Considering the past history of this poster on this very forum, the irony of this post is too deep to ignore.

The personal attacks, no matter who they come from, have no place here. If somebody does them on a regular basis, then it's only reasonable that corrective action be taken.

I'm no lawyer, haven't even watched Perry Mason in the last 40 years, so maybe attacking your adversary and undermining their credibility has a place in the courtroom. I do know that it doesn't have a place here.

First of all, nobody should be seen as an "adversary". You can disagree with somebody without attacking them personally. We should be cooperating and working together, not having verbal urinary Olympics. Trolling does nothing but amuse the troll and annoy everyone else. No, people do not admire your witty remarks when you do that.

Even if the person is undeniably wrong, stick to the topic at hand. You can just as easily say "Well, I don't agree, and here's why..." Nothing wrong with saying "Due to my experience as an attorney, I have a depth of understanding that most folks might not have". Leave your perception of the other persons knowledge and ability out of it.

Keep it civil, keep it professional, keep personal attacks out of it.

Controversy or cooperation? Which do you prefer?

And yet another poster called him a "jerk" in defense of "civility"? Is that poster "banned for life"?

Now I have to ask, what "principles" do we defend? As best I can tell:

1.) "There's no such thing" as a bad idea."

Wrong: There's lots of bad ideas out there. Some years ago, Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote in The Black Swan (I believe) that the miracle of markets isn't that they reward success, but that they punish failure. Unfortunately, this isn't the the industry that has a revolving door between Wall Street and K Street. We aren't going to get grants in the hundreds of millions despite having a "going concern" qualification on our audits and there enough failed and abandoned things to merit some introspection.

The simple fact is that in "railroad preservation"; there are an awful lot of failures and that calls for swift dismissal of bad ideas.

Sometimes, the proof will be in the pudding. Jason and Nick got further on the 503 effort than some of us thought they might, we now know crowdfunding might be useful in (another exigent) situation. Whether or not the 5550 ultimately raises enough money and overcomes technical challenges is a matter of empirical proof, even though so far, so good. What is NOT happening in either cases is failing to seek or accept relevant professional advice. ITM would have benefitted a long time ago if they would have had (better) contract advice.

Note: innovation is not going off half-cocked against sound professional advice or mindless of the risks and uncertainty, because you've serenaded yourself into believing that your own specious reasoning is bullet-proof analysis.


2.) "Sincerity Counts for Everything."

Wrong. Rectitude counts for everything. The fact that you "think" it is a good idea to try to save everything, only means that you will trade the scrapper for rust. I'm hoping we know that now. The biggest problem in this avocation is "assymetry" in that there is disproportionate deep interest in capital intense obsolescent equipment by a small group of people interested in its preservation, and a general public (the people with the money) that have only a passing interest that is only stoked periodically by the little blue engine or the one with the number that matches a Holiday.


3.) Everybody Should Have an Equal Voice.

Wrong. You don't want me anywhere near the calculations for a Form 4. I'm not an engineer, I have only a rudimentary knowledge of physics and I know nothing about metallurgy, even though I have an interest in it. Likewise, i don't interpret contracts.
Credentials count. If you tell me that one of those fancy exhausts will raise your locomotive's horsepower enough to sell an additional 60 tickets a trip, I can do a financial analysis, but only after you do the engineering.

4.) Feelings, ohh ohh Feelings. Nobody's "Feelings" Should Be Hurt.

Don't personalize your cooking, and nobody will tell you your gourmet effort is a hot mess. Enough Mr. Rogers, more Gordon Ramsey.

If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

I'll happily volunteer to help moderate this forum if someone will set up the appropriate credentials and permissions for me. I encourage others, including perhaps those who have undertaken the task in the past and given up in despair, to get official mod status as well.

It's well worth the chance we can collectively improve this situation, whether or not we can do so quickly or expeditiously to begin with.

Exactly!!!


It's a real world out there, and despite the demands from certain quarters of society for "safe space", there are ZERO guarantees that no matter how carefully you write a post, some "sensitive" individual will not take great offense at 1% of what you write, and complain to the moderators. Likewise, there are also ZERO guarantees that you will not take offense at some portion of someone else's posting.

This forum is NOT your "safe space", but on the other side, no one is here to directly upset your sensitive feelings!

Realize that being corrected if you are wrong is NOT a "personal attack", no matter how badly the words that offended you lack any sort of sugar coating to ease the pain of your incorrect assumptions or statements.

If you cannot accept these simple facts, this forum, and possibly most "non-institutional space", may not be the right place for you.


Disregard the 1% of the post that aggravates your feelings, and learn from the other 99%.....In other words, do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.


Jeff

Since xboxtravis, who is a good friend of mine and is, in fact, fairly successful as a preservation consultant, has been requested to provide the "evidence" of his claims, I will defend him, as Mr. Wilkin's primary victim. Not everything goes on on RYPN. Most of what was mentioned occurred either in private messages, on private facebook groups, or in person.

Over the past year Mr. Wilkins has attacked me personally, sending crude private messages and publicly slandering my name among the railfan, model railroading and preservation communities. This has led to many volunteer opportunities being slammed in my face due to his, as others have said, vitriol.

I stand as witness that he is of no worth to this community. The quality of his legal council be what it is, as a lawyer, he has time and time again overstepped the bounds of conduct and has attempted to ruin people's lives both publicly and privately.

And all of this over damn trains, too. What a hobby this is.

Post Removed by Moderator due to personal attack.

This amazing. Two posters are using the ban of a former poster to make scurrilous and vitriolic allegations that might be libel and reference things that did not occur here-but cannot be cross-examined or responded to because the respondent can't answer. Nothing said poster has posted here is this bad.

I find it somewhat fascinating that somebody claims that the individual in question has this enormous power to block so many doors.

Where the hell is the "moderation"?

Mr. Wilkins was not banned for a single comment or even a couple of posts. He was banned as the final result of a long series of infractions that have taken place over a long time period, dating back to well before I came on as moderator.

I had sent Mr. Wilkins a Board Warning a month ago about a complaint. Then the other night after receiving another complaint I sent a second warning. Instead of receiving a reply asking what the problem was and how he could make amends, Instead I am treated to a barrage of personal attacks. It was at that point that I felt that this issue would not improve as long as Mr. Wilkins was on this forum. I did not plan to ban him. He basically banned himself through his actions.

The internet in 2018 is a cess pool of people constantly at everyone's throats. Facebook has become a mess. Twitter is beyond hope. But here on this forum we do not have to go down that road. We would like to see this forum become a place where civil respectful conversations can take place. Those conversations can be heated at times, but at the end everyone should walk away from their computers not feeling as if they had been personally attacked. And everyone can be forgiven if from time to time they slip up and make a personal attack. It happens to everyone regardless of how much they try not to. Lets face it. We get passionate about this stuff. But what attracts my attention are not the occasional slip ups but repeated blatant attacks and a belligerent attitude when called out on it.

We all have the ability to communicate our feelings and positions without making it personal. Develop the ability to be tactful. There is a quote that is attributed to Winston Churchill, "Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip."

The rest of the Internet may be descending into the depths of a cess pool, but this forum will not be following along. If you feel like taking out your frustrations as a keyboard warrior, take it to Twitter, Facebook and other forums. Here we are going to take a different route.

Scurrilous? Vitriolic allegations? Libel?
Are these the things you say to a rape victim?
I, as a victim of said "respondent," can only tell you what I know and have experienced first hand. You, on the other hand, dismiss my suffering (because yes, it has been a year of emotional and mental stress never knowing when or where he would pop up with another patently libelous claim against myself.

Oh, he has said things here that are just as bad. They were just deleted by the moderators.

Your defense of this man, at the expense and shame of his victims, is as despicable as his own behavior.

The moderator actually has productive things to do rather than sit around babysitting everyone.

While many of you were engaged in this behavior the moderator was painting a bay window caboose and a Davenport 20 tonner. I can't even take a shower yet because I have to sit here sticky with paint dealing with all of this nonsense!

And I have had enough. Any more threads on this subject will be deleted. Any more posts on another thread referring to this subject will be deleted.