I'll fix the site.

[-DeToX-]

Indeed. Also I don't know why we're paying for something he broke. Or his efforts. I can understand one server, but the rest is just ridiculous. Can I get payed for my time too? =/

Regardless, cheers, I'm happy SourceGuy is kind enough to collaborate in the least.. Let's hope for the best.

[Aumaan Anubis]

greedy whore...

[Trulife8342]

I'm sure members would be willing to help you pay what ever value of the site is. I wouldn't have a problem once money starts rolling in and I clear a few more debts I have. But I would definitely help.

[DeadHamster]

I'd offer to donate money if there was an easy way to. I can't get a paypal and have no other real means other then mailing it to you.

[-DeToX-]

I'd help out aswell.. so long I know for fact that Iron_Forge get's the site back for sure..

I'd also buy him more Wii points in addition.

[SamPH]

Thank fuck.

[Iron_Forge]

I'd offer to donate money if there was an easy way to. I can't get a paypal and have no other real means other then mailing it to you.

You could always buy a Wii card then IM me the code!..

[RaVNzCRoFT]

Rescue.

[SHOUTrvb]

Thank fuck.

And the "whore" comments could lay off a bit. Despite what you guys think of SourceGuy in regards to his action toward this site, he's still a good guy and long-standing member of the community. I find it odd that some of you would mock him even after he's agreed to give into demands.

[Tural]

I find it odd that some of you would mock him even after he's agreed to give into demands.

He's charging money for effort he put in, even though he should have been doing it because he cared about the site an community, he shouldn't be monetizing it.

[Danke]

I find it odd that some of you would mock him even after he's agreed to give into demands.

He's charging money for effort he put in, even though he should have been doing it because he cared about the site an community, he shouldn't be monetizing it.

Considering he did it and then everyone basically said "fuck you, give it to I_F," I can understand why he's charging for it. Especially when he could just fuck all of us and take his servers and go.

Course, I've put alot of effort into the site over the years too, but that was out of the kindness of my heart for the community, not because I'm a greedy whore...

That being said, the site is as good as mine, as long as I'm willing to compensate SourceGuy for the two servers he purchased (including the one he broke), and his efforts thus far...He's going to sleep on it to come up with a value for that...

And I'm sure calling the person selling you halomods "a greedy whore" is going to facilitate the transfer.

[Tural]

Considering he did it and then everyone basically said "fuck you, give it to I_F," I can understand why he's charging for it. Especially when he could just fuck all of us and take his servers and go.

The community wasn't advised or given any warning of changes, nor were they asked for input, nor was their opposing input listened to. The community was shut out of everything, it's not as though they don't have a reason to be upset with the effort.

[shadowkhas]

Good to see this happening.

[ScottyGEE]

I haven't been in these threads too much because I didn't really think anything I would say would be considered valid (rather, just filler) - I also didn't want to take sides, even with all the revelations (Its not that I "dont truly give a shit about the site" as Detox suggested).

Moving on from that, I lean forward in my seat in anticipation of what may or may not happen regarding this site and its community, hopefully I can somehow help in things.

Also, thank you for updating us Iron_Forge. Hopefully you will continue to do so.

[grimdoomer]

Can we get rid of the Pokemon emblems too? It makes us look like a bunch of jackasses.

[kibito87]

dont truly give a shit about the site.

Think about what you just said. What if I had no good input in this thread? I personally have been watching this thread quite often to see what other's are saying and to see how this will come to a conclusion. I love how everybody flips out on Source for what he's done and yet missed the big picture where he's kept the forums alive. I'm not here to argue with anybody nor defend Source but your statement irritates me because not everyone needs to just post in this thread to show support and what not. If it were that way, we would have a shit ton of spam and not so many posts that actually mean something. If you would rather everybody just post to show they care, then ok. Be prepared for lots of worthless crap.

If you look at it, you wouldn't have this place to even be bitching about him or what he's done. So nice going.

I'm all for Iron_Forge getting the site and fixing it up and in a sense going back to the way things were. I'd love to see it. I just want to see a calm conclusion that doesn't include everybody picking sides and shutting others out. Don't be difficult, just forgive and forget. The piont of this is to better the community, not tear it down the middle.

Let's fix halomods. Not point fingers and get all pissy with each other. Mistakes have been made, they are in the process of being fixed...Let's appreciate the fact that somebody actually cares enough about this community to put so many resources into it. That doesn't include just money or one/a select group of people...

I_F, thank you for offering your own money time and effort into halomods. I personally appreciate it for the fact that I do enjoy this site and visiting it from time to time. So THANK YOU. Source, THANK YOU for trying and for allowing us to enjoy our community that much more...Even if many were complaining about things.

I do realize where everybody comes from in this situation. It's become kind of difficult to get all my thoughts out and keep them in any recognizable format. If you read all this and see where I come from, then I thank you as well.

Let halomods live on!

[SamPH]

Thank fuck.

And the "whore" comments could lay off a bit. Despite what you guys think of SourceGuy in regards to his action toward this site, he's still a good guy and long-standing member of the community. I find it odd that some of you would mock him even after he's agreed to give into demands.

Demanding money is not giving into demands. Its money he wasted himself - not something that should be repayed by someone trying to fix this rediculous mess.

[SHOUTrvb]

The only reason SourceGuy got this site was because of the servers he bought. It wasn't money wasted, he bought servers more powerful than the ones HaloMods even originally had and improved site speeds. The first part of your post is entirely irrelevant, and the second part is bias. Plus, you're arguing points that aren't even in this discussion. SourceGuy had his own ideas for the site.. He made some decisions that even I feel greatly hurt the site, but the simple fact of the matter is that he was within his rights to do so.. He put in a vast undisclosed to public amount of money into taking over the site, so he felt that he had the right to do things his way and make some profit. However, as we're seeing now, people simply aren't willing to put up with the extreme changes, and there's no benefit to be had for him. So the next part is Iron_Forge coming in and offering to take responsibility for the site and simply return things to normal by reverting back to the old philosophy that the Community will keep this place strong if they're kept happy. From a business point of view, the only profit this site has ever really turned has been based on that philosophy.

Also:

I've been a member here since halo modding consisted of swaping offsets in a hex editor in Halo 1 on the Xbox. I've watched this community grow and wage war against itself. I've seen the poor attitude of some staff members drive away what could have been a great member base. This new direction is what Halo Mods needs to stay alive. Gren didn't have the time to run the site himself and the team that handled the transistion of have done exellently.

If you don't like whats happening you can leave - no one is forcing you to stay. Whats with all the sigs questioning whether this is Halo Mods ? What do you hope they will achieve ?

Either grow up and contribute or leave and don't look back.

Congratulations, you're a hypocrite.

[Geo]

It's in my opinion that if Iron_Forge really cared about the community that passionately, he wouldn't be demanding ownership of the site to 'fix it'. Instead, you'd go ahead and do it anyway.

I've noticed the general consensus is that the administration is bad. Not to stab SG in the back, but I really feel I don't belong in this 'bad administration' you've (the community) worked up.

So just to clear my name of nay alleged wrong doings, here's a few facts about what I've done as administrator, and advisor to SG.

Pre Upgrade:

• I strongly disagreed with the upgrade to PHPBB3. I pushed for the upgrade to not happen. Whilst I disagreed with the upgrade, after, I didn't see it as much or a problem as I soon got used to it
• Emblems were to be abolished. I intervened and recommended they get kept, and said only upgrade to BB3 if we can keep the emblem system.
• Suggested we have regular community events, such as themed stylesheet and logo contests, for different events/holidays and seasons. This was accepted, I'm just illustrating a point whereby I was aiming for community interaction.

Post Upgrade

• Have moaned and moaned about the ads, asking for them to be removed, to no avail.
• Had Veegie, and several others bans lifted.
• Have intervened when other members of high significance to the community have been considered to be banned. Namely, Tural and a couple of others.
• Recommended the ability for users to have multiple style sheets, so they can choose from within their profiles. My recommendation was declined.
• I held a logo design contest, to allow you, the community to vote for which logo you'd like to see, as the existing one wasn't making people happy.
• Argued against the strict IRC rules on #halomods.
• Recommend we replace the BB3 icons with the BB2, saving users from having to use Stylish.

A few bits and pieces I recorded fixing, or sorting:

• 25/01/09 - Background colour of every other post, darker, easier on eyes
• 26/01/09 - Fixed ranks, non staff are now registered users, don't have their old staff rank
• 26/01/09 - Used darker new topic icon
• 27/01/09 - Increased max nested quotes from 3-10
• 28/01/09 - Incoproated max sig image width and height, now users cannot break the signature dimension rules.
• 28/01/09 - Cleaned all the old sticky's and announcements from the staff forum, was cluttered with outdated rules and irrelevant crap, to be frank.
• 29/01/09 - Staff now have permissions to post stickies. Was lost during the upgrade.
• 29/01/09 - Posting of flash is allowed in the GFX forum. On a provisional basis. If misused, I will revoke it.
• 06/02/09 - Re-ordered Halo PC category.
• 07/02/09 - Cleaned up the recycle bin.
• 10/02/09 - Fixed Attachment Quota Error
• 10/02/09 - Fixed permissions, users were able to post stickies in some forums.
• 02/03/09 - Purged around 15,000 users.
• 03/03/09 - Purged a further 10,000 or so users.
• 17/03/09 - Demoted five of the nine staff members.
• 18/03/09 - SG Removed word censor, on provisional basis.
• 18/03/09 - Incorporated Numerical's logo onto the forums. Winner of logo contest.

So I just think you should consider these facts before including me in this 'terrible administration' you're all concerned about. SG will vouch for most of this, I'm not lying. My main aim was to bridge the gap between the community, and SourceGuy... because he knows as well as I, that he's not too familiar with the community and how things work around here.

So, if anyone has any real complaints against any of my actions, bring them up, with examples, and be specific. Because I'm sick and tired of being branded something I'm not, when I've done nothing but try to keep you guys happy. Just because my proposals didn't happen, that's not to say I didn't try.

My Proposal:
I've also offered a proposal, whereby I host the website on one of my servers, which are professional servers on at least gigabit lines, I'd let Iron_Forge be admin, and to essentially run the site, whilst only having one advert at the top/bottom of the page, which would fund SG until he's repaid the money he's put into the site. From the point where it's paid off his costs, I would entirely remove ads altogether. Running the site ad-free, on a server with 99.9% up time. The only way this can happen, is if SourceGuy agrees to let me host the site, remove all the ads but the main one at the top or bottom, he gets all the revenue from the ads (which is entirely reasonable, seeing as the time and effort he put into this site) and I_F would also have to agree to run the site, without owning it. It would basically be a similar situation to before the upgrade, I'd essentially be acting as Gren, in owning the site and hosting it, but I wouldn't be running it... I_F would be. I don't know about you guys, but this seems like a win-win situation. SG hasn't gotta worry about anything, he just rakes in the revenue and pays off the money/effort he put into the site, I_F gets to run the place without buying the site, and you guys all get what you want.

[JacksonCougAr]

The current management has had strong opposition to certain ideas that have been implemented to the site, despite the opposition from active community members; the current administration seems unable to reply to complaint threads, or to take action over them. If I_F simply fixed the current bugs it would be a bandage, not a permanent fix. The problems arose because of the current administration, and so long as it retains control over the site, more things may be changed or damaged beyond what has already been done. In my view the current administration itself is the root of the problem and is what needs to be fixed.

$0.02