Only a couple were actually banned. Depends if you listen to my story or 300 British! 1 nob Texan must have been wrong if 300 British were against him, right? Honestly as I remember it... 1) Rob upset with another American user not even in the UK section, I believe it was OT. 2) UK user who I've had a run-in with before posts something in that thread that UK users claim is British humor while I think me and most say it as just sticking their nose in and taking a pop shot a me. 3) Rob temp bans UK user. 4) 300 UK users beers in one hand while pitch forks in the other come after me for banning one of "them". 5) Red blooded fighting Texan named Rob (hey, that is me!) decides to fight back. 6) Kaboom!!! So not a very fair fight as it was all contained just in the UK section. The more names I was called and abused along with communication and cultural gaps the more UK users I lost respect for and urged them to move on. There were only 2 users I permanently banned. So I had a problem with the UK users thinking they were above FerrariChat.com rules and standards and they believed they had a contained community that shouldn't be subject to FerrariChat.com rules and standards. We agreed to disagree. They have their own place where they can apply UK norms and standards and that's the best thing for them. They are always welcome here if they can abide by our rules, which admittedly leans towards American acceptable behavior. Funny thing is the original UK user in question has still been very active on FerrariChat.com most of the time. There is really only one UK user that caused 99% of the trouble and through his offline personal attacks of me using "we" and "us" language along with several users supporting him in public unknowing of his offline behavior, then unfortunately the result was an A-bomb that caused much damage but was mostly triggered by just him. Win-Win is we got rid of a couple bad users, UK users have their own home to conduct themselves without the limitations of FerrariChat.com rules, and FerrariChat.com is back where it should be on appropriate behavior.
MM is a cool dude, in person. Not sure, I never 100% figured that one out myself. He had a friend we all knew that was a mercenary in Iraq, for security reasons we helped that users online existence disappear. I never do that, but thought this was as good of a reason as any. Down the road I said something in a post that MM thought was giving out information about that users identity. I may have by mistake copying and pasting carelessly, but IMHO I think MM was more just looking to be dramatic about something because instead of calling me (he had my number) or contacting me PM/email to remove the post ASAP, he instead wrote a huge dramatic essay (he's had a few over the years) about how I ****ed up and he was leaving FerrariChat.com. I'm personally glad MM doesn't post anymore, he still lurks quite often. He was a great user most of the time, but I've wasted more time over the years just between MM and Art. We tried everything to get those guys offline or be nice online, but nothing worked until MM left.
Not at all, in the heat of battle I was SOOO frustrated with the "British" behavior that I think that bled into some of my responses and that only made things worse. I lived in Scotland for 5 months and traveled through England quite often, not a single problem except I had to be drunk with the British to understand them. Drunk talk is like singing, we all sound the same.
Matteo, those pictures of Mr. Mullett Man are hilarious, I hope I never get on your bad side. My wife and I cannot stop laughing at those pictures. Your really great with that stuff.
Thank you, Bruce and Noah, for the 'clue'. I was unaware. Thank you, too, Rob, for clarifying the 'hacking' issue. Keith
Hey Nob Lay We are now up to date and dont use pitch forks any more, we get our wive's to use them and it's not beer but lager, so get it right.
I am one of the pitch fork toting, beer swilling, bar room brawlers who has found a new home - albeit not completely left this one One of the ex-mods of the UK section asked that this post, from our new home be posted here, as he has completely boycotted Fchat. In case any of you are interested this [size=+2]is[/size]what happened. 1 opinion versus 300 others... Yes, only fair to assume that the odd one out is wrong. However, other Americans and Sponsors disagreed and sided with the "mob" Displaying unbelieveable crassness and failure to adhere to your own rules with a shocking display of rudeness. Your fellow Americans also found this shocking Caused by your inability to understand anything happening beyond the end of your own nose For 2 months. The length of the ban and the refusal to review it was the spark that lit the gun powder. You only tried to review it once you'd lost 300 users That's racist. It was your racist comments levelled generally against UK users, and the blatant breaking of your own rules that caused 300 otherwise apathetic users to turn against you as one. Should we ask AndrewG to ban you for 2 months for your persistent racist attitude? By creating new regulations on the fly and responding to reasonable polite questions by banning people who had broken no rules Yes Kaboom. You lost 300 members and pissed off a whole load of sponsors by your inability to listen to reason and logic. One of your mods got fed up trying to reason with neanderthal man and realised that actually he cared more about his friends, and about basic principles and standards of behaviour, than he did about enforcing rules he no longer had respect for. So he walked away and didn't even say goodbye The other mod resigned shortly afterwards Incorrect. The 2 users were deleted AT THEIR OWN REQUEST because they didn't care to be a part of a community that you were in charge of. You didn't urge us to move on, we boycotted it en masse then left permanently. Stimmers was bannedlater on for allegedly assuming multiple identites Wrong. It wasn't a belief that we were above the law, the problem was with the heavy handed way it was laid down. Have a look at the way we do it here. Still the same "troublesome" users but everybody gets along ok. There's no threat to ban people because they have a rude avatar. They're asked to change it, they do so (reluctantly ) and we move on. It's the same with Not Work Safe images. We don't threaten to ban people for using tricks to get round the censorship laws. We add any tricks to the list and guess what? Yes, we move on ... Incorrect again. We didn't agree to anything, we just left and didn't even shut the door on our way out. Any agreement was between you and yourself. The rules nobody has a problem with. Our rules are very similar. It's the way they're enforced, and the way new ones are added without warning or consultation (like "no posting outside this thread or you're banned") Yes, but you don't know the reason why. I do . That's why, when faced with "confrontation" from a foreign culture, you should consult your moderators who understand that culture intimately. Why do you think the UK mods didn't remove him? Because we've all met him, we all know him and we understand that his written statements are just the ramblings of a frustrated ex coal mining Scot exiled in Yorkshire (That's overseas, you won't have heard of it) Wrong again matey. 2 good users with principles asked to be removed. But you did lose 298 good ones, plus you offended your main sponsor and quite a few other sponsors. And you showed yourself to be incapable of dealing with foreign cultures without resorting to racism. Well that's how I remember it... What I've also shown here is that when responding to set of points it's far more productive, and intelligent, to respond to each and every point. Not just to pick a single point that you think you can respond to and ignore all the others because you have no answer. Something you would do well to take note of
ROB is this a bit of guilt creeping in here on your answer that you got it wrong and got carried away calling names and banning people that answered you back as you was the one that fought unfairly banning everybody that didnt agree with you yes i was the one that it all started over making a joke out of robs post to another [american] member which rob had previously thought was funny so i then sat back for 2 weeks and watched an online war which was unfair on both sides 300 against rob [but he was wrong inho] then rob deleting accounts of people who didnt agree with him so he could not lose really rob wanted to sort this out with me by PM MESSAGES which i would not do i wanted to sort it out on the forum with no deleteing of posts which was done which i thought was the proper way to do this then nobody had any advantage Then the uk drunken farmers with pitch forks set up there own site and there is now peace on the web REMEMBER THE ALAMO STEVE F
Rob Sorry to stir old dirt. My account was hacked by a fellow UK Member. In doing so, he sent a password recovery to my email which he somehow gained access to. Thus, logged into my account, changed my avatar, posted some crap up, changed my password to something totally random, so much so he couldnt remember it, changed the email address to be something that didnt exist, then left it. I sent you several emails about this, as it was a Silver Subscribed account. You never sorted it. I would call this a hack myself.
Lee thats not really hacking is it, more social engineering (and a very simple lesson......Don't leave your PC unlocked!) As for all the crap over the UK section. as I've said all along IMHO everybody blew it all out of proportion, it is after all just an internet chat forum (albeit a very informative one). do you think everybody concerned would have acted the same way if it was in your local rather than in cyberspace? I very much doubt it. Lessons have been learned by most of the people concerned to allow the forum to move on (and its been 3 months since a breaky pic was posted )
Graham's earlier post answers yours more than adequately. We don't think we over reacted at all. As for UK Fchat , i'm afraid it's a ghost town.
lee your account was hacked cos you both lived in the same flat and steve used your computer and this was done more than once so really it was your fault not rob lay or fchat for being insecure so shut up trying to stir trouble you stupid imature child your account was left as it was dormant [hacked] as you was nothing but trouble on there all the time
Andrew the crap might be over but the UK section is crap now yes cos it was a joke that rob took the wrong way as an excuse to get at me as one of his main sponser [MANU TUBI] never liked my comments that capristo was better than tubi [ even rob said this on a post ] and he had been moaning at people about my comments yes manu posted that this was not true but only on piston heads but never on fchat fchat
Rob, why o why did you drag this up again. You made a complete hash of dealing with the UK guys first time around, both parties were to blame but you more so than anyone, this was clear. You are wrong about getting shot of loads of bad users and the good ones are now coming back. The reality is, of the 300 or so who left, 99% were superb members, you know this but will never admit it. You made a bit if an arse of yourself the first time and ever since you have tried to make it look like you were some sort of victim. You caused the problems, you lost 300 GOOD USERS and you did it all on a internet forum where everyone, including sponsor's and world members can see what you did. Stop trying to be a marter , its making you look worse. Learn from the mistake, move on and stop dragging up the past. The UK guys have their own site now and have been very succesful with it. I was reccomended www.ferrarichat.com by an ex regular user who was in the same industry as me. I didnt have time to read it for a while, but when i did i came on right in the middle of the storm. So i didn't post. I haven't posted since because their is no point, the UK section is as some have said a 'ghost town', those who complained about it being run by the usual guys, are nowhere to be seen. The guy who told me about ferrarichat (forgive me for not mentioning his name) hasn't signed up to the new site like me yet for the same reasons, i mean no malice with this, but it does seem to be only about 10 people who post and sometimes post for posting's sake. I will wait till they attract a whole bunch of new members for then i think the site will really take off and give me what i want for my time. Have to say, the technical section on this site is very very good and i enjoy reading it. Hope that continues. Arnal
Like I said, the only ways this could have been done were through that person guessing your password or someone gaining access to your logged in PC. I respond to everyone that contacts me, if I didn't take action right away it is because hackers often pretend to be another user having problems. I have to confirm the true identity. Is all OK now?
I think the bickering on this thread in the last couple posts needs to go in other topics. Please stay on topic - leave it at the farewell comments.
