Reality Enquirer

From the mailbox:

So a bit more about the end of the old ETV..

A while back, Elitist took on a partner in the ElitesTV news site named Chris---to help with posting articles, etc. It was his main focus---the news and entertainment page---that is what produced revenue for him.

The forums were left over from the early days when Digilady was his partner and very involved in the Reality TV scene---once she broke away (after trying to steal the board from him) and bought JokersUpdates, the forums were really just an add-on---Elitist did not put much time into them.

So Elitist has been very scarce on the message board the past year---almost invisible and the board has been pretty quiet..

Suddenly about 2 weeks ago, members were unable to access the board. No notice, no information. One of the moderators, Misha, tried repeatedly to contact Elitist---with no answer---and finally got an answer from the partner-Chris.
Elitist had stepped away from things months ago, but never told the members or moderators, Chris claims not to be aware there even WAS a message board.

Misha contacted most members by email and set up a quick temporary site to gather for free at Delphi. Members trickled in, there was a lot of confusion....at some point--Chris from ElitesTV arrived, claiming he did not know there were members---reluctantly offered to host the board for a while for a fee of $30 a month (pre-paid). The members did finally hear from Elitist offering to help them set up the board's Discus software somewhere else if needed.

Consensus was they wanted somewhere free, and Chris of Elites has agreed to give Misha a copy of the old board on CD, and to post a link on the Elites site directing people to the new board.

Delphi was a real jolt---the board structure and limitations were not a good fit for the Elites members, so as of last night, Misha set up a NEW new board at Yuku that is more like what the members are used to.


Misha posted last night on the temporary Delphi board about the new home, and notified members by email as well.

http://etv.yuku.com/directory

Members are in the process of trickling in, setting things up, and trying to get the new board populated.

I haven't gotten all the scoop yet, but one of my avid readers pointed out that Elites TV has lost its forums, and that a group of the old posters are now setting up their own site at ETV2

So if anyone knows what is happening please drop me a line. Enquiring minds want to know!

The scoop is that a few posters over at Reality BBQ had decided to create their own place once BuddyTV took over the BBQ. Our info says JamesRocks, SpectroPro, NightShade, and TheKDD had made plans for the BIG move. But when their friend YellowDog was banned from the Q, they all decided to make the move a little early. I guess it didn't hurt that JamesRocks got kicked off the BBQ staff.

So we now have The Reality Rocks, another reality tv board (as if we didn't have enough). As normal, the new owners bashed their old home, and tried to steal away members, and of course have the best new site around.

But the infighting at the new board started immediately - we are told SpectroPro was kicked off as an admin to become a lowly Moderator, and had a change of name to Rock Lobster. Seems JamesRocks (Ahrean to all you reality rocks members) started the board to "make money" and SpectroPro's inclination to "tell it like it is" wasn't seen as conducive to gaining or keeping advertisors.

Well all I can say is good luck at the money thing. I have heard over and over from reality tv site owners, and they are lucky to pay for their hosting. The only reason they have the sites is because they love reality tv and the fans. If you make a buck Reality Rocks - give me a call - I have some advertising space on this blog I need to sell.

From Spamgirl, the owner of BBQ:

The site was sold a month ago and changes (other than ads) weren't supposed to be *noticeable* until after BB10. The only reason the forum looks so majorly different was because I was running Linux and they're running Windows and our theme wasn't compatible... so they changed it.

One thing hasn't changed - I still run the site. The reason I didn't tell anyone about the handover was that there was nothing TO tell - the site doesn't "change hands" for another month, so I didn't really think there was anything to say. Donations were removed from the board 3 weeks before I sold it, and the VERY few donations we did receive this season (10) didn't even cover one month's worth of hosting, and our advertising revenue was next to nil, and we only had a few SuperPass signups (Real must have done very VERY badly this year, I'm hearing from everyone their numbers were exceptionally low) so we only had enough money come in to cover the cost of April-August hosting (that doesn't even include the contest prizes for BB10 which I am paying out of pocket at the moment). So I thank the donators, but if I hadn't sold the site it would have been closing at the end of September because we couldn't afford to pay another hosting anymore.

I've been doing this for 10 seasons. My daughter hasn't spent a single summer day out enjoying herself in 8 years. It was time for me to pass the reins on to another company that could do bigger, better things with RealityBBQ than I have the time or inclination to do. I want my life back, to be honest, and after 3 seasons practically back-to-back I was done. I'm also dealing with medical issues of my own that have severely decreased the amount of time I can spend on the computer. Tack it all together and it was just time for me to step down.

From what I know, BuddyTV will be leaving RealityBBQ as it is right now for this season and probably next season. They've asked me to stay on and I'm considering it, and if I do I will require that it stay the same - as long as I can, I'll fight to keep RealityBBQ's community intact.

As to how much I was paid... RealityBBQ is priceless, so I can never say I got enough :)

I wonder if there was such an outrage when Joker sold to Digilady? Look what she did for JokersUpdates! I can only imagine what more BuddyTV can do with their massive venture capital :)

If you are going to try to impersonate someone on a website, at least don't use their email address when registering.

From my mailbox:

Welcome to leftoright.freeforums.org forums

Please keep this e-mail for your records.

Your account information is as follows:
----------------------------

Username: LIABY
Password: re2008

A frantic reader writes:

Does ANYONE know what is going on over at the BBQ? Sure as heck the members and most staff don't! Spamgirl has confirmed the site has been sold to BuddyTV, only because it seems BTV came in and made changes that has posters up in arms. Why did this all go down in secrecy? She could have warned members that have been loyal to BBQ even in slow times. Some donators are really upset and feel ripped off. Alot of members say they won't stay after getting a look at BTV and how it is run. No one knows if BTV is going to merge the boards or leave them separate, although supposedly Spamgirl is still going to be in charge until BB10 is over. Of course the change of guard wasn't supposed to happen until then either..............

Did she get anywhere near the amount of $ Ette over at JU was offerered (rumored to be a pretty penny)? Enquiring minds want to know.

From the mailbox:

This is a heads up for Conservative tempted to post in Lydia's Political Forum.

Lydia has claimed that she is warmly welcoming Conservatives to her board. The facts show this is not true. Let's look at the case of Conservatives poster Trowl.

Trowl, as you may recall, was one the Conservatives booted from JU because they thought that he was the BBV, DontStop and User623. Lydia is now convinced that Trowl is Trowl and not any of the these other people. She has allowed him to post in light of her epiphany. So far, so good. Trowl proceeded to post some Conservative point of view articles. Lydia's response was to tell Trowl in a public post:

"Trowl, I said you were not the same person. You can post here. I would only ask that you do not dominate the posts (posting 5 posts in a row) and use some reputable news sources every now and then. Try to get along better, show people you're an ok guy. I'm taking you as a member on the board. Please honor my requests. And expect some razzing, if you look, shiloh gets his fair share as well."

This is hardly what anyone would call a warm welcome. He has been charged with posting too much, using sources that she does not appreciate and not getting along. Dare we say that if Trowl does not toe the line he will soon be banned?

Now, being banned from Lydia's board would be no big thing in and of itself if that is as far as it went. It is not. Lydia, as shown in many cases, has trouble being self responsible for her actions. She lies. Let's take for example her banning of BBV.

Any board administrator who knows of BBV's reputation would be fully justified and banning him just because he is BBV. Lydia could have banned BBV just because he is BBV and no one would have had a problem with it. Lydia choose not to do that . She banned him on the premise that he posted a news article that was bigoted and racist. As if his reputation was not already bad enough, she had to label him as bigoted and racist as an unnecessary excuse to to ban him. The problem is that the article that he posted was neither bigoted nor racist. The article was highly critical of Obama but it did not have any trace of racism or bigotry. In latter discussion on her board some posters agreed that the article was neither bigoted nor racist. Other, more liberal posters, when asked directly if they thought the article was bigoted or racist simply refused to reply. This is a link to the article so that everyone can decide for themselves:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71383

The bottom line is that you risk being banned with extreme prejudice if you are a Conservative and post on Lydia's political forum. Lydia will not simply ban someone because she does not like their point of view. She will go further and make up slanderous lies to justify her action. All the other known Conservatives who have joined her board have avoided her political forum for this very reason. We don't want to see our reputation hurt just because Lydia can not accept responsibility for her actions. We do not want to be slandered.