Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

It's his right to put a banner like that up, but he invites commentary when he does.

I just deleted the site from my favorites and went on with my life.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

^^^

What Logos said.

TMS forum traffic can be bursty, but when there is an actual issue of interest to the MUD community, this is by far *the* place to discuss it.

IMHO, TMS has the best, cleanest, most functional forum of all the MUD sites I've seen.

It also has the most diverse and inclusive community. There are other sites with subset cliques of the MUD community, and that's great. I am glad they exist. Anything that keeps the community thriving is a good thing.

But the TMS community is the most widely representative of entire ecosystem: game developers (both professional and hobbyist), players, client developers, outsiders interested in the genre, etc.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Well said and that's pretty much how I use the two sites as well.

The TMC searchable database is nice.

For forums and discussion, TMS is the tops.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

The sad truth is that both the TMC and TMS Forums have been pretty dead for the last few years, due to the equally sad fact that text Muds seem to be slowly dying.

The really interesting discussions are few and far between nowadays, and it takes a major event, like one of them potentially closing down, to spark some activity again. The main traffic probably comes from the voting buttons, not the Forums, and even the voting rate has diminished significantly. The total active population of the text mud world has probably been halfed by now, and not much new blood is coming in.

And burying our heads in the sand won't help much.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I do not know. I read the thread and the whole thing made really little sense.
However, putting a religious banner in a mud website is beyond my comprehension. As far as I remember, D&D had problems about mentioning demons, and stuff. Since then, I always thought that religions and RPG has been separated.
Just my opinion as a player, but the reaction against the banner was rather predictable. I mean, if I see a religious banner on the website of the MUD I am playing, I will privately complain, and ultimately quit.
On a different note, the TMC issue is a problem for all the mudding community. I hope that a replacement is found soon.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

TMS and TMC get a lot more traffic for their listings. MudBytes has more active discussion forums, but people don't send their players there multiple times per day to click on voting links.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Oh, come off your horse now. You have no right to judge him as a person period. If you didn't like the direction TMC was heading, then get off your ass (as they would say) and create your own MUD site that's better.

TMC was obviously designed to be self-sustainable with little to no administration. That alone is a good look for the administration because let's face it, he could hand it off and that person could lose interest too. MUD's aren't exactly popular right now and when you secure the future that it will always be up under your wing, that's a good look for the community rather it coming completely offline in another persons hands.

But, that's not the case anymore. Now it will likely go under new ownership with no outlook of the future. The entire site could change for the good or for the worse. It may stay up another 10 years, it may go down next year. The outlook is uncertain if the site does switch hands versus the original owner.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

It was the forums that I was primarily referring to.

Threshold's posts were preaching that this was *the* site to have MUD related discussions on - discussions don't benefit from players being sent here on a daily basis to click a vote button.

TMS forums only have 49,836 posts.

Sounds like a big number I suppose, until you break that down into posts per day, the forums have existed for 4,126 days.

12.08 posts per day is the mean for the site, the median is almost surely much lower due to topics of interest sparking up every now and then which result in far more posts on specific days than others.

That's also the mean all-time since April 2002. I'm sure the average post amount per day in 2002 was much, much, higher than it has been in any recent year.

MudBytes has 63,837 posts and is barely half as old as topmudsites forums.

63837/2640=24.18 posts per day, over double that of TMS.

And then there's TMC: 90,856 posts in 3,612 days for 25.16 days, slightly beating MudBytes and once again more than doubling TMS in posts per day.

MUDBytes might get the honorable mention in terms of traffic, but the honorable mention has always been TMS when referring to the forums specifically.

It's just an old version of vBulletin, which I would agree is a better forum software than most MUD forums use if it weren't for the "old" in that sentence.

Due to its age it get targeted by millions of spambots, as can be seen:

I've ran forums with far more posters, and far more activity, that ran on newer versions of vBulletin that virtually never had spambots successfully register.

The only reason vBulletin is better than alternatives like, say - phpBB3 is because unlike them it isn't free.

Note the lack of "real" accounts listed.

It has more commercial MUD admin, less of just about everything else. It's not the most widely representative, it's the least widely representative. Commercial MUDs are just about the smallest niche in the MUD community - not in regards to the size of their playerbase, but in regards to the actual amount of commercial MUDs. Over 99% of all MUDs are ran as a hobby. The fact that commercial MUD admin are such a large part of this community goes to show how non-representative it is of the community, not how representative it is.

You mean like you're judging Plamzi?

A different set of rules don't apply to site administrators than to everyone else.

You seem to have no problem making judgement of your own against those you disagree with.

Everyone has the right to judge everyone as a person. You might not like it, but that doesn't change it.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Let me clarify.

Unless you're running a MUD site, then you don't have to right to judge someone on how they are running that site. Especially being that site is the top of it's class for it's topic. To me, you have no right to judge in that case.

Plamzi and I are both frequent followers of that site. We are on the same level in my eyes. That's why I was calling him out specifically based on his comment and opinions. Even more so when site admins normally don't have the luxury of calling out comments like that without ridicule.

You may not agree with that logic and that's fine. But to me, if you don't have experience doing something, then you should likely keep your mouth shut when trying to pass judgement or telling others what they should do in a negative way. And I say likely, because this is just my assumption and my opinion Sir Fizban.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Logical fallacies abound.

Your posts boil down to: You don't have the right to do things I wouldn't do.

People have the right to do a lot of things they probably shouldn't do.

Icculus putting up the banner is in my eyes a pretty accurate example of this.

He certainly had the right to do so whether I think he should have done so or not though.

Just because you don't feel Plamzi should do something does not equate to him not having the right to do so.

By trying to determine what other people can and can't do you're being far more judgmental than the person you're chastising for being judgmental.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

You can argue this until you're blue in the face Fizban. It won't change my opinion on the matter. I just think one should be humble in understanding that running a site requires a certain degree of expertise. I don't pretend to tell a doctor how to do his job. It's not my place because I didn't get my medical degree. Therefore, I don't feel I have earned that right out of respect for everything that doctor has sacrificed.

That doesn't mean the lines of communication with feedback should be broken. It just means, there are more constructive ways to send feedback on a end result rather than explicitly defining what one should do or passing judgment their expertise, why they do certain things that you may have no understanding to the reasoning and so on.

That's just me though. My logic, my feelings on the matter.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Long time lurker here never posted.. and ill have to disagree with everything said in this post... TopMudSites has not supplanted TMC, the forums here have always appeared to be cliquey. Mudconnector, has always had alot more traffic than most mud sites, due to its age, and the fact it was very well established in the mudding community. Granted there hasnt been alot of moderation to the site, and things have felt very stale for a long long time, but thats a part of how mudconnector is...

Mudbytes is where you go to discuss things about MUD and actually get decent responses, most of the time very helpful too, have never seen that on TMS, used to happen on TMC though.

Icculus never played favourites with anyone, never upped his own mud list to position one on the ranking system (the fact he doesnt have a mud is irrelevant) and always, apart from just recently was a very fair and stable admin.

The same cannot be said about a lot of Website administration

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

It's not about opinion.

When someone has no right to do something it is referring to a legal context.

Right and wrong has no bearing on what someone has the right to do. None. Not even the smallest bit. That's not an opinion. That's simply how it is.

I'm not debating what Plamzi should do - which is what you seem to be arguing and considering to be our point of disagreement - I'm pointing out that you stating he can't do something simply because you don't feel he should is a logical fallacy.

Much like your doctor example:

You have the right to criticize a doctor, you just choose not to exercise that right because you don't think you should do so out of respect for his expertise in the field.

You still have rights even when you choose not to exercise them.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I have no idea why you're even arguing this outside of the fact that you must educate someone on what having the right really means.

Stop trolling my post Fizban. I really could care less on what you think or what you're trying to emphasize outside of yourself as being correct or incorrect with my previous dialog.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I'm glad you care.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Sorry.. but where in this thread is Fizban trolling you? because i cannot see it anywhere... if anyone is trolling its Famine....

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

My last post was trolling, that of course though came after he accused me of trolling, not before :P

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Well, as you can see. I have a pretty big mouth when I choose to open it and I do care for something. Maybe not for your words, but I care about this subject matter. I mean, I've been registered here for a few years and that post was my first post on these forums.

I hope I didn't offend you too much. It's just a habit of sticking up for someone who I feel has done this community a good service for many years.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

We're into "really bad analogy" territory now. Sticking a banner on a website doesn't require a medical degree, and you don't need to run a website just to voice your opinion on someone else's. Would you automatically ignore feedback from players who haven't previously run their own muds?

Icculus performed a great service for the mud community, his efforts were appreciated by many, and at the end of the day the final decision was always going to be his. But that doesn't mean people didn't have the right to voice their disagreement with his decisions, if they felt so inclined. Suppression of dissent is not a desirable way to run any community, and this brings to mind an earlier discussion on TMC about banning players for posting negative reviews.

On a more serious note, doctors can and do make mistakes. There's absolutely nothing wrong with getting a second opinion if you have your doubts about a diagnosis. It might even save your life.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

For the record, I joined TMC in 2009 and never liked the direction it was heading. I just used it to promote my game and help new admins, despite the bile that came from largely unmoderated trolls whose names we all know. If the forums had remained open after the Jesus affair, I would probably have continued to hold my nose and post promo stuff. Would you agree that you don't have to like everything about a site and its management in order to use it for a specific purpose?

I *am* running several MUD-related sites, including a forum for my game. I *am* trying to do better. I wouldn't think of posting irrelevant content on the forum, but if I did, I wouldn't sanction people for actually discussing it, nor would I "take my toys and go home."

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Well, I wasn't really referring to the whole banner issue. I was just speaking on the subtle opinion that someone should have done X and didn't run something right even before the whole banner incident came up. Kind of like using this one incident as an excuse to pile on more issues that happened in the past as well trying to pass judgement to make a point -- he/she didn't do a good job regardless and there can be better.

Maybe I'm looking to much into this, but that's what I got out the context.

On the analogy, I think it's a good one. It's not to say that voicing feedback is bad. It's more to say that feedback shouldn't be dictation or even subtly hinting at what dictation you should be doing. For example, telling a developer what to do rather than saying why you don't like something. Or with the medical example, diagnosing yourself because you googled your symptoms. It's just good practice, even in game development, to voice your opinion on what you experienced rather than trying to be that armchair developer, armchair web master, armchair whatever.

I would hope that of all people KaVir, you would get that.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Please do not troll. All the damage that could have occurred, happened already. I am the last one arrived here, but I wish mud to start becoming popular again. What happened to the TMC's forums is a bad episode, and everyone should take it as a lesson, never to happen again.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

If forums went down because of trolling, no forum would survive a day.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Half the fun of the internet is discussing things with people. Exchanging ideas. Even when you're playing a mud, the fun part of the game is your interaction with other players. The brightest spot in your roleplaying day is having a heated in character argument with another character. The brightest spot in your PK day is a good fight, even if you lose. The brightest spot in your hack and slash day is getting together with a few other players and comparing who's doing better.

The downside of the internet is its anonymous nature. There are no consequences, there is no shame. It really paints an ugly picture of human nature. Absent repercussions, people are offensive to one another and totally incapable of having a civil discussion or exchange of ideas. I've been on muds where all kinds of discussion topics are banned, because people might be offended, because on the internet, people are offensive.

It's really sad when someone rushes to say, "Everyone shut up! Don't discuss this! Don't respond! It's going to turn into something ugly and uncivil. Learn from our past mistakes and don't discuss controversial issues!" It's really sad that this is the resolution people try to pursue because people on the internet are idiots.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

This topic was going pretty good until Fizban decided to show up? I'm sure you guys have noticed that Fizban ruins topics and destroys forums. He acts like he's Mr. Knowitall and Mr. Right, no one can question him because he works on a wannabe Pro MUD with no players. It's really sad to see this guy act like he never does any wrong. I can already tell you how he'll respond to this post. First, he'll make a comment about how I'm a typical DBZ MUD owner because I dare spoke up against him. Second, he'll act like I'm stupid and talk about how I have no right to post. Third, he'll act like he's better than me because he claims he's grown up. Finally, he'll try to get others to gang up on me to make himself feel like he's done something good for the community.

This guy is sad, plain and simple. He needs to stop harassing Iccy, he needs to stop acting like he has control over other people and he needs to stop with his unneeded drama. You may call this post drama but it's needed since no one will stand up to this obvious troll who ruins communities.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

That's for sure. However, the mudding community should focus on improve the mudding experience. To a simple user like me, you all are doing great stuff. Maybe someone lost a bit of focus in the way. I think I bought your Mudmaster for iPhone, by the way. I truly hope that mudding will become popular again. It is such a great way of gaming.

As to SnowTroll post, I did not want to propose a resolution "You all shut up, I am grown up". As I said, it is pretty evident (at least to me) that posting a religious banner in a mud websites is likely to trigger reactions from the community. If someone does not see that and claims anything about the freedom of speech it is really out of the way, in my opinion. It is like to have two women cooking in the same kitchen (you can troll me about that...good grounds on sex discrimination :)).

Generally, people are stupid (and I am not excluding myself) and cannot assess huge problems RL poses, sometimes they do not want, sometimes they simply can't. That explains many things.

Admittedly, I have fun in interacting with people on the Internet, so I take pro and contra, and I take full liability of what I post. I am not so anonymous as it may seem; nor I shield myself with being anonymous in the first place. As you all know, the Internet started with everybody being anonymous but now such trend has kind of changed.

Truthfully, I started to post stuff because of mudding, otherwise I just used the Internet for working purposes. So the mudding community, including this site and TMC gave me a lot.

I just hope that form past mistakes we could learn something for the future.

English is not my native language, as I live in Italy, and I am 40 years old.

No offense is intended to anyone.

Peace to all.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Ozma, go troll somewhere else. Or better yet, stop trolling for once.


Quite the opposite, I encourage people to question - everything.

I've never claimed to not make mistakes nor made any claims that I am perfect.

Don't put words in my mouth. I'm vocal enough, I don't need your help.

No. You have me confused with yourself. That's the problem. You and I are fundamentally different.

Cratylus and I told you before: If you don't like what you're reading go pick up a book.

You're the one that sees the need to tell others to stop posting.

I think everyone should be more vocal and speak their mind - even those with dissenting opinions.

You got me confused with you again, you're the one trying to get the community to unite against me. You tried the same on MudBytes and TMC. You failed both times.


I haven't been harassing Icculus. I think he acted rashly and made a few bad decisions. I think everyone makes such mistakes from time to time. I've emailed him back and forth several times over the past couple weeks and have had nothing but friendly discussion when doing so, and apologized to him for making him feel as if his time and effort were unappreciated, because that was never my intent.

I'm not making drama, I'm posting my opinion. You're the one taking offense with it and creating drama.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Love this kind of attitude. You can come to Ateraan anytime Famine.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Heh, I just read this and wondered, "who's Fizban?" <chuckle> DarkOzma, people only become famous when you make 'em famous.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I don't typically frequent TMS, but "Who's Fizban?" is certainly not a sentiment that many people on TMC or MudBytes would echo.

Though I'm certainly not claiming that that makes me "famous" by any means either.

Though it is nice to see that Ozma thinks so highly of 4 Dimensions and sees the need to badmouth it when I hadn't made any mention of it in any regard.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

The Mudbytes community is a very small subset of the MUD community. Basically it is a clique that splintered off from TMC/TMS. That's not a slight. A lot of sub-communities form that way.

Raw # of posts is pretty meaningless. That number is easily inflated by people who like shouting into an echo chamber. Mudbytes also includes the biggest trolls from TMC, which makes it a pretty hostile environment for anyone outside that clique.

TMS is a much larger swath of the entire community of game developers, gamers, client developers, and outsiders with interest in MUDs.

Not to mention TMS has a much cleaner and easier to read forum.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

TMS has always been a lot more "cliquey" in my experience. I think it's quite clear you don't actually frequent MudBytes since you seem to have a lot of misconceptions about the people that frequent it and the content that's posted on it.

TMC's four biggest trolls of late (Iovan, Ozma, Jodah, The_Fury) do not frequent MudBytes.

That or your idea of a "troll" is: "Someone that has views different than mine" (Not saying that is how YOU define a troll, but it definitely seems to be how a lot of people unfortunately do.)

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Uh huh.

You aren't making drama and yet you changed DarkOzma's name to Icculus multiple times in your post, implying he's a sockpuppet.

I think we're seeing exactly why the forums on TMC and some other sites are such unproductive cesspools. Certain folks there make it a hostile environment for huge sections of the general community, as well as people outside the community who have interest in MUDs.

But they sure do have plenty of free time to jack up those post counts!

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Ahem... I think Ozma was referring to TBAMud, Fiz.

Not that I mind some of the... ehrrrrrhm... "fame" rubbing off on 4D. We can take it. :p

On a more serious note, in case anyone is actually still interested in what happens on TMC, rather than discussing semantics, you can check the News section there, to learn that the Forums are soon going to open again, with a new and more modern software

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

No, that certainly wasn't the intent, hadn't even realized I'd done so till after reading your post. Not sure how the post got made to read that way, but I'd imagine copy/paste errors on my part to be the cause. Either way it's now fixed.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

So, if a doctor prescribes antibiotics for a sore throat without first doing a strep culture, and it turns out to just be a minor allergic reaction to it and now your immune system has been compromised because you took antibiotics you didn't need - you shouldn't judge the doctor?

Or how about when a surgeon operates on the wrong body part - does "woops, my bad," cover it for ya?

If an auto mechanic, who is professionally trained to take care of your old Ford - tells you that you need a new engine, charges you $1400 for a rebuild, and puts it in backward - do you just suck it up and thank him for ruining your car?

Oh I know - the garment industry. You buy a brand new suit at Walmart. An hour before the wedding, you put it on, and then go to be your exquisite self as the Father of the Groom's handsome brother in his shiny new suit. You go raise your hands in applause - and the arm seams rip off. Do you judge the manufacturer, or do you just chalk it up to having particularly flabby arms that day?

Do you truly NEVER question anything? Because if that's the case - I'm a professional bridge-builder and boy do I have a deal for you in Brooklyn!

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Fair enough.

We all make mistakes!

:)

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I love 4D! I can't imagine anyone talking abad about it.

As for new Forums on TMC. I'm all for that, I really didn't like their old forum format.

We've actually never been part of this MudBytes forum, but one of the staff at Ateraan is checking it out. I think it is very worth reviewing and seeing if it has a potential. Hoping it won't be a mistake. :o

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

This is completely not true. I was rarely ever on TMC/TMS. MudBytes also includes professional programmers, digital artists, musical artists, literary artists and a more awesome people.

There are plenty of people to read our forums daily and we have a fiercely loyal user base. Most times a developing issue pops up people go to MudBytes. The last couple MUD protocols spawned from topics in those forums that was developed by various client developers (probably the same ones posting here were posting there...). Extremely jaded to only talk about a small part of the MB community.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Might have been. I wouldn't consider either MUD to be "my MUD", but he surely meant one of the two since they're the only two MUDs I'm in any way associated with.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I think you're confusing bad experiences with people, products or services with having the right to judge whether or not those people, products or services are of a certain standard professionally.

No one is saying you can't have an opinion about those things based on a single experience or multiple experiences. That's ideally what separates the good from the bad in the eyes of the end user (i.e.: the consumer).

Experiences however, do not give you the right to make up the minds of everyone who has experiences with those people, products or services nor does it give you the right to judge them on a professional level IMHO.

For example, a doctor may make a mistake in diagnosing your problems. That same doctor may also prescribe something to you that instead helps the problem, makes it worse. Your understanding of the doctors approach to resolving that problem is normally conveyed to you in layman terms, but the medical reason may actually be a lot clearer to those in the medical field.

Regardless of the approach and the end result (which is worse in this example), you are not a medical professional who can professionally judge the doctor overall. You simply had a bad experience in one instance with a particular doctor who may or may not have made a mistake. Because you are not well versed in what is or is not a mistake in the medical field, how could you ever really judge if that one bad experience was truly wrong doing in the first place? That's what the medical board is for, and I assure you, the board or whoever is not composed of random people off the street who are experts simply because they watched every episode of ER or like your example, a group of people who had bad experiences with doctors.

How does that translate to this discussion? The same applies for any profession really. Game development more specifically. Just because you play games, had both good and bad experiences while gaming, does not make you a game developer. People who actually make a living off gaming or even develop games as a hobby, have a certain level of expertise over those who do not develop games period.

That's why I have always emphasized that feedback, good or negative, should always be conveyed as experiences (i.e.: i couldn't kill a goblin with magic missiles) rather than dictation (i.e.: you should adjust magic missiles to 10 damage from 5 so I can kill this goblin.)

Therefore, if you have never ran a MUD site. Who are you to dictate someone who has? ;)

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

If you have never been me, who the hell are you to dictate to someone who has? You have never been me. Therefore, by your logic, you have no right to challenge my thoughts, my opinions, my judgments about anything at all. The only time you will ever have that right, is when you become me. Which - you will never do.

I, on the other hand, have worked in mud development. I, on the other hand, have run a forum. I, on the other hand, have been a file librarian for one of the most populated commercial muds in mudding history, and I, on the other hand, have been head builder on two different muds. I have also been playing text-based multiplayer games since the advent of the old BBS systems, since 1991, the year before the commercially-available Windows 3.1x was available to consumers.

I'd say that gives me a "right" to judge with regards to the topic. And it disqualifies you from the "right" to challenge me.

So perhaps before you lecture others on what they can and cannot do, what they should or should not do, and who the hell they are and are not to do what they do, you might find out - who the hell they are, first.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Whoa, calm down there sunny. You responded to my post and I offered my retort for further clarification as food for thought. My original post on the matter was my own opinions and not meant to be offered as some sort of challenge towards anyone nor an attempt to lecture others. It's just a mere opinion as this is a open discussion forum the last time I checked.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Your early posts definitely came off as being an attempt at lecturing others.

You have no problem judging and lecturing others, only a problem with other people doing so.

Not to mention that a lot of the people you've tried lecturing and claiming have no business criticizing anyone, have done the things required to have an educated opinion on the matter.

For example, I've never ran a large MUD-based forum, but I have administrated non-mud related forums with far more posters ( opened in 2009, has more posts than TMC, TMS, and mudbytes combined) and far more activity than TMC has ever had. I've also ran smaller MUD-related forums.

Those are both similar enough to running TMC to have an educated opinion on the matter. I doubt I'm the only person in this thread who's ran sites larger than TMC either, yet you have no problem lecturing and judging us for being opinionated.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

It wasn't supposed to be as my original post was directed at one, not multiple.

I was just clarifying my stance to those who responded including yourself. I hate leaving things vague if someone has a question or a followup.

Unfortunately, that's not even remotely true.

As my original post has taken us off the beaten path, I'll just leave it at that. Again, it's just my opinion on a set of comments relating to TMC and the hard work of the administrator of TMC. I feel the site has been a landmark for this community and I was merely voicing said opinion as a way to stick up for someone who has done a great service to us all.