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I've been bouncing mail back and forth with PZ, but I might as well summarize it here for everyone else. And some of these points will be ones I haven't emailed PZ about yet.

1) When all of the splitting stuff went down, I was annoyed with both sides, albeit for different reasons (I felt Kal's side had the right side of a number of issues, but comported themselves VERY poorly, and that Z's side behaved much better in public but had done some things that looked very underhanded in private...not inviting debate on that topic now, just pointing out how it looked from the sidelines).

2) I did not leave in disgust, I left for the pragmatic reason of following the traffic. As of February, this place was effectively dead as a doornail in terms of traffic once you subtracted the occasional drive-by from an ikonSparker. I've left a lot of boards because of inactivity, with no malice involved.

3) I did not make any posts to the admin board when I left, because I could not get into the admin board that day. Maybe it was just an access glitch that was keeping everyone out for a few minutes, maybe I got caught in a broad lockout of ikonSparkers who had been admin, I dunno. But I didn't feel strongly enough about the issue to pursue it at the time.

4) I did check back once or twice a week after my goodbye post (and didn't feel any real need to join in on the argument of Neale versus everyone else in the goodbye thread), and eventually the forum vanished without explanation. I figured the admin were clearing out inactive stuff (since it was part of a major reorganization), commented on it over at the ikonSpark, and left it at that. Checked once or twice afterwards to see if it had come back, but didn't really see much traffic in general that I was interested in participating in.

5) I've been involved in this sort of ugly online custody battle before, and I've found it's best that if you're on the minority side to find some other thing to do, rather than continuing to compete for the original name/property. In my case as with here, the creator/founder left things in the hands of others, who then started to disagree with how things should be run, leading to fundamental splits. I was the dissenter, and despite having put more work into the property than all the others combined, it was clear I had no real leverage (since the creator had pretty much said "whatever, dude"). I could have kept writing stories in my interpretation of the setting and ignoring the changes made by others, but a lot of the enjoyment was sucked out of the endeavor by having to do that. So I stopped, created something else, and it went on to be MUCH better and more successful than the original thing. People have voted with their clicks...Allspark and all its moons belong to Kalidor. I'd suggest trying to create something new rather than continue to claim to be the real Allspark. To those who know the history, it makes you look bitter. To those who don't, it makes you look like ripoff artists. As I suggested way back when, I think you should pick a new name and start fresh. You might get a lot more traffic if there wasn't a strong implication of "Us or Them, only one is the real Allspark" any new posters have to deal with. It would also make mending fences with all the people who DID leave in disgust easier. In other words, while there's certainly times to stick to your guns and hold onto things on principle, you don't want to burn the village to save it.

In short, I think you guys lost the war months ago. It no longer MATTERS who was RIGHT. Your best option is to stop fighting that war and redefine the conflict...not "Who is the real Allspark," but "Who is the better board?" As long as it looks like you're fighting the first war, you'll never really get anywhere in the second.

Oh, and in case you're curious what happened in the end regarding my own online property conflict...the Patrol Universe (the one I left) put out less than ten stories total after I left. Its best writers other than myself joined my new venture, agreeing to my final editorial fiat. To see how that turned out, go to www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH and see for yourself. I think if I'd kept trying to write Patrol stories in conflict with the other writers, I would only have generated bad blood and a few stories of decreasing quality as I continued to lose interest. Instead, I switched settings, made something of my own, and it rocks. Think about the possibilites.

Dave

You know, I had a response, but the board ate it. And I really don't feel like typing it out again. Now THIS is the sort of thing likely to keep me away from a board (and in fact, I left the pre-split AllSpark many times because the latest version of ezBoard code sucked).

Dave