mitchejw wrote:

Oh crap...I forgot about Russ...why did he leave? Did it have anything to do with your reasons for not posting?

I'll give you my 2c on it for the sake of it, but I hope it's clear this is all old drama to me and I really don't care or hold any grudges anymore...looking back it's sad it happened and a fuss about nothing...but if you're interested to know why I bailed this is my version of it:

* It was that period where a lot of discussion devolved into Old vs New GNR arguments which got a bit nasty.

* Russ was working really hard daily to bring content to the forum.

* Bono got into disputes with a few posters, some people felt he was a troll and abusive while others felt he just had an aggressive language style but was otherwise ok.

* I and others became worried that some of the moderation at the time might be headed towards HTGTH style censorship. I was concerned that we should have freedom to be 'negative' if the need arose. I may have been wrong that it was happening. I dunno now. Either way my questioning the umpire/referee may have offended Russ.

* There was some catalyst event. Bono was rude to someone in a thread and banned, at the time I felt that there was provocation - like he was baited into a rude remark by something rude said to him first.  So I started championing his cause that it wasn't fair. Basically this led to a few weeks of disputes on the chat feed and people arguing for or against bono being banned.

* I gather Russ wanted mods to be in unanimous agreement about things, but as with most things in GNR land this often wasn't the case and so the infighting spread to the mods.

* I got some PM's supporting my stance. Some people speculated I should be made a mod.

* The whole place became highschool drama land with people in groups "for" or "against" bono's ban.

* Bono then rejoined the forum under a fake name and continued life. He sent a PM to me and a few of his supporters thanking them for the support.

* My honest opinion of Russ was that he was a cool guy but that we disagreed on pointless GNR stuff. Like on a simple level I didn't agree about the Bono ban, and I thought he was odd for liking Robin more than Slash. But saying that - I really liked lots about him - I had him on facebook - he loved Aerosmith like I do - he'd have vinyl nights and other music lover things. Seemed like a dude I would be friends with IRL if we lived closer. He helped me get some itunes songs I couldn't get. He was cool. Just he was one of those wacky robin lovers As buzz said we all really have more in common than against.

* Anyway when the hidden Bono sent me a PM i found it really funny. Like here we all are in this childish brawl over him and the mothertrucker has been back for weeks under a fake name. We made some jokes at Russ' expense I think. It's hard to justify now but we were all wound up with the nastiness in all the drama threads over it. So i would have been all like 'fuck russ that robin lover this is all such dumb shit' type stuff. I regret it because as i say, while I thought the whole thing was foolery I don't really have anything against the guy, it was all just a huge WTF to me. But someone had pissed me off in the thread earlier so I'm sure I ran my mouth a bit like we do at times.

* Russ found out that Bono was back under a fake username.

* I gather someone gave Russ access to the PM messages.

* I think he considered me two-faced and so deleted me from facebook. I always felt bad about this. I disagreed with what I thought Russ was doing but I didn't have anything against him as a person. In the same way I'm good friends with Smoking Guns on facebook but we utterly disagree on politics. But I guess it didn't look like that when he found out Bono had PM'd me.

* I'm not sure what Russ found in other people's PMs. But I gather he felt betrayed or that there was a conspiracy against him or something. So he had his posts deleted and left.

* For my 2c it all happened innocently in the sense it just went out of control as drama. I accept I did the wrong thing a lot of the time looking back, but  I didn't mean to be scheming. I didn't care if I was made a mod or not but would have accepted it if I was because I posted like 100 times a day back then so it made sense. But i wasn't trying to make it happen. Likewise, I thought Russ was trying to be HTGTH but maybe I was totally wrong about it. I wasn't going to rat out Bono when he revealed he was secretly back - but at the same time it's not like i'd been involved in some high end scheme to get him back either. It just seemed like a dick move to rat him so I shut up. As I say - we only became friends after the fall out of all this!

* Later Buzz after talking to russ thought I was engaged in a conspiracy about it and so started breaking my balls over it - fair enough. Me being me I also didn't let it go and insisted on arguing my case and giving shit to Buzz whenever possible. This went on some weeks. Then I realised how much fun I used to have and how it wasn't fun anymore just being in fights...and so I left too. My GNR chat moved to facebook. Then SG talked me into coming back right around reunion time.

Anyway don't mean to stir up old trouble, I only explained as I still feel somewhat bad about my role in it.