The Hitleresque Rogue General

I've been a member of the PHP Developers' Network forum since August of 2002. That's shortly after I picked up my very first PHP book and started to create my very own online text-based game. It's been a very rewarding experience.

I first loved how helpful everyone was when it came time to requiring assistance with basic things such as understanding cron, classes, and file handling.

Then came a time when I had a very large grasp of the PHP language, because not only did I read that forum for my own issues, but I read other people's issues also. You know, in case I ever was to do something similar and came acrosss the same issue.

In doing so, I quickly became an expert at just about every newbie-related issue when it came to PHP and MySQL and I started to contribute a lot of those threads that I read, instead of simply reading them for insight, as I did before.

As my post count within that forum surpassed 1,000 and months have passed since I started my PHP workings, I was approached to become a DevNetwork moderator. I talked to the always helpful twigletmac (more commonly known as "twig") about the it and from there I talked to the DevNetwork founder/owner jason (known to many mortals as "Jason Lotito" at phpcomplete.com).

Anywho, jason & twig jointly approved of the promotion and so I became a moderator at the DevNet in early-mid 2003 (the exact date slips my mind).

Fast forward to the present time, we find ourselves at an interesting time with the DevNetwork. Many of the popular sites that made up the network have been shut down and/or relaunched in a different format. Projects such as PHUSE (PHP Unified Search Engine) where left to rot in the beta lab, and many forum regulars have moved on with their lives and have stopped participating in discussion on a daily or even weekly basis.

That includes volka, the uber-l33t PHP master who seemed to have a solution to every problem. Once the phenom surpassed the 4,000 posts milestone, he seemed to post less and less until finally he was gone.

That includes characters such as JPlush76, hob_goblin, phice, Gen-ik, Takuma, viggie89, and Stoker among other notibles.

But above all, it includes the two people responsible for my former status (I'll explain in a bit) as moderator. jason and twig.

It was decided that two up and coming moderators McGruff ( 2,800+ posts, joined Jan 30, 2003 ) and feyd (13,500+ posts, joined Mar 29, 2004) would bare the responsibility of maintaining the forums (updating phpBB, bans, moderator promotion, etc.) in jason & twig's absense.

It was a good idea at the time, and many good things have come of the move but as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Over the course of the last few days, there was much controversy at the DevNetwork. It was in regards to a trivial comment made by McGruff about the topic of the OOP programming style vs. the Procedural programming style. He was quickly called on it by iamsure (1,200 posts, joined Jan 04, 2004) and so, took great offense to it.

I'll explain the thread events and try to shed some light on the history between McGruff and iamsure.

jurriemcflurrie (28 posts, joined Jul 06, 2005) asks "I've made several attempts to code with classes with php and I'm getting more used to it day by day. But as I code along I still can't find out the usefulness of it. I can't get an answer to it neither.

Why can't I just put several functions in a seperate file? Thats what you do with classes also, right?"

feyd quickly enters with "we're not going to reignite the flame-war so read this first..." and inserts a link to a previous topic of similar nature, which just happens to also include the flame war between McGruff and iamsure that I'll explain shortly.

Then enters McGruff and posts a very insightful, yet very pro-OOP reply and in doing so, reopened the wound with one very trivia comment. Yes, it was just one comment that supposedly did it, according to iamsure who said he agreed with everything McGruff said besides this: "No-one who has learned OOP properly would go back to procedural code"

When later elaborating on why he was quick to post "now quit that" he writes:

"The statement means that either, you won't do anything but OOP (because you've learned it properly), OR, you haven't learned it properly. If you have in fact learned OOP properly, and do in fact "go back" to procedural code, then you will feel insulted, as I did.

Just like if I said 'All OOP proponents are bigoted', I would be insulting and provably inaccurate. Its inappropriate by McGruff's standards, and by the rules of the forum"

To briefly explain the history of McGruff & iamsure, it basically boils down to this: conflicting opinions, lacking respect for opinions, general immaturity, short fuses, and irrational behaviour.

This grew from discussions about OOP & Procedural programming styles to the point where the grudges were seemingly set in stone.

What many do not know about McGruff's offense to the "now quit that" comment is that he actually warned that iamsure will be removed from the forum entirely if he continues within a private moderator-only forum.

I said to myself this: CONTINUE WHAT!? Posting opinions that don't agree with yours?

And so I quickly called him on that and also on his private message to iamsure which had the term "arrogant sonofabitch" within it, attacking iamsure for his post. I also called him on his lack of rational thinking about this and how he lets his emotions get the best of him. He may disagree with that, but when you post something similar to "I am f--king up to here with it" in regards to iamsure's comments, it's obvious that you're a little more upset than an objective moderator should be.

I wasn't the first to call him on it, feyd posted his disagreement before me, and other moderators posted their disagreement after me. And some even went as far as taking a 'if he gets banned for this, I resign my post as moderator' stance. A truly noble thing to do.

Anyway, after the stance they took, I decided to add a little more. I then told him his ability to moderate the forums objectively has been compromised and that before he moderates in that way, a second opinion should be gathered from someone else who isn't so emotionally wrapped up in the discussion.

The term 'emotionally wrapped' is an understatement. As the always insightful Maugrim_The_Reaper (380 posts, joined Nov 02, 2004) writes: "I think I will never quite understand when or how OOP overtook procedural on tha basis of morals. Aren't both in PHP, both used to attain a result and both open to criticism? When did methodologies become religions?"

The funny thing about my comments to McGruff is that every single point I made and question I asked was ignored, and he even posted a multi-paragraph pro-OOP rant within the thread discussing the situation, I think in an attempt to make us convert to "the darkside" (heh, if you don't know, that's a little tribute Star Wars and to the funny name someone referred him to... McGrievous because he was 'dealing in absolutes', and for those that didn't see Episode III, Grievous is one of the evil Sith characters).

Anyway, McGrie...err...McGruff then decides to do something rational for a change and he posts a very inflamatory post in the moderator thread, asking us if it was something that should be posted. Every mod who saw it said it was not necessary nor wise to post. I believe he did post some other trivial comments after the suggestions, but I am not 100% sure which ones he said he did instead.

And so shortly after that, feyd then suggests that McGruff resigns his post as a moderator and asks for supporters of this opinion to privately message him. It was then suggested that we do it in the open, and McGruff gladly agreed to that request, and so moderators voiced their disapproval of him and agreed that he needs to go for his actions and inability to properly moderate.

I posted something along the lines of 'he needs to go, either voluntarily, by vote, or otherwise' and as you might have guessed, that was the general consensus of everyone besides McGruff.

Fast forward again to yesterday, I receive an e-mail titled "suspension" that says the following:

"Our problems are becoming too public, threats have been made and there doesn't seem to be any immediate prospect of resolving our differences. Therefore, I feel it's time that the situation is brought firmly under control.

In addition to removing your moderator status, posting privileges have been temporarily suspended. These will be reinstated if you can accept the following conditions. I apologise if this seems harsh but it is necessary.

(1) You will comply with any advice or rules issued by the new moderator team.

(2) In particular, you will not discuss our recent problems in public unless invited to do so. The issue has been discussed in the Moved Posts topic in as much depth as it needs to be. Members have heard some of the complaints and heard enough about our own disagreements. I believe in open-ness but that will do, I think. I intend to draw a line under the matter and move on.

To me, it's been a lot of fuss about nothing provoked by someone who has rare a talent for it. I don't bear any grudges against you; these things happen. It's not impossible that you could be invited to rejoin the new moderator team in the future, should you wish to do so, but it does seem impossible for us to work together here and now. If you stick around I think you'll find it's not as bad as you think.

Mcgruff"

So as you might have guessed, my first thoughts were "WTF?" and I didn't believe what I was reading. He banned ME? What the hell did I do besides post opinions. I never once participated in any inflamatory discussions and I have never had any beef with other members of the forum, and I definately didn't post anything that might have warranted a suspension and removal of my moderator status. I'm there to strictly help others, discuss things with other like-minded individuals and help maintain the integrity of the community.

Still in disbelief, I travelled to the forum and my fears were confirmed, he actually did ban me. Not only me, but he removed everyone who disagreed with him and said he was unfit for the moderator job. Hell, the entire "PHPDN Moderators" group doesn't even exist anymore. It's previous members are now within the "Forum Regulars" group, a group I personally have not been a member of since shortly before I was promoted to moderator status.

And so the worst case senario has come to life.

Our little DevNetwork has been the victim of a hostile takeover.

Instead of being run by level-headed individuals and run in democratic fashion, like it previously was, it is currently being run by an insanely biased, insanely irrational, insanely immature dictator.

Our little DevNetwork needs to be taken back.

This will happen. I assure you. This Tyrant won't survive.

He is not the founder of the site. He is not legally responsible for the site. He is not the domain name owner. He is not the person who has direct contacts with our hosting provider (our hosting was donated free by ImHosted and jason is the person who set this up). And he is not fit for the job. Period.

We'll have our DevNetwork back. Mark my words.

I've told you what he is not, now for what he is... Wait, I won't go there for the sake of time and not stating the obvious, but I'll summarize it in two words: f--king. idiot.

Okay, now that I got that out of my system... Damn, I've written entirely way too much. heh

Oh well, this is all something that needed to be said and documented.

From this unfortunate turn of events, let us as people learn some lessons:
- Never trust anyone with absolute power over a community, there needs to be checks and balances and democracy is the answer to that!
- Say no to dictators! Revolt! Bring power back out of the grasp of the tyrant!
- Learn to respect the opinions of other people, no matter how religiously you believe in your side of the debate, everyone is entitled to their own views and so you shouldn't personally attack anyone for their view!
- Accept nothing less than the right to free speech and the right to have and support your opinion, so long as it's not something stupid like "Hitler was right!" (if that's your opinion, you can burn in hell for all I care!)
- Do not do something stupid like ban everyone who doesn't agree with you and then forcefully apply your mentality upon the masses, especially when you do not have the right to do so. If it's your site, then go ahead, but when it's not even your site, it's a waste of time and it defeats your goals. Your actions will be reversed and you will be left in the gutter as those that you wronged have their forum restored.
- Writing a blog post for more than an hour really hurts your fingers... OW!

[update time="12:36am on Nov. 13"]
There has been many other similar articles floating around the internet written mainly by insiders who feel they need to vent their frustrations with the situation....here is a link to them:

"the (quite) take over of phpdev net?" by iamsure
"The Hostile Takeover of the PHPDN forums" by enygma
"the stuffih hath hitith the fan-ith" by feyd
"DevNetwork is dead, long live DevNetwork" by timvw
"The Adolph Hitler of the internet?" by Trukfixer
"Hostile DevNetwork Takeover" by Burrito
"Post #1" by BDKR
[/update]

So until next blog post, ciao.

-m3mn0n
// aka Sami