Alright John, since we all know you are over hear watching us, and wondering where all your members are going. I would like to publicly post my thoughts on the issue, as you can not seem to find time to discuss it via email, but continue to find time to respond to you members with false information. Since I was banned on December 16, without notice. I have attempted numerous times to be in contact with both yourself or Linda (HEMEEE) to discuss the issue both maturely and professionally, but after attempting to email you 2 separate times, with no response I felt it was time to inform people of the truth. For the record I sent an email on December 17th and a second on December 18th After reading the "members banned" thread, I was in awe by some of the things said by yourself. Numerous members have stated to you the problems that you have on your site, as well as told you that you simply made a very poor decision by banning Andy and myself. Within that thread you stated to the members that you are "all for" us coming back to your site, but you are not to certain that we are "all for" it ourselves. I quote that, because if that is the case, I have a few questions for you. 1) Why did you ban us in the first place, if you are "all for" our return? 2) Why did you not respond to the numerous PM's left by both myself and Andy? 3) Why did you not reply to the 2 emails I sent you, in hopes we could settle this professionally and get some questions answered. I am not going to bash you or bash your site, but I feel you should grow up, give us the time of day, and not treat us like children. This all started a long time ago with Mike@Diablo and at that time I gave you a list of things I thought were not handled right on the site. I did not tell you how to run your site, I simply offered advice on subjects I felt needed to be addressed. After sending that PM I received no response nor did one of the things I suggested, change or get looked into. Now that you have 11 pages of member responses telling you to allow us back, you also have 11 pages of people giving you advice on what things need to be changed. The funny part about it is this: numerous things the members are pointing out, are the same things I addressed in that PM, which once again received no response. Another thing you stated in your response on the "members banned" thread was that, if any of the members that were banned wanted to discuss the issue they should email you at [email protected] Well as stated above I emailed you 2 times in the past 3 days, with no response. You stating things like this shows the type of person you are. You have simply attempted to "trick" the members to thinking that you are "all for" our return but we are not, and have not attempted to contact you. When the fact of the matters is this: We have attempted to contact you, and have offered to settle this professionally and maturely outside of a message board. But you seem to not have the time or professional respect to respond to our emails. I am writing this for only one reason, and that is to get the facts straight. If you dont want to discuss it via email, I hope you find time to become a member here, and discuss the matter, whether it be PM or right here on this message board. Andy if you have anything to add, feel free to do so...
Good luck with that. Ekool's 300C site melted down in a similar fashion a few months ago without any significant mature response from him. I haven't been back since. Fortunately for me, it was mostly newbies asking about rims, lowering springs, and grilles. I'm much more interested in going fast.
Wow...sounds pretty nuts...I know I am on the Charger Forums which he and Hemee run...I cant even have www.srt8u.com in my sig on their site!! Its a site about my car not a vendor site, but they wont listen! And I cant post links to my how to threads from my site or LX Forums, they went through and took them all down lol. Luckily we have this site!
First, well put Dustin, I feel I'm a bit further beyond the point of reprieve with CSRT8.com and their ownership/admins, as such they can reference my top ten list if they wish any further input from me. BJB, C&P'd from an email where I explained the situation to another member: Regarding Dave, I believe that ekool (John site owner) really thinks that Dave benefits from free advertising by posting up helping us with tech questions, etc. Obviously in reality this is not the case and many of us believe (especially after he not Diablo figured out the 2wd issue) that he has a substantial amount of experience and knowledge to share. Dave was initially banned weeks ago because he refused to become a paying vendor. Then the whole 2wd fiasco started and Mike@Diablo joined the site to help us figure it out. At which point the admins began to think about banning Mike since he wasn't a paying vendor either--despite the fact that many paying vendors on cherokeesrt8.com sell Diablo products. Hence, he was placed under the protective umbrella (each paying vendor gets 3 slots) of Southernhotrod. The same protection was supposed to be afforded to Dave & B&G (as promised by ekool and Linda/HEMEEE) but that never materialized. I posted a thread (which can be seen over here in the CSRT8.com Refugee thread) after the "putting my foot down" thread was deleted, which was also deleted (surprise, surprise) and was initially given another infraction point (what a fucking joke), then banned. BWoody has now lost all their vendor privelages and no longer advertises with ekools sites either. HotScott7, and 9900rpm have asked what happened to me and their threads were deleted and they were warned/and or banned as well. Thanks
were still on the bubble so to speak. waiting to hear from the higher ups. but were still there as of the last time i checked
If I was ekool's boss I don't think I'd tolerate the blatant idiocy displayed by my underlings in letting two well known sites literally go down the drain over issues that should have never occured, or been handled immediately as promised, in the first place. It's the members that build and grow these sites, not the admins or the staff, end of story.
I don't believe you can hold members "captive" by deleting/disallowing links and references to other forums and sites. It's silly (and a bit insulting) to think people aren't going to find these things for themselves. Ron has never taken this approach (convinced RapidTransit of that on the oc as well) and it's worked out wonderfully. As a member I see it as a HUGE asset to a site. You get all the benefits of this site and you get the valuable information from other sites that wouldn't be available otherwise. I'm not even a member of the Cherokee site but I went to the Cherokee site to watch the SRT chat once (I think). I read a couple of informative posts that Sgt. referred to. I followed the Blown7 PCM deconstruction. Great stuff. I have no reason to join or follow anything in general over there though. Lxforums has a huge wealth of info and the knowledge database but I have no interest in following things in general or participating in the huge majority of threads there. I'll follow pointers from here for a thread and occassionally check the database for something specific I can't find here. The OC is a fine site and since I own a SRT8 I'm still active there as well (a little less so since much is double posted here as well as there). What it boils down to for me is signal to noise and people who I think are from the same planet as me with some of the same interests in the context of cars. I want a moderated but open environment. Moderated means that it's going to be a for-profit business for someone to run it. I understand the fine line with supporting vendors, protecting them, etc. So it's the environment created by the owner(s) that makes the difference. An open environment with respect to other sites is a huge plus to me and being "held captive" and actively cut off from info/other sites outside is a huge minus.
I think ekool is the boss, if you do a whois on all the srt sites he shows on his pages, you'll notice there all registered by the same person....ekool
No he is merely a sales/marketing minion for Vertical Scope (conglomerate of owners) which owns CSRT8.com and dozens if not hundreds of other sites. He has at least one boss (verified).
Very well said and I totally agree..I just could not beleive when they took down my thread links to install of coilovers strut tower braces etc...I totally understand if I was advertising a product but come on! So now when people ask me questions there I feel like I cant give them a straight answer because of the admins. Someone asked me where i got my trunklid mat the other day and I was scared to post where!
this is why this forum will become the site that sets the new benchmark for others to follow. dustin - as much as i do not want to see this site become a forum by which to "vent" about other sites, i very much understand your points and agree with what you say. my opinion is based soley on what information i gathered on my own from the sites in question and what was left to see. obviously this site is different in its approach to how we operate, but we still must maintain a level of respect for others....whether right or wrong. stay here with the C and allow the peeps here to gain from your knowledge and experience!!!!
Do you mean the VCOA? I can't see ekool on the Alley, THAT is one tough crowd! You get points for killing newbies that ask stupid questions! :laugh: Matty
