forums. This was still too little, so Housen gave me another co-mod, from Bangkok who works from home, so he could check in sporadically throughout the day. This was still not enough.
The final few weeks of our OT community before the forum went to Heck (I don't know what the policy on swearing is here) in a Handbasket were awful. The entire forum was based around racist remarks, flame wars, links to warez and pr0n, etc. We (all of the mods, and some of the original backers of the HWC off-topic forums) all agreed it was time to shut the beast down. By doing this, much spillover was created into other forums on HWC, including my CCOC forum. It was the managment of Internet.com's decision to stop the spillover and all off-topic threads. I agreed with this decision and promptly took care of the offending threads.
I totally agree with any decision that Housen makes here, though I do believe that you guys can keep the sense of community alive as long as you don't abuse your posting privilidges. This downward spiral was created by the users of the forums abusing the freedom we gave them. So, frequenters of SysOpt, I ask you to please be civil, as I imagine you already are.

As a footnote, I still visit HWC and read there and perform my duties when necessary, though I spend an overwhelming amount of time at OCN, a site with very much anti-Housen sentiment. Anytime a topic is struck up, making fun of Housen, I defend him and this hasn't made a completely accepted part of the community. I defend any decision that he or internet.com makes.

[Barney]

I agree with Dave. You don't need 4 moderators watching the forums 24/7. What you need is respect, you have to earn that. The old SysOpt staff was always respected by everyone for the great job they did and their professionality. That's why hardly anyone ever posted **** here.

No-one posts **** on the message board I moderate, because they know it will disappoint me and they know I'll say something about it. Deleting posts, ban threats and cover-ups don't work, any decent moderator knows that. No-one likes a bunch of mini Hitlers ruling a message board. I don't know what the situation was at HWC, but incompetent moderators is what ruins a lot of good message boards.

[dawgtuff]

I'm going to hold my opinion of this takeover for now. Remember-Patience is a virtue.

[Copperon]

SadSadPanda, Do not bring in OCN as one of your frequent sites. You may go there, but your not very liked because of how you handled HWC with alot of the members who left and went to OCN.


Beleive Flavio, Housen should never be trusted.


Ever since you had your head up your back side and your nose has been brown from kissing Housen's rear.


As far as housen goes. It is his way or the highway. He knows a big named website will get more new members. 5 leave, 20 new show up. He will act and say he is not going to do this or that. but just remember that when he does just what he said he would not do.


As far as freelancing mods and admins. I knew one who said he had to choose between visiting OCN or being paid by housen. He needed the $$$ so he stopped visiting OCN. Well he is back now because Housen axed his paycheck's!

[Copperon]

Originally posted by SadSadPanda

As a footnote, I still visit HWC and read there and perform my duties when necessary, though I spend an overwhelming amount of time at OCN, a site with very much anti-Housen sentiment. Anytime a topic is struck up, making fun of Housen, I defend him and this hasn't made a completely accepted part of the community. I defend any decision that he or internet.com makes.

Kinda makes you wonder about ole SSP and I-net. I bet he is still getting paid for this garbage he is typing.

[Scorpio69]

Well, I was being patient. I asked Scott and Gus to give me their sides of the story about a week ago. I received not one but two sincere messages from Scott. Absolutely nothing from Gus. Pretty poor. See ya!

[SadSadPanda]

Originally posted by Copperon



Kinda makes you wonder about ole SSP and I-net. I bet he is still getting paid for this garbage he is typing.

Right......

I wish I was paid.

[Copperon]

If anyone wants to Check into how SSP says he frequents OCN more than HWC, just check post counts.

He has almost 2000 @ HWC and registered in Nov or 99.

@ OCN he doesn't even have 800 and registered in March of 2000.

You all do the math. And I am not the only one who beleives in this.

Originally posted by Pradeep:
By ssp on sysopt froums:
"I followed this link from the Overclockers Network (OCN) site, which I am an extremely active member at (I probably post there 20 times more often than HWC anymore). "

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthre...5&pagenumber=2

A stinky piece of bull if I ever saw one.

[PhilosopherKing]

Sheesh, what a bunch of grouches.

Seems to me, wherever you get answers to your questions is the best place to be. Being friendly is just part of the game. I'm not that big a poster, but occasionally I do help someone. Believe it or not there are many many of these boards, going up and down all the time. Some I posted to years ago are gone now. New ones emerge.


I hate to see all this, I'm taking my ball and going home attitude! To me that's just whining!

[Russ]

but lost them because of constant problems with people posting personal attacks, racial attacks, religious attacks, sexist attacks, political attacks (you name it, they attacked it), flooding, profanity, threats, warez, sexually oriented materials (that one moreso on HWC), etc.

Uh, I hate to tell you this, but welcome to the internet. The above is part and parcel to ANY active forum, and a certain degree of same attracts traffic rather then repels it.

It sounds to me like you simply had a control problem and, rather then managing the situation, you took the easy way out.

Russ, NCNE

[TweakerXP]

Just curious here.... What are your qualifications? MCSE, CNE , A+...??????

[Housen Maratouk]

MS in Information Systems, concentrating in Information Management
MA in English (I'm an Editor, so that one applies too)
BA in English and Classics (double-majored)
Online and involved in communities for over 9 years
Experience, in previous jobs, doing project management/coordination, web development, web site management, technical writing and training, tier-two support for networked POS systems, freelance writing/reviewing, and university-level instruction (I'm currently teaching a Literary Masterpieces class at the state university on Saturdays, in fact).

I hope that answered your questions,

Housen

[NDD]

Hey, Housen, been to Comdex lately ? Saw you at "CPU" presentation

I'm not involved much in community bizz here, however, it seems like you handling SysOpt pretty well, althought previous staff was one of the best ...

Good Luck !

Best Regards ...