> I keep hearing about someone(s) causing total hell over at VPF about a year ago.

The only incident I recall of causing "total hell" was a little over a year ago and it was when Nicky Special released a PREVIEW PICTURE of Steins' Jetsons table with a more "cartoony" style backdrop picture (usin Jetsons characters) Nicky had made instead of the abstract art one that Stein included.

The following events occurred in short detail:

1> Stein exploded in anger over Nicky posting a preview picture.

2> Stein's supporters started blasting Nicky for doing such an AWFUL thing (keep in mind he had not released the picture and said that if Stein had asked him not to, he would not have).

3> Paratech about this time declared he didn't much care for Stein's Jetsons table and Black came in and gave Paratech a death threat style FLAME that few would ever think would be allowed on VPForums without a banning occuring, but Black being Black (i.e. a co-developer of VP itself), there was no way in HELL they were even going to give him a WARNING, let alone ban him from posting (even though he said he was so mad he didn't care if they did). AGAIN, *all* Paratech said was that he didn't much care for the table, nothing really insulting.

4> Meanwhile, the crap over the backdrop picture kept getting worse and worse as the topic veered into "you need permission for this and that" and Nicky got on his soap box and proclaimed they were all hypocrites, that stealing copyrighted images and roms didn't mean anything to them, but having to ask permission to even post a preview picture was forbidden. I supported Nicky at this point because for what he was originally talking about (a preview picture of a background picture that is not even PART of the TABLE), he was 100% right.

5> The crap Nicky was having to put up with eventually pissed him off to the point where he said since he was already tried and convicted of distributing the Jetsons background picture even though he had only shown a small preview picture, he might as well go ahead and do what hey accused him of since they were hypocrites. He released the background picture on his own web site by itself as a PICTURE (no table included). I didn't see anything wrong with that either because it wasn't in any way Stein's table. A person would have to download the picure and apply themselves (which STILL isn't against the modding rules).


6> Things got worse yet for Nicky as a few people made it their job to try and crucify him. He in kind started flaming the hell out of them (I thought he went way too far and I stopped supporting his position). They then banned him and because of his attitude towards the end and it was hard to support him at that point since I agreed he went too far and I didn't think maintaining rev-histories or asking for permission was too much to ask and I didn't want to see locks implemented (but Black put them in anyway because he was pissed about the whole thing).

Nicky was right in the beginning, IMO, but personal attacks don't help your cause, IMO (although considering the way I've been treated lately when I've never attacked anyone on there before), I still have to agree he was right about them being HYPOCRITES. They attack and flame and they get away with it because they're the moderators (most of the people flaming him back then are the people that took the moderator jobs since then when they had a chance, so the NEXT time they could force their will on people personally).

7> AJ let Nicky come back under the terms that he would only post a link to his website in his signature and not release any unauthorized mods there directly.

As far as I can tell, Nicky kept his end of the agreement with AJ (the other moderators OBJECTED BIG TIME to these terms, though). AJ was really busy around this time and it looked to me as soon as he disappeared again on business, the moderators announced NEW MODDING RULES and a vote that would either let Nicky do whatever he wanted or give them reason to BAN him again. The "do whatever you want" rule was way too extreme and so it didn't quite get the vote (it was close though), but this ripped apart the RULES that AJ HIMSELF gave Nicky. They then banned Nicky in short order claiming (months later) that he said in a chat that he wouldn't follow the new rules (Nicky told me about that time that he said he would follow the rules AJ gave him as per their agreement).

Well, Nicky was banned again and AJ refused to comment all this time on why he was banned (oddly enough just like AJ refused to answer my own e-mail query as to why I was banned, even though I broke NO stated rules). So while AJ has seemed reasonable in the past, he continues to support his moderating staff with SILENCE. They do whatever they want to whomever they want for whatever reason they want and I can't support that.