by WON » Wednesday 20 October 2004 10:40:42pm
Okay, I think the most important things have been said already, but I will try to explain why all this has happened. It has all started with a misunderstanding, which upset people. Things like that happen, but that wouldn't have had to affect the forum as much as it did. I understand why certain people, not necessary to mention names, felt offended. But still they should have been able to just accept apologies and try to forgive and forget. That did not happen. Instead they decided to pick on certain other members, I myself was one of them, and made the forum a very uncomfortable place for them. Then it came to the de-modding of three very active members, again, I was one of them, for plainly stating their own opinions! I was pretty shocked about this, as I did not expect our admin to resort to such methods. And when we tried to defend ourselves it got even worse. One of the loveliest peoplke on this whole forum was banned, I am of course talking about Barry Trotter, who most of you might remember as an intelligent, considerate and polite person, contributing a lot to the friendliness of the forum. All of you who knew him know that he would have been the last person to insult or harrass someone else, or in any other way behave inappropriately on this forum.
He defended his friends and himself and got banned for that very reason. This is not how people should be treated.
After this i wrote pm's to the admin and another member of the forum (who was very much pushing the argument this far). I didn't expect any constructive replies, but instead I got NONE at all. No reply, not even from Paul, to whom I even apologized again in my pm. Well, this was the final straw for me and I left the forum, not being able to communicate with those people any longer. But I didn't want to give up my old friends and so I decided to register with a new name, so as to avoid confrontation with Paul and the other member I mentioned before. Also, I sent a pretty nasty (but funny) email to the aforesaid member, to let her know what I think of her and got banned for good. Anyways, I signed up with the name wigpidgeon and now and then posted from a different computer, but not having much fun anymore. Long story, but i wanted to explain this to people who only know half or none of the story.
Now it has come to this, i want to tell you that I am very sorry about what happened. I loved this forum so much, it was like a second home for me. I met so many incredibly nice people here and I'm very grateful for that. Everything has been said before, but this makes me really sad, as I have really missed BaO as it used to be and i don't think we'll find a forum quite like it. But I will still have the friends i met here, and that makes it a little easier to say goodbye. To Paul I have to say, you could have prevented all this. We all held you in great esteem and wouldn't have thought it possible that "our" Paul could treat people like this. Through your absence in the past months you have made it even worse and now you see what comes of it. If you think I kinda convinced those members to leave with me, you are wrong. They didn't need any convincing, and they stated their own reasons here. Now, it's time to say goodbye. I will miss this place, I have spent many hours here having fun and meeting great people. It would be great to see some of you guys at the other forum, just email or PM one of us to find out.
Take care all of you, I wish you all the best!
Huggles & kisses for everyone!
. Hope to be in touch with all of you guys!
You are some of the people that I most enjoy talking to here. With you all gone I don't know if it will be woorth staying very long! 
