Senor Barborito wrote:

I need clarification wrote:

Ray, of Light wrote:

Further, that someone is well composed and often funny enough to give his charges a sheen of legitimacy.

Ray!

The legitimacy of my charges has nothing to do with how unfunny I am. My charges were (and are) that SB is turning the site into his (and Veronica's) extremely boring E/N blog, that ES has started to show a heavy hand, and that in general Caltrops is a shoddy site run by two incompetent admins. The existence of this thread lends legitimacy to those charges, not me. The fact that the first article on the site is a rambling, unreadable "review" of a Half-Life MOD lends legitimacy to the charge, not me. The fact that there has been MORE NEW CONTENT ON OMM IN THE PAST WEEK THAN ON CALTOPS lends legitimacy to the charge, NOT ME motherfuckers.

'Open participation' - anyone can write anything, anywhere. 0 bans, 0 non-spam posts deleted AFAIK.

Open participation means that no one person can turn the site into any one thing. The site is the community and I can't speak for anybody else but so far I love the community. How you feel about it is your business. If you don't like it, I hear a lot of people like you enjoy SomethingAwful and Lowtax's neo-fascist approach to forum moderation. You'll note that he responds to complaints with deletion of paid-for accounts and IP bans. I *ASK* for complaints and try to work with the people who feel I'm not living up to their expectations. Entropy Stew is heavy-handed? Have you ever been on a forum, ever, at all? What the hell? If anything accuse me of being heavy-handed. Admittedly I don't do anything but I do rant and rave. ES doesn't even do that.

Nobody is keeping you from making your own better site, either. You talk big with words like 'shoddy' but methinks you've got small cajones, amigo.

Right here on caltrops? It's open, free, and if you don't like what one person says you don't have to click their names. Much like mark owned you with his BSP references - if you've shamed yourself like Vag confronted with a real live surgeon nobody will force you to apologize but they will mock you for all time until you admit to having been wrong.

Put shortly you have no fucking reason to complain. Don't like the content? Write better content, we won't stop you and if you're funny you'll get your attempts at articles on the front page regardless of what I think about you. Don't like the site? Make a better one, we can't stop you.

The only person you have to blame for your irritation is yourself. ES and I went out and got shit done, and when I'm outpacing you in the 'getting shit done' category you'd better take stock of yourself and wonder if the problem isn't really that you're a dribbling incompetent who isn't good for anything but whining about other people's work.

Post something cool, make a better site - do anything, but don't fucking whine incessantly like a fifteen-year-old because you think I can somehow magically influence a large (250 people read this site EVERY DAY, bitch) community. There is only one person at fault in each of your complaints.

You.
--SB