Goodbye mobclan.com, you will be missed Options

[Bargod]

This has been my favorite forums to ever be involved with. Since joining I've compared every other forum I've come across to this one and most come short. I loved all it's features and it's lay out.
It will be dearly missed by me.

[Robert]

I originally made this post in the private section but seeing as how I was publicly called out and a few people insist on continuing their little pokes.
I decided to also copy my post here.

See this is the real difference between me and some of the rest of you.
I'm willing to say what I believe in public, I've nothing to hide.
I'm the 1st to admit I'm not always right but I'm at least willing to stand behind what I say and if I'm wrong then expect to be held accountable for what I say.
While you guys run to "Privately" tell your twisted side of things.
So full of shit, your only recourse is lies and baseless accusations via private messages.
Why is that?
Are you so afraid of being confronted?
Maybe just to ashamed of yourself to admit it.



Where to start?
I guess the best place would be right here.
From Mike post
http://www.mobclan.com/forums/upload/index...st&p=171570

The {MOB} clan's website has changed from this site (mobclan.com) to:
http://www.TheOtherMob.com

Robert (Druid), we can save you from having to prepare a 5000 word post about why we did it. The answer is simple:
Not nearly as simply as what you are going to try an make it out to be for reasons which will become obvious.
In the mean time let's go ahead an look at what you did say.


1) When you departed and banned yourself from MOB you did not release control of thewebsite & domain name.
True, and what effect did that have?
None to be honest..
Although it did apparently bother the NEW admins to no end that someone outside of their little group was able to see what was going on, all the little examples where a few people made decisions with little or no discussion.
Even worse, if someone asked about the people making the decisions would either lie or act insulted that people would questioned them.
More on this later.

2) We asked you to return it to the MOB membership and offered to pay all expenses since your departure.
We're only talking about $8/month.
The real reason it was made into such a huge issue isn't nearly as innocent as you make it out to be.


3) You responded that you would not release it since it was a source of "cheap entertainment"
Sure toss out the part about "Cheap Entertainment"
I've no doubt the meaning of that has been mis-characterized a dozen different way now.
So everyone will be clear, here is the email where that quote comes from.
http://myuploadpage.com/mob/cheap.jpg
You try and paint me as the bad guy by purposefully leaving out the context so people will jump to your required misconception that my statement about "cheap entertainment" some how was in regards to screwing MOB over or causing problems. Please by all means, take this opportunity to show/tell everyone all these examples of yours where I've done things to screw MOB over or cause problems for my "cheap entertainment."
That's your unspoken implication and Steel has flat out accused me of that, so don't you think you should back it up?
Here is the simple truth of why I never transferred the website and domain over.
* I was pissed that your co-admin goes an tells half a dozen people that it was MY fault when the website was down during the drive crash at the hosting company. Sorry but it wasn't MY fault the person didn't bother to read the instructions on how to put in a trouble ticket. Not that a trouble ticket would have mattered since the hosting company was already aware of the problem. Nope, that didn't stop the accusation flying about how it was druid's fault and he left everyone in the dark.
* During the failed attempt to put in a trouble ticket, the password for the hosting was changed. So at that point I couldn't sign in to switch the hosting over even if I wanted to.
* I simply couldn't bring myself to hand over the site to people who for a variety of reasons which I will now try to make clear, I didn't feel like I could trust enough not to screw it up somehow.
Want to know the real meaning behind the cheap entertainment quote.
It's simple, to me the forum is like a photo album of words.
Whenever I stopped by, the 1st thing I would do is click on the link at the bottom to see what topics members were reading. Often times it would lead to an old topic I hadn't thought about in a long time, bringing back fond memories of MOB. Just like looking at an old photo album.
Funny how being sentimental, equates to me being a bad person.
I can't wait to see how Mike/Steel is going to explain this away to everyone in a way which doesn't fail a stink test.
How I was doing all these terrible manipulative things behind the scenes to cause problems but I stopped right in the middle of it to let Mike know about a problem on the forum. Not just let him know but also took the time to tell him how to fix it and most importantly, warn him how NOT to fix it on the chance it was a glitch in the database.
If it was a database glitch, I would have probably been the one who ended up finding and fixing it.
Never mind, no reason to let the truth stop you now.
BTW a little research on InvisionBoard's support forum shows the problem ( that me THE ASSHOLE let you know about ) was caused by one of the admins deleting the old BsS TWL team forum category without 1st deleting or moving the post in the category somewhere else.
A pop-up message would have come up when this was done, warning not to do it.
This resulted in all the post in that category becoming orphaned, then showing up later under the public announcement forum when the forum categories were re-ordered.
So let's review.
One of the admins caused a problem because they didn't know what they were doing and didn't bother to read the pop-up message when it was done.
I find the problem, point it out, tell you how to fix it including what not to do just in case it's a database glitch.
Yet, you try an make me out to be the asshole who was causing problems.
Yep, that's a great little fairytail you're weaving there, it seems to come naturally you, maybe you should consider writing children books.


4) We no longer are. ( i .e as in no longer a source of entertainment.)
Do you really think?
When I got an email about how things had moved to TheOtherMob.com
That was the biggest laugh I had in a long time.
There are a dozen different levels I find that funny on.
I'll let you in on some of the funniest ones later.



Part 1 Of Why Druid is a Bad Person.
Does everyone want to know why I became this big imaginary phantom trouble maker.
It started out when I made the terrible mistake of privately confronting the admins about the unfair way some people where being treated.
http://myuploadpage.com/mob/email.gif
It's official, I'm an asshole because I questioned the admins about something
How dare I have the nerve to questions all the bullshit reasons they came up with to kick out a kid who had done ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong.
In fairness to Bargod, it turns out he didn't receive this email until months later because it was sent to an old Yahoo address.
I'm the bad guy even though they were the ones who refused to own up to being wrong about pancakes.
Not only that, but the same person who lead the change to get Pancakes banned, who repeatedly came up new B.S. reasons why MOB should ban him when playing under the name {HotelHotStuff} wasn't enough.
This is the same person who was the 1st to welcome him back after his bogus 30 day suspension, tells Pan how glad they are he didn't leave because she would have missed him.
What??? You just did everything you could to get him banned.
Same goes for bloodhound, completely petty reasons where used to ban him.
Shifty was one of the nicest people I got to know through MOB, easily in the top 10 out of 100+ people.
That didn't stop a few people in MOB's leadership from blowing something completely out of proportion and then using it as a reason to ban his son.
I would like to point out the exact same reasons used to ban Shifty's son was recently repeated by another MOB member's son and it was considered such a minor issue it wasn't even worth a discussion.
Am I the only one who thinks that's strange or sees a problem there?


Part 2 Of why Druid is a Bad Person.
Oh my god I must be an ass because I defended Shred about how heavy handed he was dealt with.
It was made into some huge problem that he was running his own server.
I disagreed with what was said, corrected some of the unfounded claims about how it was against MOB's rules, or how it has always caused problems in the past.
To be completely fair, at the same time I defended him on this I also told him he was wrong in the way he handled it. ( Complaining about it on BSS ).
Even though I said both sides were wrong, that didn't matter.
Next thing you know there are new baseless accusations going on from a few MOB admins, claiming how I was causing problems, feeding secret information to shred to stir up trouble, etc.
Sorry I didn't realize it was now against MOB's unwritten rules that people couldn't question what the admins do.
Shit, you're right, that is my fault. I was confused, I was thinking back to how it use to be in MOB.
You know how it says in the rules which I wrote that people not only had the right to question admin decisions, we welcomed them to, as people SHOULD be held accountable.
The very same rules you copied word for word over to TheOtherMob.com but will fail to live up to just the same as you did at MOBCLAN.
Is that going to be my fault too?


Part 3 of WHY Druid is an asshole.
http://www.mobclan.com/forums/upload/index...07&hl=goose
When the 1st accusation was made that Goose was crashing the server via the control page.
I logged onto the server to gather proof since Goose had denied doing it.
Those who have known me for long, know I always try to backup anything that results in a player getting banned.
I also felt partly responsible since I'm the one who setup the server control page. So I was also going to make any necessary changes to prevent it being done in the future.
After checking the logs, it was obvious Goose had never used the server control page to crash the server.
For that matter he had never even used in while in MOB.
I even went through the extra trouble of checking the log for a whole year, verifying every connection was a MOB member by their IP address. I then supplied the Log which showed showed each IP and corresponding MOB member. Except for one access by Hatred 8 months earlier.
http://myuploadpage.com/bss/control.txt
What happened?
I didn't know what I was talking about.
Goose being the super computer hacker was able to access the server control page in a way which didn't show up on the logs.
Ironically, even though the logs showed Goose didn't do it, Somehow Steel was still able to claim without a doubt Goose did it.
I want to make this perfectly clear, In my opinion, Goose should have been banned long before he finally was due to him teamkilling people now that he could no longer kick them.
I definitely wasn't trying to defend the guy, my sole point was it made MOB look bad when they publicly accused Goose of something he didn't do.
Why was it such a big deal?
http://www.mobclan.com/forums/upload/index...st&p=161924
Steel supposedly spent Hours and Hours ( even all nighters ) to track the problem to Goose restarting the server.
While I took 5 minutes to check the log file, then another 20 minutes creating a copy of the log file where I changed the IP address to the name of the corresponding person.
http://myuploadpage.com/bss/control.txt
Even though I was only trying to help, Steel was apparently not happy to find out I said she was wrong.
She took it as some kind of personal attack on her.
I guess I had NO RIGHT to question her claim it was Goose.
The fact that the log files proves me right didn't matter.
It all came down to how I was an asshole and causing problems just because I contradicted her.




Now that you know WHY I'm suddenly such a trouble making, gun to MOB's head, asshole.
Time for a few laughs.

I'm sure you could ask a dozen different people what made MOB a 5 year success and get several different answers.
My top 3 list of reasons why would be.
1) MOB unlike most other clans was NOT ran by a single person or select few who ran their clans like a 3rd world dictatorship. Everything concerning MOB was at least brought up for discussion then depending on the seriousness of the issue, a vote.
2) MOB wasn't ban/kick happy. People made MOB their home because the admins didn't kick/ban people for stupid or petty reasons.
3) MOB was incredibly lucky that so many great people made the MOB servers their home.
If that was the past, then what about the present.

Welcome to the Steel Comedy Hour.
##Banning##
Mistakes happen, what's important is how you deal with them.
http://www.mobclan.com/forums/upload/index...7&hl=banned
A completely honest mistake but according to Steel
"No, leave the ban. He just wasted a bunch of my time tracking it down."
I know most of you have no clue what's involved, so I'll give you an idea
30 seconds to login to the server box.
2 minutes to track down the GUID you need to ban ( 3 minutes if you're completely lost and don't know what you're doing )
30 seconds to copy the GUID to the ban list.
5 seconds to log out.
Total Time: 4-5 minutes.
So because Steel wasted all of 5 minutes, an unwarranted ban should stay on someone who did NOTHING wrong
A ban not just on some unknown stranger but a family member of the Regs.
BTW, if Steel would have wasted an extra 60 seconds and done a search like I would have done. Martins dad wouldn't have been banned because a simple search would have shown Staff Sergeant Martin had played on that IP.


Didn't think that was funny?
Then how about this.

http://www.mobclan.com/forums/upload/index...showtopic=14858
At the end of her post she insults the people who copied her work and act as though it was their own.
What's funny is while she insults them about copying her server setup, she brags about how she setup the VSP stats.
"I've switched up the player stats here from what you stole from me with my statsgen setup. You gonna follow me in doing the stats this new way too, with VSP stats and ServerStats???? I've got the stats and server restarts all automated now, don't have to do it by hand anymore.... tempted to copy-cat this new setup????"
She complains about them stealing her stats setup and brags about how SHE automated VSP stats here.
Sorry, but I'm the one who spent 40 hours setting up and than completely automating the whole stats process.
She spent maybe a few minutes to copy an edit my setup for her servers, then she insults her old clan for the same thing she just did.
Isn't there a name for that?
If you want to know who really did all the work on the server just ask Steel
http://mobclan.com/druid/server.jpg


This is the same person who brought up a vote to ban Shred for what lame ass reason?
She caught him reading the PUBLIC forum.
Yep that right, she wanted to ban Shred because she didn't like him reading the forums.
Then what happened when the vote didn't go her way?
Shred quietly gets banned for a completely separate reason without a vote or discussion.
Funny how that worked out.
I have to wonder if that's because the admins decided it was a waste of time to discuss or vote on things since the last time they did, people didn't agree with them.
Kind of like elections in a 3rd world country.
If people don't vote for you, then they don't need to vote.



One of the accusations made is how I had this super duper secret access that allowed me to read EVERYTHING.
Well, that is true. Since I had access to the website database, then I had access to everything.
For those who know how websites work, this won't be a big shocker, nor should it be.
I could pull any information I want out of the database.
I found it hilarious that the forum admins, conveniently skipped right over the fact they have the exact same ability, only about 10 times easier.
I can pull raw information from the database, while they simply have to login to view every single PM message sent via the forum.
When I was putting together my post in reply to all the problems Silver/DG/BSS were causing, I originally used screenshot copies of PM messages from the forum admin page. Prior to my post being made, it was requested that I remove the screenshots showing admin access to PM's. The reason given was because they wanted to keep that fact a secret.
I have to wonder if any light bulbs are going off over anyone's head.
I'm willing to bet there are a few people who feel like they have been somewhat pushed off to the side and their input marginalized over the last 6 months.
No fear, I'm sure it's just a coincidence you made the unfortunate mistake of complaining/questioning about a certain admin in a PM. An admin who I think has shown they don't handle criticism well.
It has to make you wonder though doesn't it.


Here would be my favorite one.
http://myuploadpage.com/mob/steel.jpg
This would explain why I've had 6 people either directly or indirectly ask about me hacking the server box.
I'll make this as simple as possible.
I had an account on the box until 2 weeks ago, which BTW I had not accessed since NOV. of last year when I checked the logs for the server control page. ( You know when Steel wrongly accused Goose of crashing the Barb server ).
According to Steel's story, I'm the one who spent 100's of hours and 100,000's of attempts to hack into the server even though I could simply log on since I still had an account on the box.
Does that make sense to anyone?????
For that matter, if I was continually causing all these problems for her on the serve box like she claims.
Why wouldn't she have simply deleted my account???
FYI, this would be the same account I told mike to delete almost a year ago.
This would make steel an idiot who can't even come up with a believable lie.
She has no problem lying but she does a crappy job of it.


The truth is, out of this whole situation, the thing that pisses me off the most is the VSPstats.
I spent between 40-60 hours getting the stats to work just right, then wrote dozens of batch files to automate the whole process.
MOB was the only clan with VSP stats that showed both the time and rounds correctly.
It was a real source of pride an accomplishment when the setup was finally finished.
Then she has the nerve to whine about how much work I created for her.
When the stats ran completely by themselves because all the time and effort I put into setting them up.
Ya gotta love it, 1st she takes credit for them. then blames me when she messes them up.
It had to be a change she made because the stats were still working a few days AFTER the problem with the server being hacked was fixed.


The other part I find so funny is the complaints how I had a gun to MOB's head.
I wasn't the one making decision after decision with little or no discussion with most of the members.
A few of my favorite examples:
1) Reducing the private slots down to only 4 which resulted in unnecessary kicking.
2) Taking the COD:UO BAS server down to only 18 slots, because as the little admin group decided nobody that mattered played on it.
3) Increasing regs powerpoints back up to 30. ( I noticed when Bullet asked why that was done without any discussion, he was lied to and told "It was discussed and voted on in the MOB council")

You can make the silly claim "Druid had a gun to MOB's head"
Truth is you guys acted like a couple of sheep herders and the rest of MOB were sheep.
Heck, I remember the days when we had week long discussions and votes on subjects as simple an benign as changing the time limit on Barb.
MOB use to try hard to allow everyone a chance to have some level of input.


No matter how anyone wants to cloud the subject, this is what brought things to this boiling point.
Steel for whatever crazy reason goes nuts over me replying to a discussion started by a MOB member
Her own words " adding my trash to the topic"
A dozen people posted in the topic, most of the post from another MOB member.
With no discussion an no need to explain herself, she deletes the topic.
When a 2nd MOB member restarts the topic, she again shows a total disregard for what anyone else may think including other MOB members, removing the topic from the public forum.
When I ask why, she flips out, accusing me of manipulating and controlling everything at MOB while trying to lay the blame on her.
She then accuses me of hacking the server box.
I apparently made the mistake and showed my arrogance by replying to her baseless accusations and senseless attack.
In a continuation of her delete happy frenzy, she then removes her own post where she attacked me and accused me of hacking the server.
Next she quits MOB.
Please explain how that is my fault.



Talk about not being able to keep your eye on the ball
1) Half the servers constantly sit empty, the few servers which do get used show a slow steady decline of players.
Sure you can point to a few upward spikes but they are about as inconsequential as finding a penny on the ground.
2) MOB has failed to build on the great initial success of their COD4 servers and because of that they are now going to have to play catch-up.
3) Essentially turned your back on COD:UO because a few MOB members decided MOB should only focus on COD4 even though :UO easily has another good year left if not more. Ironic that COD:UO is almost ignored even though it is your most popular server an probably still the main base to the community at MOB.
With those 3 things in mind, what suddenly becomes the biggest crisis facing MOB.
According to Steel it's the fact I posted in a discussion on a discussion board with a separate category specifically setup for off-topic discussions.
Then was wrong to ask why the discussion was deleted with a total disregard to what anyone else in MOB may have thought or wanted.
Does that make any sense?



Remember when Mike said the move to TheOtherMob was done so MOB would no longer be a source of my "cheap entertainment?"
As I mentioned before that wasn't really true and here is why.
1) Someone emailed, telling me to check the new roster page at TheOtherMob. The reason being, my name was completely removed from the roster as though I was never a member. Not only removed but in place of where it use to say
"Druid retired with honors"
It now said "Steel retired with honors"
After someone brought it up, the whole roster was removed. Now there is only a lame cartoon graphic about being under construction.
See, things are still a source of cheap entertainment.
Actually now it's not cheap entertainment, it's completely free entertainment. So thank you.
2) What was one of the main complaints? Supposedly how I had all this control over things even though I was no longer a member. Hmmm, is that some how different than the current situation with Steel? I was under the impression she quit a few weeks ago but she apparently still has admin control at TheOtherMob and has more input than most other MOB members.
Which is strange since she has shown herself to act with little or no regard to what other MOB members may want.
She was even proud enough to brag about doing just that.
So another nice laugh, thanks again.


BTW I've no doubt some people are going to complain about how terrible an unfair it is that I've said anything against poor little Steel, who never did anything wrong.
It only proves she's right about what a mean, horrible person I am.
Fair enough, I'll make a deal with you.
When she tells lies about you, makes unfounded accusations and then insults you.
After she has done all that to you but you decide to still treat her with kid gloves in fear you might hurt her feelings.
At that point you will have the right to tell me what I should have done or how I should have handled things differently.
Until then, you are wasting your breath.


Next will be the likely complaint about how I shouldn't have done anything here.
Sorry, but you made it clear you had no further use for mobclan.com so it shouldn't really matter what I do now. For those who have asked or are wondering, I have no intention closing the site, it will stay up just like it is now for anyone who wants to refer back to these old post.



See TBN, you just don't know when to quit.
I'll be more than happy to explain anything else you may have questions about.


##Update##
If anyone has any questions or need clarification about any of this
Then feel free to ask publicly or privately, it doesn't matter which, I'll do my best to answer.
You may not like my answer, for that matter you may not even agree with it.
Which is fine if you don't agree with me, I don't expect everyone to.
What's important is I'm willing to answer.
Which is the exact opposite to how questions are handled by the current MOB leadership.
Ask them about something and 1 of 5 things happens.
1) You're ignored.
2) You're lied to.
3) They deflect the question.
4) They will act act all noble and innocent, implying they shouldn't have to answer.
5) Or lastly, they will act all asshurt that you dared to even ask them, which BTW is just another way to ignore or deflect the question.
Be honest, then tell me those 5 reactions don't sound exactly like what happens.