This is the part of the job I hate. I hate Drama. But it comes with the territory (for some reason...).
We've recently had a falling out with one of our staff members Warez68. I believe in freedom of speech, even if I don't like what you're saying, so if you haven't read his account of what happened, please feel free to do so here: http://tinypaste.com/5f10c
I'll go through the post quickly and comment on the various remarks made.
First off, yes we do have a place for the team to communicate amongst themselves. Makes sense doesn't it? Employees in a workplace chat with one another, and we volunteers do the same. It helps make things a bit more fun. Uploading/Posting can be tedious and a lot of work, so we often joke around (occasionally about things that are so rediculous it's obvious it's only funny because we've had a lack of sleep). There's no harm in this. We are professional, but we foster a fun (volunteer) workplace. Google is a great example -- they're an extremely successful company, but you can play video games or take a nap at work, and the meeting locations are igloos, etc. Point being you can be professional and have fun, and we do. That's one thing that makes SinlessLinks a better alternative for posters to share their links at.
I personally, and we collectively as a team, respect and value each and every one of our contributors. Whether that be someone that has full admin access to the website, or some of our valued submitters such as Sofir. I've went to great lengths to make SinlessLinks a family friendly place where everyone has a voice and can give opinions and suggestions on how we can make the site better. Warez68 did a great job at this on many occassions. Much of the details of the way the TV-Series works is thanks to his great ideas. There are still things that I intend to implement in the future which were his ideas as well. I thanked him for those, and do so again now. Warez68 also did a great job of helping to do some quality control with images, etc. Just as he mentioned in his post. It was something he enjoyed doing for us.
Speaking for myself however, I never ignored Warez. We had some disagreements at times about how a particular site feature should function, but I always listened to his thoughts, and more often than not, tried out his ideas to see how they would work. I have a job and a family however, and therefore I am not always around. So when bugs on the website arise, I am the only person able to fix them, and I'm not always here to do so quickly. So yes, others may ignore error reports, because quite simply, they can't do anything about them, and they know I will take care of it as soon as I can. Everyone knows this.
In regards to the Whiterose incident. I will not comment on the issue other than to say that both parties acted childishly. Warez68's "accusations" were unfounded and the claim that reducing a file size gets a person more points... that isn't even possible. The way Rapidshare works prevents an account from generating more than x points an hour. As a result, making your filesizes smaller to elicit more points will yield you zero results. I insist that everyone on staff respect the other staff members and respect our visitors. Neither was showing this respect, and neither is here any longer.
Ribbitz is one of the three individuals that helped make this site a reality from the very beginning. Without him I would not have been able to keep it going when the site underwent some attacks last year.
Ribbitz has never once told me that he believes Whiterose's actions were justified. On the contrary he helped make the decision that Whiterose did not fit in here, and that while Warez68 was also out of line, he had contributed a lot and thus deserved a chance to show he had meant no ill will.
Ribbitz is a great guy, and Warez68 has portrayed him as some sort of evil young child. This is far from the truth. They didn't like eachother, and both you (the reader), and I can admit that we often believe our enemies are horribly vicious evil people, when in actuality they are more like us than we'd like to admit.
To address the comments Warez68 made attacking my own character and regarding the final conversation we had. Warez68 had been having some problems on a private torrent tracker. I was doing my best to offer some of what I've learned about them over the years, and laughing about how it seems the nature of many of them is to make money through underhanded means.
Please feel free to read the conversation for yourself here and make your own decision on the matter: http://tinypaste.com/7a6b5
I said some things at the end that I'm not proud of. My anger got the best of me. But I said them, and I live with that fact. I will not try to hide it, nor could I.
In short, he felt like I had been belittling him, when I was not. I pride myself on having a site that is very much an open and constructive place. So when someone accuses me of running a dictatorship, I do not take to it kindly. I always discuss everything through with the rest of the team members. It is true that I did not discuss it with anyone when it came to Warez68 quitting last night. It was a mutual parting. That's how I'd put it. He had angered me to the point that he was no longer welcome, and neither did he have any desire to continue to be around.
All of it is childish and rediculous looking back on it. I should have held my temper better, but alas, I'm a person who makes mistakes.
Warez68 claimed to directly quote Ribbitz saying that our visitors had no right to complain about items being posted slow. Ribbitz never said this that I can recall. We are here to serve our visitors... the site wouldn't exist without them!
I don't want "slaves" or anything of the sort, and I always very nice to Warez68, except after he cursed me and called me a dictator. Then ironically I acted like the dictator he thinks I am.
The rest of Warez68's comments are biased accounts of disagreements that transpired between him and Ribbitz. No one else was involved in these arguments.
One thing does need set straight however. RESPECT is demanded. That is our one steadfast rule. Ribbitz, Lufrebent, and myself (SinlessLinks) have worked hard to finance and program the website. Many others, including BigCal, Cheeks, Chopper, Warez68, and others, have worked hard to provide the content that our visitors love. Everyone works hard at what they do and deserves to be respected.
Ribbitz is a friend of mine and a valued part of the team. He's a great guy, who did not get along well with Warez68. That's what it comes down to in the end.
There's a full account, that probably does more harm than good, but at least there's been an official response, and those involved can now move on.
Warez68: I've always considered you a friend. I apologize for our latest disagreement, and for the harsh words I spoke at the end of it. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours.
2 comments:
I never said it's wrong for the employees to have fun in the team shoutbox. I just don't appreciate being shunned for not joining in.
I do appreciate Sinless pointing out that I've helped improve the site a lot more than just by posting links.
When Sinless says he didn't ignore me, he failed to mention that his partner Ribbitz viciously attacked me repeatedly in emails, and that Ribbitz and I both forwarded those emails to Sinless, and a month later he still has not commented on those emails AT ALL. As was said in my tinypaste, a few days after those emails Ribbitz was antagonizing me in the team shoutbox, and Sinless supported him. So it's not inaccurate to say that Sinless has ignored my emails. Obviously his "reply" to my emails is that he supports Ribbitz no matter what he does to his employees.
Long before the fight with Ribbitz, sinless sent me this email about Whiterose: http://tinypaste.com/e6c9a
...it was in response to the fight I had with Whiterose, which you can read here: http://tinypaste.com/05a93
So the fact that Sinless is NOW referring to the argument with Whiterose as "both parties acted childishly" is good evidence of the bias he developed against me after my fight with Ribbitz.
Sinless keeps using the word "respect" in a misleading way. Whenever I defend myself or say something he disagrees with, he refers to it as "disrespect". But when Ribbitz was EXTREMELY abusive and egomaniacal, Sinless had no problem with that. So apparently to Sinless "respect" is a one-way street in his/Ribbitz's favour.
Ribbitz said last night in the shoutbox that I have had "altercations" with team members. As stated in my tinypaste, those altercations were with Ribbitz and with Whiterose. The reason I said that Ribbitz appears to feel that Whiterose was justified is that he uses that altercation as an example of me supposedly being the one causing problems. But if he agrees that Whiterose was not justified, then why use that incident as an example? This is another example of how Ribbitz mentions things that happened as a way to TRY to support his beliefs, even when the things he mentioned actual disprove his belief.
As seen in the tinypaste mentioned above, Sinless supported me back when the altercation with Whiterose happened. Obviously Ribbitz believed I was out of line back when it happened, and Sinless did NOT believe that...until now, because now he knows I hate Ribbitz. If his opinion of a past event changes because of my feelings about Ribbitz, that PROVES that Sinless is being unreasonably biased for Ribbitz.
Yes, I have portrayed Ribbitz as an evil young child because that is how he has behaved. I would post our emails here, but the main issue in the emails was about me doing something for his site that I didn't want to do, and he was determined to force me to do it, and the thing he wants me to do is a secret they don't want the public to know about. So I can only prove Ribbitz's behaviour by revealing the secret. Which I'm sure he's happy about, since he knows I won't reveal the secret, that keeps his behaviour secret as well.
Since Sinless posted the conversation we had last night, I don't have to tell you that he was NOT being helpful and supportive like he claims. If calling my justifiable complaints a "pity party" is fair and accurate, then why would it not be accurate to refer to his and Ribbitz's complaints also as a pity party? Oh, because they're the bosses. They deserve all the emotional support and should have everything they do supported because they helped make the site. Well I helped the site a lot too. But Ribbitz told me I'm just an employee, NOT a team mate...and that so is everyone else below him.
Sinless says he doesn't RECALL Ribbitz saying that visitors have no right to complain about items being posted slowly, but he did say it. I would copy and paste it from the team shoutbox, but I don't have access anymore.
As you can see in last night's argument with Sinless, I said I'm sick of the dictatorship. I didn't say Sinless himself was the dictator. RIBBITZ is the dictator. But Sinless automatically supports anything Ribbitz says or does, so it was accurate to call the rulership of the site a dictatorship. If Bush let Cheney make all the decisions, and then supported every decision he makes, that makes Bush responsible too. But we all know Bush is just a puppet. I didn't think Sinless was one too. But I'm not sure anymore.
I always considered Sinless a friend too, and he always treated me well, until he found out I hate Ribbitz. I always showed respect for everyone else on the team. I even showed respect for Ribbitz until he proves he doesn't deserve any. But apparently it's okay to not show ME any respect, since I'm not the boss. This is the main reason I'm leaving...nothing angers me more than people who try to trick others into believing things are different than they really are.
I guess this is a late response, but i just want to add something:
Sinnlesslinks stated that he wants to be family friendly on the site, wich immediatly tells me that the people behind it should also get along as a family.
Although families argue just as much (or even more) than anybody else in any relationship possible, you can not -- and should not -- continue working together to keep your prodcut running while you disagree about importing things OR in this case ague and swear and point fingers.
I've learned in life that the minute you know something is not working properly, you should ask yourself if you have anything to do with it and if you can repair it. If you do, and you can not, you should step aside and leave it to the people that you know can do it. That way you keep the spirit of the product alive.
I must say that indeed drama is a huge part of life. And we all need to find our way to deal with it. Apart from the harsh words and the unfortunate way warez68 left, this is a problem that is solved in a right way.
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