I haven't been on the forum today before now as there has been a family bereavement. .. now when I come on here I feel almost as though there has been a second one....
We have lost some very good members over something which this forum is not and should not be held responsible for.
I personally have bought products from UKES in the past, but due to their current practices and the way this auction has been held I have to say that I will never do so again. We have many good vendors that have not acted in this callous, cynical and profiteering way and they will get my business every time over a company that I find has acted in a morally dubious way.
I think the moderator team has been put in a very difficult position here. Whereby whatever they had decided to do would have been percieved as wrong by many on the forum and I support them with the very difficult decisions that they have made in regards to this matter.
If they took a step towards banning any member whose behaviour off forum was less than we as a community could and even should expect of them, regardless of them actually breaking the on forum rules... then we could no longer hold this place as a free forum. .. in effect it would become a closed forum dictatorship where anyone else could be banned for no reason whatsoever. .. for example @
ZT could ban me for getting very drunk whenever we have a Nottingham vape meet. .. (please don't by the way). This in my opinion would make this forum a much lesser place for all of it's members. ... (I mean arbitrary banning without rulebreaking generally not if it was done in my specific case)...
I have met many people on here who I like and greatly respect.... some of whom have expressed much stronger feeling on this issue than I have done... and I can totally understand why people feel that UKES should not be present on this forum... but this is why I feel that the moderator team themselves have acted correctly in not banning them. If UKES however wish to do the right thing, it is up to them to rectify this. ..and probably that means them apolosing and as I see it leaving the forum at least for the present whilst everyone is feeling so upset by this.... and that we vote with our wallets as to what we find acceptable or unacceptable practice.
As an optimist I hope that UKES will learn from this and hopefully in time can win back the trust of the community by behaving in a way that doesn't run contrary to the unspoken rules of not profiteering simply for the sake of profits. .. whether that will happen only time will tell...
People on both sides of this issue, please can we have less of the fighting over this... we have always been a diverse and welcoming forum with a lot of great people here... some of whom see this issue very differently to each other, but it is often those very differences that are our strength as a community. I have like many others I am sure been more than a little upset by the way this has degenerated into a slanging match between members who have differing opinions on this issue.... all of you, whether you have posted only once or many thousands of times have something that you can bring to this forum. .. can we please get back to that now and leave this horrible situation behind us....
Sorry for the long and rambling post... hugs to all of you... let's keep this forum as the best place it can be for ALL of our members. ...lots of hugs... from a strange and alien being....
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Planet of the Vapes mobile app
