[pineapple]

I feel guilty for having brought this up in the first place.

Anyway, for me at least all's well that ends well: My JBJ regulator arrived (well packed) yesterday from Aquabotanic (free shipping to APC members). I am pleased with it and the service.

Yesterday, I was going to order another from AP - thank goodness I delayed.

Andrew Cribb

 

[Momotaro]

Since your moderator Gnatster seems to be under the impression there is some sort of X-Files conspiracy going on and is pushing the issue here and at Planted Tank, I will post here the same reply I posted to him over at Planted Tank for those of you here at APC who might be following:

Gnatster:
So a site sponsor makes a mistake and creates a lot of discussion and in my view that same sponsor does a poor job in rectifiing the situation. In fact the defense of the mistake causes even more problems.

Now the thread is gone.

Why??

A site sponsor made a mistake. It did create a lot of discussion. However the discussion deteriorated into absolute rudeness and name calling. Conduct in that thread became inappropriate and unbecoming...that's why the thread was pulled. You would have never allowed the discussion and the language used to head the way it was going on the site you moderate Gnat and I am surprised you are questioning the way we handle things here. I would never second guess you or the other mods over there. I know you all too well to do that.

My question to everyone on this thread who are complaining they were "censored": Did you read the last posts in that thread? Did you read what was being said? Do you think language and tone like that belong here?

A member of Planted Tank:
You mods should have more respect for the good members of this board...
Very disapointing!

We do! That's why I won't let anybody, sponsor, mod or another member talk at, or down to any member on this forum. I will not allow anyone to call anyone else names or try to make them feel stupid or embarrassed. I am guessing you didn't see how the thread ended up. If you did, I am sure your statement wouldn't have been "You mods should have more respect for the good members of this board..." , it would have been "You good members of the board should have more respect for the other good members of the board".

Listen, everyone, No one is trying to stop people from posting. We allow a lot of leeway as to what is said and how it is said. We all love to read people's questions and advice. We like to participate in civil, thoughtful discussions. However, when a thread gets out of control, language gets inappropriate and thread participants get abusive that thread is going to get pulled. Like it or not. We may try to edit and repost the thread, but that takes some work at times, and isn't going to happen instantaneously. ANYONE posting in an abusive, negative manner will be contacted via PM about their actions on the board.

Abusive language, tone and attitude is just not going to be tolerated! I don't care how many people are participating or venting in a thread. When things sink down to that level, someone is going to be hurt, and I will not stand for that. I don't want anyone, not a single member, to stop logging into Planted Tank because they are angry, embarrassed or insulted due to someone else's "verbal beat down". Thats what moderators do. Thats what all of the moderators at Planted Tank do.

As Buck (moderator at Planted Tank) stated " our ONLY objective here is to keep a peaceful , happy , friendly forum here and if it steers in any other direction it is gone." That's the spirit of this board. That's how the mods treat Planted Tank, thats how almost all of the members treat Planted Tank. That is how every member should treat Planted Tank!

Mike

The thread at Planted Tank has over 50 responses, and will take some time to edit and repost. Unfortunately, Gnat won't give us the chance to do that. Instead he questions the motives of the administrator and the moderators at Planted Tank both on the Planted Tank website and here on the APC boards. I would expect a "moderator" would understand what was going on and give the people at Planted Tank an opportunity to address the situation before rushing to a very negative conclusion. Very Fox Mulder if you ask me.

Good day.

Mike

 

[gnatster]

Ya'll asked me to wait till it was cleaned up before commenting anymore, and I have, both here and there.

 

[Robert Hudson]

Why bother? It is deleted, gone, and will soon be forgotten, why not leave it that way?

I have a bit of a problem with all this people have the right to know stuff...

I will give you an example of one site that takes it too far. On aquariumadvice a couple of people complained to the WEB master that one of their sponsors was not answering email or phone calls for a week or two. The WEBmaster went ballistic on the sponsor publically on their forum stating we will not tolerate this horrible customer service to our forum members from one of our sponsors and I am dropping them as a sponsor. Which he did, but he also left his condeming post on his site for all the world to read til the end of eternity. Probably still there.

Now he has no idea what happened to this company. What if the guy had a heart attack, is in the hospital, or his Mother died...get my drift? What is the point of having him on permanant public record? Talk about being professional, do you think any magazine, newspaper, TV station would brand someone like that?

The same thing could happen to me. I live alone. I have no employees. What if something happened to me where I was incapacitated for three months? Should I be dragged thru the mud because of my absence? What if I dropped dead while advertising on aquariumadvice.com? Nobody would know, my WEB site would keep going on forever until the domain name fees were due, and then would disappear. Except I would always be remembered on Aquriumadvice.com as the guy who stopped answering his phone!

One thing I learned from the infamous PWs lawsuit was, getting revenge on someone because they mistreated you is not worth it. It is not worth the trouble or the pain. It doesn't really accomplish anything. Even PSW had their loyal customers thru the whole thing.

So this guy blew his top and said some nasty things. He will either repeat this or learn from it. Doesn't mean he should be branded.

 

[Rolo]

This whole case isn't about "what ifs" and a sponsor being dead, incapacitated, mother is sick...it even doesn't concern the sponser. They are still doing well and are answering the phones and taking care of customer orders. The problem is this one individual and his nasty smart arse attitude and swearing that was unleashed on the members.

No one is getting revenge. No Webmaster is writing a condemnation letter on him and AP is still a sponser on the PT. He obviously wanted everyone to see is remarks, and that why he himself publicly posted his replies in a forum for all to see.

If anything, the sales and tech associate should be on his knees thanking the moderators for pulling his trashy ranting. That thread was heading nowhere but to be a free for all melee. Editing his posts is a huge favor.

And of course in the end...he has completely authority over his posts. All he has to do is delete them.

 

[Error]

Heh, I can't complain about the price of Eco-complete

$9.99 a bag plus something like $23 shipping? Heck, that's three bags for LESS than the price of two from the LFS. Damn good deal, even if you're not changing substrates or setting up a new tank. I'm going to keep mine around for when I do

 

[JanS]

Yup, I still think it was one heck of a deal. I've never seen the Eco-complete for such a low price and my shipping only came out around $18 for 3 bags plus all the other stuff.
I have no qualms with Milwaukee regulators either (I've had very good luck with them), so I was happy to get the deal.

I do avoid ordering from places with poor service (and have done so with some I won't name), but by the time I ordered it showed just what I was getting, so I had no experience with what some of you are unhappy with and no reason to cancel my order.

 

[ShaneSmith]

I will say one thing. He cant be making much more than a dollar a bag.... If that. That is the best deal you will ever hear of on that.

 

[Robert Hudson]

My guess would be he is selling stuff at cost or below cost to get rid of stuff that he has not been able to sell. He even admits that it is at cost and he is not making any money at it.

I am no friend of his by any stretch, but I feel sorry for them. They made an honest mistake and agreed to refund anybodys money that wanted it. It is unfortunet that it got ugly and all parties couldn't just let it rest at that point instead of getting ugly.

They must have deleted all the swearing, because reading what is up there now, it really doesn't sound all that unreasonable on the vendor in question. People kept telling him he should make good on the offer, but seemed to miss the point that they did not have any JBJs in stock to make the offer good... oh well, I am just glad it is not me people are mad at! :shock:

 

[gnatster]

In deference to our friends on another forum this conversation is now over.

Thanks