THE MOAMAN FILES

[TEMPER GAIN]

Oh someone did it for sure. As I said it may well have been me but I can't recall. We do a lot of fings in conjunction with running this site and a lot of time may have passed. Believe me if I remembered I'd admit it, I'm fully able to admit my mistakes--I get a lot of practice I say in full confidence that goes for all involved here as well.

[POP MY FLY]

Exactly TG. Even though I have no power to affect such a change, I don't even remember a discussion about changing it. Although, if there had been some discourse, I imagine it would have been along the lines of the thread in question being a landing page. I would most likely have been read in on that and I don't remember such a discussion. But the alternative is being hacked in a very specific, intimate manner. That would be thinking zebras. These hoofbeats emanate from horses and these phillies most likely indicate it was a business decision. Certainly nothing personal. And certainly minor enough as to currently escape recollection by 3 honest, reasonable men.

Beyond a reasonable doubt to most, sure. But to give Maoman the benefit of doubtful reasoning: If that's what happened, it was a well-intentioned, if not well-thought out solution to an evolving issue. Now reflecting on the decision (if that's even what it was), some other solution should have been applied.

Allegations against our integrity are the last thing any "reputation"-based business wants. We are very careful to walk an extremely moral line on the admin side of The Flob. The two men in question are two of the finest individuals I've ever met. Selfless, generous, honest and moral. To a fault. I often feel outclassed by their intelligence and kindness. I anticipate our get-togethers with great zeal because every minute with these guys makes me a better person.

I am sad that Maoman was so very hurt by this innocent oversight (if that's even what it was), BUT, in my extremely humble observation, no one on our team has ever harboured any resentment towards him and are grateful to him for the years of dedication he gave to this site.

Sadder even still that I was dragged thru the mud. I have an irrefutable alibi and yet, cries of lynching me by my uvula resonate throughout our little corner of weblandia. Guilty even after proven innocent. If anyone was missing the old forumosa, I found it yesterday. Thankfully I've evolved enough to not put the jerk in kneejerk anymore. I'll leave that to the less-evolved. Thank you Goose and Tempo. 3 years ago, I would've only seen the tempest and completely missed the teacup.

[serial killer on parole]

Allegations against our integrity are the last thing any "reputation"-based business wants.

Reputation based business? Flob isn't a registered business anywhere I looked. Certainly not in Taiwan. And we remember you threatening another poster who complained about his daughter being deported for working illegally in the advertising industry that he should be very lucky you wouldn't report his IP address to the FBI as the flob was a US business.

Load of shite.

[MAOMAN]

Mr He » Yesterday, 19:14 For God's sake. The content belongs to the site. In the moment I press the "Submit" button, I lose control of this post.

I can understand if he is unhappy about a click on a forumosa ad-buying customer does not lead to a post displaying a link to his site, as I am sure that those links brought in a lot of clicks to him, however scream from his own little sandbox? I am sure that him calling Gus would do the trick, why pull it out in public?

That post of Maoman's wasn't pretty or smooth and it wasn't cool.

Goose Egg and I owned the site 50/50.

The post itself isn't a big deal, but the principle of it is. "I don't recall?" Yeah, I don't buy it. And I still don't know if that post is the only one affected. I imagine if there were others, the person who reassigned them doesn't recall that either. This is the first time I can think of that the authorship of a post has been taken from one poster and given to someone else. It wasn't a typo. Nobody's finger slipped. It was something that required several deliberate steps, and at least a small degree of intent.

This incident also reminded me of last year's slip-up of removing the record of all posts recommended by me and all my posts recommended by others. Again, I seem to have been the only one affected. What a coincidence! So strange! The site must have been hacked!

[serial killer on parole]

Mr He » Yesterday, 19:38
In this case, the former dear leader should have kept the dirty laundry in private.

Dear Leader?

[IRON OXIDE LADY]

Mr He wrote:
If Taiwanease were the bigger site of the 2, I would think Maoman would care less. Now, creating a splash is a way of raising the site's public profile.

Bingo.

Those two or three clickthroughs from here are, what, a ten-percent spike elsewhere?

Mark your calendars, we'll start a pool on when the next Earthshakingly Horrible Offense is committed by someone here against He Who Shall Seemingly Never Figure Out What Happens When One Leaves A Forum And Tries To... well, anyway.

[GOOSE STEP]

Mr He wrote:
If Taiwanease were the bigger site of the 2, I would think Maoman would care less. Now, creating a splash is a way of raising the site's public profile.

Bingo.

Those two or three clickthroughs from here are, what, a ten-percent spike elsewhere?

Mark your calendars, we'll start a pool on when the next Earthshakingly Horrible Offense is committed by someone here against He Who Shall Seemingly Never Figure Out What Happens When One Leaves A Forum And Tries To... well, anyway.

Let me try to clear some things up here, too

I believe the reason why some of the moderators find Maoman's posts promoting Taiwanease on Forumosa so annoying is because they are privy to the way Anthony left Forumosa to relaunch Taiwanease. It wasn't pretty or smooth and it wasn't cool. In fact, for me, it was unnecessary, because Taiwanease was always envisioned as a complement to Forumosa -- including the Directory project and the iPhone App that immediately pre-dated Anthony's departure from Forumosa. This is why it's a shame.

Where it gets awkward is that it was not enough for Anthony to simply leave to build the app and the directory. He had to have forums then, too. Which had to have the same topics! And he wanted the same moderators. Then, when it seemed that some moderators were content being moderators on both forums, he insisted that they make a choice.

As I said, I never thought ANY of that was necessary. It didn't shock me that he would want to have forums on Taiwanease, but it was disappointing that he couldn't see the forums on Forumosa as a worthy partner (back then). I did not expect him to insist on there being the same topics -- that's kinda weird -- but I was more interested in moving forward and figuring out who would take care of Forumosa from that point, so I wanted to avoid a protracted break-up negotiation (unfortunately, those talks dragged out for about month -- which I recently reminded him was a waste of time from my point of view), this is why there are copies of some Forumosa threads up to September 2011 on Taiwanease.

But it's how Anthony dealt with the moderators which was really interesting to watch, because, remember, he originally personally invited many (probably most) of them to help out over the years. I had not met most of them - I had already been living in Shanghai for 6 years at that point, so I wasn't even in the country when many joined the moderator team. But we approached these people differently when he and I agreed to go separate ways.

For me, the first step after the break up was clear - assure everyone that Forumosa was not coming to an end, ask for suggestions on what to do next since a dominant and highly visible forum admin was leaving, and check if they were going to stop moderating on Forumosa. I also had a few ideas on how to fill the gaps Anthony left behind. Anthony did A LOT here: he personally hosted the Happy Hours and all those events -- these were really *his* thing, being the guy upfront welcoming everybody to the island; as well as banning people: being where the buck stops (it was great that Anthony always seemed to relish that role). I had no intention to fill those shoes - not because I didn't want to (and, for the record, I did NOT want to), but because I had committed myself to other things unrelated to Forumosa.

I counted myself lucky that all but 3 moderators said they would keep moderating on Forumosa. One of the 3 said he was resigning out of loyalty to Anthony (I didn't challenge him, but I sincerely thought that was silly because, well, Taiwanease was supposed to be an App not a major rival, right? Ha!) and the other 2 said they had been wanting to stop moderating for a long time but didn't know how to break it to Anthony. It was during the one-on-one calls and appointments I made with each moderator that I discovered that they had been approached to moderate on Taiwanease. What else could I say but, "that's cool with me"? I mean, hey, they are great people who've been volunteering all this time -- am I in any position to make demands of them? I figured I should only be grateful for ANY time and attention they could give to Forumosa.

That was the first backlash that seemed to happen. People seemed to regard the invitation as under-handed. Some told me that they thought it was weird to be invited to moderate in a forum that seemed to be intended to "replace" Forumosa. I would simply say, "I don't know anything about that, but I do know that Forumosa needs you - it really needs moderators". Most would simply explain, "Anthony's a good guy, and I don't expect there to be a lot to do there… at least for now" as a way of downplaying why they would be involved with both sites. No arguments from me.

The second backlash happened the following summer, almost a year later. By then, maybe half of the moderators on both Forumosa and Taiwanease were "Dual Mods". Both sites have private moderator forums, so occasionally, there seemed to be some parallel chatter on both sites. And God forbid someone brings up Anthony's name in Forumosa's private areas (ironically and invariably related to him posting on Forumosa in the first place -- I did a topic search last week of the number of times "author = Maoman" and "Taiwanease" appear on Forumosa since Aug 2011, and counted 41 topics; there may have been 2 Forumosa events posted on Taiwanease, but this is like 2 Taiwanease promotional threads on Forumosa every month since), because then there's hair-pulling and soul-searching about the gossiping and how "he's not here to defend himself" sort of things. You want to talk about topics that sound like they came out of high school detention? Read those. Then I heard that Anthony was contemplating asking moderators to choose sides, I mean, sites. That was awesome! I thought 2 things at the same time: on one hand, this would put an end to those endless finger-pointing discussions in the moderator forum; and on the other hand, what a spectacularly offensive way to insult grown women and men! I was glad I never thought of that - even though I recognise why Anthony would be concerned enough to think about it.

So if a moderator today rolls their eyes whenever they see Anthony or anyone promoting Taiwanease on Forumosa, I can't be surprised. For you Jeremy Lin fans, remember when another "king" decided to take his talents to South Beach a couple years ago? It's a little like that kind of resentment. TaiwanHo, CAPT, ORIENTED, and even Internations were not founded to look or act like Forumosa the way the forums at Taiwanease were founded or organised. Seriously - I actually have a piece of paper that literally says it's OK for Taiwanease to look like Forumosa! And though that wasn't my idea, I agreed to sign it. I figured Forumosa will continue to evolve anyway, so no big deal.


Now, by the time of the 2nd backlash, some longtime heavy using Forumosans had either left, been banned (which is something of an accomplishment since we 99.9% of the time we only ban spammers), or simply moved away from Taiwan. The banter culture began to give way to new posters who ask questions and give answers. To me, this is evidence of evolution. This is how I understand the drop in average page views per user and visit duration times accompanied by the record levels of new and overall visitor traffic that resumed by CNY 2012. I agree with some who have pointed out that some of those who left Forumosa for Taiwanease seem like they indeed had been discouraging people from participating in discussions all these years. It was an in-club of posters above the rules after all. And I believe some of them are actually back here smurfing (and that's O-K with me!). Well, at least, this is wishful thinking.


I will confess to you that Forumosa has been less of a priority for me. Those who know me personally know what I'm talking about -- and don't begrudge me for it. But maybe the biggest reason why Forumosa fell a few rungs in my to-do list is because as of Nov 2011, I stopped paying for it. Or at least, it feels that way. I will always be grateful to engerim for proposing and then executing on the move to the current web server where Forumosa resides, because in one stroke, this website got faster, more stable, and plummeted in cost to a fraction (1/10!) what Anthony and I were paying every month for the previous 10 years. Indeed, that move put Forumosa in the black because the affiliate income from Forumosa Friends alone more than covers the bill.

If you've read this far -- thanks! I wouldn't say that Forumosa is against fun activities. Instead, I believe that Forumosa -- maybe more than ever before -- is returning to its roots about supplementing YOUR life in Taiwan (y'know, like "it's about "U" in Formosa" -- hmmpf, that slogan never works). Forumosa is a heavily trafficked site. It's growing, too. There are a lot of ideas on what Forumosa should do. I want them to happen, but I don't have the time to take the lead on them. I am interested in hearing ways to make Forumosa more accessible and easier to use - so please PM me, I would like to hear if you are interested in benefiting from this traffic that Forumosa enjoys. If I agree your ideas will help introduce the forums to new people, then I'll support you.

Today, I am deeply grateful to Tempo Gain and Forumosa's moderators who work behind the scenes -- usually quietly -- to keep order when they can. They rock. I think they have been doing a great job without the drama or irony


GOOSE STEP

[BLACKCRUSADER]

Nice. Thank you for the continued warm fuzziness that is your site

Wait, you steal MY post without telling me, and you think I'm not being friendly enough about it? :crazy

Revert the authorship to me, please, and an apology from you and the guy who facilitated this would be nice. Answers to my four questions would also be the decent thing to do:
1. Who facilitated the appropriation of my posts?
2. How many of my other posts have been stolen from me?
3. How many posts have been stolen from other people?
4. Have any posts written by others been attributed to me?

I know you aspire to be a Director of Business Development. Wonderful. Squarely facing up to your deliberate attempts to deceive others would be a good start. You had no right to do what you did, and your scorn and sarcasm is unwarranted.

Don't worry Stew, Tony has been well known to make false accusations against others and never apologizes when he is wrong. That's just the way Tony is.

When Tony decides to apply scorn or sarcasm he never stops to think whether or not it is warranted.

[MAOMAN]

Tomas wrote:
I'll say it here too. If you've met Tempo Gain in real life and you accuse him of being duplicitous (which is how I read your statement "I don't buy it," above), you're an idiot, or a very, very bad judge of character. Look at the source, A. I understand you're offended. I would be too, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

Sorry, I wasn't referring to Tempo Gain at all. He's a fine person, which is why I wanted him on the moderating team at Forumosa. I do not doubt his words.

John Ross wrote:
Maoman's choice of words was poor. Calling out "forumosa.com" put all the posters off-side. It could have been better worded. Likewise "completely lost" and "moral compass,"- uncharacteristically poor wording.

You're right. I was chagrined and my post reflected that. I should have let it sit for a few more days. I would re-title it differently now, I think.

shiadoa wrote:
Probably ( with the benefit of hindsight) would have been better to have directly contacted Gus...privately.

I've done that a couple of times before, with little satisfaction. Gus had made a reference to the "website that shall not be named" and I asked him, "Really?" We had just collaborated on an April Fool's joke a little while earlier, so I thought things were (finally) cool between us. But Gus used my one word PM as an excuse to have a little fun at my expense. That's fine, I didn't mind, but it doesn't exactly give me confidence that Private Messages to him remain private.

Also I remembered his response when my account last year had the record of all my recommended posts and posts recommended by me deleted. I posted my question in a pretty non-accusatory way, but got this as a reply:
Goose Egg wrote:
I didn't do it
Don't look at me
Damn North Koreans!
My dog ate my homework
There's a recommendations count?
I have no idea what you're talking about
I did not have sexual relations with that woman

We actually have been wiping out Spam more efficiently and proactively lately ... do you think that... naaaah!


His apology ("I do recognize that feelings are hurt, and I am sorry for that.") is a bit of a non-apology apology, but whatever. Like I said in my OP, I wasn't really holding my breath on that one, and to be honest, my feelings weren't hurt. I was a little bugged (and only a little), certainly not heartbroken.

Please remember, these two cases of account tampering have only happened to me. Nobody else has ever had their name removed from authorship to be replaced by another member. Nobody else has ever had their record of recommended posts deleted. If it were a one-off case, I could understand, but two incidences? As someone with many years of admin experience, both over there, and now here, it's a little far-fetched to me to think that this was not deliberate.

Anyway, the purpose of my original post has been realized. Gus has reverted authorship, and people have been alerted to a situation that could be either account tampering or yet another glitch in the system that somehow only ever affects my account. I'm happy to let people come to their own conclusions on that.

[super danger mouse hans]

Anyway, the purpose of my original post has been realized. Gus has reverted authorship, and people have been alerted to a situation that could be either account tampering or yet another glitch in the system that somehow only ever affects my account. I'm happy to let people come to their own conclusions on that.

The purpose? My guess its related to ad revenue and Maoman is pissed his ease banner got removed in place of Flop ad and sales on a sticky topic. The bullshit Maoman goes on about honesty and then would have us believe he stumbled across a 6 year old post of his, then "noticed" the sign up for ad sales and the post didn't match so he went to the trouble of looked back in time and "discovered" it was his own post is so much horseshit.

Conclusion, stay on your own website and stop bothering to post on the other one.