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As an observer I watched on quite captivated at first as I like a feisty argument but have to say Tank repeated his castigation and complaint about five times to my reckoning and went far too far and I wondered at Davies’s reserve.
Ricky Lake chipped in against Ian too suggesting that his friends might bump into him in a racecourse setting.
Memories of Daylights abuse over 15 years ago…“I’ll knock yer lights out mate”
, similarly in a racecourse setting ”Lake was far more in control and far less angry than Tank, he did mix it in with some humour too. It was Lake that couched the term BEDWETTERS which was a clever strategy which I for one found extremely amusing. Maybe it’s a term used on the anti-vax forums ?
In the huge Lake versus Tank flare up seven years earlier I had sided with Tank and suggested Lake take a six month sabbatical but he extended that fourteen fold.
I know matron has marked Tank’s card and like Arzen ( Razzle) he would look out for him. I can remember on Ian’s forum Ultimate paradise he stated he would never remove anyone.
My own opinion on this is that no-one should receive a lifetime ban. People should be let in again and given a second chance. Lake has said he doesn’t miss anyone but I doubt that is true – just bravado. Tank who has said he lives in a cave has himself to blame but I still feel a lifetime ban is way over the top and is not the fair way to go. Cutting the lifeline to a forum, which might amount to a way of life and cutting that off for life could have serious mental health repercussions for some individuals.
Drone and Nathan have stepped back from close contact with him. His own fault certainly, but I just wonder the impact, not just on Tank, but on anyone given a lifetime ban.
I’m not sure I would describe making absurd legal threats and putting admin in an impossible position constitutes being “in control” on any level tbh.
Lots of comment here about the impact of a ban on the banned.
I’d like to approach it from a different angle – that of admin.
You host a free website, you moderate it as best you can.
Anyone causing trouble creates work for you in what is already an onerous voluntary job.
Is it too much to ask of forumites who have reached the age of maturity that they exercise a modicum of self regulation?
Is it really tenable for middle-aged men to be behaving like errant teenage school children?
I think the internet has led to a lot of feeling of self entitlement.
A feeling that absolutely everything should be free and that everything can be treated as a plaything, a rag doll to be thrown out of the cot and/or hurled on the ground at will.
I’ve been at fault in this area myself in the past.
But I like to think I’ve belatedly developed a bit of empathy.
It’s a cracking free website, a cracking free forum, and a cracking free Lounge.
We owe it to our hosts to: wipe our feet on the way in, not put our feet up on the furniture, not spill drink and food on the carpet and wipe our feet on the way out again.
Especially we elder forum statesmen, doyens of these hallowed halls.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"A very well argued defence of a ban, Ian. I do not disagree with your views at all.
Its the length of the ban I feel is open to debate. I think there may, in exceptional circumstances, be a case for a lifetime ban. I don’t support a lot of Ricky Lake’s utterances, but an absurd legal threat ends up with an equally absurd lifetime ban from a 15 year member. Tank had been banned twice before but Ricky hadn’t ( although possibly should have been seven years ago.)imo Should be a lifetime ban (for all the reasons Ian laid out)… And when someone threatens to take the forum to court, the forum must reduce the chances of him (usually a him) taking them to court again in future.
However, do wonder whether gamble’s point on “mental health” should be thought more about.
imo Mental health issues are already at work with a lot of bad stuff that happens on forums even before people are blocked… And for that reason – despite what they’ve said about me – do genuinely wish both Tank and Ricky well.Also haven’t said too much on this thread because it does seem a bit wrong speaking ill of the blocked when they can not defend themselves.
Value Is EverythingSo Ginger a night 🌃 of mayhem ensues and you let rip and get lifetime banned gangman Razzie style. You hypothetically have poor mental health. Nobody knows it but your life is the forum – you have nothing else. You feel you are in the darkest place after Matron snuffs you out. You live on the sixty sixth floor and you have a fair idea of the quickest way down. Matron sleeps like a top.
Ricky threatened to take forumites and the forum itself to court, gamble. Any forum owner (particularly one who does it for fun, not money) would be an idiot if letting him back.
And how many chances should Tank get? I believe he’s been blocked twice before.
Even if having sympathy with someone’s mental health issues, any forum owner must protect both himself and other forum members.
Besides – there are other horse racing forums… Not that Ricky or Tank made many posts about horse racing. There are many other forums they’d be happier on
Value Is EverythingThreatened to take the forum to Court but on a baseless vacuous pretext. He would have been laughed out of court – it is so risible it is untrue. It’s only common sense.
Yes Tank has less of a watertight case, but if I were defending him I would argue that the rule of law cannot be bent to suit the forum proprietors. He’s a twenty year scriber – there must be certainty in the law. Remember Ginger a lifetime ban is akin to capital punishment – if a mistake is made there is no coming back. This is not Dancing Brave v Sharastani its life v death. Good mental health v a cabbage state. A cave dweller scratching his nails out on the rock.
I’ve been given lifetime bans from several forums for more minor transgressions.
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysTotally agree with Gingertipster and IanDavies on this.
I don’t think it’s fair to expect the mods to have to adjudicate beyond “is this poster adhering to the forum standards” or to have to start thinking through hypothetical scenarios of what a ban could lead to. They can’t be expected to be social workers or to cure society’s failings.
I’d argue that where the mods do have a duty of care is in ensuring that the platform that they moderate is not used as a tool to abuse others. This is the only thing they can have full knowledge about and control over.
I wish the blocked users well, but think they gave the mods little choice.
I must admit I agree with GT and a particularly well-put posting by Marlingford.
It simply isn’t the job of any forum to worry about the mental health of those who join it.
They offer a free service and simply ensuring it’s smooth running and forum harmony are the limit of what it is reasonable to hope they will strive for.
Anyone who makes legal threats after making provocative postings which elicit reactions they evidently don’t like has to be silenced themselves – it’s a no brainer.
For they are the original source of the tension.
Anyone who is repeatedly abusive to others (and the mental health of those they abuse is no less important and collectively hence cumulatively infinitely more so) cannot be allowed to do so indefinitely.
Two middle-aged men who between them had been given countless chances and squandered them all – not so much as one conciliatory word out of either of them.
There are other places they can now go – it’s a ban off TRF, not the entire Internet, which has (IMO justly) been imposed upon them.
This isn’t a personal attack on those no longer here, it’s simply a defence of how Admin acted.
They were left with no other option and while this thread will no doubt be resurrected periodically on “quiet news days” I think the forum will be a better place, and hopefully more forward thinking than rooted in the past, going forwards.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I can remember the day scientists found Tank
and then Tank found TRF
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Nathan, you’re a genuinely witty man.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I would agree with Ian – Nathan is a very funny guy. I noticed that the man with the beard is carrying a sleeping bag the other is not. I don’t know why ? Maybe it is a rolled up tent.
Funnier than Richard or Dessie, and so cool Frank Sinatra played him in Guys And Dolls and Bananarma wrote a song about him – or was that Detroit and Jones?
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Ahh Mrs Jones…
For Mrs Jones
replace it with Davies,
it’s pretty obvious to many we have a thing going on.
It’s the cl*ck of the century
and far too strong to keep under wraps and very unfortunately at the same cafe.Tank, my dear departed, you are my adoptee and I therefore have filial responsibilities, and after months of neglect (remember I didn’t get on with my own dad at lad stsge) I can assure you we’ve finally got some fun coming your way. I’ve booked tickets for Burnley v West Ham in 25. This may surpise you, but there are in fact futures tickets, and I bought three, and they were next to nothing and in the cheap seats, probably, as poorly badly burning Burnley is unlikely to stay up. It’s a nearly four hour journey from cider country and about a pony should do it for you – oh dear forgot inflation so double that – if you think it’s all too much, just think of Bush going up that hill – I’ve invited your mate Davies along for the kick about he needs a change from his Points.
Son, your real father let you down horrendously, but I promise your surrogate wont, especially as you’ve gone through the mill and turmoil of a recent red card.Remember Nixon did good in later life.
Read my lips ☺️
All the best
DADDY DEAR
p.s. Ricky sends his apologies, he won’t be able to make it – he’s got satsumas revenge in advance after a bad flight from Vegas.
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