Praise to the Man!

[Kishkumen]

Joseph Smith?

No, Dr. Shades.

Life can be brutal. Very little that we do will have any lasting impact beyond our little private worlds.

So I am very appreciative when someone does something that many people benefit from and endures for years.

That’s this board. Its founder is Dr. Shades. Kudos to you, Shades! I am glad we’re here, after all this time, still interacting, still a community. It’s a tribute to your founding vision.

Think of other boards that have died.

Think of other boards that have been significantly overhauled in their approach.

The only major change here to the DNA has been technological. Thanks to the hard work of others, now our good old community is software and server functional.

And we have an excellent group of mods who have found answers to some recent issues by referring back to the board’s existing rules! Praise to them too!

There is time for complaints, and there should be time to recognize with gratitude and appropriate wonder what others have done for us.

Praise to Shades!

Praise to the mods!

Praise to those who fixed the board!

It is a tribute to the founding vision that people care enough to keep this community alive after all this time.

[Chap]

Praise to Shades!

Praise to the mods!

Praise to the those who fixed the board!

It is a tribute to the founding vision that people care enough to keep this community alive after all this time.

This needs saying (or for those who know the tune, singing) from time to time.

[Philo Sofee]

I Very HEARTILY SECOND THIS. Shades, we don't always agree, but I am deeply impressed, and appreciative and think so very highly of you!

[K Graham]

I will have to respectfully disagree on this one. I'm sure Doc is a great guy in his own right, but "praise" him over a message board?

That's a bridge too far given this board's history. Whatever success has come of the board, it is despite Shades efforts, not because of them.

Credit should be given to the people who actually participated on a regular basis for nearly 20 years, and especially to the mods who volunteered their time working for free because the board owner won't dedicate the time needed to manage it.

I'm still a little miffed by the fact that for nearly two decades we were led to believe Shades had full control of the forum when in fact, 15 years later we find out that he left it to one of his former roommates to handle all the technical stuff and was storing the entire database on one of his servers at another apartment. Shades lost contact with this guy over the years and couldn't get him to do any technical work and Shades didn't even have the authority to do it himself. Several of us had to offer to put together money to buy it from him. Gadianton and a few others were doing all that work in the background and even with their efforts to transfer the data, many years of discussions were completely lost to us. The past couple years have been an absolute nightmare in terms of the board's stability, and it wasn't handled or managed well by Shades, who even now seems to be the "owner" in name only.

I appreciate Shades for the critic he once was. He and I locked horns back when I was an apologist and then came to a mutual respect for one another's positions, but since dropping his anti-Mormon website and starting this board, his contributions have been scarce in terms of the great debate between Apologists vs. Critics. I've met him in person, spoke with him several times over the phone, and I'm sure he is a genuinely good person. But he's probably the last person who should be in charge of maintaining a venue where dozens of us expect to have our conversations securely stored for future reference.

[Mrs. Atlanticmike]

Hello everyone. Even though we have never spoken to each other before, I feel like I know each and every one of you. I peruse the board multiple times a day checking in on Mike to see if he's typing or actually working. It is true Mike opened the Tinfoilhat account for me, but I was never interested in communicating on the board because conflict isn't something I gravitate towards. So I decided to register and create my own account.

I too would like to praise Dr. Shades! But for reasons that haven't been expressed in numerous post this week. I agree with Mike and think Dr. Shades has been steamrolled by veteran board members for the sole purpose of separating Dr. Shades from his authority. The covert tactics manipulators have used this week to force Dr. Shades to step down are obvious. Dr. Shades should be praised for handling the overthrow with grace and dignity. Thank you Dr. Shades and I'm sorry you had to go through such an unnecessary ordeal on a public forum.

Dr. Shades, I want to praise and thank you for allowing Mike the opportunity to express his opinion on your board almost totally unencumbered. He looks up to you for being a free speech champion.

[Kishkumen]

I will have to respectfully disagree on this one. I'm sure Doc is a great guy in his own right, but "praise" him over a message board?

Yeah, and I really don't know why not! Really, there is no need to address the rest of your message, which is frankly irrelevant, in my mind.

No one said that there were never problems, even really big ones. But the fact remains that the initial board was conceived well enough to bring us together and keep us here, despite those problems. The formula still works, and the way the mods handled recent challenges is both a testament to their effectiveness and to the strength of the existing rules of the board, which are rooted in Dr. Shades' founding decisions.

As I said, there is a time for criticism, and a time for gratitude and praise.

[Kishkumen]

I too would like to praise Dr. Shades! But for reasons that haven't been expressed in numerous post this week. I agree with Mike and think Dr. Shades has been steamrolled by veteran board members for the sole purpose of separating Dr. Shades from his authority. The covert tactics manipulators have used this week to force Dr. Shades to step down are obvious. Dr. Shades should be praised for handling the overthrow with grace and dignity. Thank you Dr. Shades and I'm sorry you had to go through such an unnecessary ordeal on a public forum.

Dr. Shades, I want to praise and thank you for allowing Mike the opportunity to express his opinion on your board almost totally unencumbered. He looks up to you for being a free speech champion.

Thanks for dropping in to share your gratitude. I think there is something to the problems you are pointing out, but I disagree that Shades was forced to step down. He could have chosen not to. And, while I am in favor of free speech, there is a difference between that and a free for all, i.e. mayhem.

Your husband often behaves as if this is a free for all, not a discussion. Sometimes, however, he is actually a decent person to interact with here.

[Res Ipsa]

Hello everyone. Even though we have never spoken to each other before, I feel like I know each and every one of you. I peruse the board multiple times a day checking in on Mike to see if he's typing or actually working. It is true Mike opened the Tinfoilhat account for me, but I was never interested in communicating on the board because conflict isn't something I gravitate towards. So I decided to register and create my own account.

I too would like to praise Dr. Shades! But for reasons that haven't been expressed in numerous post this week. I agree with Mike and think Dr. Shades has been steamrolled by veteran board members for the sole purpose of separating Dr. Shades from his authority. The covert tactics manipulators have used this week to force Dr. Shades to step down are obvious. Dr. Shades should be praised for handling the overthrow with grace and dignity. Thank you Dr. Shades and I'm sorry you had to go through such an unnecessary ordeal on a public forum.

Dr. Shades, I want to praise and thank you for allowing Mike the opportunity to express his opinion on your board almost totally unencumbered. He looks up to you for being a free speech champion.

Welcome, and thanks for clarifying the status of the accounts. I think Mike has been pretty clear that Tinfoilhat was actually an account of his, but I appreciate you confirming that.

Also, thanks for expressing support for Shades. I think he’s done a pretty amazing thing with this forum here and am grateful that he did.

I don’t know whether you’re willing to share some of you and your family’s experience with Mormonism. I can understand completely if you don’t. I imagine it would feel like Daniel in the den of lions.

Thanks again.

[K Graham]

People actually believe this is Mike's wife, and not Mike.

The saga continues.

SMH.

[Some Schmo]

People actually believe this is Mike's wife, and not Mike.

The following sentence does feel like a giveaway:

The covert tactics manipulators have used this week to force Dr. Shades to step down are obvious.

The tactics are covert and obvious at the same time? That's quite a trick.