I am reading this and just I am reluctant to even post over there now. The admins here are not in the habit of banning people or deleting threads unless there is a real problem. It's in the rules.
I am reading this and just I am reluctant to even post over there now. The admins here are not in the habit of banning people or deleting threads unless there is a real problem. It's in the rules.
Last edited by KrazyIvan; April 11th, 2013 at 07:42 PM.
Fountain Pen Sith Lord | Daakusaido | Everything in one spot
Josephine, you are cleared to post. While I am partial to FBP, I also like quite well FPgeeks. There is plenty of room out there for good pen discussion, in setting less judgemental than FPN.
regards
david
David R. Isaacson, MD
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Thanks to the hubbub I have registered here as well. I want to have my bases covered... I was thinking we might post a note of support for the banned in our FPN status. See what happens.
I have to concur with you that FPN is concerned about the increased commercialization of the site. This is not a perceived trend, the number of posts in "classified" section clearly exceeds posts in other forums, and recent change is second such change (that I'm aware of) to limit sellers from dominating the site. I believe that the volunteers who administer FPN are moving to limit professional sellers, some of whom are located on a popular auction site, and receive some of professionals' profits. This seems an equitable approach as sellers do not pay any fees to FPN as they would for the use of other sites.
May your life be healthy, prosperous, and filled with generosity
Roger
I'm stunned.
This is just plain WRONG.
When I first came aboard FPN things were not like this. Not at all. It was smaller, people seemed friendly and so willing to help a newbie that the pay-it-forward motif has stayed with me until today.
Something bad is going on, but I have no idea what or how, much less why.
My other pen is a Montblanc.
And my other blog is a tumblr!
And my latest ebook, for spooky wintery reading:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CM2NGSSD
Although I was told that my suspension is probably temporary, I still cannot post, nor have I been given an explanation or told which rule(s) I supposedly broke.
Last edited by reprieve; April 12th, 2013 at 08:59 AM.
Still not good. I know of no other forum where they shoot first and ask questions later.
My other pen is a Montblanc.
And my other blog is a tumblr!
And my latest ebook, for spooky wintery reading:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CM2NGSSD
I can understand wanting to limit/control the commercialization of the board. If it helps to pay the bills, that's fine with me.
I am concerned about limiting those folks, like myself, that have no commercial intent(this looks to be resolved now, blog links allowed in signatures as long as not commercial) or the low volume sellers that have more volume than the current limits. That's where the percentage off the top works better because:
1. It is not an upfront fee.
2. Taking the percentage off the top makes it so that the fee is almost not felt since it comes right out of the payment received.
Then again, the seller accounts do not affect me. I have placed two classified adds on that board since 2010 and I did not even sell my items there. One sold here and the other is pending expiration in the classifieds in a few days. I won't be re-listing there.
When you just start pushing the ban button like Kim Jong Un playing his X-box fantasy games, it starts to get a bit crazy. I saw where admin seemed to have lost his temperand by the forums own rules should have deleted his own posts.(The threads are gone now). Yes, a bit concerning indeed.
I am very turned off by these turn of events. My posts there will definitely be limited. I might be wrong but I think I understand why there is such a large subscriber base but not as large of a participant base, relatively speaking. The long list of rules make it a minefield and a headache to manage a post.
I just looked at my post count here, and post count on FPN. While I have been a member here for just over a year and on FPN since 2010, my count here is much higher. Hmmmm. Any correlation? Maybe.
Last edited by KrazyIvan; April 12th, 2013 at 12:09 PM.
Fountain Pen Sith Lord | Daakusaido | Everything in one spot
Reprieve, You were being very kind to me yesterday when you stuck up for me on FPN. I really appreciated it!!!! I now know of yet another member banned because of that post. We are The Band of the Banned ....and the champions my friend.....
Last edited by jbb; April 12th, 2013 at 10:34 AM.
Still can't fathom it.
My other pen is a Montblanc.
And my other blog is a tumblr!
And my latest ebook, for spooky wintery reading:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CM2NGSSD
Frankly, I am surprised that the idea about the percentage is so popular. No money flows through FPN and, therefore, it's close to impossible to enforce any financial regulation. Moreover, from the start they were concerned not about "financial abuse" but rather "informational abuse", for example, when FPN is used as a free advertisement space. Therefore, all they could implement is an informational regulation. Different models could be used, for instance, among widely known, pay per show/click. This is where software limitations kick in.
The easiest way, I believe, has turned out to be to introduce wider system of posting rights and make donations obligatory for access to some posting privileges. This is also not an optimal system, since, most likely such privileges are worked on on the case-by-case basis: there must be a person who explicitly clicks some check boxes. Luckily it's only a few dozens accounts and it can be done by hands. If the number of holders of premium accounts would go up to a few hundreds, problems would start to flow like there's no tomorrow. This shows that there is no "commercialization trend": from currently implemented model to a real commercial venue there's a gap, which would require immense efforts to fill. Basically it would be easier to do it from scratch.
Clearly, any model would either hurt some people or render itself useless. Since the second option is unacceptable they had to hurt someone. I, personally, think they didn't handle the transition well. Probably because they failed to realize that the transition itself is a problem in itself worth special attention. In fact, I hope that this is the reason. What we had on FPN is an example how totalitarian models appear naturally. When the problem appears to be ungraspable the easiest way to solve it is voluntaristic. And it's not seldom that in this case the hell breaks in, which indeed happened in miniature. This is sad.
I also really miss the pen exchange in FPN. I mean you can still do it but it's sort of like a work around in the sales ads. I just think creating an 'ad' for a pen you are going to exchange is against the spirit of the whole thing.
My other pen is a Montblanc.
And my other blog is a tumblr!
And my latest ebook, for spooky wintery reading:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CM2NGSSD
Sorry to hear about all the banning. That rather sucks. I think FPN is great for the sheer amount of information that can be found there, not to mention the various professional and amateur experts on pen repair and pen collecting, many of whom are quite generous with their knowledge. But it's good that we have alternatives like fpgeeks that have different "cultures". fpgeeks has been consistently welcoming & helpful and well, the level of activity is something I can keep up with (when my workload is reasonable!)
Yes. One of my daily writer until today (MB 146 with Oblique Medium), I did not pay a single cent for and was gotten via an exchange on FPN. That pen is special to me because of that.
Who actually OWNS FPN, or is that a secret?
My other pen is a Montblanc.
And my other blog is a tumblr!
And my latest ebook, for spooky wintery reading:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CM2NGSSD
It has been hard to determine who actually owns FPN. It is in fact a secret.
We have speculated on this in the past at various Pen Posses. When FPN was formed there were a core group of original admins. Presumably, one or more owned FPN although it is possible the owner remained hidden. Over the years there have been power struggles behind the scenes. Since I've been on FPN, you've seen Kurt (aka Titivillus) kicked off and he was a mod and there at the founding. He's still bitter about the whole thing. Later another mod (I'm not going to name this one for specific reasons) also parted ways. We guessed that he tried a power play and lost. I have no love lost for that individual. Over the last four years, admins like Elaine and Ruiadhri have become less prominent on FPN at least visibly.
If I had to guess, I would say Wim is the current owner of FPN. He appears to be the last of the original admins. A small detail escaped those on FPN and here, but Hugh on FPB astutely noticed that FPN has been incorporated in the Netherlands. This certainly suggest that Wim has partial or total ownership of FPN.
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