Spartan

[Patrick]

Guys, we had to ban Spartan. He sent a PM out trying to trash the moderators here and encouraging everyone to come to his site. The PM is junk. There's no truth to any of it. I guess he wasn't trying to befriend us afterall. Weird. I can't believe he used us like that.

I'll address each part of it here.

My dear fellow forumers:

I am probably one of the older members on this forum. I previously had over 1,000 posts here as Sooner&RiceGrad, and then the place got under my skin and every little TOS addendum started to bug me. What writerranger mentioned about a quater for a smiley and a buck for an avatar is very true of what this forum used to be. That is gone (but a new system of displaying donors is about to be instated here to fill Todd's business needs) but Todd's TOS is still king I believe. The signature quoting and Anderson stupidity has led me to consider leaving this forum.

There is no such system of donors being instated. We've moved to an advertising model, and are receiving some money from Yahoo ads, and searching for advertisers (Wilson Mechanical is a sample.....Todd got half price off his Heat and Air service in exchange for the ad!!). Anyways, the Yahoo ads only pay around 20% of our costs. Todd, Keith, and I are splitting the rest for the time being. We didn't want costs to be an issue to our members.

In regards to the signatures, the signatures were taking user's quotes out of context in an attempt to mock the user. Such harassment of other users violates the Terms and Conditions. It's as simple as that. No addition was needed to the Terms and Conditions. We at first allowed the practice, but soon everyone started doing it, and it became a real eyesore for the site.

A year and a half ago I left this forum. The truth is that the stupidity was only a reason. I had a forum in the works for the entire state, an entirely differant concept. Not only did I want to spend more time on that but Todd and Patrick had begun to give me trouble over that. In their mind it is a very competing concept. Apparently OKC Talk, in their minds, is the only place where one can talk about anything in the state of Oklahoma.

He kept coming to our site and harassing our members about his site, spamming them a million and a half PMs a day. After numerous complaints from our members, we put an end to it. It had nothing to do with it being a competing concept. If the dude would've treated us with any respect and been willing to work with us, we might have offered him a domain and some software. That's what we've done for our very own okcpulse. Check out okcpulse.com - Oklahoma City's Online Magazine sometime. Problem is, Spartan fired similar PM's to our members at that time, spouting off all sorts of trash. We don't allow spam here.

This is wrong. About a month and a half ago the forum I'd been working on for a long time was indeed hacked. Prior to this it was noted that OKC Talk was in the business of taking down our legal flyers in downtown.

What? I have absolutely no idea what this dude is talking about.

Spartan, you get what you pay for. If you would've paid for server space instead of using a free site that wasn't owned by you, you wouldn't have had the problem, and wouldn't have lost all of your information. We PAY for server space, and we PAY for nightly back ups of our data, with the hope that since we are PAYING for a service, the server is obligated to provide service for us. With the nightly back-up, we won't lose much if the site ever does get hacked.

Sure, our bills may be a little higher than those using free sites, but we can't be shut down by the owner of a free site....the software belongs to us because we PAID for it, and the server space is ours because we PAID for it.

Spartan, we tried to tell you this back when you started your state site, but all you could ever do was bash us for our expenses. You laughed at us for paying server expenses.

I did restart though, from ground zero at http://bull****.Org where, should the final straw in the reincarnation of Gradgate occur, I would love to see you all register and continue posting by my side. I have enjoyed your company in debate and I think you would all make great OkMet members.

I bet you would. Can you leave a quarter on our toilet please for using it?

And we promise we will never instate a stupid policy, and then change our minds over it about 4 times while leaving you hanging. We do not consider this proper service, you see, and we will also never beg for a single penny, unlike Todd's bumming. All that I will ever bum for is activity. (Yes I liken it to bumming when you ask for thousands for something that hasn't even costed OkMet over a hundred)

Sincerely,
Nick.

When we first started this site, we were using the best server around to offer the fastest service, and we were offering a lot of features. We've since determined we can get by on a cheaper server, and most everyone here just wants a message board and the Photo Gallery...that's it.

So when we first started, we were trying to get help from our users to pay the bills for tall of the bells and whistles we were trying to offer. But, we've since cut costs by cutting features, and we've found other ways to pay the bills. I do appreciate those that stepped up to the plate and helped us pay our server bills when they were due.

[Patrick]

If anyone has any concerns, feel free to PM me.

[Karried]

What the heck was that? Wow. I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone lately.. what is going on?

[Patrick]

What the heck was that? Wow. I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone lately.. what is going on?

He was obviously upset that we removed the signatures that were mocking other members. So he sent this PM out to everyone. I also found out he's been spamming other members about his board ever since he's returned.

[yahoo12]

And the rest of the story: You were 10 seconds from banning me anyway. Can't help but get pissed after I made the effort to get along. If you're going to act childish than I shall relent. I hate to cut into your money pot but the truth is that your TOS has not changed a bit since I was last here, and I also do not appreciate you stretching the truth about me in this thread:

http://www.okctalk.com/bricktown-wir...only-ones.html

Since when was I a troll? My problem is that I hate the TOS here and that I operate a completely irrelevant handful of forums. That's why you all banned me in the first place and in the second place. I have not changed, which I openly say, and you all have not changed either.

That also got me a little frustrated. I'm off this site anyway for good, you guys can ban everybody here for all I care. You all have truly witnissed the second and LAST reincarnation of me on this site. I will never even waste my time coming to this site again.

[Patrick]

Do you not realize that you've again violated the TOS here? The only reason I banned you is because you sent the above PM to several of our users trashing us. MalibuSooner, a dear friend, received the PM and he forwarded it to me. How do you think I'm going to respond when someone comes here and trashes the staff at OKCTalk, and doesn't use any factual basis to do so?

Oh, and there's no stretching the truth. You were booted off last time because you refused to obey the rules here. We won't tolerate you harassing our members. They've done nothing to deserve you harassing them.

[yahoo12]

The TOS bears witness to all of the "facts" on this website.

[yahoo12]

I got tired of hanging in the balance between TOS addendums and whatever...that's all. It's nothing against you personally Patrick although I can see where I crossed the line. You identify yourself as a member of the OKC Talk admin. Unfortunately this was meant personally to their policies and policy-changing.

[Patrick]

Signature Policy

The board signature feature allows Contributing Members to place a signature that will appear at the bottom of each of your posts. Your signature can include personal information about yourself and family, links to pictures or your personal (non-commercial) website or page, a quote, etc.

Signatures are meant to be fun, please respect the diversity of this community and do not use the signature feature to make statements that are offensive, related to abortion, or sexually suggestive. Please do not link to graphically disturbing images, or place things in your signature that reflect disagreements or issues within the board community. Inappropriate signatures will be removed at the discretion of the administration and the member in violation may lose the signature feature privilege.

FORMAT GUIDELINES

• <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">May contain a maximum of two smilies. Or one animated smiley.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">May include two clickable links.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Commercial links are prohibited. Users who have paid for signature advertising may place commercial links in their signatures provided that they stay within the format guidelines.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">May include two colors.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Maximum font size cannot be larger than 12pt.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Must be kept to a maximum of four lines (at 1024 resolution).
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Signatures are limited to 300 characters.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Signatures must contain text only. Images are prohibited.
• We reserve the right to change and/or remove your signature at any time, for any reason.

[Patrick]

Signature Policy

The board signature feature allows Contributing Members to place a signature that will appear at the bottom of each of your posts. Your signature can include personal information about yourself and family, links to pictures or your personal (non-commercial) website or page, a quote, etc.

Signatures are meant to be fun, please respect the diversity of this community and do not use the signature feature to make statements that are offensive, related to abortion, or sexually suggestive. Please do not link to graphically disturbing images, or place things in your signature that reflect disagreements or issues within the board community. Inappropriate signatures will be removed at the discretion of the administration and the member in violation may lose the signature feature privilege.

FORMAT GUIDELINES

• <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">May contain a maximum of two smilies. Or one animated smiley.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">May include two clickable links.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Commercial links are prohibited. Users who have paid for signature advertising may place commercial links in their signatures provided that they stay within the format guidelines.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">May include two colors.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Maximum font size cannot be larger than 12pt.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Must be kept to a maximum of four lines (at 1024 resolution).
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Signatures are limited to 300 characters.
  <LI style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Signatures must contain text only. Images are prohibited.
• We reserve the right to change and/or remove your signature at any time, for any reason.

The above TOS is the same as it's been for over a year now.

[yahoo12]

I got a PM stating otherwise.

Read my PM. You have to ban me now or you'll hear about it from Todd.

[Midtowner]

And now, a cat with a tinfoil hat...

[yahoo12]

I got a PM stating otherwise Patrick.

Read my PM. You have to ban me now or you'll hear about it from Todd.

[Patrick]

I got a PM stating otherwise Patrick.

Read my PM. You have to ban me now or you'll hear about it from Todd.

I don't have to ban you at all if I don't feel like it. If you'll agree to stop sending out PM's to members like the one you sent above, we may let you stay. And, your Spartan account is not banned.

[writerranger]

[Patrick]

Matee, my mind tells me Spartan needs to get back on here with his username. Arrr!

[Karried]

lol.. writerranger, I nearly spewed on my keyboard.. lol aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhggggggggggggggg

We need a tennis match avatar

[Patrick]

Entertainment is over. Return to your regularly scheduled program.

[Patrick]

Spartan, I deleted the other username, so you're going to have to get back on here with Spartan! LOL!

[Patrick]

This is what I'm doing while I'm waiting for Spartan to realize he's going to have to log back in as Spartan!

[Patrick]

Spartan, I'll send your password reminder to you if you can't remember it...geesh!

[Patrick]

Are we having fun yet? If so please give a round of applause to our contestants, Spartan and Patrick!

[Patrick]

Next item of entertainment for tonight...

Here's a look at Lauri101's daughter with you know who...

[Lauri101]

Funny story about that - she was the only female at the firebase in Afghanistan, and Rummy said he wanted to take a picture with her.
She didn't (couldn't) argue without getting in trouble.

[bandnerd]

WTF mate? I go to play some sims for awhile and wow, you guys keep this board busy!