Hey man, my name’s Chris. We spoke briefly a while back but never got to work together, unfortunately.
Several months ago, I bailed on this place without saying goodbye. I had some “grievances” that I jotted down and fleshed out into a long winded, verbose, pretty angsty document. I have since deleted that document as I am not really angry but more melancholy.
After this post is up, I expect several responses of “Gee, gosh, goodness there guy, why are you taking an Internet forum so seriously?” That’s a great question, so let me provide some context:
I think I originally joined this forum as AdminDev in 2017. It was around that time. I know that because I was still on my journey through systems administration. This place was solely responsible for lighting the fire under my ass every, single, DAY. I was inspired, excited, motivated, and every other $POSITIVE_EMOTION you could think of to master this crazy new world I was learning about: ZFS, Linux, DevOps, Infrastructure as a Service, all the buzzwords that make the digital world go 'round. Since then, due to your exciting content and enthusiastic community, I have more than quadrupled my annual income. So, thanks.
Fast forward about three years, the unhinged moderation team has crossed a line I think deserves some attention. At this point I’ll put a Tl;Dr
Tl;Dr – The Moderation team pushed away a solid community base that led to loss in patreon funds.
Over time, a handful of users and one pathetic piece of shit Communist started taking egregious offense to the tiniest of banter. What was normal lounge behavior was now flagged and tagged as offensive. Thus, the lounge was closed. A “private lounge” was spun up via Direct Messaging channel. It was around this time I started a podcast and created a forum to discuss episodes and technology. A large (in my opinion) base of the users came over and started an unintended rival community (exaggeration of course, your userbase dwarfed mine). However, we were free to discuss technology, shitposts, and video games without being derailed or flagged by the unhinged free software community.
About a year after that my best friend of 20 years killed himself. I sort of lost who I was after and dissolved the forum. Only a few people know about that, but there it is. @Adubs took the reins and decided to spin up a forum to talk technology, shitposts, 3D printing, firearms, basically things that were banned from discussion at this place. Run in after run in with the poor moderation team prompted my permanent (semi-permanent???) exile. A few more followed.
As I understand, @Adubs received around $400 in contributions for infrastructure. My funds are recurring, I can’t speak for anyone else. With roughly $730 short of your Patreon goal, I imagine $400 would have been a nice contribution. I know when I see a creator I am passionate about is close to their mark, I’m inclined to give a little more. Other people’s mileage may vary, of course.
For whatever reason, the mods on this forum find themselves divine and Godlike with their infinite web forum powers. I understand that a few leaders and mods that were ACTIVE were purged because hurt feelings were had? This seems to be a common theme, as the furry, trans, and mentally ill members seem to receive carte blanche (with some exceptions). They seem to interpret the rules as they see fit, making exceptions for whomever they like in that week or month. Peak examples being TheKitchenSink getting (finally) purged after upsetting The Golden Thot and Marten getting off on death threats. I don’t even know what to make of this:
I understand he’s just a drunk loser, but if we were to dismiss the threats of every drunken loser on this planet, I think a lot of people would be getting hurt.
If I recall, he threatened to bash my head in with a baseball bat. Yet I was the one punished and told to “cool off”.
The shit tier moderation of this forum is hands down what lost you out on potentially $400 smackaroos and what caused the splints, exiles, and “forks”.
This is my last contribution on this forum. In fact, I requested my account get deleted after the most recent blow up. I was told “You’ll be back” – I guess they are right, I am back. Only after I was able to cool my head and get my life back on track. The abovementioned tragedy notwithstanding, I did miss this place for a little while. But the weirdos and token Communist and God awful moderation team left me to pursue other interests.
With that, I bid you farewell. I hope the VFIO stuff keeps taking off and you continue building a solid technical channel and support via this forum. But I hope you assess the damage that has been done by the current moderation staff and trim it down or rebuild from scratch.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.