Changes in the management Several things have been said over the past 24 hours and for transparency's sake, myself and the rest of the staff feel the need to answer some questions. Much of what has happened is the result of a long period filled with disapproval from various people within the DigitalEro staff and others participating on the site. Here's the long and short of it: Gnin and I have elected to remove Rastifan as admin of this site. A shocking decision to several of our newer members, but perhaps less of a surprise to those who've been close to the site. We didn't take this decision lightly and we have several reasons which will be made clear further on in this post. This was no domain hijacking: the domain was transferred away from him two months ago with his full knowledge and consent. Nothing has been stolen and nothing meaningful about DigitalEro will change. Advertisements are not on the table and neither are subscriptions. We are in this for the passion, not money. Rastifan has been unfortunately removed from the admin ranks because of his hostile attitude towards large segments of the community, its members and the staff. Favoritism, poor character judgement It’s no secret that me and Gnin have never really seen eye to eye with Evil Ash. From the first day I got on the team, there was trouble. Our first disagreement was the image backgrounds. The backgrounds were cropped and showed up poorly on large screens. I made this known to him as well as Rastifan and suggested some slight alterations that would help with cropping, scaling and placement. His solution was for me to simply scale up the page in my browser; not fixing the problem, but simply a poor workaround that doesn’t work for new visitors. When I pointed this out to him, he immediately got up on his hind legs, saying that he’d been very lenient with me, threatening me with a ban. Rastifan supported him on this. There’s no particular cause for banning there. He choose to defend his poor implementation, instead of implementing a ready made fix. The naughty machinima and flash bbcodes were also cause for disagreement. As you might remember, at some point the NaughtyMachinima bbcode stopped working. At first for Chrome users, and some Internet Explorer users too. The cause is of course related to mixed scripting in modern browsers. I warned Ash about this before but his solution for me was to just enable unsafe scripts, which defeats the point of running DigitalEro over HTTPS and having an SSL certificate. His argument being that only Chrome had this issue and that I should instead get a good browser. Invalid ofcourse, as this security policy is now also implemented in most other browsers including Firefox. Just one more example of things that really ticked me off. At this point I had already gotten to work on several issues that were eating up a lot of bandwidth, like his half-assed thumbnail feature that prefetched every image on every single page to the server every time it was opened, but did not generate thumbnails. Slowing down image heavy pages and tripling bandwidth usage. As the weeks went on, our exchanges in chat and in the threads also became more and more hostile. Offhand remarks from both of us. But then there were the sound buttons. I had mentioned removing these several times, listing various reasons why they needed to be cut. but Ash was there to block me every step of the way. He even went as far as to make alt-accounts to praise the sound buttons in the announcement thread. This was the thing prompted me to speak my mind to the other admins. Here is that thread: Just one example of a discussion we had. Why Evil-Ash felt the need to disappear and only inform Rastifan, I do not know. I have never heard any specific reason other than personal issues, but if he didn’t want to be part of the community anymore, or just didn’t like working with us he would have probably made that very clear on his departure. But then again, he never did leave and decided to stick around under several alt accounts. Strange behaviour from a site runner. One way communication As a technical admin, I felt that Rastifan constantly ignored the advice I gave him. We were hosted on a shared hosting plan and frequently ran out of bandwidth. Not only that, but the host also had a process limit in place, so when our site hit some heavy traffic, the "Resource Limit Exceeded" warning would pop up for some users. I asked Rastifan various time if he would consider getting a VPS (Virtual Private Server) instead so we would have more headroom and make everything more stable. Rastifan replied, saying that "He would look into it." A couple weeks passed with me poking Rastifan for a VPS whenever we ran out of resources. In February when we had exceeded our allocated amount of bandwidth yet again, I put the issue to Rastifan for the last time, making it clear that a VPS with ample bandwidth would solve our predicament. Unfortunately I was met with indifference. Rastifan didn't seem to grasp that moving the site was not a huge inconvenience and that it would speed up the site. It was also around that time that the constant refreshing of the chatbox resulted in a lot of server stress (essentially DDoS-ing the site) and as a result had to be removed. That's when I started building a custom chat server. I opted to host it on SFMLab's VPS, seeing as I could spare the extra space and traffic. It was meant as a temporary solution until Rastifan provisioned a VPS of his own, but a month later I realized that this was never going to happen. We still constantly hit the resource limit and Rastifan was very happy to bitch about how Gmod had fallen by the wayside and how the SFM community was filled with egotistical pricks. This was over two months ago. At this point it was not my or Gnin's intention to seize the site, but this situation couldn't go on. After informing Rastifan, I put in a transfer request for the domain so I could setup CloudFlare. He did not object to this request and the transfer was completed after a few days. Several days after the Cloudflare setup, we noticed that it had saved us bandwidth, had some minor speed increases but we were still constantly getting resource limit errors, making the site unavailable at times. I spun up a new VPS, moved DigitalEro onto there. The effects were immediatelly felt. Blazing fast load speeds, no more resource limit warnings. This was probably the only improvement where Rastifan showed some kind of gratitude towards the work I had done. Doing what’s right for the community From here I would have liked for our admin situation to pretty much stay the same. Rastifan was tending to the threads doing his thing while I was working on making various improvements and thinking about new features. But the endless wailing about SFM’s userbase continued. His interest in the site was fading and he made sure to tell everyone. Naturally, he wanted someone to blame, even if it was his own fault, but that’s what Rastifan is and has always been. Daily complaining in chat. It finally turned into a loathe against those who used SFM. Only because he didn’t want to invest his time in learning the basics of SFM. He often questioned the quality in other people’s work and paraded around his own poses and said:” I can do much better with Gmod”. A couple of weeks ago Rastifan told me that he wanted to put ads on the site so he could at least profit from DE; a community for a platform (SFM) he did not feel at home in. This was completely the opposite of what he always said previously. "I'd rather close the site than get ads!", does someone who cares for his members say anything like that?! Online advertisements are a tough issue, especially for me. I’m not opposed to the site paying for itself, but I’m also a fervent ad-block user and I’m aware that many external advertisers can be unreliable and often serve malware. They server tracking cookies which breach our user’s privacy. If there was ever a need for site funding, I’d rather offer people an alternative like donations or subscriptions. That’s another thing that should be mentioned too. We maintain this site for free; without compensation. On our own free time, this takes devotion and care. Gratis. Rastifan’s technical knowledge of running a website is below basic. Maintenance goes beyond content moderation, which was all Rastifan was capable of. So anything that can’t be solved by flipping a switch in the forum’s Admin Control Panel, falls on me and Gnin. And it’s cumulated into a lot of hours of work. Much of it goes unnoticed and when explained to Rastifan, the response was always the same. “I see.” I would have liked some kind of gratitude from Rastifan, but the only gratitude we got was from the people using the site. And that’s what made the difference, at least for me. It was also the most frustrating part. Rastifan was there to take the credit. I slave away for 8 hours on developing new chat server and instead of gratitude, I get comments on lacking features while he gloats about it towards others. If you have multiple admins, you share responsibility and ownership. Decisions are made cooperatively. But when someone turns toxic and starts to gum up the works, the others can take the decision to do what’s right and try to contain it. At first we tried to talking to Rastifan about his constant dissent and hatred towards the SFM users on the site. But as it turns out, talking to an alcoholic over the internet is very tough without taking some kind of verbal abuse. At some point I just got tired of him pissing on everything. This wasn’t what I had in mind at all, but the situation turned to a point where it was just endless ranting, day after day. Baiting out SFM users, riling up the Gmod crowd. Visiting Facepunch to “troll” their community, making an ass out of himself in the process and damaging DigitalEro’s reputation. Each time, his reply was the same :” I don’t care about what Facepunch thinks”. Yesterday he hit the final nail in his own coffin. After yet another inflammatory rant about how everything is “shit” ( by his words ) on Digitalero and how nothing is like it “should”, his rank was changed to a regular member. We feel that this was the right decision to make for the community even though it pains us that it has to be this way. We wanted very much to continue working with Rastifan to support and improve the community, but our patience had run out to the point where it was impossible to maintain our composure. As for the future, we have no plans to make sweeping changes to how the site operates. There are updates in the works for the gallery, but nothing that wasn’t already mentioned before. To clarify once more: We are not looking to make money off of this site. If you want to support us, there are donation buttons, but that’s fully up to you. We want this community to succeed and we want to provide people with resources to become better artists. Thanks for your support.

After seeing Rastifan's Journal on deviantART, I decided to come here and see if there was more of an explanation. Thankfully, there was, and I'm not on Rastifan's side as I was when I read the Journal. I used to be an admin for another site (unfortunately long dead now), at the time I was the fifth or sixth admin. Too many, if you asked me, but as time went on it was clear only two of us were active. Running a site isn't easy, it takes time, and you get no compensation. So when you do put the work into a site, and get sheer apathy or worse in return? I totally understand your feelings about Rastifan. If an admin wants to spend their time complaining, and directly affecting DEs reputation, rather than tending to the site and you know, actually being an admin? They shouldn't be an admin any more. Regardless of if it was their site to begin with. Of course, in his Journal entry, Rastifan paints a picture of an evil conspiracy, with a villainous Ganonmaster (possibly with twirl-able moustache), plotting to steal the site from under his totally innocent gaze and make all the riches! Obviously he is being rather melodramatic. But at the same time, I understand why he's hurt. This was his site. However, sheer apathy on the way the site is maintained isn't the way to run a site. All in all, as long as this move was for the good of the site, and not a personal reason against Rastifan, then I'm all for it. If this was to improve DE, then I fully support the move. If this was just to get rid of Rastifan, then it comes off as rather petty.

Wow...that sounds like a huge load of drama. On the one hand I can understand that Rasti is really pissed and sad. But Well...his post was more a "They are evil. Pure Evil!" This one on the other hand has some points and proofs to back it. So this huge post looks more legit to be honest. But I for my part won't take sides. I'm not really inside this sides drama. But I like to be around here. Cool, sometimes strange folks with a love for nice sex. I hope this won't destroy the mood in this community. And I personally hope that you guys and rasti/ash work it out someway. So far Tim

There really is no reason to take sides. Continue using and enjoying DigitalEro. That's all people need to do. It is important to keep face in other forums to stay welcoming to new users. Antagonizing FacePunch users (which is the single largest Garry's Mod and Source Engine community) is really foolish, and even I pleaded with Rastifan to stop. I also found it curious that he claimed to welcome all 3D art, yet had an irrational hatred for SFM. As a long-time member of DigitalEro and a user of SFM, this is distressing to me. If you're going to treat half of your members like shit and berate their work, you should either do so in private, or not be an active administrator of the forum. In either case, I don't have anything against Rastifan personally, but I do find many of his actions in the last year questionable. I wish he could have understood how his actions were harming the forum, instead of going on a vile, fictitious rant on deviant Art in a last ditch effort to hurt the forum. That is not what someone who cares about the community does. If he really cared, he would have stepped down gracefully.

wow, I'm really shocked ! really, I didn't know that there were much tension between admins. By the way you made the right choice. I hope it doesn't make DE fail or get downed cause I really love the community and I've been following you up from my 21 yo (im 24 now). I hope everything will be ok now then. :dunno:

Yeah I can attest to Ganon's statement that Rasti did only come to FP, stirr up stupid debates untill he got banned, and then say how he hates Facepunch, untill he got perma'd, nowadays he'd come rambling about SFM and not caring about SFM section at all, and saying"I don't give a shit", blaming DE and Ganon for everyything, even though he acted as face of DE on Deviantart for example, not to mention his insisting that everyone should play by his rules and nothing's same anymore. So, this change is for the better. Best of luck to ya, Double Gs(Gannon and Gnin).

I'm sad and disappointed in this turn of events, as a long time member of DE; yes I've been here since Rasti and Ash created it. I have read both sides of this and have come to this conclusion. I will be a fan of Rasti poses as long as he commits to doing them. I will stay a member of DE and support it. I hope with this change there will be more kindness share between Gmod and SFM users I enjoy both, but this has hurt me to see such anger, mistrust between the Admins and staff. Best wishes on continue success of DE. THRAXX long time member who just enjoys posing nothing more; thanks for sharing your side of this I appreciate it :)

The whole "I am DE" is some scary reverse-Judge Dredd talk right there. Glad to see that when powers collide the right changes can still be made when the shit hits the fan. Even more relieved that the sole purpose and function of DE is preserved, and that you two are continuing to look after the site and improve the quality-of-living within it.

Damn, I didn't realize what a careless guy Rasti was when it came to maintenance, and how hostile both he and Ash could be. I've been a member of DE for little over a year now, and from what my perspective, everything seemed alright with Ash and Rastifan in charge. After reading this, it's clear to me that I, and many others, didn't see what was really happening. Rasitfan seemed like a horrible excuse for an admin. Also, I just read his DA journal post, about how his own forum has been "stolen" from him. He brought it on himself, nothing was stolen from him. Two, more suitable admins decided to take charge and do what was right. You, along with Gnin, have made the right decisions for this forum, and I think you two will maintain the site well for the foreseeable future. And no, I'm not sucking up to anyone. Hope everything straightens out alright from here out.

"TraumaLP" said ...
Damn, I didn't realize what a careless guy Rasti was when it came to maintenance, and how hostile both he and Ash could be. After reading this, Rasitfan seemed like a horrible excuse for an admin. Also, I just his DA journal post, about how his own forum has been "stolen" from him. He brought it on himself, and nothing was stolen. Two, more suitable admins decided to take charge and do what was right.

He did make the first Digitalero like 3 years ago right? Been paying the bills and all. And wasn't it because of his missing skills he asked Ganonmaster and this Gnin for help? I don't think he meant for them to take over. I don't believe Gaonmaster is honest about this. This was a terrible thing to do against Rastifan. The way I see it, Rastifan made Digitalero, not Ganonmaster or Gnin. They just snagged it because it is a popular forum and the ground work was already done. But judging from the reactions around the blocks, it isn't so popular anymore. Well that is my 2 cents. PS! Just wondering. Doesn't Rastifan still own the domain? I know he bough it some time ago. I don't think you are allowed to use it if he does. Less it is expired.

"Halebe" said ...

"TraumaLP" said ...
Damn, I didn't realize what a careless guy Rasti was when it came to maintenance, and how hostile both he and Ash could be. After reading this, Rasitfan seemed like a horrible excuse for an admin. Also, I just his DA journal post, about how his own forum has been "stolen" from him. He brought it on himself, and nothing was stolen. Two, more suitable admins decided to take charge and do what was right.

He did make the first Digitalero like 3 years ago right? Been paying the bills and all. And wasn't it because of his missing skills he asked Ganonmaster and this Gnin for help? I don't think he meant for them to take over. I don't believe Gaonmaster is honest about this. This was a terrible thing to do against Rastifan. The way I see it, Rastifan made Digitalero, not Ganonmaster or Gnin. They just snagged it because it is is a popular forum and the ground work was already done. But judging from the reactions around the blocks, it isn't so popular anymore. Well that is my 2 cents. PS! Just wondering. Doesn't Rastifan still own the domain? I know he bough it some time ago. I don't think you are allowed to use it if he does. Less it is expired.

Don't want to sound like I'm calling for a witchhunt here, but the sudden joining of this profile and the typing pattern make me think that this user is a sockpuppet of Rastifan or Evil-Ash.

Wow reading this kind of makes me laugh a bit, personally I love this site and to see people make a big deal about something like placement / maintenance to me that's odd, it's like arguing over spilled milk, I'm sorry to hear about the trouble you guys were having, but to let you know I will stand with the site and people that support it, this is a wonderful community.

Wow. I had no idea you had to put up with so much shit from Rasti and Ash. Although I understand Rasti's point of view, I feel like this change will be better for the site and leave our existing admins much happier.

"Halebe" said ...

"TraumaLP" said ...
Damn, I didn't realize what a careless guy Rasti was when it came to maintenance, and how hostile both he and Ash could be. After reading this, Rasitfan seemed like a horrible excuse for an admin. Also, I just his DA journal post, about how his own forum has been "stolen" from him. He brought it on himself, and nothing was stolen. Two, more suitable admins decided to take charge and do what was right.

He did make the first Digitalero like 3 years ago right? Been paying the bills and all. And wasn't it because of his missing skills he asked Ganonmaster and this Gnin for help? I don't think he meant for them to take over. I don't believe Gaonmaster is honest about this. This was a terrible thing to do against Rastifan. The way I see it, Rastifan made Digitalero, not Ganonmaster or Gnin. They just snagged it because it is a popular forum and the ground work was already done. But judging from the reactions around the blocks, it isn't so popular anymore. Well that is my 2 cents. PS! Just wondering. Doesn't Rastifan still own the domain? I know he bough it some time ago. I don't think you are allowed to use it if he does. Less it is expired.

Did you actually read the opening post of this thread? Or are you blindly believing the words of Rastifan? Also if Gnin hears you say that Rastifan laid the groundwork, he's gonna be pissed! I'd be hard pressed to find ANYONE who did more work for DigitalEro than Gnin. Also the last two DigitalEro's were hosted on free websites, and the first one was started by Nahka. I can't speak on the behalf of bills paid for this domain, but I do know that Rastifan no longer has it.

Subject: IMPORTANT - Changes in management

"GreyGeist" said ...
Wow. I had no idea you had to put up with so much shit from Rasti and Ash. Although I understand Rasti's point of view, I feel like this change will be better for the site and leave our existing admins much happier.

I kind of wonder about that, Hay Admins that are reading this, does this make your life easyer with out that kind of drama??? I think it does ;)

"Asscheese" said ...
Don't want to sound like I'm calling for a witchhunt here, but the sudden joining of this profile and the typing pattern make me think that this user is a sockpuppet of Rastifan or Evil-Ash.

Just because I'm not agreeing with what was done, I have to be him or evil- ash? That is very adult of you. Take a look at Deviantart where he wrote his explanation. Everyone's supporting him. Are they perhaps sockpuppets to? Perhaps they are all Rastifan and evil-ash? I just came here on Rastifan's behalf to ask the moderators to remove his releases. He does not want them here any longer. He said something about opening a new place. Apparently he has a fresh backup of this forum. I though I just say my piece as I was here.

"Halebe" said ...
Just because I'm not agreeing with what was done, I have to be him or evil- ash? That is very adult of you. Take a look at Deviantart where he wrote his explanation. Everyone's supporting him. Are they perhaps sockpuppets to? Perhaps they are all Rastifan and evil-ash? I just came here on Rastifan's behalf to ask the moderators to remove his releases. He does not want them here any longer. He said something about opening a new place. Apparently he has a fresh backup of this forum. I though I just say my piece as I was here.

Oh yeah that don't sound like a self satisfying plug of advertisement for his new site. :lol:

This is hilarious, the more I see on his dA journal the more the two of them look like whining children:

Ash: I had not seen clearly in the Ganonsucker game from the start? How many times I had told you to change the access codes? And now, it is exactly happened what I had said to you what would arrive. DAMN!!! Rasti: Yes I know my friend. You was right. Silly me for trusting him. What we should do is make the most epic map port done to Source and forbid it on DE just to fuck with that place. Will try to get my release threads removed. I did not have a backup of it all. That bastard is not going to profit from anything I have done. But I got a backup of the full structure. Is a sql file it that tells you anything. Backup is only 14 days old.

Yeah because that's the mature way to handle it. kappa

At first I was thinking it was some kind of dick move sort of thing but after reading this, it's another thing I agree with Ganon on. The other thing was Ash being a twat.

I don't find this surprising, there has been a lot of tension/hostility as far as I been here. The unfortunate thing is this is only a temporary fix, not a permanent fix as anyone is capable of doing this drama. I'm hoping new mods/programmers will not be a repeater of this drama in a later time. At least one can hope, right? :|

I turned off chat and generally didn't see this coming. Rasti / Ash's models are great so I can't say they didn't contribute something. The creation of this site alone is worth praise. The community here has helped me in getting better and Gnin has personally assisted me. I registered last year but only became an active member in March of this year, so I wasn't aware of the bulk of this drama. For the moment I'm taking a break from producing works and stuff (physical health reasons mostly) so I'll see how this plays out. I support the community, not the drama.

Some of the stuff in Rasti's DA post is fucking hilarious, childish and obviously said in heat of the moment. I mean shit he even outright says that Ganon "somehow" changed over ownership like he hotwired a car or something. Typically that is something you pass off as mentioned in this post. Deflecting blame much. Also Ash hasn't been around forever so I don't even understand what happened NOW how that is even close to relevant to him he has been so far removed for a long time. Rasti just comes off as being petty about the whole thing, and what it most offensive (for me personally) is that content creators are treated largely as basically like they don't matter. I understand that at the end of the day yeah he created the forum that's cool, but the community filled it with things actually worth coming to the site to see or use. If the community wasn't here the site wouldn't be shit, and its people on the tech side that actually make websites work, let us post, take no thanks, that are really the hidden behind the scenes heroes. To imply that this website would flourish without SFM OR GMOD is fucking stupid. Personally I had seen that Rasti was being quite vocal and a dick in chat (at least from what I have seen) for at least the last month and I'm sure longer than that in PM's. In the end the site IMO while being technically owned by Rasti it was really no longer his per se, it has grown and was out of his hands and into the community that has actually built it up. It's not like he was making ad revenue, if he was then this would be an entirely different story. Reading his DA post makes it abundantly clear that he was just outright angry about bullshit that didn't really matter or clearly didn't understand the website was under distress for a while technically and had no intention of fixing it. That being said to those people talking about X amount of people agreeing with him on DA, that's bullshit of course they are gonna fellate him and agree with him on his own page, come on now. Personally I think this is for the better with people in charge who actually give two shits about the community and how the site runs. Ganon has been nothing but amicable at least to me personally and actually seemed to take part in talking with the community where Rasti just seemed to try and stur up shit in the chat against Ganon, and still get told no that's stupid from some community members for what seemed like the greater part of a month or more.

Its really sad to see that the drama exists no matter where you go. Whether it is a top notch SFM/Gmod board or the nations largest anime convention, there is always bullshit going on in the back end. I am sorry to hear about the drama. I am sorry it got to the point where you guys felt you had to do what you had to do. Was it the right decisiion? Perhaps, only time will be the true arbiter on that one. I will say this. Thank you to the admins that care about this site and want this site to thrive for all creators not just SFM or Gmod. Thank you for taking the time to address the site issues and work to improve stability and speed. It is greatly appreciated and I know I am not the only one that feels that way. I am still an SFM noob. I have minimal experience with Gmod. I am still working to learn SFM. This community has provided many helpful and supportive mods and posts. That is what keeps me here. I look forward to watching the site continue to grow. I hope to actually start to contribute at some point. :) Till Anon, -SK

You took a guy's site away from him with the vote of TWO people? No way that the majority of the membership would approve of forcing Rastifan out. There is no argument that Rastifan was the creator and put years of work into this thing, many contributed but it was his dream all the way. It wouldn't exist had he not made it happen. As far as Ash goes he hasn't even been around for months, although he was still contributing through Rastifan. I don't see how he influenced this move now. Ash chose a better way, he left the drama but still cared enough about the site to keep giving to it. I wish we were all in that spirit but it's come to this. No matter how you frame it the reality is that you forced him out and stole his site and his dream. You're trying to justify doing something that should never be done at all, especially between friends. There had to be a better way but only better men see those ways. Good luck to you both but I'll not be a part of this.

^^Some of you need to actually read the thread before conclusion-jumping. Domain was transferred months ago with consent (prolly to Gnin, an experienced and amicable site manager). If Gnin wasn't involved I would be suspicious too. Trying to find a correlation between what Rastifan says and all this unrelated drama surrounding SFM, FP, bbcodes, buttons, blowpop flavors. He values community over profit but he and Ash fought you over basic website functionality. Even if you and Gnin do profit off DE how does the community suffer if it's strictly donation/advertisement based? Bills gotta be paid and I still admire R for doing that by his own means, but the "he-stole-our-precious-for-exploitation" seems like an easy strawman tactic by someone who's misguided and rooted to the past. The fact he wants to punish DE by removing threads and founding his own utopia shows that maybe we were wrong about his most basic ideal - community. Still like R as a man but that's how I feel. Will be interesting to see how things progress from here.

This kind of shit seems to happen in literally every forum I visit...

"Zyrell" said ...
people agreeing with him on DA, that's bullshit of course they are gonna fellate him and agree with him on his own page

Just like you here. They are simply thieves, neither more nor less. This is called "breach of trust" This site will close shortly because it does not belong to those people. That is all that you will have earned.

I read it Tool, and I read the rest of the thread.

"Lord Vador" said ...

"Zyrell" said ...
people agreeing with him on DA, that's bullshit of course they are gonna fellate him and agree with him on his own page

Just like you here. They are simply thieves, neither more nor less. This is called "breach of trust" This site will close shortly because it does not belong to those people. That is all that you will have earned.

Thanks for your input, Ash.

"Lord Vador" said ...

"Zyrell" said ...
people agreeing with him on DA, that's bullshit of course they are gonna fellate him and agree with him on his own page

Just like you here. They are simply thieves, neither more nor less. This is called "breach of trust" This site will close shortly because it does not belong to those people. That is all that you will have earned.

They were given the domain, and honestly I thought Ganon owned the site the whole time. That's how much of a joke Rasti is. Nice to see someone intelligent in charge. Had shit like this happen on a TF2 server, which I am now permabanned from. Ganon, you may be an ass sometimes, but damn it, you actually give a shit. Gnin seems pretty cool, too.

"Asusreturned" said ...
You took a guy's site away from him with the vote of TWO people? No way that the majority of the membership would approve of forcing Rastifan out. There is no argument that Rastifan was the creator and put years of work into this thing, many contributed but it was his dream all the way. It wouldn't exist had he not made it happen. As far as Ash goes he hasn't even been around for months, although he was still contributing through Rastifan. I don't see how he influenced this move now. Ash chose a better way, he left the drama but still cared enough about the site to keep giving to it. I wish we were all in that spirit but it's come to this. No matter how you frame it the reality is that you forced him out and stole his site and his dream. You're trying to justify doing something that should never be done at all, especially between friends. There had to be a better way but only better men see those ways. Good luck to you both but I'll not be a part of this.

Yes, because running a porn site is a "dream." You know, the guy who created Earthworm Jim is sexist? Hates the Women's Rights Movement. Donald Sterling? I'm sure you know what happened with him. Capcom? You know, the company that used to be good, but now spouts shit-ass games and cancelled every fucking one of their mascot's games, to the point his guest apperance in Smash Bros. is considered the best thing to happen with the IP in years? Just because someone made something does not mean they are or always will be fit to run it. This is reality. This is more fair than most things in the real world. Deal with it. Also, apologies for the double post.

"Halebe" said ...

"Asscheese" said ...
Don't want to sound like I'm calling for a witchhunt here, but the sudden joining of this profile and the typing pattern make me think that this user is a sockpuppet of Rastifan or Evil-Ash.

Just because I'm not agreeing with what was done, I have to be him or evil- ash? That is very adult of you. Take a look at Deviantart where he wrote his explanation. Everyone's supporting him. Are they perhaps sockpuppets to? Perhaps they are all Rastifan and evil-ash? I just came here on Rastifan's behalf to ask the moderators to remove his releases. He does not want them here any longer. He said something about opening a new place. Apparently he has a fresh backup of this forum. I though I just say my piece as I was here.

Rastifan, Making an alt and again LYING about something? I can't even tell you how disappointed i am. You should tell all your Deviant friends that you played them, you made poor decisions, you practiced favoritism and you defended an admin who was terrorizing the entire forum. You started digging your grave 2+ years ago by simply not giving a shit and called me and Ganon for help when you were close to losing your site. We've saved DE so many times for you and you were never ashamed to take the credits for it. Include all this to your journal. This was all your fault, losing your position. What's the silliest thing is that you GAVE a written consent and knew it would mean no ownership to you, after that you start a forum- wide flaming and then you're suddenly surprised and disappointed for losing your rank... My question remains though, why lie to everyone??

Na Gnin you are the only two LIAR here!

"Asusreturned" said ...
You took a guy's site away from him with the vote of TWO people? No way that the majority of the membership would approve of forcing Rastifan out. There is no argument that Rastifan was the creator and put years of work into this thing, many contributed but it was his dream all the way. It wouldn't exist had he not made it happen. As far as Ash goes he hasn't even been around for months, although he was still contributing through Rastifan. I don't see how he influenced this move now. Ash chose a better way, he left the drama but still cared enough about the site to keep giving to it. I wish we were all in that spirit but it's come to this. No matter how you frame it the reality is that you forced him out and stole his site and his dream. You're trying to justify doing something that should never be done at all, especially between friends. There had to be a better way but only better men see those ways. Good luck to you both but I'll not be a part of this.

Here is someone who has understood everything. I'm never really gone (and Ganon KNOW IT) He banned me manytime No, I've put myself aside, to have peace. You are mistaken about Ganon, Gnin and Rastifan! The two first, are just manipulators! I tried several times to alert Rastifan what would it pass, but he did not believe me because he's too good. This is one of the reasons why I'm gone, gone before they throw me out like they just do it for him. Do you know (for who think Rastifan is not what it purports to be about the community) that at several times had occasion to sell DE, he had several proposals in this regard. But he never wanted to sell, precisely because he loves this community THAT HE CREATED. Ha Ganon is strong to show some messages (private) between admins, but of course it only shows what he want to show !!! Dont believe them when they tell you they think the good of the community, this is wrong they think only benefit it could bring them. The "Shop" section is their idea, I was against. For them DE has become a BUSINESs. These are their own words. But do not rejoice too quickly Sirs. The domain name expires soon, you not take it to heaven. This is not the end, this is just a beginning.

"Evil-Ash" said ...
Na Gnin you are the only two LIAR here!

"Asusreturned" said ...
You took a guy's site away from him with the vote of TWO people? No way that the majority of the membership would approve of forcing Rastifan out. There is no argument that Rastifan was the creator and put years of work into this thing, many contributed but it was his dream all the way. It wouldn't exist had he not made it happen. As far as Ash goes he hasn't even been around for months, although he was still contributing through Rastifan. I don't see how he influenced this move now. Ash chose a better way, he left the drama but still cared enough about the site to keep giving to it. I wish we were all in that spirit but it's come to this. No matter how you frame it the reality is that you forced him out and stole his site and his dream. You're trying to justify doing something that should never be done at all, especially between friends. There had to be a better way but only better men see those ways. Good luck to you both but I'll not be a part of this.

Here is someone who has understood everything. I'm never really gone (and Ganon KNOW IT) He banned me manytime No, I've put myself aside, to have peace. You are mistaken about Ganon, Gnin and Rastifan! The two first, are just manipulators! I tried several times to alert Rastifan what would it pass, but he did not believe me because he's too good. This is one of the reasons why I'm gone, gone before they throw me out like they just do it for him. Do you know (for who think Rastifan is not what it purports to be about the community) that at several times had occasion to sell DE, he had several proposals in this regard. But he never wanted to sell, precisely because he loves this community THAT HE CREATED. Ha Ganon is strong to show some messages (private) between admins, but of course it only shows what he want to show !!! Dont believe them when they tell you they think the good of the community, this is wrong they think only benefit it could bring them. The "Shop" section is their idea, I was against. For them DE has become a BUSINESs. These are their own words. But do not rejoice too quickly Sirs. The domain name expires soon, you not take it to heaven. This is not the end, this is just a beginning.

I would take you more seriously if you had even the slightest grasp on the English language.

I would respect Ash more if he hadn't simply deleted posts that disagreed with him throughout his reign, or posts that POINTED OUT SECURITY ISSUES WITH THE SITE. That is not how you run a community.

"vaako" said ...
I would respect Ash more if he hadn't simply deleted posts that disagreed with him throughout his reign, or posts that POINTED OUT SECURITY ISSUES WITH THE SITE. That is not how you run a community.

This is someone who wanted to nuke half of our userbase just because HE DID NOTTT AGGGREEE. Funny that he doesn't understand what word "lie" means. It's the opposite of truth, what the staff has posted on this thread, including me has been the truth and truth only.

So what I'm hearing is there are idiots on both sides. Great. Another reason to leave.

"Bobert Downy, Sr." said ...
I would take you more seriously if you had even the slightest grasp on the English language.

Try to speak english like i speak English before do a displaced sarcasm.

"vaako" said ...
I would respect Ash more if he hadn't simply deleted posts that disagreed with him throughout his reign, or posts that POINTED OUT SECURITY ISSUES WITH THE SITE. That is not how you run a community.

I'm not back to be respected, i'm not back to speak about me, i'm gone because justly i seem to i was the problem (character too hard for some) Result ? Nobody to be the bad guy on the surface and the real bad guys take the power.

"Gnin" said ...
This is someone who wanted to nuke half of our userbase just because HE DID NOTTT AGGGREEE.

Oh really? Do you want me to lists the number of people you wanted to banish and Rastifan to says no. And how many people leave by your fault You and Ganon Hmm? Stop saying crap bigger than you.

You no take candle. Leave. No happy. Want happy. But no. Would like to have models but not see me whining all time, do? Stop doing.

"Brother Antroz" said ...
So what I'm hearing is there are idiots on both sides. Great. Another reason to leave.

Good-bye then.

"Evil-Ash" said ...
I'm never really gone (and Ganon KNOW IT) He banned me manytime

This was literally the ban I gave your alt account several minutes ago. I have not banned you in the past.

"Evil-Ash" said ...
No, I've put myself aside, to have peace.

Then you should have made this clear from the day you left instead of dancing around the site using alt-accounts and not clarifying your leave to the rest of the community. It left many members confused and left me and Gnin guessing what you were up to. Trying to make peace by withdrawing, stalking the threads and not involving us in your decision has the exact opposite result: it made is wary, left us guessing at your intentions and sparked many negative discussions between us and Rastifan.

"Evil-Ash" said ...
Do you know (for who think Rastifan is not what it purports to be about the community) that at several times had occasion to sell DE, he had several proposals in this regard. But he never wanted to sell, precisely because he loves this community THAT HE CREATED.

The problem is that Rastifan also has trouble identifying these inquiries for what they are. Spam from malicious domain brokers. I told him many times that these emails were not to be taken seriously, but he did.

"Evil-Ash" said ...
Ha Ganon is strong to show some messages (private) between admins, but of course it only shows what he want to show !!!

Much of our quarrels took place in public chat and in public forum discussions and people can make up their own mind about those. The thread from the staff forum mentioned before is but one example of your and Rastifan's conduct.

"Evil-Ash" said ...
Dont believe them when they tell you they think the good of the community, this is wrong they think only benefit it could bring them. The "Shop" section is their idea, I was against.

The Shop section is only there for artists and modellers to make money. We don't get money from that section. It simply allows artist, Plasmid for example, to get in touch with people who might want to hire his services. People can post in the Shop forum if they want something custom made and they handle it with the artist from there. We don't profit from this and we never will.

Since I'm pretty new I plan to stick around and see what becomes of everything. I enjoy contributing to the gallery and seeing the other poses users create. However I do want to ask Gannon something; I saw in the post that you invested a lot of time in fixing script and server issues, trying your best to maintain the site. Being aware of this though, I have to ask why you guys didn't try to just create another site with all the improvements and just leave DE to fall apart without you (or get picked up by other tech staff that may have come along)? I understand that Rastifan was just doing basic moderating stuff and that Ash had all but disappeared, but it was a domain they initially created. Why not just leave it to them if they were going to cause so many issues and create a different board, rather than removing them?

I'm still a relative newcomer to this site. I came here when I first decided to try animating. That failed and instead I've found enjoyment on the fanfiction board. I've always had a bit of a creative side that sadly rarely gets exercised in my day to day life. This site has given me a much needed outlet. Even if not many people read them I enjoyed writing them and some people seem to enjoy reading them. Though I feel a bit like I've invaded the fanfic board with all the stories I've posted. :D I had absolutely no idea about all this drama until I stopped to read some of the live chat yesterday. I've always enjoyed Rastifan's work, regularly visiting his DA page, and I'm sad to see him go but I'm glad this site will continue running. I know next to nothing about running a website and as a newcomer I'm really not in any position to judge those that do. All I can say is thank you for keeping this site running. And since it was mentioned in the initial post, just let me throw out a big thank you for the decision not to let a lot of ads on this site. I've stopped visiting a lot of favorite websites because excessive ads have made them almost unusable or dangerous because of increased malware risks. Keep this site going!

Ash's departure felt immature. As a key admin, he should have explained why he vanished. I think very few members had a clue about why he left. That's not admin behaviour. Rastifan bitched and moaned about SFM all the time, alienating a good chunk of the userbase here. Also not admin behaviour. Plus if Rastifan wasn't so apathetic about the site (other than a place to bitch), he'd have sorted out key issues with the site. Namely, the bandwidth problem. If he gave a damn, he'd have sorted that out when it was pointed out. Instead of handing the keys over to someone else. Rastifan signed over the site. It is not theft or a hijack. He was merely an admin who proved he had no idea how to be one. And when he got demoted, he proved he didn't know how to be a member either.

It's not important who's right or wrong about what happened here last night. Just the fact that someone's steeping so low to remove the site's founder with a permaban, that is was concerns me. No one, ever, should have to resort to such drastic measures to contain a situation. It's not important if Ganonmaster's ban was justified or not, the simple fact that he had no inhibitions and did the unspeakable is a very serious and unforgivable move, and doing the dirty laundry in public now isn't helping either. Me, I've lost my trust in this site and refuse to contribute n any kind or form. Or to accept Ganonmaster's authority. Because, after such a coup, he has none for me. I'm pulling my content from here, deleting everything. I won't delete my account though. I'm keeping an eye on this place, just to make sure that my stuff isn't used by someone else, claiming it as theirs. With such deeds happening here, everything is possible. Lynn

"spooky_kitty" said ...
I am still an SFM noob. I have minimal experience with Gmod. I am still working to learn SFM. This community has provided many helpful and supportive mods and posts. That is what keeps me here. I look forward to watching the site continue to grow. I hope to actually start to contribute at some point. :)

Yeah boi rock that beginner pride!

All I can really say about this is "dang, that's some nasty drama". However, as far as mods go, I'll side with Ganonmaster over Rastifan anyday. I changed my username when the new forum launched just to avoid drama with Rasti, and reading through both sides, it definitely sounds like Ganon is less wrong, and is at the very least acting with good intentions. PS: Rastifan is a petty, vindictive bastard. I know this firsthand. I honestly can't find too much fault in what you've done. And if you've done as much work as you say you have, the forum was basically more yours than his anyways.

"Evil-Ash" said ...
*dumb bullshit about being a baby*

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most were silent. I remembered the line from the Digital-Eros scripture, the Kama Sutra. Evil-Ash is trying to persuade the Master that he should do his duty, and, to impress him, takes on his inflated-ego form and says: [glow:2wn2ieae]'Now I am become Dickhead, the destroyer of Absolutely Fuckall, Except My Reputation.'[/glow:2wn2ieae] I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

"Lynna" said ...
It's not important if Ganonmaster's ban was justified or not, the simple fact that he had no inhibitions and did the unspeakable is a very serious and unforgivable move, and doing the dirty laundry in public now isn't helping either.

I have been myself in a situation of "Site hijacking" in the past ; I was a staff member of a Private RP WoW server, coordinating all the animation stuff and being kind of a bridge between the community and the staff - reporting the grmbling of the players, proposing all sort of new ideas, all da good stuff. One night, i went to sleep with my name still in a flashy redish color that the GM displayed, after a discussion with one of the two admins - the Tech Admin of the site / forum / server. The discussion didn't went well. The Tech Admin, let's call it Scotty, got out of the shadow of "I talk to no one about anything", and poped in with a bunch of (stupid) ideas without any consideration about the work of the rest of the staff, and all we had in mind. We tried, so, to discuss about it, implement what we tought was good, show him we wern't a bunch of close minded trumps waving our fingers at him and calling him names, buuuuuut... After a long, long discussion, we arrived at the conclusion that the situation was pretty bad, that he was a bloody thickheaded donkey, and that we would have to organize a diplomatic reunion to fix things up. The last day, so, i connect on the forum - ready to terrorize some players - and what uh eh oh quedonc, my name was gray - same color as the "non validated members" of the forum. Their was also a big blinking red text on top of the forum, with a good long post from Scotty, who was saying things like "Hey, me and the crew went talkin' last night, and we had the idea that now the whole bunch of it's mine yo, but we cool dawg" tought none of it was discussed. Being myself a tickheaded donkey as well, i started to tip tap tip on my keyboard, showing screens of discussions, trying to explain stuff to the players, trying to demonstrate what happened - while also trying to be objective, showing that we had our wrongs, and that the situation was sad but could still be fixed." Scotty responded by deleting entire posts, creating alts to praise himself and support himself - and on a forum of 25 people who know each others all, when a "Barbaredubogoss58" pop in with a 5mn old account, that's not very stealthy. Shitstorms followed, tought i and an other member of the staff - who had been introduced in the staff 'cause we had the possibility to keep our calm in heated situations (as i'm a bloody bad rolist) - the whole forum died, the server closed, and everything went boum after that. Why am i telling this lill' story ? Because, as much as all this can seem to be a big betreayal... Meh, it's not like someone's dead, or anything. I mean it was a rather shitty move from him, as he had no real motive to ban all of us, but still, we went our ways and started other stuff. As someone who've been in the position Rastifan and Ash are right now, i have a more objective point of view on the whole situation - not wanting to praise myself or anything :c And what do i think ? From what i read, they were right to do so. It doesn't matter who started the forum, or who were there longer than the other. If in a team, in an office, there's Misters Whoisit and Whocares, employed for 40years, who spend their merry time in the office ranting about the young trainees, drinking coffe, and looking as Miss Dennis bottom, well you send them back home with their ties up their buttholes. IF Evil-Ash and Rastifan really did nothing wrong, then it's indeed a "coup d'état" from G crew, but from what i read, E-A and Rasti are more of the "Scotty" type of guy. They were certainly quite nice fellahs at first, but fell into a spiral of "I'm the boss you can't tell me what to do, i don't care what you do and if you sink the forum. Would you take a little more passive-agressive bullcrap and a cup of disguised insult ? Oh but of course thank you verry much. Well too bad 'cause i drink it up ! Ah !". As i see it, and as we can all see the childish behavior of one side and the "Let's tell people what happened, speak about it, not do all this stuff behind the community back, etc." of the other side, i'm more inclined to side with the G's than Rasti and Evil-Ash - wether they're nice guys or not. Maybe i'm wrong, and after all who cares about what i think as y'all don't even know who the hell i am, but in all objectivity, this was no "Putch", no "Dream stealing", no "Unspeakable horror" or anything. It was just a though decision to remove a bully and a mister i'll not call names because i don't know him enough from the bot, 'cause they were wearing anchors as bikinis and the whole bloody thing was sinking fast :/ Sorry for the long post :[

Well all I have to say is the world goes round with out drama whores, you pissed fine go, you like it here? well most of us do, don't let the door hit you on the way out, have some dignity STFU and go start something on your own. Now for the people that care admins here we love you, Ex-admins there's a reason your an Ex we don't care. there is no need to explain it Ganon. if you did it to remove loos ends we will respect you on it and move one, I my self are working on getting Watch_Dogs models =3

"Lord Vador" said ...

"Zyrell" said ...
people agreeing with him on DA, that's bullshit of course they are gonna fellate him and agree with him on his own page

Just like you here.

Yeah no. I'm not going SEIG HIEL GLORIOUS GANON like you are implying, however, I am laughing at the DA followers threatening death threats, trying to pull down the site or other petty bullshit in Rasti's DA, that's shows me that clearly there was a problem and that shit was quickly becoming toxic.

"Lynna" said ...

It's not important who's right or wrong about what happened here last night. Just the fact that someone's steeping so low to remove the site's founder with a permaban, that is was concerns me. No one, ever, should have to resort to such drastic measures to contain a situation. It's not important if Ganonmaster's ban was justified or not, the simple fact that he had no inhibitions and did the unspeakable is a very serious and unforgivable move, and doing the dirty laundry in public now isn't helping either.

If you gotta weight the options between site founder and keeping the site in working order with as little bullshit as possible id put a bullet in Rasti's account 10/10 times if it meant keeping the site the way it is/ improving and not letting it fall by the wayside. If Rasti had his way we probably wouldn't even be speaking in this forum right now as it would have gone right to hell along with the bandwidth issues among other things. In this case the ends justify the means, you may not like that bit its fact. Also Rasti aired and cleaned his dirty laundry before Ganon even put up this post so I don't see how that is relevant. Ganon like him or not is being transparent with what went on, Rasti on the other hand is throwing a shit fit and acting like a child if he wasn't such a hot head and took time to cool off this probably would have been a non-issue.

Rastifan wasn't banned immediately though, he was just made a member. He then threw a rage and insulted/threatened Ganon (something he's continued to do on DA). Which as anyone would tell you, is enough to get a member banned. The reason he's pissed is that the site's not his. That he has no power. Now, to me, if all the person cared about was the power, they shouldn't have power. On a sort of unrelated note: Do any of you think it's possible to build some new bridges with Facepunch? Rastifan was pretty much the 'face of DE', which was unfortunate because all he did was troll FP until he was banned (or he asked for his account to be closed, whatever). I was thinking, without Rastifan, we might be able to mend fences.

"AyatollaOfRock" said ...
Rastifan wasn't banned immediately though, he was just made a member. He then threw a rage and insulted/threatened Ganon (something he's continued to do on DA). Which as anyone would tell you, is enough to get a member banned. The reason he's pissed is that the site's not his. That he has no power. Now, to me, if all the person cared about was the power, they shouldn't have power.

Good post.

On a sort of unrelated note: Do any of you think it's possible to build some new bridges with Facepunch? Rastifan was pretty much the 'face of DE', which was unfortunate because all he did was troll FP until he was banned. I was thinking, without Rastifan, we might be able to mend fences.

FP has always disliked DE. They don't allow nudity over there cuz it offends them/Garry. Rastifan just made it worse by trolling them on that fact out of spite. And for those declaring their leave and removing their artwork, goodbye and godspeed. There are 50k+ members here and that's the major factor inwhy this had to be done. It's like a civilization, more people more problems, and the leadership has to adapt or everyone dies in their own feces.

"TooL" said ...
FP has always disliked DE. They don't allow nudity over there cuz it offends them/Garry. Rastifan just made it worse by trolling them on that fact out of spite.

I wouldn't call it trolling, more like just obnoxious with his head up his ass. The problem with FP is that they are very band-wagon minded. It's popular to jump aboard and hate/dislike things, and even to discuss in great detail how much they don't like things. The stigma on ero animation and posing is pretty stupid, but you're not going to change the minds of a bunch of people who claim they can't be attracted to a representation of a woman. They are lying to themselves, and each other, but it's really not our problem.

Good to see some transparency in all this. Or at least convincing illusion. I have mixed feelings about what happened, but mainly because of limited knowledge of what really was happening behind the scenes. I just hope that it wasn't driven by hidden greedy malicious intentions or mindless quest for control.

"Lynna" said ...
It's not important who's right or wrong about what happened here last night. Just the fact that someone's steeping so low to remove the site's founder with a permaban, that is was concerns me. No one, ever, should have to resort to such drastic measures to contain a situation. It's not important if Ganonmaster's ban was justified or not, the simple fact that he had no inhibitions and did the unspeakable is a very serious and unforgivable move, and doing the dirty laundry in public now isn't helping either. Me, I've lost my trust in this site and refuse to contribute n any kind or form. Or to accept Ganonmaster's authority. Because, after such a coup, he has none for me. I'm pulling my content from here, deleting everything. I won't delete my account though. I'm keeping an eye on this place, just to make sure that my stuff isn't used by someone else, claiming it as theirs. With such deeds happening here, everything is possible. Lynn

There was no coup, but... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cepZIk0PlvM

I've never really paid much attention to the community itself in this forum, for the most part, until I saw that DA post by Rasti on how his site has been stolen. There were so many pieces of the puzzle I couldn't put together, and none of which he would help me with. All he said was the site was "stolen" by "some means" by Ganon. That was so fucking biased and bullshit I had to wait for Ganon or someone to make a statement, and finally I can say my assumptions were correct. Although I supported him on DA, its only because I had no fucking idea what was going on, and after reading all of this, I feel much more for Ganon. First off, he actually shows proof, hes not talking in whines and broken english, and hes not being such a child about this, literally on Rasti's DA posts hes claiming you "shouldnt believe his lies, whatever he says" like Ganon's a fucking devil or something. Its childish. So I don't think I'll sympathize with Rasti on this unless Ganon turns this site into a crazy Nazi cult dictatorship with admins worse than 12 yr olds on garrysmod, or something along those lines. :/

As someone who belongs to the largest chunk of most forums, namely the lurkers, I am ashamed to admit that I was totally unaware of any of the problems going on behind the scenes here or all the melodrama that typically follows. I was aware of the occasional problems with the forum during my time here, mostly the bandwidth and the like, but they were usually resolved by the next time I logged in. In short, I guess I took for granted both the forum and the diligent (not to mention dedicated) people who keep it running. For that, I am truly sorry. As for the change in management, I can (almost dispassionately) say that it doesn't really seem to affect me much as a user/lurker. I had to delete my old cookies for the site to log back into my account, that's about it. Everything else seems to be running just fine. Whose side was right, wrong or whatever is pretty much besides the point now. After all it is already over and done, all that's left is the drama which will eventually die down. All I can say so far is that one side has carried itself with a lot more dignity and levelheadedness than the other. As with any coup or revolution, it will be up to history to decide if it was for the best. It is not for those who fought for/against the change, or merely those who witnessed it taking place right before their eyes, to judge whether it was for the greater good or not. Time will eventually tell if it was the right thing to be done. But...I get the feeling...a few months from now (or perhaps even a year to the day), whether the forum is still running the same as it always was or even better than ever before...I think we will all look back on this incident and would almost unanimously agree that Ganonmaster and Gnin made the right decisions at the time. (Of course...if in a few months the forum is dead and buried, or worse...turned into an abominable profit-mongering cesspool, then we would have known that Rastifan and Evil-Ash had been right all along. Time will tell...) In short, don't sweat it right now. Ganonmaster has declared the forum will continue operating normally with no sweeping changes and we will soon see if that proves true. Before I sign off I'd like to again apologize for taking all the nice people behind the scenes, keeping everything running, for granted and to thank them for their time and efforts. I'd also like to thank everyone who forms the DigitalEro community; the people who (visionarily) founded it, the people who (tirelessly) maintain it, the people who contribute (endlessly) to it and yes, even the people who just (lazily) leech of it. It takes all of you to make the DE community what it is. And I think it's a pretty awesome place. Take care, people. And always remember the DE motto: "Sex between two people is a beautiful thing. Between five, it's fantastic!" ;)

"andrewong1980" said ...
In short, don't sweat it right now. Ganonmaster has declared the forum will continue operating normally with no sweeping changes and we will soon see if that proves true. Before I sign off I'd like to again apologize for taking all the nice people behind the scenes, keeping everything running, for granted and to thank them for their time and efforts. I'd also like to thank everyone who forms the DigitalEro community; the people who (visionarily) founded it, the people who (tirelessly) maintain it, the people who contribute (endlessly) to it and yes, even the people who just (lazily) leech of it. It takes all of you to make the DE community what it is. And I think it's a pretty awesome place. Take care, people. And always remember the DE motto: "Sex between two people is a beautiful thing. Between five, it's fantastic!" ;)

You know I have been around for a good time on the internet in general even before there was http, let me tell you guys something DA went through the same shit and it feels the same here, DigitalEro will make a awesome kick in the future, and you know why? Not because of the Ex-Admins, not because of the drama from other people, but from the content and support of other users that don't care what size of "the banner" is or what color the ass cheeks of the suborn Ex-admins butt is, butt be the perseverance and dedication of other users, let me tell you something DA had a brake moment like this and you know what?!? look at it now!!! We love you guys and all your hard work even if a fringe few try to act stupid and clam this is a take over, think for a second what is better for the community. 1 Is it good for peoples comments to be censored or stifled by oppressive Ex-Admins? NO! 2 Should users and admins adhere to the rules and regulations? Yes! 3 Should users have the ability to comment, thus as the right of there freedom of speech? Yes! So who said we care if Ganonmaster dropped the hammer on abusers? I personalty think that was a good move, if you look at it from a business point of view, it was the correct one. So please people just be impartial and be happy the site was not deleted by Ex-Admins, bent on a power trip.

"Predator" said ...
So I don't think I'll sympathize with Rasti on this unless Ganon turns this site into a crazy Nazi cult dictatorship with admins worse than 12 yr olds on garrysmod :/

Ganon, he knows.

Well I'm fairly new here so I'd just like to say if you're speaking the truth about him acting in such behavior I guess it's for the best, not for the admins but for all of us. just happy this doesn't mean that the site will be taken down or something along those lines

Just an idea you should file for a nonprofit Inc. so you can get a discount on hosting.

"andrewong1980" said ...
As someone who belongs to the largest chunk of most forums, namely the lurkers, I am ashamed to admit that I was totally unaware of any of the problems going on behind the scenes here or all the melodrama that typically follows. I was aware of the occasional problems with the forum during my time here, mostly the bandwidth and the like, but they were usually resolved by the next time I logged in. In short, I guess I took for granted both the forum and the diligent (not to mention dedicated) people who keep it running. For that, I am truly sorry. As for the change in management, I can (almost dispassionately) say that it doesn't really seem to affect me much as a user/lurker. I had to delete my old cookies for the site to log back into my account, that's about it. Everything else seems to be running just fine. Whose side was right, wrong or whatever is pretty much besides the point now. After all it is already over and done, all that's left is the drama which will eventually die down. All I can say so far is that one side has carried itself with a lot more dignity and levelheadedness than the other. As with any coup or revolution, it will be up to history to decide if it was for the best. It is not for those who fought for/against the change, or merely those who witnessed it taking place right before their eyes, to judge whether it was for the greater good or not. Time will eventually tell if it was the right thing to be done. But...I get the feeling...a few months from now (or perhaps even a year to the day), whether the forum is still running the same as it always was or even better than ever before...I think we will all look back on this incident and would almost unanimously agree that Ganonmaster and Gnin made the right decisions at the time. (Of course...if in a few months the forum is dead and buried, or worse...turned into an abominable profit-mongering cesspool, then we would have known that Rastifan and Evil-Ash had been right all along. Time will tell...) In short, don't sweat it right now. Ganonmaster has declared the forum will continue operating normally with no sweeping changes and we will soon see if that proves true. Before I sign off I'd like to again apologize for taking all the nice people behind the scenes, keeping everything running, for granted and to thank them for their time and efforts. I'd also like to thank everyone who forms the DigitalEro community; the people who (visionarily) founded it, the people who (tirelessly) maintain it, the people who contribute (endlessly) to it and yes, even the people who just (lazily) leech of it. It takes all of you to make the DE community what it is. And I think it's a pretty awesome place. Take care, people. And always remember the DE motto: "Sex between two people is a beautiful thing. Between five, it's fantastic!" ;)

As a fellow lurker, this echoes my sentiments exactly. And either way, if even half of what Ganon said is true, the previous 'owners' long stopped giving a shit about the site and the community that grew around it outside of using it as a power-trip, whereas he's constantly been trying to improve it, make it faster and more secure for the artists and fans that come here. So, in the end, there's only one thing left to say to the exs. http://youtu.be/n6RoOwSKI7M

#buttmad

"vaako" said ...
There really is no reason to take sides. Continue using and enjoying DigitalEro. That's all people need to do. It is important to keep face in other forums to stay welcoming to new users. Antagonizing FacePunch users (which is the single largest Garry's Mod and Source Engine community) is really foolish, and even I pleaded with Rastifan to stop. I also found it curious that he claimed to welcome all 3D art, yet had an irrational hatred for SFM. As a long-time member of DigitalEro and a user of SFM, this is distressing to me. If you're going to treat half of your members like shit and berate their work, you should either do so in private, or not be an active administrator of the forum. In either case, I don't have anything against Rastifan personally, but I do find many of his actions in the last year questionable. I wish he could have understood how his actions were harming the forum, instead of going on a vile, fictitious rant on deviant Art in a last ditch effort to hurt the forum. That is not what someone who cares about the community does. If he really cared, he would have stepped down gracefully.

I 100% agree with you vaako. SFM is huge on this site, no need to shut them down.

I'm quite convinced that most users don't even bother to figure what is happening behind scenes. As long shit work, most are happy. I know I do hide behind my ignorance as well, and am ashamed. Assuming that current admins are indeed driven by passion and dedication to the community, and that arguments presented by Ganon are sincere, then whole situation becomes even more difficult to judge. The only way to form anything closer to conscious conclussion whether it was right or not what they did, is only possible if we'd had a ability to experience every thought, sacrifice, motives behind all actions of admins and founders prior to this climax, which is obviously near impossible. Rasti helped me with his advice many times in the past and many of his art is great, but it doesn't mean that I will just mindlessly stand behind whatver he claims. At the same time Ganon and Gnin may have planed it and used elaborate means to achive the goal, and now just fool community with illusions of honest transparency. How can we know? Human mind is a nasty device. To some, only the fact of uprooting founders of site and banishing them, will be enough to get enraged. At the same time some may be convinced by arguments presented in this thread and experiences from other threads starring Rasti. It is rarely just black and white.

"SlaveOfSelf" said ...
At the same time Ganon and Gnin may have planed it and used elaborate means to achive the goal, and now just fool community with illusions of honest transparency. How can we know? Human mind is a nasty device.

Although I can't speak for Gannon as we haven't talked, I know Gnin and I know any action he takes or stands behind is for the good of the community as a whole. I trust their actions and that they know full well how this site should be handled now. A pity it all came to this, but yeah.

Let us hope intentions are pure. If so, I'm gratefull as they stay willing to be committed and care for this great 3d sex art oasis for free. Techs behinds scenes are often omitted and unappreciated, especially if they don't profit out of it. Like in many other parts of our societies. Assuming ur not manipulative scumbags, I thank thee.

Well hells bells I haven't visited properly in a while so didn't realise this was going on. Anyway I like the community direction of the site and what you've offered, keep up the good work and Il keep bringing my content exclusively here. :)

If u havent visited in a while then yes, rather interesting moment. I just hope it wont wreck this place. all in admins hands

What does betrayer ass taste like? I found it valid to inquire as so many of you are still here kissing Ganonmaster's. Or Hidde Jansen as the jizwagon is called in real life. Another board member said Vaako must have extra shit stains around his mouth as he have achieved the rank of moderator. I forgot to say my goodbyes when Hidde the fuckrudder stole this place. So I made this account for that. So enjoy Rastifan's forum to the fullest and know that most people fucking despise you for supporting a fat lard that unlike Rast didn't have the will or dedication to make his own place if he was so damn good as he brags about. Only to steal it. He is a fat ugly liar and you should be ashamed for your support. But you ain't. Because you are all fucktards with no moral standpoint to your name. AND GNIN? Why didn't you stop this? You don't deserve to be Rasti's friend. I will do my my best to convince him of that. So the above goes for you to. A sincerely fuck you to all. Now please go with the licking. You can ban me now.

"roosterpow" said ...
What does betrayer ass taste like? I found it valid to inquire as so many of you are still here kissing Ganonmaster's. Or Hidde Jansen as the jizwagon is called in real life. Another board member said Vaako must have extra shit stains around his mouth as he have achieved the rank of moderator. I forgot to say my goodbyes when Hidde the fuckrudder stole this place. So I made this account for that. So enjoy Rastifan's forum to the fullest and know that most people fucking despise you for supporting a fat lard that unlike Rast didn't have the will or dedication to make his own place if he was so damn good as he brags about. Only to steal it. He is a fat ugly liar and you should be ashamed for your support. But you ain't. Because you are all fucktards with no moral standpoint to your name. AND GNIN? Why didn't you stop this? You don't deserve to be Rasti's friend. I will do my my best to convince him of that. So the above goes for you to. A sincerely fuck you to all. Now please go with the licking. You can ban me now.

Holy crap, super serious business!

Even though i strongly suspect it was result of intoxication, it pains me to see such outbursts. Sad 2 days, vry sad. I just hope it's for the better.

"SlaveOfSelf" said ...
I know I do hide behind my ignorance as well, and am ashamed. Rasti helped me with his advice many times in the past and many of his art is great, but it doesn't mean that I will just mindlessly stand behind whatver he claims. At the same time Ganon and Gnin may have planed it and used elaborate means to achive the goal, and now just fool community with illusions of honest transparency. How can we know? Human mind is a nasty device.

Dear SlaveOfSelf, While you're allowed to throw speculations, such lines you just wrote are ignorant, as you even stated yourself. Not only ignorant, but also highly insulting considering that i've been here with you guys for years, i've put up with Rasti's favoritism, "ban rules" & poor decisions and Ash's schemes & injustice not many have any clue about. I've done everything to maintain order and make this site MUCH better place for artists AND regular members, better it could've ever been and now it's about a time to take credit for that. I brought in Ganon when Rasti and Ash were driving the site to the ground because they both lacked proper knowledge and how to run / maintain a site as big as DE. Their interests were somewhere else than doing their everything for the site. Those two managed to place DE under constant threat and Digitalero would NOT be here if it wasn't for Ganon and me. We've done our best to keep this site alive, without getting any acknowledgement for our work. I've sacrificed 2+ yrs of time to run this show from the background, for a weak-minded leader who took credit for everything i did and let himself get manipulated by Evil-Ash, a person he STILL calls friend for no reason. Rasti also took credit for everything Ganon did, so excuse me if i'm getting bit tired of reading comments like "hmmm are the Gs with pure intentions or not?!", if you have trouble believing what's written in the CIM journal, then please find another forum where you don't need to ponder such troubling matters. I'm politely asking everyone to evaluate the worth of speculations, because they're irrelevant and we don't really need to keep telling " we're the good guys, it's gonna be ok" to people, one by one, AFTER we've kept this site up and running + comfortable for so many for such a long time. Thank you.

"roosterpow" said ...
not worth quoting

The fact that you're controlling enough to feel you ever owned the place, vindictive enough to try to get revenge, and petty enough to try to get it this way, pretty much proves that you shouldn't be the one in charge. Thanks for showing that we have better people in power now.

"Gnin" said ...

"SlaveOfSelf" said ...
I know I do hide behind my ignorance as well, and am ashamed. Rasti helped me with his advice many times in the past and many of his art is great, but it doesn't mean that I will just mindlessly stand behind whatver he claims. At the same time Ganon and Gnin may have planed it and used elaborate means to achive the goal, and now just fool community with illusions of honest transparency. How can we know? Human mind is a nasty device.

Dear SlaveOfSelf, While you're allowed to throw speculations, such lines you just wrote are ignorant, as you even stated yourself. Not only ignorant, but also highly insulting considering that i've been here with you guys for years, i've put up with Rasti's favoritism, "ban rules" & poor decisions and Ash's schemes & injustice not many have any clue about. I've done everything to maintain order and make this site MUCH better place for artists AND regular members, better it could've ever been and now it's about a time to take credit for that. I brought in Ganon when Rasti and Ash were driving the site to the ground because they both lacked proper knowledge and how to run / maintain a site as big as DE. Their interests were somewhere else than doing their everything for the site. Those two managed to place DE under constant threat and Digitalero would NOT be here if it wasn't for Ganon and me. We've done our best to keep this site alive, without getting any acknowledgement for our work. I've sacrificed 2+ yrs of time to run this show from the background, for a weak-minded leader who took credit for everything i did and let himself get manipulated by Evil-Ash, a person he STILL calls friend for no reason. Rasti also took credit for everything Ganon did, so excuse me if i'm getting bit tired of reading comments like "hmmm are the Gs with pure intentions or not?!", if you have trouble believing what's written in the CIM journal, then please find another forum where you don't need to ponder such troubling matters. I'm politely asking everyone to evaluate the worth of speculations, because they're irrelevant and we don't really need to keep telling " we're the good guys, it's gonna be ok" to people, one by one, AFTER we've kept this site up and running + comfortable for so many for such a long time. Thank you.

I'm glad that my carcass layed ground for some more explanation :). I've tried to stay neutral in any of my messages, and you have to understand that not all of members are fully aware of what whas happening in the background that led to this crisis. Don't be offended by suspicions and speculations. In no means I'm trying to undermine the value of your work. Only trying to create some clearer picture. I understand that the whole situation remains stressfull. Also a lot of arguments by Gano seems resonable, especialy when comparing to journal by Rasti. Instead of PMing, it was better to address this in this thread i thought, so others can benefit as well.

I'm one of the Lurkers, a moderate time one if you examine my post history (none) and my sign up date(Wed Jul 17, 2013 12:46 am), found this place purely on accident. I was also unaware of all this, drama. I come here for multiple reasons, more than just the sex and nudity. I also come for links to interesting maps, screenshots, comics, tools, props and general models that i know will be of high quality. Upon hearing this I can't help but say I'm disappointed that it all came to this, I have seen fights like this before, and where the other party won, the result was the fallout 3 overhaul kit: new vegas, dying on the vine basically with most of our dreams unrealized, as the guy who drove us all off with this behavior took for granted how much he needed our expertise, as scatterbrained and sometimes silly as we could be. I don't know all the sides to this argument, there is at least 3, Gano's, Rasti's, and the truth of what each person MEANT and was thinking when they said what they did. So I simply refuse to take sides, I will continue using the site, lurking, and keeping an eye out for news and skimming the Chat box. It won't change much for me. For those still with my wall of text(Hopefully Gnin and Ganon): I won't judge you based on your actions here, I will judge you in the forums based on how you re/act and how the site performs in the future. It is all that I would ask if I were in your position, so I will take you on your word and continue moving forward. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and keep coming to the site to see what models/tools/maps come out and the further development of the community and works on it.

"roosterpow" said ...
What does betrayer ass taste like? I found it valid to inquire as so many of you are still here kissing Ganonmaster's. Or Hidde Jansen as the jizwagon is called in real life. Another board member said Vaako must have extra shit stains around his mouth as he have achieved the rank of moderator. I forgot to say my goodbyes when Hidde the fuckrudder stole this place. So I made this account for that. So enjoy Rastifan's forum to the fullest and know that most people fucking despise you for supporting a fat lard that unlike Rast didn't have the will or dedication to make his own place if he was so damn good as he brags about. Only to steal it. He is a fat ugly liar and you should be ashamed for your support. But you ain't. Because you are all fucktards with no moral standpoint to your name. AND GNIN? Why didn't you stop this? You don't deserve to be Rasti's friend. I will do my my best to convince him of that. So the above goes for you to. A sincerely fuck you to all. Now please go with the licking. You can ban me now.

Your buttmad amuses me.

Ganon. Thank you so much for dealing with this as you did. Too many times have I sat on the outside, watching admins fight in something that would turn into the destruction of the site, forum, group or clan. The few forums I feel lust to take part in have all gone under except this one and I trust it is in great hands. "Play-groups" on Xbox and PC have disappeared after long and heated arguments, and clans have been left because of management in one of the cases all the clan members left with the exception of me and I ran a clan of one for two months doing 1v4's in Halo. So thank you Ganon, for being a good sport and being so great. Excuse any poor English, my first language is Norwegian I also apologize if I sound sarcastic or ironic as I really do think you have done a great job here Ganon :)

Let the dust settle. I hope that our new Admins will do good by the community and keep the fun and joy of sharing our creative works free for all to enjoy. This is the greatest concentration of Gmod/SFM content on the net and it grows daily an for this I'm great full. Soooo let us go forth and pose with great joy and fun :D put all this behind us and just relax, pose, share, laugh and make new friends :D Peace, Love and Respect to all :heart: THRAXX "Yoda: Great warrior heh!... Wars does not make one great!" "Obi-Wan: Who is the more foolish? The fool or those who follow?" "Neo: Hmmm upgrades!" "Morpheus: Red pill, Blue pill"

Guess I'll put in my two cents since things have calmed down a little... I can sympathize with both parties. Rasti and Ash are mad for loosing the forum, regardless if they consented or not, and Ganon and Gnin are mad for the way thing have been handled up until now and I can understand that. I hope at some time both parties can kiss and make up, but that probably won't happen any time soon. Ganon and Gnin both have contributed heavily to the health of the forum, and I think it is in good hands. All in all I think both parties could have been more mature about the matter, but this is the Internet so no holds barred I guess. Its a tragedy it all happened to play out like this, hopefully all will be sorted out and we'll be one happy group of perverts all over again.

Apparently Rasti is planning to resort to law actions, assuming the latest comments on his journal aren't bluffs. Possible that whole situation may be quite lengthy.

"SlaveOfSelf" said ...
Apparently Rasti is planning to resort to law actions, assuming the latest comments on his journal aren't bluffs. Possible that whole situation may be quite lengthy.

I can only imagine how that would go down in court, class action lawsuit over an online 3D porn forum? kappa

"Stealth Clobber" said ...

"SlaveOfSelf" said ...
Apparently Rasti is planning to resort to law actions, assuming the latest comments on his journal aren't bluffs. Possible that whole situation may be quite lengthy.

I can only imagine how that would go down in court, class action lawsuit over an online 3D porn forum? kappa

Can't do class-action - it would literally just be him as plaintiff. You can only do a class action when there are sufficient plaintiffs that suing individually would be inefficient and ineffective, so they sue as a class. So, for example, if Steam spontaneously made every user's computer explode, someone could sue Valve as a class action representing all the people whose computer exploded. But this would be just a regular civil and/or criminal suit. Also isn't Rastifan from like Sweden or something? Class action lawsuits are mostly an American thing, so it probably wouldn't apply to him anyways. I also highly doubt he can actually find a lawyer who will take his case, unless he's willing to spend a lot of money to hire one out of pocket rather than fee on success. Even if he wins, unless he's awarded legal fees (not normal in the US, might vary in his jurisdiction) he would probably lose money anyways. Lawsuits are expensive. Anyways, assuming the suit is filed in the US (the only legal system I'm really familiar with (not that I'm a lawyer even in the US)), the main charge would probably be fraud using a computer (18 USC chapter 1030, paragraph (a)(4)), although straight fraud, theft or embezzlement might also be argued. That assumes, however, that DE is worth at least $5,000 - which I'm not sure it does. If not, I don't think there's any criminal charges that could be brought. And of course there are plenty of defenses that could be used against that - I would probably argue defense of others, paired with a counter-suit for harassment. There could be a civil lawsuit - breach of contract would be my bet, but Rasti would need either a written contract, or some evidence of a verbal contract. And all he would get is control of DE back - which would probably lead to an exodus anyways - or the equivalent value in compensatory damages (which would require him to prove the value of DE).

"Gilgamesh of Uruk" said ...
And all he would get is control of DE back - which would probably lead to an exodus anyways

"Gilgamesh of Uruk" said ...

"Stealth Clobber" said ...

"SlaveOfSelf" said ...
Apparently Rasti is planning to resort to law actions, assuming the latest comments on his journal aren't bluffs. Possible that whole situation may be quite lengthy.

I can only imagine how that would go down in court, class action lawsuit over an online 3D porn forum? kappa

Can't do class-action - it would literally just be him as plaintiff. You can only do a class action when there are sufficient plaintiffs that suing individually would be inefficient and ineffective, so they sue as a class. So, for example, if Steam spontaneously made every user's computer explode, someone could sue Valve as a class action representing all the people whose computer exploded. But this would be just a regular civil and/or criminal suit. Also isn't Rastifan from like Sweden or something? Class action lawsuits are mostly an American thing, so it probably wouldn't apply to him anyways. I also highly doubt he can actually find a lawyer who will take his case, unless he's willing to spend a lot of money to hire one out of pocket rather than fee on success. Even if he wins, unless he's awarded legal fees (not normal in the US, might vary in his jurisdiction) he would probably lose money anyways. Lawsuits are expensive. Anyways, assuming the suit is filed in the US (the only legal system I'm really familiar with (not that I'm a lawyer even in the US)), the main charge would probably be fraud using a computer (18 USC chapter 1030, paragraph (a)(4)), although straight fraud, theft or embezzlement might also be argued. That assumes, however, that DE is worth at least $5,000 - which I'm not sure it does. If not, I don't think there's any criminal charges that could be brought. And of course there are plenty of defenses that could be used against that - I would probably argue defense of others, paired with a counter-suit for harassment. There could be a civil lawsuit - breach of contract would be my bet, but Rasti would need either a written contract, or some evidence of a verbal contract. And all he would get is control of DE back - which would probably lead to an exodus anyways - or the equivalent value in compensatory damages (which would require him to prove the value of DE).

Exactly. I'd like to point out that fraud/theft/embezzlement is a serious accusation that needs pretty solid proofs before anyone could take something like that to a court. Rastifan doesn't have anything trademarked or copyrighted and there is no business or company behind this. He simply owns nothing. Threats and false accusations made by someone who's constantly intoxicated doesn't look too good either. Secondly, Rasti has already broken several U.S & EU laws and he has taken part of: defamation, slandering, distribution/dissemination of personal information AND malicious prosecution and unlike him, we have material that we can present if necessary, these would go very well with a counter-suit for harassment, as you mentioned before. Rastifan was demoted and removed from the forums due to his continuous hostile / inappropriate behavior. This happened two months after he had given his permission for domain transfer to Ganon and Ganon's been paying for the hosting ever since. Rastifan has been fully aware that in future he'd have no extra authority here aside of remaining as an admin and might i add, certain etiquette and rules also concern admins. So i think it's quite embarrassing to get himself removed from the site because of his bad behavior and then lie to his followers @ Deviant Art that the site was stolen from him.

"Gnin" said ...
Exactly. I'd like to point out that fraud/theft/embezzlement is a serious accusation that needs pretty solid proofs before anyone could take something like that to a court. Rastifan doesn't have anything trademarked or copyrighted and there is no business or company behind this. He simply owns nothing. Threats and false accusations made by someone who's constantly intoxicated doesn't look too good either. Secondly, Rasti has already broken several U.S & EU laws and he has taken part of: defamation, slandering, distribution/dissemination of personal information AND malicious prosecution and unlike him, we have material that we can present if necessary, these would go very well with a counter-suit for harassment, as you mentioned before. Rastifan was demoted and removed from the forums due to his continuous hostile / inappropriate behavior. This happened two months after he had given his permission for domain transfer to Ganon and Ganon's been paying for the hosting ever since. Rastifan has been fully aware that in future he'd have no extra authority here aside of remaining as an admin and might i add, certain etiquette and rules also concern admins. So i think it's quite embarrassing to get himself removed from the site because of his bad behavior and then lie to his followers @ Deviant Art that the site was stolen from him.

You would not have a case for defamation or slander, at least in the US. This is one case where the courts have actually been paying attention to the Bill of Rights. The only way you might be able to is if DE were a business, and if you could prove actual damages. You'd have a much better shot in EU law, which is retarded in matters of libel (how the FUCK is truth not an absolute defense against libel?), but even there you have to prove not just that he said mean things about you, but that people listened and you were negatively affected because of it. He also cannot be guilty of malicious prosecution, since he hasn't actually sued you yet. Even if he does, you can't use that - basically, he's not strong enough to invoke SLAPP protection. The best you could do is file a motion to dismiss with prejudice - basically say "look, this case is bullshit, do we really need to waste our time with this?". Afterward you might be able to get sanctions against the lawyer, but not against the litigant himself. Even the harassment you can't really sue over. Anything he says on his own dA page cannot be harassment because you voluntarily went there. Anything he said on DE before being removed is fine for the same reason. And he really has not made too many posts on here after being removed, so you'd be hard-pressed to convince a judge of it. Basically nobody has any real standing to sue anybody and even if you did you probably wouldn't want to because of all this shit they could hit all of us with. Seriously, the courts have better shit to do than deal with forum arguments. I would, however, advise filing for a trademark on "DigitalEro", to prevent Rastifan from using it in the new forums he's supposedly making. I did a TESS search that came up empty, so it may be available.

"Gilgamesh of Uruk" said ...
You would not have a case for defamation or slander, at least in the US. This is one case where the courts have actually been paying attention to the Bill of Rights. The only way you might be able to is if DE were a business, and if you could prove actual damages. You'd have a much better shot in EU law, which is retarded in matters of libel (how the FUCK is truth not an absolute defense against libel?), but even there you have to prove not just that he said mean things about you, but that people listened and you were negatively affected because of it. He also cannot be guilty of malicious prosecution, since he hasn't actually sued you yet. Even if he does, you can't use that - basically, he's not strong enough to invoke SLAPP protection. The best you could do is file a motion to dismiss with prejudice - basically say "look, this case is bullshit, do we really need to waste our time with this?". Afterward you might be able to get sanctions against the lawyer, but not against the litigant himself. Even the harassment you can't really sue over. Anything he says on his own dA page cannot be harassment because you voluntarily went there. Anything he said on DE before being removed is fine for the same reason. And he really has not made too many posts on here after being removed, so you'd be hard-pressed to convince a judge of it. Basically nobody has any real standing to sue anybody and even if you did you probably wouldn't want to because of all this shit they could hit all of us with. Seriously, the courts have better shit to do than deal with forum arguments. I would, however, advise filing for a trademark on "DigitalEro", to prevent Rastifan from using it in the new forums he's supposedly making. I did a TESS search that came up empty, so it may be available.

Couple corrections to your recent reply, I have full archive of screencapped convos, full of defamation and slander from Rasti's side, where he's using full names. So, i can very much have a case if i want, but i have zero interest wasting anyone's time with this, since all of this is absolutely ridiculous. Secondly, i clearly wrote "counter-suit" in my 2nd paragraph where i pointed out malicious prosecution, so if it happened, he would. But what you just wrote is much better in this case, if it had to go there. Correction to the paragraph about harassment. Pretty much everything he has decided to write to me directly through certain communication channels recently can be categorized harassing. I'm aware that it needs to be direct. The last line of your your second last paragraph is self-explanatory, but you probably understand that when a former forum admin decides to go post bunch of lies to the amount of people he did, no matter how ridiculous or stupid it is, it welcomes a reply here at where we operate. Anyway! Thanks for taking part on this thread.

"Phoenix2" said ...
some stupid bullshit Evil-Ash.

You really aren't doing yourself any favors in convincing people to be on your side acting like a total douchebag.

"Phoenix2" said ...
Ganon and Gnin are thieves and liars and only seeks to profit the work of others. Evil-Ash.

lolwut

Speaking of profit, if Rastifan and Evil-Ash do come up with a case and try to prove that there's monetary value here, would that mean that the content (our works - pictures/animations/mods) would be given a price tag? Because if that were to happen that would make that legal gray area that we all use to make these works very black and white.

Ladies and gents! This thread's purpose is to be informative and offer answers due to the recent unfortunate drama, not estimate tsunamis or the end of the world... Please do your best to avoid making irrelevant speculations, those will most likely get removed.

But I got detailed information on him. Whereabouts, phone number, address. Found them by legal means. If the law can't help me, I will help my self. I am no teen sitting in my room with no resources or money. And I can get very vindictive.

From Rasti's newest journal comments. Sounds like a threat to me. Personally this is getting ridiculous.

"Stealth Clobber" said ...

But I got detailed information on him. Whereabouts, phone number, address. Found them by legal means. If the law can't help me, I will help my self. I am no teen sitting in my room with no resources or money. And I can get very vindictive.

From Rasti's newest journal comments. Sounds like a threat to me. Personally this is getting ridiculous.

Personally, if it were me i'd just quote Tali - "I have a shotgun." And tell him to bring it, ya fuckin' pussy. Or better yet, that old saying - "I have a shotgun, a shovel and a backyard. Any questions?"

"Stealth Clobber" said ...

But I got detailed information on him. Whereabouts, phone number, address. Found them by legal means. If the law can't help me, I will help my self. I am no teen sitting in my room with no resources or money. And I can get very vindictive.

From Rasti's newest journal comments. Sounds like a threat to me. Personally this is getting ridiculous.

I read that too and the first thought that went through my mind was 'that sounds like a threat to me'. Also he can't seem to make his mind up. On one hand, he's making a new DE (The Official Digital Ero Site) or some bullshit. If you were to file a trademark for DE, it would at least prevent him from calling it something crap like that... But on the other hand, he says his only concern is either taking back or shutting down this site. I get that he's pissed, but come on. Just make a new site and move on. Instead he wants to drag this out as long as he can. He also hasn't provided a shred of evidence on his part, it's all just words.