We have a serious problem here...

This argument emerges every time you clowns forget that you have FREE access to this board and feel you have to overrun it. "What's mine is mine; what's yours is mine" - that's communism.

How much of a membership fee would you be willing to pay to drown out everyone who disagrees with you? That's what Citizens United considers "capitalism."

Why not rename the board gturnerforge? Or Babaforge? You down with that?

Why can't you answer the question?

You're saying that it is acceptable that gtardo and Baba can troll us into restricting other members. Gtardo is banned. Why do we need a restriction on threads?

You boycott a domain that you still own and just renewed?

Since when was Anc still and owner?

You grew up in a time when they still used a lot of lead in things like paint and plumbing, didn't you?

You live in quite the fantasy world. Demiurge left because we were too willing to let people throw shit in the Red Room, specifically letting Faceman post that South Park image. So basically, he's an example of people leaving because we ran the board the way you prefer. Don't lay that shit on me. Same goes for ActorMike and marathon. Stop. Lying.

Because it's Garamet, aka leftie gturner

Seriously though @gul get off your ass and do the right thing and get @Paladin back in here, it's fucking shameful he's not already back.

He's the ultimate owner, as he still controls the domain name and he did indeed just renew his lease on it. This info is easily available on WhoIs? and GoDaddy.com.

Dunno where he mentioned Actormike, but he stopped posting here shortly after Sokar died and well ahead of the ownership change. He likely doesn't even lurk anymore.

Marathon.... I can't remember the last time he was here, but I'm sure it was well before Obama had been nominated to run.

Y'know, gturner's schtick is so obviously an act that it surprises me that any of you fall for it. And most of his "look how much I know" things in the other fora are just wikipedia look-ups. He's a classic small mind trying to look like more than he is. Most of the time I find him somewhat amusing. Sorta like teh Baba, but in a different way.

Paladin I will miss if if stays gone. Much like I miss Frontline and Async.

Async returned recently.

He peeked in, made a couple posts. He's not anywhere near being a regular these days.

Give it a bit of time. People are very angry and if you let the fire die down a bit and then ask them to come back you probably will get a better response.

I'm going to say something here, dead serious, and hope people can read it and actually hear it instead of just inserting whatever dialog is in their heads that they want to project over it:

People make mistakes. People make mistakes all the time. Even when you've got a great plan, something can happen that you didn't expect or there was a 1 in a million chance of it happening that can ruin your great plan. The danger is in falling in love with a plan and being unwilling to walk away from it when it doesn't give you the result you expected.

As I understand it, the reason for banning GTurner was because it was going to make the board operate more smoothly, improve the quality of posts, and attract more members. Can anyone honestly say that any of that has happened in the past 2 weeks? Any of it? Look at the posters that have left over this. Look at the board crashing. Look at what has happened to the quality of content since this ban. Is any of it good? One could argue that we'd be better off bringing back GTurner and permanently banning everyone who was behind this plan. One could, but I won't. That said, please, please take a long hard look at the number and variety of people who are asking--very nicely--that GTurner be unbanned and consider giving it a try. It is very rare to permaban anyone except for the most heinous of infractions and inconceivable to permaban someone for no infraction whatsoever.

There are lots of mistakes. Prohibition. For a decade or so, we had a Constitutional Amendment banning alcohol. It didn't make the USA more peaceful or productive. Instead it lead to an unprecedented level of violence, corruption, and lawlessness. Someone thought it was a good idea to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Look how well that has panned out. Obviously you can't undo that decision. But you can undo this one. Seriously, what is there to lose?

The VR is closed.

gturner's ban has been explained; whether Paladin thinks the explanation is good or bad or whether he even knows about it, I have no idea.

The way I saw it, he mainly reacted to gul's somewhat vague description of future changes. We haven't seen those, nor do we know what they are or whether they're still planned.

So while I'd also love to see Paladin come back, I'm unsure what exactly he wants. Is someone in contact with him so that they can ask him what would make him come back?

Because frankly, two and a half pages of posters claiming that Paladin will be happy if the administration does whatever those posters prefer aren't helping.

Yes, quality of posts and debate has definitely improved.

Again, I'm not saying that's a sufficient reason to ban someone, but it's no use pretending it didn't happen when it did.

Really?

"NIGGER JIM"?

Dinner following John around and calling him a lying piece of shit every time he posted anything anywhere?

All the other drama threads?

I apologize. I'm not listening. Could you provide an example of 2 or 3 threads that represent this improved quality you say we've experienced?

Frankly, I find this scapegoating of @gturner completely bizarre.

Wordforge has survived countless dramas and controversies, members have come & gone, yet Wordforge persisted.

But now we're supposed to believe that @gturner is the existential threat to the future of WF? @gturner?

Two years ago during the "derp" controversy it was Dayton & Garamet (and those who voluntarily engaged with them in threads) who were the villains, at least according to Ancalagon and, ironically, Paladin.

Yet those two weren't banned.

But @gturner has to be nuked from orbit, because it's the only way to be sure? Sorry, I don't buy it.

Something else must have been going on behind the scenes. Maybe @gturner was somebody's dual.

He was Gul's dual!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Crisis for Liberalism

Serious about UBI

'member when Wright was a racist?

Untold History of the US

There are also a number of threads that are not outrageously good, but do provide a serious discussion and wouldn't have happened with gturner derailing them, such as:

What will Hillary Clinton do now?

Mattis for Defense Secretary

Why are People Claiming Trump is a con man?

Fidel Castro dead at 90

Ooooh, I'd totally take care of...

Should burning [3x] be illegal?

Secretary of State / Parole Officer

as well as stretches of good posts in several other threads, which might be even more telling. Look at how the debate has improved within older threads such as Make America Green Again, for instance.

Well I appreciate your opinion. I don't necessarily agree with it, but thank you for presenting it.

OK. I dug up a couple of the threads you suggested. They were kind of hard to find because most of them had dropped off the first page. It looks to me like you're defining "improved quality" as threads you agree with. I don't know that banning posters because they have ideas that are different than your own is necessarily a path to a vibrant and diverse discussion board.

OOH! Anal prolapse! We've also had extensive discussions of the dangers of donkey fucking since GTurner was banned!

You remind me of my son when he was younger. When we had the baby gate up, he'd go get all his toys, throw them over the gate, then complain that we had to let him out b/c all his toys were out there.

Also, you aren't that bright and still poop yourself occasionally.

It's a cartoon shown on tv. Are you serious? It's not liked you banned MLP photos john wanks off to.

Those garbage threads were in the VR. Are you arguing it should be brought back?

What does that even mean for a thread in which different sides of an issue are debated?

Yes, and absolutely no one has suggested that.

Wow. Great job calling your kid dumb.

He's three. Of course he's dumb. Tonight he was adamant about having two slices of pizza, so I cut his slice in two and he was ecstatic.