What irks me though is the fact that I've done a hell of a lot for various people on that other forum. I've attended several GTG's. I've sponsored time and money on various causes. Various causes, but this excludes Dirk's cranky Disco fiasco - I was not prepared to throw good money into that bottomless pit (perhaps that is why he does not like me). I've sponsored parts - including a spare Patrol radiator (there was one stuck on Baboon's Pass with a damaged radiator) to forum members. I even drove about 120km out of my way to winch the Owl Rescue Centre Land-Rover out of the crocodile river the day the post came in that they had got stuck there. All of this is documented in posts somewhere on that forum. All of this excludes the technical contributions I have made in various sections, but predominantly in the Nissan one and my trip reports.
And yet, have a disagreement with the "in-crowd" and they and the mods come down hard on you. There is a post by some Pajero-driving GOF who waffled on about the "integrity of this forum" who has never really contributed anything constructive. This was following my original question about SS(I/II), which was probably the lead-up to me getting banned...
Alex - to answer your question: I feel that that forum was usurped by a small bunch of small-minded cretins who the powers that be feel they cannot do without. Several of them are pack animals. There is a whole family of them somewhere in ZA. This, as well as the fact that 99.999% of the posts there have absolutely zero to do with anything 4x4-related are probably reasons various people opted to leave as well as the fact that various folk opt to post less.
Regarding consistency:
From the forum side, there is very little. There is a post, it is still there, referring to somebody as a "Namibian Fascist" because he was at loggerheads about a specific point of view. Both points of view were reasonable. It has never been deleted. Should somebody else have made a comment like that, they would be in the same position as myself. Additionally, on various occasions, posts on specific threads have been deleted by a single specific moderator. At all points in time, he was actively involved in that specific argument. That is a very bad move - a moderator should be impartial. Behaviour like that smacks of censorship.
On my side, I've been consistent. In terms of the way I've dealt with people there, and in terms of how I post. I'm still consistent. I still post the same drivel I always posted, I'm still sarcastic and opinionated and I'm still miserable to everybody. I was an annoyance to various folk at 4x4com. And even banned, I'm still an annoyance to them now. That is me being super consistent. And the fact that I can still get the poor dude's knickers in a knot makes my day.
Anyways, enough speak about that. I don't want to give them the airtime. I did, however, want to post that photograph somewhere so that I can preserve it for prosterity.
