Bill Ryan Has Gone God

[Aragorn]

And by the way Aragorn and you Kathy, Love you. Chris Nap Hugs.

Oh ffs now I feel hugs are being sorta separatty, just fn feel what ya feel from me, tough emotional goings the last few days, sorry,

We love you too, Bro.

[Dreamtimer]

all around.

[Aianawa]

Yeah yeah hugs n lovey dovvy completed now, question now is, will Bill come to tea ?.

[Shadowself]

Well I will weigh in now. I talk to Bill often enough. We've shared information and discussed many things privately. I will even go so far as to say he once straightened me out regarding someone I know personally who was let's just say was giving me fraudulent information. Sent me on a wild goose chase and Bill busted him. I could not believe it, but lo and behold he was right. Bill also did not let that get in the way of the sincerity of sharing and a trust value I believe he has for me. He did not let said information get in the way. He still trusted me...and that could have come into serious jeopardy regarding the nature of the information shared.

That being said I know of times he has let people go...banned... and I have not agreed. One of those being the banning Aragorn.

But let's look at it this way. Had he not done that, Aragorn would not be here as Admin and it is likely he would not be sharing as freely there as he is here. Sometimes things happen for a reason...So it ended up being a good thing in the end. Albeit at the time quite insulting to Aragorn.

I look at it like this. His house his rules his prerogative. I m also aware that he will engage the mods and other admins to weigh things out which can itself tilt the scale of decision and judgement.

For what it's worth, we all have different ideas and ways to express them. Bill has his idea and ways to express them and we all have our own. Should they clash in the end it's always how you or the other person deals with it. I could have been mad at Bill for alerting me to the person I referred to but had I done that it would have been a great shame as I feel that I am a friend of Bill's and I believe he feels the same about me. It turned out he was 100% correct! As a result I did not get mad and we continued our friendship which I do indeed value as I do many here. It's quite simple.

I do not agree with all things expressed on Avalon and hence do not comment on those particular views. In fact I think we have all run into things on forums that we disagree with. I think we can also agree to the fact that there have been certain characters that have run amoc on the forums that can create total chaos in the end. Tempers flare and off we go!

Just my two cents for what it's worth. Which when you look at it my two cents means nothing in the scheme of things to come. I think it would be nice if Aragorn and Bill got together and just shared ideas of like and unlike mindedness. Should it happen cool...if not oh well.

[Aragorn]

[...]

That being said I know of times he has let people go...banned... and I have not agreed. One of those being the banning Aragorn.

But let's look at it this way. Had he not done that, Aragorn would not be here as Admin and it is likely he would not be sharing as freely there as he is here. Sometimes things happen for a reason...So it ended up being a good thing in the end. Albeit at the time quite insulting to Aragorn.

[...]

I absolutely agree with you that things happen for a reason, and that I would never have been the administrator here if Bill hadn't banned me from Project Avalon on the 18th of March 2015. There wasn't a cell in my body that would have suspected that I'd end up as the administrator of (now) two forums.

In the 24 hours before I was banned — and realizing full-well that this was what awaited me — I was also in the middle of communicating with several other people regarding an only sideways-related matter. Concretely, it had to do with Simon Parkes and his taking sexual advantage of several women on and off of Project Avalon.

One of the people whom I was in contact with at the time was Marcus (DNA), and I confided in Marcus that I didn't mind so much that I was going to be banned from Project Avalon, but that instead what hurt me the most was that I was going to be cut off from several people with whom I had built up good relations, some of whom I even considered friends.

And so, irony of all ironies, it was Marcus who recommended that I'd join up here, because several of those people whom I wanted to stay in touch with were also registered here, and Marcus also mentioned a few other names of people whom I had never spoken to, but of whom I had heard others speak, such as our brother modwiz.

And so I did indeed join up here right away, and I already immediately committed the big blooper of introducing myself on somebody else's introduction thread, as you can read here. Back at Project Avalon, there was only one thread that people posted their introduction to, and as I saw that particular introduction thread here at The One Truth in the overview of recent threads, I thought that it was the same thing here. Little did I know that The One Truth had a whole subforum for introduction threads.

A couple of weeks later, Malc and his then-staff team were looking for new moderators, and to my surprise, they were asking for volunteers. Part of me wanted to step up, because it would have stroked my ego after having been declared persona non grata at Project Avalon, but at the same time, I was also conscientious enough to abstain because of my health problems, and I figured that I wouldn't have been able to live up to what is generally expected of a moderator. After all, a staff member has a responsibility — it's not just a title.

And so then Malc and his team took their pick from all those who had volunteered, and I just carried on being a regular member. But then suddenly out of the blue, I got a private message from then-super moderator Altaira with an urging and almost begging invitation for me to join the staff. It took me by surprise, as I hadn't counted on that at all. And so I told Altaira — and later on Church, with whom I continued the dialog — that I was honored by their offer, and if they could accept that I was dealing with health issues, then I would gladly join them. And apparently they had no problem with that, and so I was recruited into the staff room on the 18th of April 2015.

Then, with all the kerfuffle going on here regarding Corey Goode and the Ruiner followers, the insurrection attempt started by Pris and the quite dramatic exit of Ben (777), just about all of the mods who had been recruited before me were stepping down again, one by one. They just couldn't handle the stress, and from my own perspective, they also never seemed to have been as committed to actually moderating the forum as I was.

Church also told me that this was all normal, and that moderators here never stayed on for longer than two or three months at most, because being a moderator is a thankless job, and — as I myself also quickly came to experience — the people who cheer the loudest for you when you are hired as a moderator are also the very first people to start throwing rocks at you. Many of the earlier mods also reported that they had come under psychic attack, and that this was compelling enough for them to step down again.

Then bsbray volunteered to become a moderator, and Church hired him as a replacement for the moderators who had stepped down. Eventually even the last of the other remaining moderators stepped down as well due to commitments in his personal life, and by that time, Church had already promoted me to super moderator, because both Altaira and Tonz had already left the forum in the meantime as well. So that left only Malc, myself and bsbray anymore. Plus Church, but he had increasingly more difficulty connecting to the forum due to his very busy personal and professional life.

Then, early in August 2015, I happened to catch a banned member who had managed to sneak back in under another account, and as Malc needed an administrator whom he could count on, he decided (in agreement with Church) to ask me whether I was willing to assume that role here. I had certainly not counted on becoming an administrator, even though in the back of my head, the thought had already crossed my mind that Malc could eventually come to make me that offer, given that Church wasn't coming around anymore. But I was happy being a super moderator, so I wasn't exactly waiting for a promotion.

I gave it a few moments' thought, and realizing that, yes, Malc did need an administrator whom he could count on, I accepted. I then also suggested to Malc that he'd promote bsbray to super moderator, because apart from Malc and myself, he was the only other staff member left — everyone else had already stepped down again, and several had even already left the forum as a whole — and I felt that it would have been awkward if I had all the power while bsbray had only the bare minimum of moderation powers.

Anyway, the rest is all known history, I guess. I've drastically reorganized the hierarchy of forum categories, creating new ones and consolidating or repurposing old ones in the process, I've optimized various settings that improve functionality, security and performance in the background, we installed a couple more plugins to expand the functionality of the forum, we recruited the other staff members, and so on.

And none of that would have come to pass if Bill hadn't banned me from Project Avalon. Because then I would never have joined up at The One Truth. I had never really been a forum person, and being a member of one forum was already more than I could really take at the time, especially on a forum with the circumference and high traffic that Project Avalon has.

On the other hand, I can't really say that I was happy being a member of Project Avalon, or at least, not anymore after the first two weeks of my tenure there. And near the end of said tenure, things had become so convoluted and so tricky that I really didn't feel at home there anymore. I had already repeatedly clashed with one of the longtime members, who even literally admitted that she enjoyed trolling me, and there were also several other situations going on there at the time that I couldn't reconcile myself with.

So in the end, I was only there anymore in order to stay in contact with those people I mentioned higher up already, of whom many also turned out to be members here at The One Truth later. And once I had packed up my bags over at Project Avalon and unpacked them again here at The One Truth, I found that I was much happier here. It was (and still is) an entirely different atmosphere. I was literally astonished by the difference in culture between both forums, even though they seemed so very similar at the surface — both of them were so-called "alternative community" forums, and both were running vBulletin as the forum software. But I guess that the very similarity in the look & feel department actually served to highlight and amplify the difference between the two environments even more.

So yes, ultimately, Bill Ryan actually did me a favor by banning me, even though it didn't feel like that at the time — or at least, not completely, because as I said, I wasn't feeling at home there anymore. And not only did Bill do me a favor, but he also did The One Truth a favor, because The One Truth is now no longer that poorly designed Project Avalon facsimile with only half of the functionality and a member base that was mostly comprised of disgruntled Project Avalon refugees. We've got many members here now who've never been registered at Project Avalon, even, and who still don't even have an account there.

I am generally not the kind of guy who likes patting himself on the back, but I'd be lying if I were to claim that I'm not proud of all the work I've done here at The One Truth, and how this forum has grown and evolved since I became the administrator here. And our current staff team — all of whom were hand-picked by me, just as I myself had been hand-picked by the then-staff in 2015 — has been stable for a very long time already. No coming and going anymore, and no more ego games within the mod room.

Dreamtimer and Elen have been with us since October 2015. Kathy has already been a staff member here for almost a year too now, following the officially established sisterhood between The One Truth and Eye-Rise. And as you all know, Wind — whom I have been friends with since my days at Project Avalon — was recruited only recently, but has already been with us as a regular member for years.

So in contrast to how things used to be here in the past, the staff of The One Truth is now no longer made up of people who wanted to wear the badge for the sake of wearing the badge, but instead we now have a team of individuals who were all hand-selected and invited into the mod room based upon their personality, their sense of ethics and justice, their social skills, and their humble demeanor.

So yes, I am damn proud of that. And it all turned out this way because Bill Ryan banned me from his own forum on the 18th of March 2015. Life does lead you down strange paths sometimes — the butterfly effect.

Just my two cents for what it's worth. Which when you look at it my two cents means nothing in the scheme of things to come. I think it would be nice if Aragorn and Bill got together and just shared ideas of like and unlike mindedness. Should it happen cool...if not oh well.

Bill and I both have a background in (among other things) physics, so that alone should already make for some interesting discussions. And considering that we're both running a forum — he as the founder of his, and I as Malc's first officer — that too could offer some interesting perspectives on the state of the so-called alternative community at large, given that we may be able to triangulate some of the trends among the community according to how differently they manifest at both our respective forums.

Should be interesting, indeed.

[Chris]

Personally, I’m quite happy that things turned out the way they have. PA has many strengths, but a diversity of thought and opinion isn’t one of them. As Aragorn has stated many times, groupthink is strong with them, as is a mob mentality where the nail that sticks out is hammered by the mods and senior members ganging up on those that deviate from the script.

Also, and I’m sorry to say this, but BR and the mod team aren’t beyond lying, twisting the facts and obfuscation when it suits their agenda. I can personally report several examples of this. For this reason alone I’m glad to be rid of them and want to put as much distance between myself and the PA mod team / BR as humanly possible. That is not to say I don’t miss several people whom I’ve grown friendly with over at PA, but my presence there was incredibly short, less than a month, I believe, so no great harm was done.

[Wind]

And as you all know, Wind — whom I have been friends with since my days at Project Avalon — was recruited only recently, but has already been with us as a regular member for years.

It was nice to know you back in Avalon and I'm glad to be here with you brother. From as far as I can tell, you've been doing a damn fine job. I'm not one known for giving complements easily either so consider that one earned. I don't think anone could blame you for being unfair in your treatment or let alone you being some kind of a dictator, or if they would have said that then that would have been a lie. I might not be the most active member here (at least when it comes to posting), but I've got your back buddy.

[Aragorn]

It was nice to know you back in Avalon and I'm glad to be here with you brother. From as far as I can tell, you've been doing a damn fine job. I'm not one known for giving complements easily either so consider that one earned.

And so shall I regard it, Brother.

I don't think anone could blame you for being unfair in your treatment or let alone you being some kind of a dictator, or if they would have said that then that would have been a lie. I might not be the most active member here (at least when it comes to posting), but I've got your back buddy.

There have unfortunately been a few members who have accused me of such things, but only because they found out that I wasn't going to let them walk all over me as easily as they had hoped to be able to get away with. And then some of them left in anger, others were kindly nudged toward the exit, and in the case of yet a couple of others, they were escorted off the premises by an armed detail.

We doesn't need trollses and orcses in the Shire, Preciousss. Quality over quantity, is what I say.

[Aianawa]

Oh just flaming brilliant, lets all take a trip down memory lane, open a couple of beers, bowl of chips, roll a big dobee, yeeehaaaaa, we must be celebrating Bill having turned his back on stupidity and pain licking, xlent. But really we are very luckey, very imo, I know I will not be here, hunted as such, feeling open to share is the future.

[Aragorn]

Oh just flaming brilliant, lets all take a trip down memory lane, open a couple of beers, bowl of chips, roll a big dobee, yeeehaaaaa, we must be celebrating Bill having turned his back on stupidity and pain licking, xlent. But really we are very luckey, very imo, I know I will not be here, hunted as such, feeling open to share is the future.

Geez Vern... I think you're not really getting what I have been saying, and that you're somehow letting your own anger toward Bill Ryan come to the surface.

Let me spell it out more clearly then... It is very unlikely that Bill Ryan will ever sign up here at The One Truth. He's running a forum of his own, with well over 11'000 members, next to all other "alternative community" activities he's involved with, such as his own research. And I'm guessing that, like all of us, he's still got a private life too somewhere.

The memory lane you're talking about was my memory lane. I was only giving a condensed overview — notwithstanding the length of that recollection in post #50 — of how I ended up here at The One Truth, and of how, through some strange twist of fate — call it providence if you like — the very fact that Bill Ryan had banned me from Project Avalon led to my becoming the administrator here, and to how I then subsequently came to implement some major (and highly needed) changes to The One Truth as an alternative community forum, both in terms of how the forum is being run and in terms of the technical aspects.

I am not saying that you, me or anyone else here should be truly grateful to Bill Ryan for having banned me at Project Avalon back in March 2015, because I doubt whether Bill Ryan was banning me so that I could become a staff member here, at a forum that until very recently was still pretty hostile to him as a person and to Project Avalon as a whole. I'm pretty sure that was not Bill's intent at the time.

The fact that things did turn out that way is nevertheless a remarkable twist of fate, and so ultimately, Bill Ryan did me a favor when he took an administrative action that was quite explicitly intended to not do me any favors, given that he considered me an enemy at the time.

But that was all many, many moons ago, and right now, the hatchet seems to have been buried by both sides of that equation. Some of our former members have given me hell for criticizing Bill Ryan the way I did back then, and I'm pretty sure that if they had thrown the same rude insults and allegations in Bill's face over at Project Avalon as they had been throwing in mine over here, then he wouldn't have waited five minutes before banning them. So these former members were literally feeling more entitled here just because I happen to be a patient and tolerant man. In other words, they were abusive cowards, because they would never dare say the same things to Bill Ryan as they did to me.

And now that The One Truth and Project Avalon seem to be communicating directly and on more friendly terms with one another, now people are going to give me hell over that? What the blazes is it that you want from me?

There are times when I am so flabbergasted by people that I just take a deep breath, shake my head in a barely visible manner and walk away without saying anything anymore. I think this could be one of those times.

[Chris]

Geez Vern... I think you're not really getting what I have been saying, and that you're somehow letting your own anger toward Bill Ryan come to the surface.

Let me spell it out more clearly then... It is very unlikely that Bill Ryan will ever sign up here at The One Truth. He's running a forum of his own, with well over 11'000 members, next to all other "alternative community" activities he's involved with, such as his own research. And I'm guessing that, like all of us, he's still got a private life too somewhere.

The memory lane you're talking about was my memory lane. I was only giving a condensed overview — notwithstanding the length of that recollection in post #50 — of how I ended up here at The One Truth, and of how, through some strange twist of fate — call it providence if you like — the very fact that Bill Ryan had banned me from Project Avalon led to my becoming the administrator here, and to how I then subsequently came to implement some major (and highly needed) changes to The One Truth as an alternative community forum, both in terms of how the forum is being run and in terms of the technical aspects.

I am not saying that you, me or anyone else here should be truly grateful to Bill Ryan for having banned me at Project Avalon back in March 2015, because I doubt whether Bill Ryan was banning me so that I could become a staff member here, at a forum that until very recently was still pretty hostile to him as a person and to Project Avalon as a whole. I'm pretty sure that was not Bill's intent at the time.

The fact that things did turn out that way is nevertheless a remarkable twist of fate, and so ultimately, Bill Ryan did me a favor when he took an administrative action that was quite explicitly intended to not do me any favors, given that he considered me an enemy at the time.

But that was all many, many moons ago, and right now, the hatchet seems to have been buried by both sides of that equation. Some of our former members have given me hell for criticizing Bill Ryan the way I did back then, and I'm pretty sure that if they had thrown the same rude insults and allegations in Bill's face over at Project Avalon as they had been throwing in mine over here, then he wouldn't have waited five minutes before banning them. So these former members were literally feeling more entitled here just because I happen to be a patient and tolerant man. In other words, they were abusive cowards, because they would never dare say the same things to Bill Ryan as they did to me.

And now that The One Truth and Project Avalon seem to be communicating directly and on more friendly terms with one another, now people are going to give me hell over that? What the blazes is it that you want from me?

There are times when I am so flabbergasted by people that I just take a deep breath, shake my head in a barely visible manner and walk away without saying anything anymore. I think this could be one of those times.

Being an administrator is a thankless task. You can't please everyone all the time. This is how I see your situation:

ROCK >>>>>> ARAGORN <<<<<<< HARD PLACE


Ok, so I'm the new boy here, but from my perspective, whatever you decide to do, I'm cool with it. And I say this as someone who has plenty of beef with BR and PA.


But, building bridges and burying the proverbial hatchet always gets my support. Holding on to grudges is always a bad idea.

[Melidae]

And now that The One Truth and Project Avalon seem to be communicating directly and on more friendly terms with one another, now people are going to give me hell over that?

imo and fwiw...

Dialogue is catharsis. In the end we may not agree or be able to change anything, but the other becomes more human, and if we’ve been listened to, we are not disregarded, and maybe we feel understood. Catharsis leads to peace.

With all the intolerance, anger and division in the world, I applaud any and all attempts at reconciliation and peace.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi

[Fred Steeves]

Bill and I both have a background in (among other things) physics, so that alone should already make for some interesting discussions. And considering that we're both running a forum — he as the founder of his, and I as Malc's first officer — that too could offer some interesting perspectives on the state of the so-called alternative community at large, given that we may be able to triangulate some of the trends among the community according to how differently they manifest at both our respective forums.

Should be interesting, indeed.

So long as you might be in that neighborhood, it would also be interesting indeed if y'all were to put your heads together and explore some possibilities into how the alt community is continuously, and so easily, manipulated into running around in circles.

I would have some popcorn and a frosty cold six pack on ice all ready to go.

[Aragorn]

So long as you might be in that neighborhood, it would also be interesting indeed if y'all were to put your heads together and examine some possibilities into how the alt community is continuously, and so easily, manipulated into running around in circles.

I would have some popcorn and a frosty cold six pack on ice all ready to go.

I have actually touched upon this in my second-last email to Bill so far. It would definitely make for a great discussion point.

[Aianawa]

My apologies Aragorn, was a wee bit of tongue n cheek in this post though from me.

Geez Vern... I think you're not really getting what I have been saying, and that you're somehow letting your own anger toward Bill Ryan come to the surface.

Let me spell it out more clearly then... It is very unlikely that Bill Ryan will ever sign up here at The One Truth. He's running a forum of his own, with well over 11'000 members, next to all other "alternative community" activities he's involved with, such as his own research. And I'm guessing that, like all of us, he's still got a private life too somewhere.

The memory lane you're talking about was my memory lane. I was only giving a condensed overview — notwithstanding the length of that recollection in post #50 — of how I ended up here at The One Truth, and of how, through some strange twist of fate — call it providence if you like — the very fact that Bill Ryan had banned me from Project Avalon led to my becoming the administrator here, and to how I then subsequently came to implement some major (and highly needed) changes to The One Truth as an alternative community forum, both in terms of how the forum is being run and in terms of the technical aspects.

I am not saying that you, me or anyone else here should be truly grateful to Bill Ryan for having banned me at Project Avalon back in March 2015, because I doubt whether Bill Ryan was banning me so that I could become a staff member here, at a forum that until very recently was still pretty hostile to him as a person and to Project Avalon as a whole. I'm pretty sure that was not Bill's intent at the time.

The fact that things did turn out that way is nevertheless a remarkable twist of fate, and so ultimately, Bill Ryan did me a favor when he took an administrative action that was quite explicitly intended to not do me any favors, given that he considered me an enemy at the time.

But that was all many, many moons ago, and right now, the hatchet seems to have been buried by both sides of that equation. Some of our former members have given me hell for criticizing Bill Ryan the way I did back then, and I'm pretty sure that if they had thrown the same rude insults and allegations in Bill's face over at Project Avalon as they had been throwing in mine over here, then he wouldn't have waited five minutes before banning them. So these former members were literally feeling more entitled here just because I happen to be a patient and tolerant man. In other words, they were abusive cowards, because they would never dare say the same things to Bill Ryan as they did to me.

And now that The One Truth and Project Avalon seem to be communicating directly and on more friendly terms with one another, now people are going to give me hell over that? What the blazes is it that you want from me?

There are times when I am so flabbergasted by people that I just take a deep breath, shake my head in a barely visible manner and walk away without saying anything anymore. I think this could be one of those times.