A Summary Letter for the ES Community

[liveforphysics]

Justin you are a hero. From the first time I read about you traveling across Canada on your e bike for $8.53 worth of power (I think it was) and some leg excersize to this. Thank you very very much!

So I have a suggestion. Why don't we put a small amount of adds on the forum to cover the cost of the forum and to help research. We have some of the best people in the world to get the electric revolution going and we need them all working together as a team it would help if we can have some money for blown mosfets, for ev events, for a little destructive testing, and for some random things. I know I am held back on my research by knowledge and money so if we all worked together this could help. I'm not worried about getting money for me BTW but guys like Luke methods thud etc who hand out expensive gifts to help others get a start!!!

Arlo, I love you buddy, but F*CK-NO to ads bro. We covered that pretty throughly all ready.

[jonescg]

I'm with Luke, and many, many others. Ads don't belong here; and really, they don't need to. My mate Trev Hedge is a motorcycle journo, and he runs mcnews.com.au/forum. He only recently agreed to run a single banner ad on the forum, which was really only to remind folks he also has a main page with all sorts of reviews, race results and photos.

As for raising money for e-vents, it's tough and it's surprising where opposition can come from. I have tried to press my local AEVA branch to support me in the TTX-GP by covering part of my race entry fee. It has been met with benign ambivalence and when pressed again, outright hostility. "Why should we support you doing something awesome, like racing a home-built electric race bike??" Well, maybe because the Australian Electric Vehicle Association has a role to play in, oh I don't know, PROMOTING electric vehicles?? I don't care if they give me a single buck or a thousand of them.

In my mind, the ES has already supported me, through the constant stream of ideas and criticism I have gained from my build threads. So that's alright by me.

[Arlo1]

Yeah I would be nowhere without ES but I just feel the electric revolution it happening to slow and we are in a money driven economy ATM so its going to be costly to destroy it for something better....

Oh and I love you too luke, I miss you man you seem to be buisy!

[Erogo]

ES used to have banner ads, at the bottom of the page. No-one really noticed or minded, but they didnt bring in much cash.

[neptronix]

Arlo, I love you buddy, but F*CK-NO to ads bro. We covered that pretty throughly all ready.

Time for the tag team.

Arlo, keeping this forum free of commercial influence is what the shit storm was all about.
Even if Justin ( or whoever the next owner is, no matter how angelic ) started doing that, there would be commercial influence. The vendors would gradually start having their say more and more. Someone would be profiting and human nature is to get greedy.

As it is, we have our say over the vendors. If you screw us over you are ridiculed; if you do us a good service you are praised and name dropped.
The minute you take ad money, this community balance is askew.

There are plenty of people here willing to fork over the skills, cash, and know how to make this board commercial free and entirely self-funded for it's entire lifespan. We don't need ads.

[Arlo1]

Arlo, keeping this forum free of commercial influence is what the shit storm was all about.
Even if Justin ( or whoever the next owner is, no matter how angelic ) started doing that, there would be commercial influence. The vendors would gradually start having their say more and more. Someone would be profiting and human nature is to get greedy.

As it is, we have our say over the vendors. If you screw us over you are ridiculed; if you do us a good service you are praised and name dropped.
The minute you take ad money, this community balance is askew.

There are plenty of people here willing to fork over the skills, cash, and know how to make this board commercial free and entirely self-funded for it's entire lifespan. We don't need ads.

Thats a great point I never thought of it that way.

[Takemehome]

..........As it is, we have our say over the vendors. If you screw us over you are ridiculed; if you do us a good service you are praised and name dropped.
The minute you take ad money, this community balance is askew........

[Hyena]

So the deal is totally sealed, done and dusted ?

I too am disappointed Justin had to spend so much of his own money to make this happen but I'm sure all of us are grateful and that the sphere is now in the best possible hands.

Viva la electric revolution!

[Green Machine]

Sealed deal...the server is in good hands maybe for the first time ever. Imagine our future.

We got to remember this night as key date in the electric revolution.

[StudEbiker]

[Spacey]

Good job on keeping the forum ad free

[Zoot Katz]

Well, it looks like once again you rode into a hurricane and have come out still smiling.
Congratulations, you now have the two best ebike sites on the web.

[Pure]

Again thank you Justin. It really is an outstanding thing that you have done.

As for reimbursement. I'm pretty sure Mr Justin's business will pick up as a result of this. Karma is one lovely lady if you treat her right, and what Justin has done most definitely scored him some points from the ol girl. I know where any of my future ebike needs will be ordered from, that's for sure.

But as far as the site generating revenue, I have to totally agree with the sentiment that was at the root of all the upheaval. No Ads. But there are ways the site can generate some money, that I would not object to. First in the for sale section. You don't have to charge, but you can "ask" that a %age donation be made for any sales over say 30 bucks. I know of an online fish auction site (aquabid.com) that has been doing this for years.

Then another option is to have a SELECT vendor sponsorship. Sponsors would get their own forum area where they can respond to questions and advertise sales at their desecration. Sales advertisements are done in the form of a thread. If the vendor wants to jazz the thread up with promotional media..then well that's their choice. If you don't want to see that, then don't open that thread, or just stay out of that vendor's forum. But in the sponsor agreement it should state that ES will not protect the vendor just because they have sponsored the forum. Basically come up with some sort of legal lingo that says, if you mess up, you will be called on it by the community and that ES is not responsible.

These are just a couple of thoughts to put out there. I'm sure if we put our heads together, something can be done that won't offend the masses or go against the core beliefs of the community.

[silentflight]

Hi, for those who were absent from August 4th to Aug 7th 2011, this post here
replaces a 28 page thread that erupted ...

Justin,

Congratulations on acquiring ownership, this forum has a bright future and is animated by a spirit which is bigger than any one of us.

One of the most important principles of an open forum is freedom of speech. Removing three lengthy threads, even temporarily, and replacing them with a summary is unfortunate. Contained within them is a highly motivated and spirited debate. They also contain information which would be of great help to members of other forums facing similar circumstances. Removing these threads is a form of censure. Yes, we are at heart a forum of (mostly) men sharing an interest, but those missing threads are and were our forum's finest hour and should not be treated trivially.

Though I doubt it was the case, if it was part of the purchase agreement to expunge the forum of any comments which could possibly be construed as negative regarding Trevor or Andy, I object. We are a strong and free forum which was prepared to continue that way on our own in large part because we believed in the freedom to speak out when and how we saw fit. Many of us slept a little less and sweated a little more to create those threads, I hope to see all but a few highly egregious posts returned as soon as possible.

Scott Adams

[marty]

x
In light of all this, we have removed defaming posts about both Trevor and
his friend that were generated at the height of this debate, and we ask that
everyone hold back from any future character attacks. Trevor acknowledges that
he made a mistake in pursuing this venture and has backed out
in a way that leaves this community in tact. He is still an active ebike rider himself
and will continue to be a strong promoter of the cause.
x

x this post here
replaces a 28 page thread x

Please don't delete all those topics that were created between August 4th and today.
Please don't erase history. We need to pay attention to what happened in the past so that it don't happen in the future. Lock the posts. Put them back in the General Discussion area to get buried if you like, but please don't erase what people spent many hours typing.

They are not gone, trust me !!

just moved to the moderator area for the time being.. safe and sound.

What is the status of this? Are we being censored at the request of a dictator who was overthrown?

[bigmoose]

Gents, let me postulate, based on observations. I have no direct personal knowledge of this, but it could be inferred from postings.

What if Trevor was a decent chap. He saw a potential legal business investment embodied in buying, upgrading and monetizing our forum. He did not understand the fierce independence of our membership. We are sort of "unique" and over the top, wouldn't you say? When things blew up, he was shocked, hurt and offended by the language and personal attacks against him. Perhaps he only wanted to "help" the forum and make some coin. The model worked flawlessly on other forums. Perhaps he is an ethical, sensitive guy that wondered into a minefield inhabited by swashbuckling pirates.

There were postings that what bothered him most where the attacks against his character.

Perhaps the right thing to do in negotiations were to offer to remove the ad hominem attacks on the board against Trevor. We know that Justin is quite an honorable, moral and ethical guy.

What if Justin offered this courtesy? If so, we would do well to support our selfless liberator, and let this fade into the background. My question would be, would we rather live free and have the ad hominem attacks removed, or have lost our forum?

I will vote with the decision of our current Admins and Moderators. If they think that thread should be in the mod's forum... wherever that is, I will support that.

Live free, live well, design, develop, build and ride our future transportation.

[number1cruncher]

Again, Thank You Justin! You are the EV Godfather!

I know that ads on ES are out of the question, which is good. However, what about fundraising events, such as races, meetups, swapmeets, etc for the ev community sponsored by ebike.ca and es (ie Justin Inc.) We could charge a nominal entry fee that would go to an ES support/pay Justin back fund. Maybe sell some trinkets. Justin could bring inventory to sell. If he wants, he could invite other vendors and charge them a fee to set up a booth. I feel this is a good compromise between Justin eating the cost of the ransom and monetizing the site. Plus, I would really like to get to know some of our members face-to-face, which these kind of events facilitate.

[ptd]

arrrrrrrr, matey, lol. sorry, just saw pirates of penzance in ashland the other night. think shakespeare/mel brooks. frickin hilarious.

i'm sure that once the dust settles, the demons will still be demonized, and the innocent will be forgiven. perhaps trevor is an innocent, who knows, but he certainly could have joined in to try and defend himself, and he didn't. i will agree that it did become a heavily laden minefield pretty quickly though. but i also think that had it not become so heated, he might has been less inclined to back away. at first, i thought luke was pretty rude, but after a bit of reflection (and after losing quite a bit of naivety about the advertising industry as a whole), i came to appreciate the early cannonfire.

as for changing, moving, moderating, the threads, who was it that said, to forget history, is to condemn yourself to relive it ? mayhe the authors of those threads could just rename them themselves, something along the lines of cautionary tales, or, this is what happens to any motherfn entrepreneurs who want to capitlize on our site. maybe put a parental rating on it, lol.

[Ypedal]

This has been discussed and there are some options, the original threads left intact, could be copied to a seperate thread and be cleaned up of the more dramatic attacks and then moved into an archive visible to the general public, but for the time being we need to let the dust settle and allow some more pressing matters to be dealt with ( like insuring proper backups are being done etc... ) ..

We got our forum back, my tires remain inflated and my Lipo packs are not puffing, so in the big picture of things we are all well right now !

[Gordo]

Gents, let me postulate, based on observations. I have no direct personal knowledge of this, but it could be inferred from postings.

What if Trevor was a decent chap. He saw a potential legal business investment embodied in buying, upgrading and monetizing our forum. He did not understand the fierce independence of our membership. We are sort of "unique" and over the top, wouldn't you say? When things blew up, he was shocked, hurt and offended by the language and personal attacks against him. Perhaps he only wanted to "help" the forum and make some coin. The model worked flawlessly on other forums. Perhaps he is an ethical, sensitive guy that wondered into a minefield inhabited by swashbuckling pirates.

There were postings that what bothered him most where the attacks against his character.

Perhaps the right thing to do in negotiations were to offer to remove the ad hominem attacks on the board against Trevor. We know that Justin is quite an honorable, moral and ethical guy.

What if Justin offered this courtesy? If so, we would do well to support our selfless liberator, and let this fade into the background. My question would be, would we rather live free and have the ad hominem attacks removed, or have lost our forum?

I will vote with the decision of our current Admins and Moderators. If they think that thread should be in the mod's forum... wherever that is, I will support that.

Live free, live well, design, develop, build and ride our future transportation.

Big Moose;
You saved me a lot of typing. What you have written, is the way I analyze the decision. I too want the internet world to know that ES is different. There is enough of the uprising recorded and present to let the public know the basics of what took place.
I thank Justin for everything and am far more interested in the development of ES in the future, than having to read another 28 pages of all of us picking the "fly shit out of the pepper." Many of us were too quick to judge and too violent in our attacks. Many of us posted outright stupid ideas, which made the negotiations much more difficult. Go back to tinkering and riding for a while and by letting things go, give a vote of confidence to Justin and the mods who did a superb job as the outcome clearly shows. I have every confidence that they will look after the thread in the mod's forum in the appropriate manner. So once again, as method's pleaded over and over, STFU. If we had listened to this plea, the job of cleaning up the thread would be unnecessary.

[liveforphysics]

at first, i thought luke was pretty rude, but after a bit of reflection (and after losing quite a bit of naivety about the advertising industry as a whole), i came to appreciate the early cannonfire.

I had seen this happen with 2 previous fantastic forums. An outsider buys it to make money, 6 months later it's only got newbs left asking and having questions answered by the vendors that pay to get to post there. That makes it about as crooked as possible. I was too gentle in both of the earlier forums when they were taken over. I wasn't going to make that same mistake this time, I was not going to let the wishy-washies and profiteers coax the masses into laying down and letting ES be destroyed. The biggest problem was, I only had my cell phone to work from, and I was racing a car 24hr endurance road-race at Thunder Hill fri/sat/sun. I was pitting for fuel, and requesting my phone be handed to me with the ES view topics page refreshed and waiting over the radio to skim for 30seconds and check on progress and help spur the revolt where possible (by crushing the blind wishy-washies generally), then going back out to race. If I would have been home with my laptop... ohhh man...

[nicobie]

Well, it looks like once again you rode into a hurricane and have come out still smiling.
Congratulations, you now have the two best ebike sites on the web.

I couldn't have said it better.

Thanks Justin

[markobetti]

Justin R. E. S. P. E. C. T.

[johnrobholmes]

Thank you for bringing this together Justin, and for keeping the site the wonderful resource that it is!

[justin_le]

Justin,
One of the most important principles of an open forum is freedom of speech. Removing three lengthy threads, even temporarily, and replacing them with a summary is unfortunate. Contained within them is a highly motivated and spirited debate. They also contain information which would be of great help to members of other forums facing similar circumstances. Removing these threads is a form of censure. Yes, we are at heart a forum of (mostly) men sharing an interest, but those missing threads are and were our forum's finest hour and should not be treated trivially.

Hey Scott, I could not possibly agree more, and you also won't find a more spirited crusader against censorship than me either. I think at this point that YPedal and BigMoose have summed things up pretty well. There are sensitivities around the sometimes over-the-top personal attacks that needed to be considered, especially when trying to negotiate on good terms.

As YPedal said, for now we just want to let the dust settle, and we will ensure that core of these threads is preserved as a reminder for all to see the integrity, intensity, and principle on which ES is founded. And to have it serve as a warning to others that may be tempted to steer things in that path. Personally I think when the time is right that should go right there in our E-pic Topics category.

-Justin