What's going on here?

[Richard]

As many of you are probably aware, there have been a number of issues taking place over the past week or so. Many of these things were direct attacks at Roller-Coaster.com.au, which I believe were unwarranted. Roller-Coaster.com.au is not anti-competition. The purpose of this site is to promote the theme park industry within Australia - both to Australians and, more importantly I believe, to the world. I have spent the past three years developing this community from its beginnings as Total Thrills to what it has become today. It doesn't concern me if you choose to move to another "competing" site. I can't please everyone, and I encourage you to find something that does suit you. What does concern me is this violent anti-Roller-Coaster.com.au attitude that has surfaced and is fostered by certain parties. It's incredibly childish to say the least, no less are the falsified stories about myself which are being used to support these "movements". You don't see ads for Channel 9 on Channel 10. You don't see ads for Hungry Jacks in McDonalds. By that very same token, I don't expect to see ads for other sites on Roller-Coaster.com.au. This has and always will be my policy for advertising within the Forums. If you wish to advertise on Roller-Coaster.com.au, you are more than welcome to contact me for advertising rates. Don't post advertising messages, don't put URLs in your signature and don't use the Private Message services to advertise your site. In the case of the last one, I'm not completely oblivious to what sites are around, and it doesn't take more than a database search for all instances of a site's URL or name to find out if a site's being advertised via PM. Anyone familiar with vBulletin and mySQL will know that vBulletin is not equipped with any administrative backend and that the database is designed for functionality and efficiency, not readability. Roller-Coaster.com.au is about theme parks. If that is your true interest, then you would find that this or any of the other theme park discussion sites out there would be of interest to you. I can't understand why some choose to try and manipulate others or make it political all of a sudden. We're here to talk about theme parks. Last I checked they were meant to be fun places where you could escape the garbage of the world. I openly welcome any comments, as I do any suggestions to improve this community.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Very well said and diplomatic as always Richard. I agree and support you 100% on that. That some childish immature member(s) continuously want to start an argument with everyone, just because they have had a disagreement with you is just ridiculous. I recall a time when Daniel had a fallout with yourself. He made one public post, calling you numerous things under the sun, and then left. More recently he returned and is at least reasonably behaving himself. Coexistence is again possible. The current group of members that appear to be forwarding this movement are those who were either unable to follow the community guidelines, initiated a public attack on a well respected member or members of this site, or had a direct disagreeance with you. Regardless, I think it would be more appropriate to be using a harsher penalty on those members of R-C.com.au who choose to repeatedly violate the guidelines, or openly cause disharmony within the forums. You have spoken before of banning, IP blocking etc. I think now is an appropriate time to start considering those options as a permanent solution. Those are my comments and suggestions. Alex.

[pin142]

Ok, no advertising. Is it still acceptable to post links to articles, images and files on other sites here? If so would it have to be a direct link to the file or would a link to a page containing the file be acceptable?

[Gazza]

I can answer this. Bascially, you cant go saying stuff like "hey everyone, come to my site" because thats advertising. But you can do links if its relevant to the topic, for example, someone might want pics of a ride, it is OK to post a link to a site showing pics of the ride.

[Daniel]

Piss them off Richo old son.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I can answer this. Bascially, you cant go saying stuff like "hey everyone, come to my site" because thats advertising. But you can do links if its relevant to the topic, for example, someone might want pics of a ride, it is OK to post a link to a site showing pics of the ride.

to get a little more specific, if the topic is about "Movie World's Movie Magic Show", and Rabid has an article on his site - OZCoaster, with pictures and a story on the final show, removals, etc... then is it appropriate for rabid to say - "a full story on the movie magic show can be found at www.ozcoaster......." It is not appropriate to have URLs in a user's signature, listing, describing or promoting another site, as this has no relevance to the topic it is posted in, as it is in EVERY topic that the person has posted on. bottom line, any reference to any site other than r-c.com.au should be relevant, described clearly, and posted in the correct forum, and only in relation to a discussion on the topic for which the thread was created. links to images from a site, rather than the page containing the image is also frowned upon.

[Adam]

I agree with you completely Richard, very well said.

Anyone familiar with vBulletin and mySQL will know that vBulletin is not equipped with any administrative backend

Unless your version is any different to Jelsoft’s main stream forum software – vBulletin has a very extensive administrator backend – arguably the best administrator control panel ever added to commercial forum software. While that is completely irrelevant to the point you're trying to make, I just thought I'd point it out.

[Richard]

Sorry, I meant with the Private Messaging system, there is no administrative backend. Indeed vBulletin does have a superb backend - I wouldn't have purchased it if there wasn't.

[Paulie Jay]

Well, basically Richard, it's your website. If people don't want to toe the line then you are well within your rights to ban their IP.

[Nebuchanezzar]

People can still access the site even with an IP ban, quite easily as well.

[T-bone]

IP banning can be usefull, but can be a pain aswell. I know from webmastering experience already, and I can tell you know, IP banning isn't really worth it. Because you know they will get in anyway. Let them view the site, but be banned from Posting.

[Adam]

I don’t think Richard is looking for a miracle banning solution, he simply wants everyone to play by the rules.