Internet balls and Incivility....

Kampfjaeger

Kampfjaeger

Joined
May 21, 2001
Messages
1,668
I went to purchase a gold membership and found that I needed to change my email address. My old valid email appeared to be still the one on file. I say old as I had changed ISPs and needed to change my email. Apparently at some point I had made the change here on my profile but something seemed to be wrong. Either I copy/pasted incompletely or made a typo... something went wrong. Instead of a professional or at least civil message indicating something was amiss, I found this - in red lettering:

**********************
Confirm New Email Address
Verizon.net will not work!!!!! - FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, IF YOU ARE GOING TO CHANGE IT, PUT A WORKING, VALID EMAIL ADDRESS HERE, not some fake one!

After you change your address, you will be sent a link that you MUST click to reactivate your profile. PAY ATTENTION TO THIS OR YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO POST USING THAT PROFILE!

READ THE ABOVE INSTRUCTIONS, WE REALLY MEAN IT, IF YOU ARE GOING TO CHANGE YOUR EMAIL, PUT A WORKING, VALID, NON-FAKE ADDRESS IN HERE OR ELSE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO USE YOUR PROFILE!!!!! Seriously, don't be a smartass and put something fake or otherwise stupid in here, or your profile will not work!!!:
Enter your new email address here. You must be able to receive email sent to this address.

**********************
So I'm curious... Is there some line of humor that I have missed here? I'm afraid my activity on this board has been greatly diminished as of late. As such I may have missed out on something with regards to the social tenor. The demands of work and family kind of got in the way of my double checking the details of my BladeForums account. Otherwise it seems to me that somebody sprouted a pair of Internet balls and spoke to me in a manner that he would not have done in a face to face encounter. I hope that this matter will be addressed with the person responsible for this unprofessional and unwarranted unpleasantness. David
 
That message has been in the " Edit Email and Password" section forever. It was there when i got here.
It is not a slight against you personally, so pay it no mind, there are better things to be insulted at.
It was put there by the admin to alert smartasses and miscreants who play games and screw up their email and then whine to him to "fix" it. If you are neither type person and made an honest mistake, then you should not feel insulted.
BTW: if you know anything about the admin Spark, you know that he would have no problem saying these things in person also.
 
As long as I've been a moderator, I have seen a discouraging number of people who do not read instructions.

Some instructions are right there in front of them, some are more obscure. When they go astray, we try to turn them around. It would be easier if they read the FAQ, the announcements, the stickies. Most of these mistakes are really easily corrected. OK, sometimes it takes a lot of correspondence to explain. Not everyone is as good at internet as others.

But if you mess up that profile email address, there is no way for us (for Spark) to help, except to tell you to get a new email address. So he put the warning in extreme terms. He had to get peoples attention the first tme.

Civility? It is the ultimate in civility, to avoid the confusion, distress, and inconvenience attendant upon doing it wrong.

In USAF Basic, the instructors were extremely civil. Not always in voice or words or bearing. But they never hit us. :)
 
Karda... Thanks for the answer. As for knowing anything about Spark - heck all I've seen are Internet exchanges of "boldness." I have yet to read of any accounts of him going up to folks and getting in their faces and "speaking" to them as he did to me. If he does do this, then I suspect that he has a very short list of folks who respect him. Plus I think it would be more than a little creepy for forumites to chase each other down to personally give each other a piece of their mind.

Esav... Are you actually telling me that I instigated this incivility? Due to a typo? In this light you actually had the unmitigated gall to lecture me on how to practice "the ultimate in civility" by not making a mistake? Begging your pardon, but I feel I'm truly due an unqualified apology. There was no excuse for this. A simple note stating that due to a problem with forum trolls I had x amount of time in which to correct my email or I would be deleted as part of a blanket policy and would have to reregister would have been absolutely fine.

Thank you for your service in the USAF. As for how your instructors never laid a hand on you guys... Those are the rules approved by Congress. It has nothing to do with their benevolence. Quite honestly, there are a number of recruits who cold benefit from wall to wall counseling. In Basic the instructors' job is to break everyone down to the same level and rebuild to a specific goal - which has precisely nothing to do with how to conduct yourself in society. If an instructor behaved like that outside of his professional venue, be would be seen by everyone (his command included) as a socially maladjusted tool - and would be dealt with accordingly.

I've never had a problem with Spark in the past - nor really with anyone on this forum. I consider myself to have been a good and productive member of this community. My first transaction here was done with Bill Martino in which he mailed me a khukuri on the promise that I would be sending him a personal check. He was a great guy and I miss him. I've been here a while. So I do resent being the target of the use of "extreme terms to get people's attention the first time."
 
David,
I think you're reading too much into the warning and our posts.
Neither of our posts to you are admonishing, only trying to explain.
As i said before, the warning is not directed at you personally.

As for Spark, I respect him greatly. He is a good man, but very busy and doesnt have time for the games people play, hence the terse warning. I understand and pay it no mind. You should too.

Stop by the Cantina and have a beer and relax. H.I. is still where it's always been.
I'm sorta filling in for Uncle in his absence, although i will never be able to fill those shoes.
 
Harden up. I have no apology for you. I have nothing else to say to you, either. Figure it out yourself.
 
Kampfjaeger said:
I have yet to read of any accounts of him going up to folks and getting in their faces and "speaking" to them as he did to me.
Click to expand...

I don't think you're grasping this. The message you received wasn't directed at you. It wasn't a personally typed message that Spark sent you. It was an automated message written years ago, to nobody in particular, that the forum software gives on that page to make the point clear. I've got it and so has anyone else who's changed their email here. Spark isn't on the other end typing it.

Kampfjaeger said:
Esav. Piss off.
Click to expand...

Esav was trying to explain why the (automated) message was there, not saying it was your fault. If you look to take everything personally, you're bound to be pissed off at everybody.
 
Yep. And the message from Spark certainly didn't read like a form letter. It sure looked like somebody was personally irritated with me and decided to let me know in no uncertain terms. And to top it off, nobody signed their name to it. So I had no idea just who in particular decided to talk to me like that. Apparently Spark did it. When I asked for an explanation and an apology, I get one of the moderators (Esav) telling me that the ultimate incivility was in my making an error on the form. Then I get told to harden up?!?

Who here would tolerate this from somebody without responding?

And apparently "Sassing the mods" earned me a ding. Harden up Esav. Tell me off, you get it in return. You didn't choose to do so as a PM. You made it public.

This sure isn't the same Bladeforums I joined 10 years ago.
 
So we are all upset over a canned email.
 
That email is a canned email that Spark created, and the system automatically sends out. It is not specifically directed at you, or anyone else.

How many times do one of the mods have to tell you that before you 'get it'?
 
One can also view this canned email as both information and a little sarcastic humor over a minor problem that many of us overlook. Its not hard to make the mistake of forgetting about closed email accounts, it happens alot. Fix the little problem and get over it. Perhaps you have too much on your plate, take a couple of days off and rest up and don't let the little problems work you up. Its just a waste of time and energy for you and others.
 
Mike G said:
That email is a canned email that Spark created, and the system automatically sends out. It is not specifically directed at you, or anyone else.
Click to expand...
Undoubtedly created after the umpteenth-dozen time some paranoid tinfoil-wearing twerp entered in a bogus email out of paranoia that BF would do something malicious with his real email address, then complained about it not working correctly.
 
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