New policy for the Cellar

[Elspode]

That was a cogent and civil rendering of opinion, Whit, and that is usual for you.

I think something we all must consider, though, is that, while from our points of view, nothing has changed radically on The Cellar from the past, who are we to say that the mind set of its owner has not somehow altered? If that is the case, I then reiterate my original statement...it is his board to do with as he pleases, and we are free to react to that in whichever way we please.

[elSicomoro]

I'm moving to semi-retired status. Please move the Manifestos to the archives.

Thank you.

[Whit]

I then reiterate my original statement...it is his board to do with as he pleases, and we are free to react to that in whichever way we please

      Agreed. I just have high expectations based on past expieriences on this board. That's why I'm here. That's also why I'm playing the wait and see game. I'm willing to give UT some space if he needs it, he's earned it. But, if he gets nutty about it then more than FNF and Juju will be gone.

[Elspode]

Right now, the responses I am seeing seem to indicate a serious lack of understanding for whatever UT's reasoning is, and I sure do wish everyone would just chill out for awhile.

Especially those of us who have professed and shown friendship to UT in the past. Friendship is not something you just toss aside when someone does something in your toybox that you don't like.

[Undertoad]

Jesus, people. Whatever it is you think you get out of this place, I can assure you, you get significantly LESS.

You might THINK you have a social life here, but in reality you do NOT. Because when the shit hits the fan, half the people here will try to figure out whether there's a "high speed" switch on the fan, because that would be funnier and would screw up your life more.

You could even RUN the place for years and years and years, putting your heart and soul and thousands of dollars into it, and still be one message away from getting that level of support from half the people here.

It's been an enlightening day.

[Happy Monkey]

I guess I'm just not sure how the shit can hit the fan when ignoring someone is so easy. Or, as the Cruise Director, do you feel an obligation to read everything?

[Undertoad]

Make an offer for the place and operate it for a while, and everything will be absurdly clear.

[Happy Monkey]

Is there an easier way to understand? I do understand the extent of the effort you expend, which is why I am not willing to take you up on your offer, but I would like to also understand why this all blew up at this point.

[Undertoad]

Yeah, you can PM me

[elSicomoro]

Maybe I don’t quite understand what’s going on, but I will say this.

I still consider Tony a friend…a good friend. One of the few “real” friends I have in Philadelphia. But as I see it, he is allowing an unfortunate personal situation color the way he is handling Cellar.

The Manifestos have been my baby for over 2 years. The thread that Tony deleted is one I worked on for a good chunk of this weekend. I was very careful in how I created my posts in there b/c I wanted to say what I wanted to say, yet word it so that there would be little or no confusion. It’s probably the hardest I’ve ever worked on any of my threads. And now it’s gone.

To be fair, I did not communicate that to Tony this morning…I merely told him that I agreed with Juju and HM in leaving the posts alone, and that I had no problem locking my thread up. Tony, I apologize for not being more expressive about this.

Having said that, I’m concerned about this sudden new turn that the Cellar has taken. I’m going to hang back and see where all this goes.

Tony, I hope there are no hard feelings. If I can help you out in any way, please let me know.

[warch]

Please stop. I'm asking you to respect when a line of privacy has been indicated and back off.

A line of privacy has been crossed.

It hurts me to see this crap. So here it is for you all, my part in the whole sordid little thing. ( fans on 10). I'm sure you will be underwhelmed, because the content is not so hot, but the methodology is what disturbs me and Tony too.

This is my view, my take, I kept no personal emails or other to prove any of it. It never occured to me and I wouldnt do that shit anyway. The privacy is shot. enjoy. I no longer fucking care.

First Tony and I have known each other for 20+ years. He is like my brother. I also have been very happily married to my beloved spouse for the past 14 years.

I met a few people on the cellar and as many have, exchanged friendly off board chat and info.

I had no cause to doubt anyone's motivations until I was emailed, out of the blue, after the board crap with Dave, Tony, and syc. I didnot post any thoughts about this spat on line at all. I hoped that it would just work out.
Dave emailed to tell me, he was troubled by it he said, that Tony and Syc were saying shit about me and T romantically. Well first I'm shocked at this tale, then I realize that whats really happening here is that dave is trying to use me to get back at Tony. He's working to draw me over to his side. He tells me how much he cares and worries about Tony. But it doesnt ring for me. He is being clever, and I am being manipulated. I reply back for more information. I manipulated back. Then I email T and syc to check what is going down. Yes they said shit like guys do, and yes I dont care cause, it was shit. The thing that was bad was not the gossip, what was bad was that dave sought to play me as a pawn against Tony, and syc as well.

The manipulation was doomed because the thing is I *KNOW* is that Tony would never hurt me. He may say shit that makes me crazy, he may joke, but his aim is true . And he wouldnt hurt you either.
(Hell here he's been risking razing this whole board so as to save you hurt.)

I was drawn into this. I did not jump in.
Dave does not rate trust from me. It is my belief that dave is obsessive, manipulative, much smarter than me, and I want to just keep my head down and out of the way. He's shown something I find to be a bit dangerous. And now he knows that I know. Maybe I am paranoid. Ive been told to go with my gut.

Now you can continue to argue your ideals, but I'm done.

[Undertoad]

OK, the folks I've PMed can nod if my side was in line with that.

1) You should be thankful that warch cares enough to put that out there;

1a) You should sincerely apologize to her;

1b) You should understand why, if she weren't married and truly in love with her spouse, and thus not a violation of decades of believing in each other, and half a country away, I would pursue her, because she's awesome;

2) You should understand why Dave could continue to ask "what did I do? what did I do?" knowing we weren't going to SAY IN PUBLIC;

2a) You should reassess your ability to figure people out;

3) You should be pissed at yourself for believing that the Cellar would be anything different after the fact;

4) You should understand why moderation is necessary and why a completely free message board is utopian and maybe even undesireable;

5) If you said you were gonna outright leave, you BETTER outright leave, because you're in such deep contempt right now that I.... let's just say this keyboard might need replacing.

[Elspode]

I'm not sure that if I were in any of your positions, I would have been so frank. I commend you all.

It was none of our fucking business, but I commend you nonetheless.

I'm now going back to the normal Cellar intrigue, if that's okay. And could we just stop talking about Dave at all from here on out? Let him come back in under a fake personna like everyone else?

There's been some seriously hurt feelings here, sides have been aired. Everybody make up your own minds about how you feel about it all and let's just carry on, please? I've seen too much of this sort of crap to want to see any more.

[hot_pastrami]

I think it's fair say that if someone pisses in Tony's pool, he should be allowed to clean it up. And personally, if I have to trust somebody to split the piss from the water in the pool I like to hang out in, Tony's one of the few people I'd trust to do that competently. He's a decent, open-minded guy.

Some might argue that one man's piss is another man's champaign, but that's just disgusting.

After seeing what some of the backstory is here, and thinking back to some of the things Tony has said, a lot of it makes more sense. I still don't understand completely, but some of the deep confusion has eroded away.

[Shattered Soul]

Well, I just came in on this, so I don't know what the deal is, but only one thing matters: This forum belongs to UT. It doesn't belong to us. We hang out here, that's all.

I'm sure UT has a good reason for whatever rules he makes concerning HIS forum; in my perusals of different threads here, he seems to be a pretty fair-minded person, and wouldn't just make up rules because he got a wild hair up his ass. People need to GTF over it. If you don't like what he's doing with his forum, create your own...then YOU can make the rules.