Thanks for your input rascal. It's a noble ideal, but not a novel ideal. Everyone with a professional and unemotional perspective feels the same as you. This is not about reward, or even a pat on the back. It's about membership. I knew the number was changed from what I suggested to what PacDude suggested from the beginning. I was in no trouble at the time and I did not bother with it. As far as I was concerned the number was close enough to what I suggested, and worked the same. I like nearly everyone else, do not go through the support files looking to see what is there. I remembered that quote that PacDude said that I posted quite a few times in the very thread. He said he put it into the core, and he discovered that the number defeated the problem, and that is why I went looking for it to post it here. When I first read it, why would I or anyone else not believe that he put it in the core? Now he says that someone else put it in the core and though I believe that, I only choose to believe that. When you have the same person telling two different things you have to choose if one or either is true, or if both are not. This does not have to credit, this has to do with standing up for yourself. Wanting credit for something you did is one thing, but not wanting someone else taking credit for it is another thing. I wanted neither, I wanted your Utopia. That is why I let it slide all these years, I trusted that at least the oldtimers knew the truth. But when I saw, just a few weeks ago that the files that he was maintaining had credit for him in them for work I did and he did nothing to help and instead argued that it should be in there with his name on it because he went to another member and sold it then I came unglued. He not only modded my work, by putting in a number .002 off and taking credit for it, but he defended that action as well. From that day forward this was no longer about credit, it was about thieving. I had no control and those that did refused to acknowledge that anything was amiss about the number, the credit, or the fact that he told the membership that he put it in there, and is now saying that someone else did and that it was right and just that they credit him for it. I let that go for years, knowing that something was wrong, but knowing that tables were being built that did not have the problem. I let the screen shot of my mmpac table stay up for months because I knew the staff did not have proper access to that ftp function, and they were telling me over and over that they were going to let me back, all of them.
I am not destroying this community with a 'I want credit' attitude rascal, and I resent you saying that. I don't want to force my will on anyone. I never asked for credit to be put in the core. All I asked it that I am not on the upper or lower end of inequity. If my posts are going to be moved, my account should be made to access that post, that is reasonable, no? If I find offense in a post that is directed to me then I should expect that post to be edited? No I don't, and I never have. What I do think though is that if one offensive post is that the other offensive post should be. That is reasonable, no? Do I think it is reasonable to let PacDude, 'Special, and others back? Of course. Is there any way that I could accept my lifetime ban? There is. If procedure was followed, the staff was honest about my status, and what punishment was next, and did not say time and time again that they would let me back if.... If they did not lie and play the cruel jokes, and take back what they said when I have met the terms over and over and over again then yes. There is a scant few that don't deserve to be tolerated, but when you look at then you don't see pinheads, you don't see contributing members, and you don't really see any passion at all for the community or hobby it's self. On the other hand when you look at the contributing members you see some of those things in some of the people. You can not engineer a community and not eliminate problems, you can not do it without creating problems.
Everybody needs to put all this crap slinging aside and get back to being a community again.
Yes they do. With or without me. It would be a load of crap if it was without me though. Someones membership should be based on what they have to contribute in the world of simulating pinball machines on the PC, not whether they are going to ask for access to the AC, or make a monetary donation, or if they are going to bother the staff to do it's job, or follow the rules themselves, or anything else other than their contributions to the community.
The mods. I don't see that as the sticking point. I don't see them as blackmail, or vengeance, but sharing of my advancements in certain areas of them. I don't see modding my work that was put into the core.vbs file the same way. I don't want to see it as my work, but ours, but it is. I don't see saying the things about me in the revision comments being true, or reflecting my motivations, but only as vengeance. I understand everything about the ball through the flipper problem, and I don't like reading someone say that I understand nothing about it. No one likes being baited, and no one is wrong to argue their points. There is a bit of vengeance in keeping them up however. But what would it get me to take them down? Respect? To be a respectful ex member? I don't want to be respected on how I handle being banned for life. I took them down as a gesture of good will and then it just switched to something else, the alt. The staff argues that complying with that request did not mean that I would not get banned, but it sure seemed to be the case. They said that I deserved another chance and that removing them would be a gesture of good will. I wanted to discuss having the .vbs file fixed too. What is wrong with that? Still I took them down without any agreement that the .vbs files should even be fixed, to ensure that my account would not be banned again. It was and the reason was that I did not deserve another chance. In defending that they say I have had many chances. I thought I did have many chances, and I took advantage of as many chances as I could. AJ let me back and the staff just changed their minds, rather than give that a chance. I made an alt, first and only after the staff said I could, and use it to post as long as I did not harass them about the past. They said they changed their minds and I would not get that chance. I wish I had one chance, let alone the many they say I have had. I had kept my word each and every time I have taken the chance. There was a time that I would create an alt at will, and have many times, and none of them was blown until I was ready to blow it and it was not to bring up the past or to complain about anything, but to ID myself. I could still create an alt. a day at lease, but that is not what I want to do.
I think the current staff is capable. I have no problems with them other than the massive attack of 'cruel jokes' and false hopes they enjoy. That would vanish the moment they would keep their word and actually give me one of those 'many chances'. The mods would come down, at that point, not as a gesture, but as a rule of law, a law that a forced non member is not subject to.
