I'm resigning... for good.

[gameboy9]

OK, frankly, I was pissed off that a topic was locked here today. That's not the MARP I remember. This act was cowardly in my opinion and uncalled for, and is the beginning of a transition of something I've been avoiding since I've been here... a dictatorship.

For this reason, and a reason that I am having no more fun here, I hereby resign from MARP. I ask Barry to remove my confirmation status. I don't care what happens to my MAME Olympiad position, but if you want to keep the olympiad, you could call an election now, but since another Olympiad won't happen until next year anyway, you can wait until the general election in December. And I hope there still will be one.

I'd still like to keep in touch with those who are friends on my LiveJournal and QRS and Ron, but I just shouldn't spend anymore time here. It's no longer worth it.

If you have any questions that you think only I can answer, feel free to email me or AIM me... if you know either.

Otherwise, with the exceptions I stated, goodbye, and good luck.

[seymour]

You're the one that suggested I do something more than bitch. Would you rather me have done something else? That particular thread wasn't going anywhere good, so it was best to just lock it. I had no plans to delete or edit it. Censorship is bad. And I expected more of a mature reaction from you, of all people.

But do and think what you like. It makes no difference to me. Calling it a "dictatorship" is a bit much, though. I try to do as little as possible on here, and you know it. And I'm not the only person that had a problem with how the General forum was starting to look (and no, don't even think of continuing that discussion in this thread anyone).

I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do next, regardless.

[BBH]

You're leaving because Seymour locked a topic? I'm sorry, but that's just fucking retarded.

If you're going to leave MARP, do it because you don't enjoy playing or watching old arcade games any more. Don't do it because of some silly "drama" on a bulletin board.

[mahlemiut]

I only have one thing to say here...

WHAT FUCK?

Negative1 is the only one getting uptight here (not counting this thread). Dictatorship is rather harsh too, seeing as four different people asked him to stop that topic formatting. And having one thread locked is hardly the end of the world. Richy Cream could always re-appear when you least expect it...

[gameboy9]

well... it's called frustration. and I went over. I apologize for that - but I'm still at a point where I'm not having fun anymore. My decision remains unchanged.

[AL]

Eh, what topic was " locked "...???
Must have been something serious ?


But the fact is that Pete wants outta here....? I therefore conclude that Pete has a really good f***ing reason for doing so . And after all that Pete has done for MARP ( well , as long as I've been here ) , he feels this way ?

What gives ?


AL

[gameboy9]

Now that I'm a little more rational (I again apologize for my frustration earlier) - I'll explain all.

Well... not yet. First, I'm going to give a little education: In Greek mythology, there were four ages of human. The golden age, where everything was great, the silver age was a little worse, but everything was still pretty good. The bronze age was not very good, and the iron age? Oh my word! Then the great flood happened, with only two people surviving.

Now that I've explained that, I now claim that the bronze age of MARP has begun. Al, there was a post that was locked, and I wasn't very happy about it. Why? We've lost our freedom of speech yesterday. OK, you all can argue how false that statement is, but we just did. That was what made MARP so great, and so unique, is that we could speak freely anywhere, anytime. We never minded if somebody asked a question that was answered on the website. We didn't mind of all the insults that went back and forth, we answered them, and then moved back to the playing field. At least until yesterday.

I'll admit to the starting of the silver age... sure, I wanted to be a leader, but I didn't want a dictatorship, I wanted a democracy. But that may have started the worsening of MARP, I'll leave that to all of you to argue. But I always wanted people to speak freely... and people to play the games and have a good time... and now we don't have that anymore. Now a lot of the talk we seem to do is about rules and regulations and violations and so forth. In addition, I think some people has taken the success of MARP the wrong way, and have taken the power the way it wasn't intended. And I think I know who's guilty of it, but for maturities sake, I will not mention of them except to a select few, if any. Shoot... maybe I'm guilty. And now, the bronze age of MARP has begun... and age that I will not be a part of.

I will not return until the golden age returns... or at least another silver age... which may never happen.

I guess the only advice I have left before I leave is... to just go back to the playing field and have a good time. All this talk about competition and how it should be scored and all the leaching and so forth has just gone too far. Maybe I started it, but I never wanted it to be excessive, which is what it's happening right now. If the advice is taken the right way... maybe then... and only then... will I come back...

[mahlemiut]

If you'd have seen the crap I have on various other forums, then you'd have to say that we're pretty lucky not to have that kind of stuff here at all.

[DRN]

I'll second what Barry said. Some forums on the internet are just flaming warzones with moderators that are constantly fighting a losing battle to keep control. This is one of best forums I've seen in a long time for sensible people and proper debate. (yes it's true folks)
Ok so negative1's_underscore_titles with the [brackets] were a bit annoying and the fact he has changed them all now to begin with yes and end with (compliant) is even more annoying but it's no big deal really! A topic was locked, again no big deal. Sometimes these things happen.
Perhaps there are times when people might take it too seriously here and always try to bring in extra rules and query playing techniques etc but to me it's not that bad, certainly isnt worth quitting about.
I hope you reconsider Gameboy9, you've done alot for this site and it would be a shame to see you go.

[negative1]

actually i dont feel i'm being censored at all,
it wasnt what i said, it was the titles...notice
how [poll] has brackets?

and i think for the record, the moderators
were being too 'uptight'...

there's still a lot of annoying titles out there
right now, with ALL CAPS, and bad grammar,
but i don't see anything be done about those?

anyways, be careful what you ask for (compliance),
as the cure can be worse than the disease

later

| || | || | | || ||
n e ga t iv e 1

[Slawek (SLA)]

Well, this is serious and this is important... Who knows, maybe tomorrow another old member will say MARP "goodbye"... There is a mood of global crisis in gameboy9 words (if you know what I mean)...

[QRS]

Ok let´s end this silly thing now. Negative1 (wich is a great player and I have absolutly nothing against him!) was told by Seymour wich runs the whole board etc to just stop his way of writing "__" and "[]"

A few marpers including myself agreed and told him the same. No one flamed him or told him to leave etc (wich is very common on other places if you do not do as the moderator of the board tells you too..)

We just asked him to stop that´s all. Now he has stoped and that is good!
I am more than interested in talking about games etc with you Negative1 and I say Welcome to marp :=)

You are also welcome to come to the #marp channel on IRC and talk with us there.

To Pete:I really hope you change your mind and come back instead... You mean A LOT to marp. Editor or not Pete!.
I tend to agree with you on your "age" theory (and this has nothing to do with negative1. It is other stuff that I don´t want to talk about in public)

I know that the golden age will return though, and hopefully the golden gameboy will too

Regards

QRS

[sikraiken]

If you'd have seen the crap I have on various other forums, then you'd have to say that we're pretty lucky not to have that kind of stuff here at all.

Yea, I always found MARP boards good for that. I never found any 'large' rants of any sort, Richy Cream often liked to start up though. ^_^ I've always thought the boards were very civilized, and I was quite surprised to see a topic locked.

[seymour]

actually i dont feel i'm being censored at all,
it wasnt what i said, it was the titles...notice
how [poll] has brackets?

I didn't want to censor you by editing your post subjects myself. And [poll] has brackets because it's automatically done by the forum software if a poll is added to a post.

there's still a lot of annoying titles out there
right now, with ALL CAPS, and bad grammar,
but i don't see anything be done about those?

Not everybody's native language is English on this forum. It might be annoying to me, but what am I going to do, go to every person's house to teach them English?

anyways, be careful what you ask for (compliance),
as the cure can be worse than the disease

I never asked for "compliance", just not to annoy half of the users on this forum. That's not too much to ask, is it? And that statement of yours could also be seen by some as provoking and a threat. I hope some common sense will prevail on this board. For everybody. The last thing I want is for this place to stop being an enjoyable place to visit. And I don't want anybody to feel that they have to leave, either.

[BBH]

Okay, let me say exactly what I feel.

Gameboy, you're being way too fucking overdramatic about this. Seriously.

I will not return until the golden age returns... or at least another silver age... which may never happen.

I mean, what the hell is that?

This happens all the time on internet message boards.... someone seeking attention, making a dramatic announcement, "I'M LEAVING THE SCENE FOREVER". Why? Why is it so important that you leave? Are you dying? Are you going to go live in a space station for a few years? If the answer to either of those questions is No, then why all the drama? You're not actually in a position where you can never return. Nobody exiled you or banned you from the forums.

So negative1 had a thread locked. Big fucking deal. This is hardly the worst thing that has ever happened in MARP's history. For instance, here's a refresher of something that was far worse.

A couple years ago, there was a period of time lasting a few days where MARP wasn't working. We still had access to the Greenspun bulletin board, but could not check any page on the actual MARP site. During this time BeeJay had posted a message about his baby daughter being born. Then someone under an anonymous name made some rude comments about his post, saying "Just get the fucking site back up" or something to that effect. That was totally uncalled for. Nothing was ever locked or deleted when we had the Greenspun board, because that was an utter and complete and piece of shit. If that same incident had happened on the forum now, you're damn right that would get locked or deleted. Would that be censorship you would be opposed to? On a related note, the asshole who made those comments was Richy Cream, who kept up his bad behavior and ended up getting banned from this site. That doesn't bother you that a user was banned but a thread was locked?

"Freedom of speech" on message boards is nearly nonexistent. When you're signing up, your posts are subject to be locked or deleted by the admin, whether they have a good reason to, or they just feel like it. It's fortunate that we've never really had a problem with this at MARP. Yes, Seymour locked a thread, but he did so because the thread was going nowhere and letting it go on would most likely have just made things worse.

Let me say it again - the thing that brought me to the MAME Action Replay Page was the idea of getting to see how high scores were achieved, and to submit my own scores for other players to see. It's about the games. But yes, it's also the people that can make or break the site, and I've always enjoyed hanging out in #marp to talk with other players, even if it isn't necessarily about MAME. Only if I hated the people or suddenly became disgusted by the idea of playing old arcade games, would I actually leave this site. And if I did, I'd just sort of fade out, not make a big dramatic farewell speech, because that's just stupid.

Gameboy, you've done a lot for the site, and I respect you for that. But do you now want to be remembered as a "drama queen" who made a silly exit over a topic that hardly matters all that much in our lives?

*EDIT*: Oops. I went back and looked for the Richy Cream thread I was talking about above, but it seems that Richy Cream's posts were actually deleted from that thread.... BY YOU, Gameboy9! Makes that whole freedom of speech thing you were going on about even sillier. (I'm not condoning Richy's comments, they were WAY out of line. But hey, if you insist on everyone having freedom of speech...)