A Statement from Noah Fentz

[Phoenixx]

sorry guys, but i agree with bob- when you're trying to get someone to admit a mistake, it's generally best to be diplomatic and polite as opposed to accusatory.

Meaning what? That it has not been tried to approach him in a diplomatic and polite manner? (How much of the threads have you read?) Of course NOW we are pretty much beyond diplomatic and polite, but that doesnt mean it hasnt been tried,...

(Besides, what difference does it make, i am either man enough to admit a mistake and do something about it or i am not. In the end it is my and only my situation to rectify, so why would what anyone else says even enter into my decision,...)

 

[Phoenixx]

I feel if AJ has an issue with VPForums.org using his namebrand let him speak for himself, wasn't it his own deccesion to go a-wall.

What if he cant speak for himself? What then? We go on as though he never existed?

And no, it was not his decision, all of his forums went down due to technical issues while he was busy with real life stuff, (apparently he moved to another city), which means VPF going offline was neither in his hands, let alone his choice,...

 

[TedB]

Damn... how zealous can a couple of sour old farts become. This forum is smelling like rotten eggs. I'm out of here....

 

[Phoenixx]

Some of you people dont even realize what this is about anymore, do you?

I cant help it, but some peoples comments inevitably remind me of the guy who insistently tries to convince the jury that they should sentence the judge for wanting to sentence the criminal. I mean what kind of world do you people live in? Do you go to the courthouse and tell everyone how you think it stinks in there too? Police Stations? Civil Defence Groups? Anywhere where they make sure that wrongdoers get what they deserve?

You know the least you could do is thinking about this whole thing before you drop a comment. Nobody enjoys the situation but that doesnt mean that we should just accept it. All day long everyone is complaining how bad the world is and how nobody has the guts to do something about it. Well this is your chance to lead by example, start right here and right now and the world will already be a little better,...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Meaning what? That it has not been tried to approach him in a diplomatic and polite manner?

more like, as someone who feels like i can understand both sides of the issue, i simply wish that it had never turned personal.

(Besides, what difference does it make, i am either man enough to admit a mistake and do something about it or i am not. In the end it is my and only my situation to rectify, so why would what anyone else says even enter into my decision,...)

no, we each have an impact on each other in terms of mood and understanding.
in this very thread it just happened between you and rob (mcd).
it seems you both realised you had gotten a little too personal and scaled it back and offered an apology.

always good to see when that happens. (it certainly happened more than my share of times over the internet)

although honestly, to the people in this thread who say that bitter squabbling is unique or even typical of the VP scene- you guys sound like you've visited around 10 public internet sites in your life.

 

[Phoenixx]

i simply wish that it had never turned personal.

How could it not have?

When he is one of the persons behind it?

Im serious,...how could it not have under these circumstances?

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

"persons behind it"?

if one were a 'dastardly' person who wanted to make money off of VP, the easiest way to do it would probably be to sell VP collections on CD over ebay. because ebay takes forever to remove such collections and the seller has invariably made a nice profit before they're shut down- after which they probably just change their ID and start all over again.

yet pretty-much the last way to make a profit from VP would be to start a VP site and host tables and ROMs for all to download.

do you disagree?

i mean, so a lot of us think paul made a mistake with the name.
but look past that, and his group are providing the VP world with a valuable and needed resource.

if it helps, my thinking is this-

in the discussion with paul over the new name, we couldn't convince him of our argument. but now it's done and over.

so let's support the remaining sites the way that we can. we don't get bonus points for being angry old men and the only potential lawsuits that can be started are by AJ or his next of kin. which is ridiculous anyway, since VPF was a questionably legal place in the first place that if it made any money at all, was probably extremely modest.

in life you get to pick and choose your battles.
this battle is lost, so let's do what's best for the VP scene.
because the facts are this- the average user is fine with VPF.ORG being the new VPF. we know this because of the threads and the polls.

 

[Anthias]

A brief note on VPRESPECT since some are viewing it in an entirely innapropriate light:

VPR was born as a concept before this whole thing started. With precisely the intended site purpose stated by pheonixx (which he knows as it is publicly posted there) VPRespect was born as a reality out of my own desire to use phpbb3 in a live pinball community environment without compromising pinball originals, which will eventually be upgraded. My account with freeforums.org who host vprespect was opened with this in mind and was opened some months before the org came to be. There is another forum under that same account NOT pinball related, and due to the thematic differences, was proven not suitable as a platform test for PO.

VPRespect is NOT a "camp" (sic faction) site or run as a grudge. and in the behind the scenes technical side, it is performing the task I set it for admirably. any who wish to are welcome to attend.

 

[Phoenixx]

Nic, i dont know why you brought up the money aspect (totally irrelevant here) but i would like to comment the following before i go to bed:

...his group are providing the VP world with a valuable and needed resource.

Wrong. I know this has become a popular argument with some, but it is false nonetheless simply because PinballNirvana (which was already there) would have fulfilled each and every need this community could ever have and then some. Hence a new forum was not needed at all, and quite certainly not while the real VPF was still online.

And that is where all this has started, remember? While VPF was still online. That means this whole thing is not based on the fact that there was really an urgent need for a new forum, this whole thing is based on the single fact that they didnt like how AJ runs the place and took THAT as legitimation to take his forumname, and, in the further process, his users. And something like that is simply unheard of, you may of course start your own forum at any time you wish but you dont steal it away from somebody else in such an out-and-out subversive manner,...

in the discussion with paul over the new name, we couldn't convince him of our argument.

Not true according to what Bob said: The sole reason for keeping the name is that he didnt want to give ME the satisfaction of being 'right'. And that really does say it all, even by the lowest standards,...

because the facts are this- the average user is fine with VPF.ORG being the new VPF. we know this because of the threads and the polls.

Please tell me youre not serious.

That is about as representative as a poll on bible.com asking if there really is a God and a Heaven and a Hell,...

 

[TheMcD]

I am not at all surprised and i tend to agree. The real question might therefore not be how much Valamirs person has to do with my stance, (which would be nothing), but how much my person has to do with theirs? I can vividly imagine all the PMs and emails that went something like "What better way to get rid of that awefully annoying Phoenixx guy, lets do it lets keep the name", and come to think of it, since you said there was somebody registering with my name via a proxy, maybe you dont even have to look that far to find the one who is behind that either. I mean registering with my own frickin screenname that everyone knows? Paleeze,...dont you think id be a little smarter than that? And using 'Fuck' as my favorite pin? Come on, how un-original is that? And why would i do that anyway? Just to have an account on a forum i want nothing to do with? Makes no sense to me,...however, considering the 'style' i know whom the shoe would fit just perfectly,...

To come back to that point... I think I will have some more research on that. Maybe the proxy wasn't a proxy after all. It pointed right in the middle of the U.S. of A. Now that isn't California, but that wasn't what I thought. Might as well try to find out the true identity of that guy. Now the e-mail "asshole@msn.com" won't help much, but there was that sencond account I might look into. After all, I am but a mere seeker of truth now.

And before I forget it, thanks to Anthias for clearing that up for me. Every bit of truth we get helps to clear the large amount of fog around this crap.

The McD

 

[faralos]

I know alot of you will bitch again about this but...

I personally am happy that vpf.org IS becoming the new (and improved?) vpf.COM! Ok, we were all saddened when .com bit the big one AND I've had my ass handed to me for speaking for what I thought was my personal opinion, but I shake it off. I won't even begin to start that arguement again of a name be it good or bad we all know nothing will change, as each of us has an ego that must be massaged.
I don't and won't go into that one ever again and hereby RETRACT ANY AND EVERYTHING i'VE EVER SAID CONCERNING ANY NAME CHANGES ANYWHERE
I apologize for slandering anyone's name anywhere also...
I am not the politician and don't want to be.
I am just here for pinball learning and playing from now on
But I still like the forums ALL OF THEM! I don't care anymore who named what which or who is pissed about it, all of it's making my head spin.
so from now on, I'll still post weird things here, at vfp.org, vprespect, and a few others but will now out (un?) gracefully from any and all things political. I'll just sit back and eat my popcorn and watch all of you guys/gals(?) have at it.
When all is said and done, I'll congratulate the survivors, help to bury the dead, dust the dirt off your back and offer you some of my popcorn!
I just wish we could all go back to the peaceful days again
LONG LIVE IGNORANCE!! I just knew I should have taken the blue pill!
So I'll just start over...
Hi I'm Faralos really love your site(s)...:D

 

[Meecro Hyperion]

HA! Thanks for a bit of comic relief, faralos!

Glad you took the Red pill, because the Blue pill leads to a fantasy world which doesn't exist....

Thanks also to bob for shedding a bit more light on the processes that led to the choice of name.

Light a fire up AJ's ass? Deliberate damage to the community to make a childish point, as I see it.

What a shame....

 

[Shockman]

I pick my battles. That is why I was not too involved in this thread. It was not a battle I had any interest in. I thought the name used was the worst possible choice, but I also don't really care what it is called. It certainly is not VPF, but that's what it's called.

This thread is old now, but that's a good thing. It reveals it's self now. VPF certainly IS VPF. It's not better than .com, it's just different. Many things are different, and they are better things. Some things are not better, and they are just the same. A few things are different though, and are not good at all. Mostly attitudes, like VP8 is dead and VP9 is theirs, anything done for VP outside of their group is just a hack, and can not be linked, let alone offered up, and other attitudes like that.

 

[PcwaG]

Are we still talking about this?

Wow, nothing's changed, I'll just head back to XBL and killing zombies.

Have fun folks.

 

[faralos]

well MY post is from last year...imo it's all water under the bridge...

 

[mrschultz]

Are we still talking about this?

No.

 

[TheMcD]

Yeah, I haven't heard anything about this topic for more than 6 months.

The McD

 

[sleepy]

We need New Topics and Food!...

 

[TomcatLeader]

And new tables!! :)

 

[1234fd]

We need New Topics and Food!

Here is a long lasting one :
VP :hmm: ??? :rifle: or niper: FP???
:hmm:

:brushteeth:

 

[Kinsey]

Yes, I am a little late to the thread party -- but as someone who ruled vpf.com with an iron fist at one time (heh), I can honestly tell you that AJ had stopped giving a rat's ass about the Community a few months before I went on staff.

Hell, my original intent was to do all the staffing from another account (dufachi) which was the original name made staff (I later logged in and switched it to my main account.) because I didn't want people riding my ass about how AJ wasn't doing this or that, blah blah blah.

Believe me, AJ didn't give a flying fuck about losing VPF and he still doesn't. He hated dealing with anything that went wrong. We were the red-headed step-child that would go bad. We tried though for over 6 months to get him to pass the domain and hosting on to the staff itself so more could be done but it was a no-go.

On to Noah.. do I think making a new site and continuing an ecosystem where respect is a focus was a good idea? Yeah. I also originally suggested he use a different name because I knew that there would be people who would rip on him for using dot org. What's done is done. He didn't get the benefit of ripping the entire membership database from shivasite to start his site, either.

But, I cannot in good conscience say that AJ deserves any fucking respect from the community.

 

[1234fd]

Believe me, AJ didn't give a flying fuck about losing VPF and he still doesn't. quote]

Are you saying that you have news from AJ?

 

[mrschultz]

Yea, lots of people have said stuff like that but the fact is no one has any idea what the fuck happened to AJ. And if anyone has heard from him they are keeping quiet. I think all of the domain names he had have now expired. I just did some quick searching and he still hasn't resurfaced on the Internet.

Only things we do know are that when the server farm that had his business (4dealhosting) servers went up in flames no one was around to restore them when the farm was rebuilt, and a few of his domains were renewed for another year around that time.

 

[Pop Bumper Pete]

considering that it is coming up to 2 years for the end of VPForums.com, it is a bit of a pointless thread bump

 

[druadic]

Actually the button should read "Who gives a Rats Ass". :)

Honestly, whatever Noah does with VPF is up to him. He owns the domain and the name.

As for AJ, I heard from him before I left VPF years ago. He cared, but his life demanded too much of him for VPF.

d