What can be done to save Bond and Beyond from the doldrums?

This is the thread for this discussion....

I have no idea. But after popping in after like a year, my heart hurts. Where's my man CJB? Where's Sharky at? Control? This is some depressing shit.

Sharky pops in occasionally; he did recently at least. The others? I have no idea. The site feels abandoned sadly.

Forgotten username and password, been a bit of a time. Back momentarily just for this.

It's you, Brian.

In part, anyway.

Umpteen usernames in which you oil up to us, insult us, become enraged, slag off other sites, slag off this site (here and elsewhere), post abstract rubbish threads that will never lead anywhere instead of simply writing this bloody articles of yours, rage, calm, calm, rage, another nine usernames, some more slagging us off, another half-dozen proposals for "blog papers" that will never end up written, crawling to us, slagging us off, fishing for compliments for unwritten material, thin rubbish as and when it does materialise every two years, rage, slagging us off, back as another username and crawling to us. You're still here in several dozen previous guises in which you're either fishing for comment for your thin blog, sucking up or insulting us. Why would you think anyone would want to take part?

Would you want to converse with you?

I think that's the usual pattern.

You are not part of the solution. Your enrolment here coincides with the downturn and with you gone, people may feel more comfortable in returning unchallenged by someone patently out of their fucking mind.

Just go. It can't be any worse.

Yes, I get the message finally. Much of what you say is undoubtedly true, though I have no malice against this site. Coming back here again was a mistake. I'll stick to the other sites I contribute to where debate is not such an issue. I will leave never to return and I hope the site revives with me gone. This is the only account here that I now use; you will have to take my word for that.

On my writing or the lack of it, a little quote for you:

"The minute you think you have the right to belittle others because you think you're better than them is the same minute you've proven you're worse." - Joanne Crisner Alcayaga.

Gone.

Now let the inevitable site revival begin...

Excuse scepticism that this latest withdrawal won't last.

Flush wrote:

Excuse scepticism that this latest withdrawal won't last.

You're of course allowed to be sceptical given my past record but this time I happen to mean it. I've had enough of negativity on this forum in particular and of forums in general and I think a long break is in order. Sorry again that we did not ever really hit it off and I'm glad to see you're returned and I wish you all the best in getting the place going again like I know you can. You have my word of honour that I shall not return here in any way, shape or form. Time will tell the truth of these words.

Okay, what the fuck. Who the hell is Brian? I'm getting a big baddie vibe from him. Boy did I miss out on some shit.

He's nobody that matters here any more.

Just a tad dramatic.

But somebody who lasted a whole half day before reappearing - yet a-fucking-gain.

Bond and Beyond was a dynamic soap opera fuelled by several opposing factions. These included:

1.   Harmsway, who wanted faith-based discussion of Bond and the arts, and felt uncomfortable with any hint of sex and violence.

2.     Bitchcraft and Ravenstone, who felt uncomfortable without any hint of sex and violence.

3.     Perilagu Khan, Gravity's Silhouette and J7Wild, who believed the West to be endangered and viewed BaBs as the best place to man the barricades.

4.     Largo's Shark, a manic-depressive with a boycrush on Brian McKaig. Brian is the guy who opened this thread and seems to be a pathological neuroticist. Inexplicably, BaB's management refused to ban him.

Like all good stories, this one has a few twists. The first is that Largo became forum administrator and banned or drove away every member who opposed his inexplicable love for Brian. (The two of them then spent the next six months asking each other,  "Where's everybody gone?", which was sad, but a little bit funny, too.) The second is that all the members mentioned have left or been banned except for Brian, who is now the boy on the burning deck.  Who'd have funk it?

You've got to ask yourself what sort of creature is capable of destroying something without even noticing. File under 'You Couldn't Make It Up' or 'Cautionary Tales'...

And me who clings like a bad smell.

Good to see you Toppers whatever the circumstances in this thread.

I'm sort of here. Wish it was more active cause I've liked it for the most part.

We did alright for a while then the ship hit an iceberg.

To the 2011 Backbench Committee of Bond and Beyond (BaB):

Care of John Major in 1995 my parting words of advice for the leadership and grass-roots membership of this forum community:



Much falsity has been written here about myself and Largo's Shark - he did in fact (wisely) ban me - there was no "boy crush" as Flush (who he?) puts it of any kind.

But now to the future: you people here really need to stop nattering on about Brian (me) and the past. Look to the future instead! You need to get your own house in order and stop blaming outsiders from the abject failure of this site controlled as it is by the bitter dregs who left MI6 in March 2011 and who came here to vent spleen rather than set up their own community. So much poison in the air seems to have rather poisoned the membership here; that is so often the outcome when hate is internalised. In this case, it has led to the utter destruction of this forum which had such high hopes for itself a little over three years ago when dissatisfied former members of KTBEU believed they could create a new forum community to rival "MI6 Communism" or "nuMI6".

That MI6 Community is going from strength to strength and this place, BaB, is dead in the water now pleases me no end as at your hands I have suffered from a campaign of malice, spite and general personalised attack and bizarre character assassination from those woefully ill-informed not seen on any other site I have been a member on. I even had a nutjob called "British Vulture" follow me around on this and other forums posting "thin rubbish" to see if he could get a response from me and trying to end my career on those sites as well (he's succeeded). I have no doubt that he is a member of this forum.

All of this adversity has caused me to urgently reassess what I am doing here and on any other Bond sites and I thus decided to end all participation in these types of Bond sites as they are a waste of time that could be spent doing better things without all of the abuse attached. I am no longer prepared to be your scape goat - look inwardly at yourselves and see if someone who cannot even remember their password should tell the rest of you what to do with this site and who to ban or whatever.

And with that, a final goodbye; never to return.

High Trees,

Friday 8 August 2014, 8.05 pm GMT.

Ubend wrote:

Bond and Beyond was a dynamic soap opera fuelled by several opposing factions. These included:

1.   Harmsway, who wanted faith-based discussion of Bond and the arts, and felt uncomfortable with any hint of sex and violence.

2.     Bitchcraft and Ravenstone, who felt uncomfortable without any hint of sex and violence.

3.     Perilagu Khan, Gravity's Silhouette and J7Wild, who believed the West to be endangered and viewed BaBs as the best place to man the barricades.

4.     Largo's Shark, a manic-depressive with a boycrush on Brian McKaig. Brian is the guy who opened this thread and seems to be a pathological neuroticist. Inexplicably, BaB's management refused to ban him.

Like all good stories, this one has a few twists. The first is that Largo became forum administrator and banned or drove away every member who opposed his inexplicable love for Brian. (The two of them then spent the next six months asking each other,  "Where's everybody gone?", which was sad, but a little bit funny, too.) The second is that all the members mentioned have left or been banned except for Brian, who is now the boy on the burning deck.  Who'd have funk it?

You've got to ask yourself what sort of creature is capable of destroying something without even noticing. File under 'You Couldn't Make It Up' or 'Cautionary Tales'...

Ambler,

Brian McKaig is unbannable, you know this. He'll write a big speech about leaving 'never to written' and he'll be back under a new username in a month. The minute I heard Forumotion couldn't deal out ISP beans, I knew we were fucked. I can't fucking stand Brian, but I try to be diplomatic and polite, probably to a fault. As you know, it goes against my nature. I'm a live wire, as you said yourself.

Curious that you haven't bothered to mention M, Lazenby., timmer or yourself. Selective memory?  

FWIW, I abandoned Bond and Beyond in December/January-- JWFan is my current haunt. I knew exactly what happened here, and that I was partly responsible.

If you want to know more, PM me.

 

High Trees wrote:

To the 2011 Backbench Committee of Bond and Beyond (BaB):

Much falsity has been written here about myself and Largo's Shark - he did in fact (wisely) ban me - there was no "boy crush" as Flush (who he?) puts it of any kind.

And with that, a final goodbye; never to return.

High Trees,

Friday 8 August 2014, 8.05 pm GMT.

Much falsity. I didn't say that. Still, same level of accuracy as the "blog", were anything ever on it

As for the final goodbye - see you in two weeks, then. Three if we're especially lucky.

"Fuck off", he hinted.

Ubend wrote:

3.     Perilagu Khan, Gravity's Silhouette and J7Wild, who believed the West to be endangered and viewed BaBs as the best place to man the barricades.

I wouldn't include J7Wild in my "faction", though I had no problem with him.

Even if I believed "the West to be endangered", my thoughts were always posted in the correct non-Bond threads. No one was forced to read what I wrote, but ultimately people were forced not to read what I was writing because an intellectual purge was afoot.

Driving away people who were both long-time, core-Bond fans and good conversation starters accomplished exactly what? Did that guy who complained about racism in the forums ever come back? Once the leadership of BABs had gotten rid of everyone they didn't agree with socially or politically, did they discover that they then had nothing left to talk about?

The irony, of course, being that this website became everything, if not more, that the principles all detested about CommanderBond or MI6. If took a lot of effort to make those sites look like the preferable option, but it worked, and now you've got people over there (not me; I never went back to either one) who at one time would have rather slashed their wrists than ever post over there again, but....ummmm...yeah, that's where it stands.

I guess the upside (if there is any) is that BOND 24 is working its way back into the news again, and with it, people searching for websites and discussion on James Bond. It gives BAB another chance to rise from the ashes; however, based upon the fact that the same moderating team appears to be in place, the same administrator in place, and the absolutely dreadful, tacky design of the site (that would make Stevie Wonder glad to be blind),I'm not sure if any of that will matter.

I tend to agree that the design of this site isn´t all that inviting. A simple list with all discussions in one place for instance (beside the option to see different categories) seems to help keeping things alive and busy.
As for the rest, I´d say some decent discussions could help.

I'd like to be demoted. The only thing I've used my mod powers on in the last couple do months is banning Brian McKaig's dupe accounts. The title is meaningless, sadly. Laz: click the button.

I'm fully repentant for my general idiocy as both moderator and administrator. I apologise to M, Lazenby. and my fellow mods, past and present. I hope I can have your forgiveness.

I'd be willing to give BaB one more chance if Gravity is. I know we had a falling out last year over j7gate/Modgate and have political differences, but I have respect for him as a poster and an iconoclast. As the quote goes 'the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.'

boldfinger wrote:

I tend to agree that the design of this site isn´t all that inviting. A simple list with all discussions in one place for instance (beside the option to see different categories) seems to help keeping things alive and busy.
As for the rest, I´d say some decent discussions could help.

I never thought the site needed fixing or upgrading to begin with. I liked the original layout. I was a person who thought what we had was fine, both in terms of posters and the appearance of the site. But somewhere along the way it became necessary to have a recruitment drive; to try and get more people (or the "right kind" of people). All manner of gimmicks and proposals have been put forth, but the more changes that were instituted, the fewer people that kept posting.

When whomever is running this thing finally decides that constantly reorganizing the topics, the appearance, and purging the forum of politically incorrect posters has not worked in the best interest of BAB, then perhaps this place might come back alive.

Incidentally, pea-green is never, ever a good color for a website/message board. Every professional business person will tell you never to wear green on a business interview; same should be said for a message board. No offense to whomever put this together, but it looks like something Linda Blair would have spit up. Was there nothing that remotely looked like The Union Jack or those colors that could have been used?

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

I never thought the site needed fixing or upgrading to begin with. I liked the original layout. I was a person who thought what we had was fine, both in terms of posters and the appearance of the site. But somewhere along the way it became necessary to have a recruitment drive; to try and get more people (or the "right kind" of people). All manner of gimmicks and proposals have been put forth, but the more changes that were instituted, the fewer people that kept posting.

I was a long time member of KTBEU. After the split, I never knew about this site until I got a formal invitation some time ago. That I found courteous and intriguing, and when I visited here I was happy to see so many old names again. I never saw any reason to take sides for one or the other forum, and I still don´t do. But for some reason I didn´t come here everyday, and the way one has to find his way through the categories was tedious. I know, it wasn´t much different on KTBEU, so probably it´s also a matter of getting used to it. But still, having the option of seeing a simple list with all discussion threads, ordered by most recent entry, is very practical in comparison.
I wasn´t here for some months, so I seem to have passed on what appear to be personal issues between certain members. Judging by what kind of kindergarten goes on sometimes on MI6, I can´t believe such a thing is gong to kill a forum.
Was there ever the thought of giving the appearance of the site more of a tagline or concentration on one topic, for instance James Bond? As it is, the design of the site gives a bit the impression of an elite club. Which is fine of course. But it also makes it difficult to attract a lot of people.

The current layout looks like it's a default skin for a FIFA World Cup forum, with the Jules Rimet trophy plastered all over the place, the dedicated subforum, and a green/yellow colour scheme to match the Brazilian flag. I get that Laz wanted to bring in cross-interest from football fans. The problem is doing all that for a tournament that lasts one month, when you take into account that barely f all is posted here these days.

Something permanent and non-fugly is needed.