Member Discussions

Here's a hilarious exchange of emails I had today with staff@mudmagic.com that have apparently led to my banning...

I'm curious as to why the following review thread was deleted:
http://www.mudmagic.com/listings/game/859/board/1264/1318

I read it and it looked to me like the original poster put a great deal of work into their posts. I searched the site looking for policy information on reviews and couldn't find anything other than the forum posting guidelines.

Thanks,

Tyche

First response...

The listings' boards are under the modership of the listing owner. We leave those boards/postings up to them.

--Jaelli

Second response...

> I'm curious as to why the following review thread was deleted:
> http://www.mudmagic.com/listings/game/859/board/1264/1318

sorry, that url doesn't work - looks like the thread was deleted

> I read it and it looked to me like the original poster put a great deal of work into their posts.
> I searched the site looking for policy information on reviews and couldn't find anything other than
> the forum posting guidelines.

whine whine whine - policy policy policy. I need to put my sig back how it was: ( copyright yada yada yada, fair use etc etc, don't sue me - thank you ) If you want policy and 'enforcement' go to TMS.

And to answer your question:
==================================
Because I didn't like the way it looked.
Chew on that for awhile *smirk*

Kyndig

and once done chewing..ask the owner of that game list entry, they're the ones that delete threads/reviews/whatever. I never read 'em myself.

My Response.

I had already received exactly the answer I was looking for:

---------
The listings' boards are under the modership of the listing owner.
We leave those boards/postings up to them.

--Jaelli
---------

I couldn't parse yours at all Kyndig. Way too many assumptions.

--
Tyche

Response.. unsigned.

Subject: Re: ContactForm: Deleted Reviews
>
>I had already received exactly the answer I was looking for:
>
>---------
>The listings' boards are under the modership of the listing owner.
>We leave those boards/postings up to them.
>
>--Jaelli
>---------
>
>I couldn't parse yours at all Kyndig. Way too many assumptions.

Whew, don't let the door hit you on the way out..

My last reply.

>Subject: Re: ContactForm: Deleted Reviews
>>
>>I had already received exactly the answer I was looking for:
>>
>>---------
>>The listings' boards are under the modership of the listing owner.
>>We leave those boards/postings up to them.
>>
>>--Jaelli
>>---------
>>
>>I couldn't parse yours at all Kyndig. Way too many assumptions.
>
>Whew, don't let the door hit you on the way out..
>

I'd never used the game list functions until recently. I had no clue game list admins moderated the reviews. How would I know that? I assumed it worked just like the code repository did.

What is more interesting is your bizarre reaction to the query.

Thanks fior the advice,
Tyche.

As you can clearly see from the full exchange above, I've been a very very naughty, rude and nasty boy. ROTFLMAO!

Which leads me to wonder, how many others out there run your muds and mudsites like hypersensitive little boys and girls? Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you. Still it's a rhetorical question, one I have already known the answer to.

It's all about the punishment. ;-)

Anyway MudMagic shall remain a Tyche-free mud community henceforth. You need to know that there are safe Tyche-free forums on the net. Not necessarily reasonable or sane... but safe.

Enjoy. :-)

Thats sad, Tyche. I wonder if they think they're the new nazi party or something.

More likely than not you were banned because you asked too many pointed questions that they couldn't answer, therefore you were a threat from their (believed) omnipotence and omniscience. Since you required them to think (something most likely they're incapable of doing, based on their responses), they decided to ban you, instead of having to chance what would happen if they used some of those misfiring neurons.

More likely than not you were banned because you asked too many pointed questions that they couldn't answer, therefore you were a threat from their (believed) omnipotence and omniscience. Since you required them to think (something most likely they're incapable of doing, based on their responses), they decided to ban you, instead of having to chance what would happen if they used some of those misfiring neurons.

That, or this was just the last straw in a long stream of issues dealing with Tyche over the past month. Him sending me an email through staff, about something that didn't belong to him ( to which I also had no control over ) and condescending manner put the nail in the coffin. I just don't have to deal with issues like what he's been recently stirring up.

And he wasn't 'banned'. But he is now =)
Kyndig

and there was me all up in the air about which of TMC, mudmagic, or Google to buy ad space in (cf. the thread in 'mud humour'). :]

Him sending me an email through staff, about something that didn't belong to him ( to which I also had no control over ) and condescending manner put the nail in the coffin.

Not that I'm nosey or curious or anything of that nature, but I'd like to point out that it'd greatly increase the entertainment value of this thread if the text of this email was to be included in this thread.

It's been way too long since we had a good bitch fight here.

And here I thought you boys played together so well during MUDCon V.

condescending manner

Someone needs to look in the mirror I think.

I'm kind of wondering what was so condescending about asking why a post was deleted.

And I'm sure a simple, "I'm sorry, but the admin staff does not have control of that particular list, only the MUD admins who post on it do" probably would have sufficed, and probably prevented all of this.

But since I'm only getting one side of the story, these are just my thoughts and opinions.

I do have a question though....since you are one of the owners/admins, Kyndig, wouldn't it benefit you to have final control over all aspects of your forum/listings? Otherwise, isn't it sorta like giving the keys of your brand new car to an unlicensed driver(or even if they "borrow" them)? If they wreck, you're still ultimately responsible, not them.

I do have a question though....since you are one of the owners/admins, Kyndig, wouldn't it benefit you to have final control over all aspects of your forum/listings? Otherwise, isn't it sorta like giving the keys of your brand new car to an unlicensed driver(or even if they 'borrow' them)? If they wreck, you're still ultimately responsible, not them.

When I first started developing the site - the common occurence in interactive small communities was for a moderator team or staff to moderate the content of a site. Over the years, being the middle man in situations where there isn't a right/wrong, or there are unpublished facts; showed the flaw in this type of approach. Therefore, I have been steadily getting away from moderator/staff control, and giving the ownership of content to the original publisher. This is the approach being used by more popular sites ( yahoo, blogspot, et all ). While there is some retainability of content moderation by me (I can delete listings for example / which will remove the review), the overall internal content should be handled by the owner. This is the approach I am taking on the upcoming update to the code repository, community system, game list, and restructuring of the forum system.

Sorry to drift -but very good question.

Kyndig

Look everyone...MudMagic.com is now safe for the gay community!!! Yep, you heard me, the master Bigot himself has been banned...wheee! Don't worry, some of the others may disagree with homosexuality, but no one but Tyche has the nerve to compare homosexuality with beastiality, pedophilia, or necrophilia. I must say if you find out your feind Bob is sleeping with Ben you might not quite know what to say...but just picture you find out Bob slept with your dog, or your daughter, or worse yet, your dead grandmother...now tell me doesn't Bob sound better....does to me. So anyway....MudMagic is free of bigots...too bad mudconnect isn't:)P

Bigot: A prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own.

Last time I checked Tyche didn't oppose freedom of speech, so given that one still stands, that makes you the bigot.

I must add that I like the idea of Kyndig to turn each submitter into a mini dictator. That should be good for a whole lot of fun.

That, or this was just the last straw in a long stream of issues dealing with Tyche over the past month. Him sending me an email through staff, about something that didn't belong to him ( to which I also had no control over ) and condescending manner put the nail in the coffin. I just don't have to deal with issues like what he's been recently stirring up.

I can't help but notice your inability to coherently articulate those issues at all.

And he wasn't 'banned'. But he is now =)

Banning me apparently isn't good enough, now he's going to ban me!
*rolls eyes*

What you haven't figured out is that I've banned you.
Super triple banned you. Take that! You are soooo banned.

Unlike you, I can articulate the reasons for issuing my personal ban of MudMagic.

1) Censorship of the most childish, crude and ugly sort. Oh no, I'm not talking about myself, not talking about prurient speech either. No, not only did Kyndig delete Samson's code reviews, he started deleting his mud code off the site too. Banned him too. More punishment from Kyndig.

2) Then he writes two emails to me complaining about Samson and friends talking about him on Samson's web site. The sort of whiny bitchy emails that I imagine high school cheerleaders might send each other. Had CAPSLOCK on and stuff. Seriously, I don't have the time to deal with Kyndig's personal problems and his bitchy wars with other users on his website. I really ought to post these lovely piss-filled childish tirades in their entirely. I will post MY entire response to the first email, his second email I completely ignored.

I don't understand why they would be removed at all.
Are you saying Samson has asked for them be removed?

I could attempt to talk to him.

Yes me being really nasty to Kyndig again.

3) I requested that he NOT make me a moderator on his website again, and then I find out the other day that I'm a damn moderator on his site again! Sheesh. Yes.. Oh I know that is totally bizarre. Some guys just don't take a polite NO for an answer.

4) And the exchange I posted above was my last straw for the little boy. I can't even figure out what his response meant at all, maybe someone can interpret it. I sure could tell it was snot-filled though.

For what it's worth, no, I did not ask for all of the things he deleted to be removed. He took that action entirely on his own, then banned me from the site entirely. Only then did I add my 2 cents to Xorith's initial post on my own site.

Needless to say I was threatened with lawsuits and such over having done so. I have a rather lovely little exchange of my own I'm sure I could share as long as the children aren't looking.

I won't even get into how an uninvolved 3rd party got dragged into it all and had their game listing deleted because of it. I'm sure they can share that if they want.

I won't even get into how an uninvolved 3rd party got dragged into it all and had their game listing deleted because of it. I'm sure they can share that if they want.

How can they share information they don't have? I blame the dwarves. Damn bastards are stealin up all the good game listings for no reason! :P


Davion

I think I'll jump right in.

On the 30th of last month I received this email from MudMagic out of the blue:
This is a removal of InuYasha Galaxy
Alsherok.Net has requested MudMagic.Com contain no potential libelous content.

I sent back two emails (an inquiry and a request to rethink the decision) and never got a response. The two emails in question:
And how is InuYasha Galaxy libelous? If you're looking to remove 'potential' libelous content, then you'll have to take down every MUD.

Please reconsider this. My MUD has no libelous content and will never have any. If you believe it does, please explain so I may understand where you are coming from and if needed correct any rumors. Thank you.

First off, Alsherok never made such a request. Second, I take the 'libelous content' remark as a personal attack. The 'potential' statement is completely bogus as I've already stated. Anyone has the potential to become anything. In such a small email, Kyndig has managed to flame my MUD, my playerbase, my work, and myself as well as making a blatant lie.

If anyone has any affiliation with MudMagic, I suggest to cease the relation immediately. Especially if you're being hosted by MudMagic.

For what it's worth, no, I did not ask for all of the things he deleted to be removed. He took that action entirely on his own, then banned me from the site entirely. Only then did I add my 2 cents to Xorith's initial post on my own site.

Yeah his second email answered that and pointed me to the discussion on your web site.

Needless to say I was threatened with lawsuits and such over having done so. I have a rather lovely little exchange of my own I'm sure I could share as long as the children aren't looking.

Here you go: http://jlsysinc.gotdns.com/blahblah.htm
I think the children can handle it. You probably won't like it, but then I didn't write it. He can piss off and play behind the back email games with other children. And yes that's all the communication I had with little Lord Kyndig in regards to you.

He can continue to ban me for each and every post I make on TMC. It seems Lord Kyndig's punishments simply don't appear to work at all. Hell, I'll bet I'm up to super double secret quadruple post probationary banning now.

Any adults left in the mud community or are there just hypersensitive crybabies running mud sites?
*smirk*

I think I'll jump right in.

Ouch. You being punished too Zeno? I had no idea. You're going to be triple banned just for posting this.

Zeno_McDoh wrote: 'If anyone has any affiliation with MudMagic, I suggest to cease the relation immediately. Especially if you're being hosted by MudMagic.'

Because two people flamed Kyndig on a mud board???

ScourgeX, not at all. You didn't even read any of the posts did you? Countless people have been banned, posts deleted, MUD listings deleted and more.

Forgive me if I don't quite understand the reasoning behind these bans. From what I've seen, no one who was banned did anything on MudMagic itself to warrant the banning. I may be wrong in my thoughts here but anything posted by any member of TMC, another website, Forum, etc should have no impact whatsoever on MudMagic.

I'll give an example:

If someone posted a flame against me or my staff, mud, whatever on the Mud's forum, BUT followed all the policies of my MUD while playing the MUD, I would not have a reason to "punish" them on the Mud itself.

Although affiliated with my MUD, hosted on the same server, etc, THEY DID NOT BREAK ANY RULES OR POLICIES OF THE MUD.
Now, IF there is nothing in the TOS, Privacy Policy, Posting Policies, etc of the Forum regarding the flames, or if they chose to flame in the Flame board, it's just my tough luck and I ignore it, or try to find out why they feel the way they do and address the issues if need be. That is called being a mature adult. IF the flame was in a board where it was not permitted, or there was a policy against it, I'd simply delete the message, and warn the user to abide by policy or their posting privilidges would be suspended for a time, etc and if they did it a third time, their account would be deleted. Again, this is a mature adult's approach.

If someone flamed me, my staff, my players, my mud, whatever on here, another MUD, whatever, guess what? They didn't do it on my mud, or my forum, and therefore they are entitled to their opinions. If the user was in violation of that MUD/Forum's polcies, I'd drop a line to the admin asking it to be removed.

From everything posted by Tyche, Zoo and others, it looks a lot like Kyndig took what was a simple admin problem that Jaelli had actually dealt with in a mature fashion and turned it into a vendetta and a way to strike out at those he disliked/had problems with. To me, this is wrong. As an admin of any type, we are supposed to be neutral in all things, and only use our authority on things that deal directly with our MUDs/Forums, not act like children with personal grudges.

After seeing these things, I believe I'll be cancelling my membership at MudMagic. I don't have the time, inclination or patience to deal with stupidity, childishness, and petty vendettas, provided I'm not already banned for posting my opinions here. If I am, my point has been proven irrevocably. If not, ya might as well Kyndig, cause it doesn't bother me a bit. I'd rather stay here where freedom of speech actually means something and the admins don't ban people for having contrary opinions or asking simple questions.

Zeno, I read yours and Samson's posts and skimmed Tyche's and it sounds like 3 people have been banned. All I'll say is in three years being hosted at mudmagic.com (formally known as kyndig.com), I've only had great service... and I'm probably not the easiest customer to please. Considering that most people don't agree with being banned from something and the tone of the topic starter's posts, can you see how someone in my position may be a little sceptical?

The jist of it was covered pretty well by Tyche already, but a brief rundown of my part:

* A review was posted to the AFKMud codebase. As a subserver of Smaug, this was one of my categories.
* The review contained some false and/or misleading information. So I deleted it. Figured that was what moderators should do, even if it risked appearing biased beause it was my work.
* My moderator access was revoked very shortly after doing this. No reason was ever given.
* When the review was reposted, decided to refute the claims, even though others had already seen it and done the same. Without my asking them to do so.
* Shortly after this, I find all of my contributions to the site have been removed, after I asked Kyndig to remove one article I didn't want him posting. Sure, by this time I had said I wanted no further work of mine associated with his site, but the key word there was FURTHER - meaning what was already there could stay.
* After this, Xorith posted a message on the mudmagic.com forums expressing his displeasure: http://www.mudmagic.com/boards/chat/18/2655/2674 perhaps a bit harsh, but certainly not profane. This got Xorith banned which spawned the thread on the Alsherok forums.
* Some more reviews about codebases which come with IMC were posted, mocking it's unencrypted nature. Rebutles were posted about how alot of things such as email, http, and IM traffic are also not encrypted. I posted reviews mocking TeensyMUD for using insecure telnet. Probably not the best thing I could have done, but technically it was true.
* Somewhere after this a flurry of emails shot back and forth, angry on both sides. All of my stuff was already gone, so I guess Kyndig figured banning me was the only way to permanently shut me up. So I added my 2 cents to Xorith's thread.
* The thread was locked after Tyche posted a message referencing us as nazis, which I wasn't in the mood to deal with at the time.
* Zeno's MUD listing was removed from mudmagic's database, and it was claimed that I demanded this be done. That never happened and no explanation has ever been provided to Zeno or any of his staff. No idea how or why he got dragged into this.

Anyway, up to that point I had beleived Tyche was behind much of the reason for the harsh reaction since none of his stuff had yet been affected and it appeared he still had his moderator access. Given the new information here, I was obviously wrong about that, so I apoligise to Tyche for blaming him for what happened.

For those who are wondering, the ban count stands at 3: Xorith, Tyche, and myself. Zeno's MUD listing was purged in the crossfire, but his account is still intact.

There is also precedent for Kyndig's, shall we say, hostile behaviour. Locke ( yes, I know, bad example ) was similarly purged from the system after an ugly dispute with him. But it didn't end there - two others also got slapped with the same thing and what little information exists suggests it was completely undeserved:

http://www.middle-earth.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6798
http://www.lowmud.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26

So there it is. Make of it what you will. My personal recommendation is to avoid dealing with Kyndig if at all possible.

I also forgot to mention in my original post.

I was automatically banned in the past multiple times by MudMagic's firewall. (Or so I'm told.)

Kyndig claims it's due to DDoS from my IP to his server. He sent me logs. I found out that my maxconnections setting was too high in Firefox, and fixed that.

Notice anything wrong? DDoS. You cannot have a DDoS attack from a single IP. Sure, a DoS. But not a DDoS.

I sure wouldn't want a host/webmaster who doesn't know the difference between a DoS and a DDoS.

(Comment added by Zeno_McDoh on Tue Apr 11 19:33:51 2006)

Oh, and I've never been banned by another site for this reason. MudMagic is the only site to ever automatically ban me. There's a post about it on MudMagic.

In one email related to the auto-ban, Kyndig wrote:
You wouldn't _believe_ how many attacks the system works to prevent on a daily basis.
Which leads me to believe he's done a lot worse to others in the past. So many attacks that they need a firewall to automatically ban an IP? As I said, I've never been banned like that before. And I get around to a lot of sites.

I'd like to clear the air here...

I was banned for this post:

--- START ---
Hrm...

I wouldn't post any of my work here, for the following reasons:

1) When someone is allowed to post lies in a "review" about a codebase, and that issue is simply tossed to the way-side by the administrators, that is a sure sign of a site I don't want to be affiliated with. (Note: Removing him from a Moderator position isn't enough for me, unfortunately.)

2) Far too many people with little to do in their lives enjoy coming to places like this, offering "help" where it is not wanted. They decide to pick a code, perhaps out of jealousy, perhaps out of spite, or just perhaps out of sheer boredom, and find something wrong with it. Instead of doing the courteous thing, and sending a private e-mail to the author, these sort of people enjoy posting a public note. Perhaps they do send that e-mail, but it almost always ends up in a public sparring match.

3) This community does not deserve my work. Nor does this site. MudMagic seems to be nothing more than TMC, reworked, with slight moderation. The stupidity and idiocy is still apparent, only it's filtered by the moderators to a certain degree. Instead of laying down the law, and informing the drama queens of their mistakes, they cover them up and watch on.

One must ask though...

How can a so-called developer have enough time as Tyche apparently does, to both develop code AND flame people?

I barely have enough time to check into these entertaining little posts.

Good day.

--- END ---


Kydnig has told me it was the 2nd worst thing he's ever seen on his site. Apparently this is not including some of the worst reviewing that *I* have ever seen, period.

Let me set the record straight. MudMagic is still a great resource for MUDs. Unfortunately, if you speak your mind and the admin doesn't agree with you, you won't have your access for very long. My accusations stand. I do *not* think Kyndig is a fit administrator. There's evidence all over this post, and a few boards, supporting this. If he was a good administrator, he'd have some way to handle situations like this *without* banning three people and causing a great deal of negative publicity for his site.

Now I'm going back to my previous stand. I'm not commenting on the topic anymore. My views are clear. My evidence is clear. My opinions remain unchanged. Should Kyndig wish to do something to change my opinions, then so be it. I won't hold my breath.

Tyche: Welcome to the club.

-- Xorith

I don't think we'll ever get a reason as to why IYG was removed from the game list. I've seen the question asked 3 times now, in 3 different settings, and it not be answered! So don't hold your breath, looks like this will be added to the mysteries of the community.

Davion