Dustin "elected" SW Fan Club Pres

Jedi_Joel

Agent
:eek:
Meet the New Fan Club President!
July 10, 2006

[ Meet the New Fan Club President! ]The results are in and Dustin Roberts has been named the new President of Hyperspace: The Official Star Wars Fan Club.

Dustin will be given a guest editor position for an upcoming issue of Star Wars Insider magazine, as well as a personal profile printed in Star Wars Insider. He'll also join the ranks of the VIPs on starwars.com blogs and message boards, and will receive a Star Wars collectibles gift package and more.

Roberts, 33, lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio. Always a huge fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, his love of the toys and collecting habits were rekindled in 1995 when he started to see Star Wars action figures in stores again, manufactured by Kenner. Dustin's contributions to the online Star Wars community include involvement with many prominent fan-based websites including: Yakface.com, Nerf-herder.com, Rebelscum.com, TheForce.net, R2D2central.com, and even a brief stint at the official website as a collecting forum moderator. Nowadays, Dustin concentrates on collecting news coverage for both Rebelscum and TheForce.net, while also continually updating his ever-growing R2-D2 collection focus at R2D2central.com.

Roberts will soon be jetting his way to sunny San Diego to attend Comic-Con International on behalf of the Star Wars Fan Club. As always, Hyperspace will be providing exclusive coverage from the convention, including audio and video coverage of the event not available elsewhere.
This thing just stinks. I find it kind of funny that it's taken them this long to "tally" up the votes when the other guy was ahead by 100, and now they don't even bother with posting up the totals. What I'm really surprised by is the fact that RS doesn't have this plastered everywhere like they did with the lame election crap.
 

Jedi_Joel

Agent
Darth Boru said:
Stinks - now THERES an understatement.
Heh, indeed. Now check out this gem from PW himself:
To those who are pissed off Dustin won: Whether you showed your cards here or not, leave now. I don't wish you to be using our resources ever again.

I await emails with your user accounts so I may close them.

No more discussion on this topic will be allowed.

And, yes, I have also removed the thread. A thread such as this does not deserve to be retained.
Hmmm..if we dare ask how Dustin overcame insurmountable odds we get banned, sounds a bit boooogus!:rolleyes:
 

Barada

Saboteur
The only thing I can think of is that either the leader's 'votes' were by people who have sinced cancelled their subscriptions, only signing up to give him the vote, or possibly they could prove that the other guy's votes had a large number of repeat subscribers from the same source?

As far as that thread at RS, did you read it? Not necessarily sticking up for anyone here, but there were a large number of people who not only criticized the outcome, but were exceptionally disrespectful doing so. Borsk, I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate a bunch of long time members coming in, and calling you a 'parasite' (an actual term used to describe Wise in that thread), accusing you of playing political games to get a preferred result, or calling you a whore...

It took criticism down to juvenile insults and immaturity. Wise could have easily banned everyone that made comments like those, but closed the thread instead.

He has done some things I have questioned in the past, but despite the condescending tone he used to some people, I think he handled the direction that thread took pretty fairly overall.

Barada
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
Barada said:
Borsk, I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate a bunch of long time members coming in, and calling you a 'parasite' (an actual term used to describe Wise in that thread), accusing you of playing political games to get a preferred result, or calling you a whore...
Hmm...

Are you comparing me to Phil Wise? I'm not sure how I feel about that.

It's true that I wouldn't appreciate being called those things if I were in PW's postion. However, PW is the one that put himself in that position. So, I guess I have trouble feeling sorry for him.

Plus, it seems like RS has a negative environment in their forums. It appears to be fairly commonplace for people to rip into each other over there. Why wouldn't they rip into PW too?

I suppose you could take these statements as anti-RS. The truth is that I couldn't care less about who the Star Wars Fan Club President is. It's not out of character for PW/RS to do whatever it takes to get what they want. This is why I'm not surprised by the results of the "election". As far as calling out Roberts -- That's fine and all, but he's not exactly the man behind the curtain. I was just pointing that out.

Barada said:
It took criticism down to juvenile insults and immaturity. Wise could have easily banned everyone that made comments like those, but closed the thread instead.
I disagree with this a little...

If you have a member in your forum that is causing problems by posting things that are against the rules, the correct response is a warning and then a ban. Depending on the severity of the issue, you can skip the warning and go straight for the ban. As you do this for the person (or people) breaking rules, you should make it clear that you're in the process of banning people for certain things and that if those things continue, more people will be banned. If you're unable to maintain control in this way, then you can consider closing threads. But, you should never need to close a thread.

The problem for PW and RS is that it appears that they're more upset about the topic of discussion rather than any rule breaking (cussing, etc). The appearance is that they're trying to squash out any reasonable discussion of the situation and would rather just sweep it under the carpet.

When you close a thread, you're telling people that the topic cannot be discussed further. When you warn/ban someone, you're telling that individual to change the manner in which he discusses something. There's a difference.
 

AmShak

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Barada said:
As far as that thread at RS, did you read it? Not necessarily sticking up for anyone here, but there were a large number of people who not only criticized the outcome, but were exceptionally disrespectful doing so. Borsk, I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate a bunch of long time members coming in, and calling you a 'parasite' (an actual term used to describe Wise in that thread), accusing you of playing political games to get a preferred result, or calling you a whore...

It took criticism down to juvenile insults and immaturity. Wise could have easily banned everyone that made comments like those, but closed the thread instead.

Wise has a LONG history of doing the WRONG thing. I have no sympathy for them. They need to be able to take responsibility for what they create. I'm sure he deserves a lot worse than what he has gotten, given the way he has treated others.
 

aceface

Junior Spy
Here's what I fail to understand: why do other fan sites fear rebelscum?

Since sw.com made the announcement, I've seen a lot of chatter about it on the various fan sites. PW closed (and erased) the thread about it on his own site, a seemingly innocuous thread of my own creation was given a pre-emptive lock over on yodasnews, and in the yakface and jedidefender forums the mods have been quelling even the slightest personal attacks. Yakface did post a commentary about the announcement on their main page, but they also included a fair amount of backpeddling as well.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't see any use in personal attacks, but at the same time what is the harm in letting users discuss it in an open forum? Does rebelscum have some authority over fansites that I fail to see? I don't recall ever seeing an official announcement that they were the new official fansite. And even if they were, it wouldn't stop me from questioning them in any way. Nor would it stop me from ignoring them.

grin.gif
 

Barada

Saboteur
Welcome back aceface! I haven't seen you in some time...

Some of those sites get plenty of advertising on RS's main page when they have something of interest. Since RS has the largest membership of all the sites, those main page blurbs probably create a lot of traffic for those sites.

They will probably be worried that if they upset Philip Wise, he will ban any mention of their site, thereby cutting off some avenues of traffic. Also, many mods and admins at other sites post at RS. A couple of years ago, when JediDefender had a public issue with RS, they banned every single JD staffer at RS (although a couple were later re-instated). Staff at those sites don't want the backlash either.

People are free to post whatever they want about the situation here, as long as the language is kept clean, and direct flames are avoided. One can be critical without being disrespectful. ;)

Does that sound like a reasonable answer?

Barada
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
I don't even have an account at rebelscum.

As far as I'm concerned, you guys can talk about the Roberts election all you want. The normal rules of conduct are expected of course. So, I would avoid talking about Phil Wise's mother or that sort of thing.

This site is here for fun. Living in fear of Rebelscum doesn't sound like fun.
 

AmShak

Senior Moderator
Staff member
of course scum is the main one, but it's not just them. you would be amazed at the "behind the scenes" politics that go on among most of the sites.
 

aceface

Junior Spy
Barada said:
Welcome back aceface! I haven't seen you in some time...
This is true. The orbit I'm in takes me to parts unknown. Though I do land here more often than it would appear.


Barada said:
People are free to post whatever they want about the situation here, as long as the language is kept clean, and direct flames are avoided. One can be critical without being disrespectful. ;)

Does that sound like a reasonable answer?
Sounds purrrrrrfectly fine by moi.


Borsk said:
This site is here for fun. Living in fear of Rebelscum doesn't sound like fun.
No fear have I.
grin.gif
 

Darth Boru

Celtic Sith
Welcome back bono - I mean Aceface. Long time no see.

On the subject of PW - I have no problem with maintaining the integrity of your site / forums, however this guys has exhibited behaviour that is simply 'my way or the highway' in its style. I've got a big problem with that and therefore I stay well away from anything connected to him in any way. He chose the name 'Scum' and it seems to fit his activities perfectly.
 

Darth Aussie

Australian Sith Lord
Darth Boru said:
Welcome back bono - I mean Aceface. Long time no see.

On the subject of PW - I have no problem with maintaining the integrity of your site / forums, however this guys has exhibited behaviour that is simply 'my way or the highway' in its style. I've got a big problem with that and therefore I stay well away from anything connected to him in any way. He chose the name 'Scum' and it seems to fit his activities perfectly.

Agreed, well said...
 
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