The truth is my defense. The broken links, the dropped threads, the members who have gone silent, the incredibly low number of daily posts is a testament to the fact that a disaster hit this forum in June, and almost everyone who was aware of it has left already, many voluntarily, and many involuntarily, and have re-assembled elsewhere. The paper guys went one place, the train guys another. It was sad for me to see. The only slight satisfaction is that the owners' heavy-handed tactics have backfired.
http://www.quantcast.com/zealot.com
I saw people get banned for posting links. I saw others banned for defending them. I saw Sanjay totally lose his cool in a profanity-laced post, now conveniently erased, and another in which he quoted federal code and threatened former admins with prosecution. I was banned twice, and so far as I can tell, my offense was in my private messages. I have therefore come to believe that private messages here are no longer private.
This is not a good place anymore, and the restrictions keep ratcheting up (new members required to post 15 times before PM privileges, etc.) I grant you, Maico had dropped the snarky, sneering attitude he came here with, has stopped ordering new members to use google rather than ask questions of members, and is starting to be nice to creative types who might actually donate something to the downloads, where it will be Crowdgather property in perpetuity. Because everything else has failed. He chastised people for posting unsolicited links; now he's doing it himself, acting like one of the guys, giving us the link to Clever Santoro. It's kind of funny. But the rule hasn't changed, and it's a hammer waiting to be brought down on your heads. (Also kind of funny, is to go over to Motorcyclists United, and ask some of those guys about Maico. Oh, they'll talk your ear off.)
So, if you like it here, there's no disputing with taste. But why you call me a troll, I don't quite get.