Indoor StillSmokin Garden and Adventures

[bakEQuatorial]

Bro...I knew you would come around! I'm sure you've read my posts on this matter as you'd liked them. I knew it! And thank you for proving me right! You're a cool dude and a great grower...

It was just a bad day! I had them and went into it with Mods who are my besties around here!

Just ask @St. Tom ask @TheMongol

I'm sure they wanted to strangle me at some point! But look at us all now....a couple hours and it was all forgotten!

Deleted or not, just forget about it and move on...there is so much more to do! Grow grow grow....

 

[Dichoti]

dude I feel so bad over it, honestly don't even understand why I said the things I did. Not only did I let mark down but my followers too. Next time I'll step away and check in the next day when I feel like i did that day. Thanks though man

It could be related to your illness, honestly. Back when I was having kidney issues, I found myself perpetually angry and confused. A few years later when they put me on steroids, it was the same thing, but With insomnia. Honestly, I’d speak to your doctor about it if there have been other places or situations where you’ve acted similarly over things you’d normally ignore.

Emotion is a funny thing. On one end of the spectrum, It’s an indirect reaction from an illness...on the other end, illness is a reaction to emotion.

 

[Beerhunter CDN]

@Smoke4Daze I’m glad you’re still around, we all have shit days, and sometimes everyday is a shit day when you aren’t well. I know this first hand and it’s hard to keep it all together sometimes. I appreciate your apologies here, it shows something about the person you are. I won’t be commenting further on this issue, it’s in the past now as far as I’m concerned.

You’re a great grower with much knowledge and experience to share with us new growers. I appreciate that as well. Besides, who else would I banter and take jabs at if you weren’t here?!

Best of luck, I hope you feel better.

 

[TheMongol]

Bro...I knew you would come around! I'm sure you've read my posts on this matter as you'd liked them. I knew it! And thank you for proving me right! You're a cool dude and a great grower...

It was just a bad day! I had them and went into it with Mods who are my besties around here!

Just ask @St. Tom ask @TheMongol

I'm sure they wanted to strangle me at some point! But look at us all now....a couple hours and it was all forgotten!

Deleted or not, just forget about it and move on...there is so much more to do! Grow grow grow....

Eeeeeeeeee what's the matter dude? who are you talking to here? if it's stillsmokin i don't care coz he doesn't exist any longer on site since yesterday and any other words about him are wasted

How ya doing canopy master?

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

I was not fully aware of what was going on in this thread. Although that’s one of my peeves but I’ll admit my fault there. I must say as I reflect on my thoughts about the way things have changed and the general tone of some staff I have grown more concerned about what many of us find much more important , SECURITY and ANONYMITY. At what level are moderators allowed to see all of our information, clearly from a previous post they at some level know your IP. Now you may think I’m concerned for my safety, but I am not. I’m a hobby grower in a medically legal state. You may think I’m concerned about others security, I guess I could be. But in reality the real concern should be that of the owners of the site. If they are going to hand of access to information that if shared either accidentally or intentionally could result in a myriad of consequences for them to anybody then I would be worried.

I hope that I’m wrong but I think they should seriously reconsider some of the choices that they have made. The tone from some of the mods belongs on some others sites and not on AFN. For those with security concerns I would probably think deeply about how you feel about the tone and actions of some of the mods. Whether the current situation affects you directly or not, the ability of mods to access your information and what the site owners do to verify their identities and intentions affects us and them greatly.

When I joined this site there was a very helpful member who would spend countless hours helping people in the grow lights section. He then went on to sell some of his lights and would still put in endless hours helping people and answering tons of questions. Well at some point some internet troll selling a ridiculous alternative light came on as a sponsor. Right from the get go he was an antagonist and changed the tone of the whole sub forum. He should have been asked to leave immediately. He was wrong in so many ways for the vibe of this site. But of course endless baby sitting and dealing with antics had to ensue. Both are no longer sponsors, one is around and I hope I never see the other. The sub forum is barely as active as it used to be and that’s a huge loss. I hope that doesn’t become the fate of the site because the owners are afraid to hurt people’s feelings and tell them they just aren’t what was intended.
Now of course I’m a dinosaur and like the laid back traditional vibe of a forum. Maybe the world is just really headed towards the antagonistic picture porn of the moment. Maybe the short attention span created by IG and FB and all the other unsociable media sites is just to powerful to overcome.

I’m hoping it’s not. And I hope we can prove them wrong. But in order to to do unfortunately you have to hurt people feelings occasionally and you don’t always have to take everyone’s money. $20 today may cause you to lose $2000 tomorrow.


Hope I don’t get chastised for that.

FB

 

[Trichome farmer]

I was not fully aware of what was going on in this thread. Although that’s one of my peeves but I’ll admit my fault there. I must say as I reflect on my thoughts about the way things have changed and the general tone of some staff I have grown more concerned about what many of us find much more important , SECURITY and ANONYMITY. At what level are moderators allowed to see all of our information, clearly from a previous post they at some level know your IP. Now you may think I’m concerned for my safety, but I am not. I’m a hobby grower in a medically legal state. You may think I’m concerned about others security, I guess I could be. But in reality the real concern should be that of the owners of the site. If they are going to hand of access to information that if shared either accidentally or intentionally could result in a myriad of consequences for them to anybody then I would be worried.

while im not the best person to answer your questions/ thoughts what i can say is that the mods here are not just chosen at random they are picked because they show a interest in helping with the site all volunteers there are no paid staff all vendor cash keeps the site running and for future updates security etc. its really up to the individual to protect there information anybody can obtain a persons IP address with the right software so if its a worry use a VPN if mods cannot see your IP it makes it impossible to spot duplicate accounts which an lead to a whole list of problems

I hope that I’m wrong but I think they should seriously reconsider some of the choices that they have made. The tone from some of the mods belongs on some others sites and not on AFN. For those with security concerns I would probably think deeply about how you feel about the tone and actions of some of the mods. Whether the current situation affects you directly or not, the ability of mods to access your information and what the site owners do to verify their identities and intentions affects us and them greatly.

while you may think the attitude of some mods is undesirable i can assure you no one is power crazy as has been mentioned all decisions are run by others before being made there is alot going on in the backround that the majority of members never see .if you see mods taking a strong stance on something you can be sure its not the first time theres been issues

Now of course I’m a dinosaur and like the laid back traditional vibe of a forum. Maybe the world is just really headed towards the antagonistic picture porn of the moment. Maybe the short attention span created by IG and FB and all the other unsociable media sites is just to powerful to overcome.

I’m hoping it’s not. And I hope we can prove them wrong. But in order to to do unfortunately you have to hurt people feelings occasionally and you don’t always have to take everyone’s money. $20 today may cause you to lose $2000 tomorrow.

i too unfortunately feel that the world is moving in that direction but we are in the middle of changing things up here on AFN from next year the focus will be back on growers and journal battles will be moved over to a sister site trying to get the old vibe back although if im honest thats not really a thing that is possible as people leave move on get arrested etc etc, AFN is what you make it might take some time to find a few good threads to hang out in
for me personally nearly all the gro bros i started my AFN journey with are no longer with us

no one will be chastised when there civil and have legitimate concerns its when people become toxic and use there opinions as fact

i think this should finish this thread now this is not the place to talk about AFN feedback

 

[Son of Hobbes]

I was not fully aware of what was going on in this thread. Although that’s one of my peeves but I’ll admit my fault there. I must say as I reflect on my thoughts about the way things have changed and the general tone of some staff I have grown more concerned about what many of us find much more important , SECURITY and ANONYMITY. At what level are moderators allowed to see all of our information, clearly from a previous post they at some level know your IP. Now you may think I’m concerned for my safety, but I am not. I’m a hobby grower in a medically legal state. You may think I’m concerned about others security, I guess I could be. But in reality the real concern should be that of the owners of the site. If they are going to hand of access to information that if shared either accidentally or intentionally could result in a myriad of consequences for them to anybody then I would be worried.

I hope that I’m wrong but I think they should seriously reconsider some of the choices that they have made. The tone from some of the mods belongs on some others sites and not on AFN. For those with security concerns I would probably think deeply about how you feel about the tone and actions of some of the mods. Whether the current situation affects you directly or not, the ability of mods to access your information and what the site owners do to verify their identities and intentions affects us and them greatly.

When I joined this site there was a very helpful member who would spend countless hours helping people in the grow lights section. He then went on to sell some of his lights and would still put in endless hours helping people and answering tons of questions. Well at some point some internet troll selling a ridiculous alternative light came on as a sponsor. Right from the get go he was an antagonist and changed the tone of the whole sub forum. He should have been asked to leave immediately. He was wrong in so many ways for the vibe of this site. But of course endless baby sitting and dealing with antics had to ensue. Both are no longer sponsors, one is around and I hope I never see the other. The sub forum is barely as active as it used to be and that’s a huge loss. I hope that doesn’t become the fate of the site because the owners are afraid to hurt people’s feelings and tell them they just aren’t what was intended.
Now of course I’m a dinosaur and like the laid back traditional vibe of a forum. Maybe the world is just really headed towards the antagonistic picture porn of the moment. Maybe the short attention span created by IG and FB and all the other unsociable media sites is just to powerful to overcome.

I’m hoping it’s not. And I hope we can prove them wrong. But in order to to do unfortunately you have to hurt people feelings occasionally and you don’t always have to take everyone’s money. $20 today may cause you to lose $2000 tomorrow.


Hope I don’t get chastised for that.

FB

Hey there Frank, I'm actually one of the site owners and I wanted to address some of your concerns.

I was not fully aware of what was going on in this thread. Although that’s one of my peeves but I’ll admit my fault there. I must say as I reflect on my thoughts about the way things have changed and the general tone of some staff I have grown more concerned about what many of us find much more important , SECURITY and ANONYMITY. At what level are moderators allowed to see all of our information, clearly from a previous post they at some level know your IP. Now you may think I’m concerned for my safety, but I am not. I’m a hobby grower in a medically legal state. You may think I’m concerned about others security, I guess I could be. But in reality the real concern should be that of the owners of the site. If they are going to hand of access to information that if shared either accidentally or intentionally could result in a myriad of consequences for them to anybody then I would be worried.

For starters, very little information is required to join AFN. We did this on purpose in fact; username, password, e-mail address, and that's it.

Global Moderators have access to IP address (which is stored temporarily on the server,) and that's simply part of their moderation power. This is nothing new to forum software; it allows to see where people are connecting from, helps us detect duplicate accounts, and we use IP's to check against spam registries (so when an IP is banned for spam, future IP's are checked against a blacklist of IP's. You'd be surprised how many spammers try to join from the same IP over and over again.)

I'll give you an example of why we do this:

STILLSMOKIN' created three accounts (one recent, one he's had for awhile) + additionals that we banned yesterday (it's a violation of our Terms of Use to have more than one account, that's a rule that's been in place probably since I joined the site myself.) He's not the first person to do this (we've got some history under our belt here,) but he was using the other accounts to post instigating comments/replies about the STILLSMOKIN main account (to give the appearance other members were angry about our actions in the matter.) Then yesterday morning, admits on the Smoke4Daze account that he's actually the same person.

When this first kicked off, multiple moderators asked him to tone it down. No one said he was getting banned, they just asked him to stop. When it didn't stop and he started posting his rants in his other grow threads, we had multiple reported posts from regular members on the site about his attitude, about his multiple accounts, and his angry comments. When members report a post, it gets attention from staff (because that's our job.)

STILLSMOKIN' then goes on to call our staff a "bunch of pussies," then calls all the regular members that reported him "a bunch of pansies," in one of his journals. I guess I have to ask, do you think that's acceptable behavior? If our moderators are to be held to a higher standard, shouldn't there at least be a standard set for regular members too? And there is, that's why we created the Terms of Use and Forum Etiquette policies. These are general guidelines on how to act on the forum and all members agree to the terms by being members here. If we have policies members don't agree with, there are tactful ways of presenting that.

I hope that I’m wrong but I think they should seriously reconsider some of the choices that they have made. The tone from some of the mods belongs on some others sites and not on AFN. For those with security concerns I would probably think deeply about how you feel about the tone and actions of some of the mods. Whether the current situation affects you directly or not, the ability of mods to access your information and what the site owners do to verify their identities and intentions affects us and them greatly.

I'll reiterate, we collect very little personal information (and anything beyond login is voluntary and viewing IP addresses is part of forum moderation.) The suggestion/implication that we're using this information maliciously is a pretty serious allegation. If you have proof of this I'd like to personally know the details, otherwise this statement seems like a bit of intentional fear mongering.

After STILLSMOKIN was reprimanded, one of his responses was "so I heard AFN was hacked when you had your technical downtime." He even went as far to creating an account on High of the Tiger (our sister site) to say the same thing after being banned. Well come on man lol... guy gets banned and suddenly his dupe accounts are making allegations that we were hacked and information was compromised? That's like not getting picked for flag football in grade school and running home to tell mom everyone is doing drugs, just to try to get them in trouble. "I'll show them, mwahahaha."

When I joined this site there was a very helpful member who would spend countless hours helping people in the grow lights section. He then went on to sell some of his lights and would still put in endless hours helping people and answering tons of questions. Well at some point some internet troll selling a ridiculous alternative light came on as a sponsor. Right from the get go he was an antagonist and changed the tone of the whole sub forum. He should have been asked to leave immediately. He was wrong in so many ways for the vibe of this site. But of course endless baby sitting and dealing with antics had to ensue. Both are no longer sponsors, one is around and I hope I never see the other. The sub forum is barely as active as it used to be and that’s a huge loss. I hope that doesn’t become the fate of the site because the owners are afraid to hurt people’s feelings and tell them they just aren’t what was intended.

One of the goals of bringing vendors on to the forum was to help show growers not only the products that are out there (and that exist regardless if they are on AFN or not,) but to also take it a step farther and give real world examples of how they work (ie, having them test them out in a grow.) That's why hundreds of you get to test seeds for free. That's why dozens of you have tested grow lights for free. That's why several of you have tested rosin presses for free. That's why many of you have tested nutrients for free. Etc etc, on and on.

For the better part of AFN's existence, we didn't even have a payment structure setup. The majority of vendors were asked to just send product out to growers on the site (in lieu of payment.) I'll rephrase that, "we didn't take payment so growers like you could get stuff for free." Unfortunately we realized that generous model doesn't pay expensive server hosting fees, doesn't pay for security, licenses, add-on's, updates, support, etc. So we found a happy medium. We've offered trials to many vendors (and still keep the option on the table) if we think they might be questionable, or if they are iffy on "how does a forum work," etc. It's not going to be sterling experience everytime, but I've seen vendors apologize, change their tunes, and generally try harder, even if they ultimately don't stay on the board as an active vendor.

I've personally told ex-vendors to leave the site; we've purposely not done business with several companies because of their reputation, etc. No one here is afraid to get their hands dirty brother, I assure you that.

I’m hoping it’s not. And I hope we can prove them wrong. But in order to to do unfortunately you have to hurt people feelings occasionally and you don’t always have to take everyone’s money. $20 today may cause you to lose $2000 tomorrow.

You're entitled to your opinions and I appreciate you tactfully sharing them. The site is many things to many people, maybe some day you can find the joy you used to find here. This is still home to many and we'll continue to work hard to keep it that way.

Anyways guys and gals, it was suggested that we close this thread down since STILLSMOKIN is banned and that this is starting to turn into a dead horse beating. I just wanted to personally reply to this so that the facts could be straightened out over the whole debacle.

Peace! ​

 

[bakEQuatorial]

I am concerned with security. But I also trust the mods and admins. I still can't tell who is Mod except for the few I know. While they may have my info and I may have had heated exchanges with them before but we are all adults here. We love our plant and believe it to be a great gift. I really do not believe for a second that any Mods or Admins here wishes an ill fate for me. I only believe they will call the cops on me if Im endangering others or myself, which I cannot imagine doing.

We always say we love the place. If so, love the management too. I don't see why not? They've all been great to us. I had my squabbles with new Mods too and it was pretty heated. I don't even remember what is was all about? Its all water under the bridge and we're all back at doing what we love? Ain't that whats important?

Just my opinion as an ordinary member. I trust my safety with them as they have given me no reason to doubt it thus far. Even Stillsmokin has moved on so lets not remind him of this silly past event anymore.

Give the management a chance to do better! Judge them on their future performance and let this one go is my suggestion here.