TrekBBS is kind of like my home on the internet. I say "kind of" because there was a time when it *was* my home on the internet, but as I get older, and as everything changes (an inevitability, of course), I find it has lost some of its luster. Still, I go there more than any other site. Wordforge used to be far more important to me than it is now, but I'm here because there are people I genuinely care about, people whom I consider good friends. I still run my own board, though it's more like a sleepy town than a bustling community, and other than that, the rest of my free PC time is on Facebook. I hate Facebook, but everyone's there. The only ban I've ever had from TrekBBS was a one day ban, and that happened because I got two warnings right next to each other. I was finally able to cross "banned from TrekBBS" off of my list, though, albeit as a temporary ban. I've no interest in anything greater than that. Too many people there I like and would miss terribly if I were banned entirely. Plus, I don't usually cause trouble. Most of the time, I forget I'm not in TNZ when I post something.
Sometimes I'd like to go back, but I would never ask an admin to reset my password. If you're not well known there and get on the bad radar, I highly doubt there's any coming back from that. I miss jenji, she was the only person who remembered me.
Bonz has always been willing to give second chances if she thinks you won't repeat your same mistakes.
I'm not banned, I just scrambled my password to ban myself. A mod told me off very effectively and I was already in a highly depressive state. So rather than flame out, I bailed. I don't think T'Bonz is a bad person, but I didn't appreciate her rudeness. You'd think pouring my stupid heart out to her might have an effect on what she thought of me, but it clearly did not. And then to have a mod blast me for daring to even question her vaunted benevolence and magnanimity...that was too much. That site has gotten a lot colder over the years. Too bad.
I'm pretty sure I've never been to TBBS. And isn't WF the next largest Trek BBS? I mean, outside of Facebook.
I'm going to lay this all out. The story starts in 2005. I registered at TBBS. I was on there for over three years without incident. In 2008 I had a very nasty divorce. I spiraled down into a bad depression. In an effort to try and recover, I essentially erased my Internet persona. One way I did this was by asking for a voluntary ban at TBBS, which was granted. By 2010, I was feeling better. I emailed T'Bonz to try and get my account reinstated. My request was ignored. I joined again under a different name. Over the course of seven years I barely posted. It just wasn't the same there. Then Discovery premiered. I wanted to talk about it with other fans, so I logged on. But I felt bummed out because I had yet to feel the same sense of community as 'doublegoodprole" that I did as "ohdeve". So I made a new account to start fresh. Even though I had no intention of using the doublegoodprole handle again, I'd created a dual...which as we know is basically akin to murder at TBBS. At this point I was beginning to slip into a bad depressive state (major cyclical depressive here). I hated my new name so I made YET another account. This time it was ohdeve with a . at the end. I thought that might work. I realized at that point that I now had three accounts, and that this was probably not okay...should have just asked for a name change. But I came totally clean about it to the admins, because I thought that was the right thing to do. They banned me, but after I wrote T'Bonz a PM she agreed to reinstate my original ohdeve account and delete my others. That was nice. She was very helpful. But I was told to basically stay off her radar and be a good boy. She also dredged up my 2009 ban. I told her it was voluntary. She didn't respond. So I tried to get back into it. One night my wife, a new Trekkie, asks if there's any place other than Facebook to talk about Star Trek. I was like fuck yeah, I'll help you set up an account at TBBS. I start to, but then I thought about it. If I register another account from my IP address, they're going to think I'm making another dual. So, trying to do the right thing, I post a thread in QSF asking what to do in this situation. T'Bonz slaps me down hard and is quite publicly rude. I PM her to protest--instead of making it a public argument--and she totally ignores me. The subject comes up in TNZ. Someone asked me why I made duals. I didn't elaborate too much, but T'Bonz appeared to throw in a comment about not having patience. I lost mine a little there. I'd created some duals which never interacted with each other and admitted to it. Then I dared to ask a legitimate yet badly timed question in QSF. Rather than PM me and say she didn't trust me all that much yet, T'Bonz chose to blast me. When I said this felt unfair in the TNZ thread, a mod said I should be grateful I was there at all after committing such a horrendous crime and that I needed to shut up and not piss off the all-suffering admin. It was like I had trolled the board with goatse pics or something. Apparently if you piss off T'Bonz, you piss off every mod there. So I said fuck it, and left. Didn't have a meltdown or anything. Even though multiple people claim it is simply impossible that my wife would actually want to join, she really did. Oh well, too bad for her. Once a criminal, always a criminal at TBBS. I miss it, but having my integrity called into question was bullshit. Long post lol
Sounds like a whole lot of wrong place, wrong time stuff. It's probably best if you do stay away. Nothing good would come of trying again.
I'm not really sure how to take that. Are you saying I'll probably fuck up or that I'd just have a big target on my back?
The TrekBBS was kind of fun back when it (not just TNZ) was kind of a free fire zone. Say 1999 to 2003 give or take. To me what ruined TrekBBS was Star Trek: Enterprise. The powers that be were willing to put up with criticism of Star Trek: Voyager there (how could they not) but the initial enthusiasm for Enterprise was so great that they really got defensive about criticism of that show early on. Of course that faded. I imagine they've adopted a similar current attitude about Discovery as well.
Hey man, sorry about your divorce and depression. Don't be pissed or depressed about TBBS though. They don't play by the rules that they apply to others. While the Trek related material is really good the way they run the site is totally hypocritical.
