Opinion: I Will Never Again Visit LegalFreeToAir
By Trip Ericson on Friday, June 24 2011, 19:26 - Opinion - Permalink
I like to think I'm a nice guy. Maybe I am, and maybe I'm not, people are welcome to share their opinions in the comments if they wish. People are welcome to have their own opinions of me. But what I really do not like are rude people. People who, for no reason, are outright unpleasant and try to drive away others despite claiming to want to welcome new people.
When someone opens up a forum for public discussion, one should provide a welcoming environment for new members who come to join up. Most places that I visit, I find exactly that. I've been welcomed again and again into many forums. AVS Forum, DTVUSA Forum, Radio-Info, DigitalHome.ca, TVFool, HDForum, Satellite Guys, and others I cannot think of right at the moment. All of these places have been welcoming and worked with me as a new user at one point or another to integrate into the community.
Not LegalFreeToAir, however. They put on a very welcoming face. Every new member gets a post in their "Welcome" forum. But this is the thin veneer that hides the truth, that new members who wish to contribute are not welcome at LegalFreeToAir. Their behavior made this perfectly clear in a very short period of time.
The first hint of warning should have been clearer to me. I discovered that the listing on the co-owned Sat Hint website for AMC21 12151H was incorrect. It was listed as MPT (Maryland PBS) when in fact it was just the regular PBS HD04 feed. I submitted a correction to that effect, which was immediately approved. I was quite pleased. Later, I returned to see a message from one of the moderators on the forum informing me that he had found it several weeks earlier, and it was definitely MPT. Checking Sat Hint, I found that it was already reverted by this member to read MPT.
The real fun came today. I spent a solid week of my own time working on a project relating to free to air satellite that I started announcing yesterday. I hadn't posted it here yet, as I wanted feedback from the satellite community first, but the page is this page here, a list of times that the various PBS programming is fed. Click here to see it. I posted it yesterday on Satellite Guys to rave reviews. I received forum posts and private messages thanking me for putting in the time and effort to build such a resource to share with the public.
Now, in reference to my previous correction to Sat Hint, I would like to point out that one can clearly see from the schedule that the 12151H feed, HD04, is as I described, a PBS programming feed that has no direct relation to MPT other than the fact that a few shows, like Motorweek, are produced by MPT. Yet, this moderator at LegalFreeToAir clearly knew better than someone who was actually watching the feed for several straight days at the time, and now more than a solid week.
Anyway, I decided to post on the other similar forum that I had joined, LegalFreeToAir. I copied and pasted my post from Satellite Guys, since it was pretty lengthy, over to their forum and posted in the appropriate area. Now bear in mind, I had three posts on the forum prior to this one. One was an introductory post to which nobody bothered to respond (should have been another warning) and two posts commenting on how amazing HD satellite feeds looked. This was to be a big post to try to introduce myself as a helpful member of the community.
What I got, instead, was an angry PM from the administrator, "tracie," which read like this as copied from my e-mail inbox:
This is your last warning ! WE DO NOT POST LIVE LINKS IN THE FORUM.
If you do it again you will be banned. READ THE RULES AGAIN
Thank You
LFTA MODS
Now maybe it's just me, but that sounds extremely unpleasant and unwelcoming. On forums which I have moderated in the past, had I done that to a new member, I would have been fired as a moderator. The correct response to a new member making a mistake for the first time would have been to send a kind message reminding them of the rules with a correction to their post as appropriate. But the response you see above is what I got at LegalFreeToAir. And my post was edited to remove the link in an incorrect fashion, breaking the code on my post.
I would like to make it known that despite this ban on links, posting text that looks like a link will automatically turn it into a link. Yes, you read that correctly. I got threatened with a ban for their forum software's automatic feature to create links. I used no URL tags in my post, the software automatically created a link and I got yelled at for it.
So the first thing I did was to send back a reply. I do not remember what the exact text was, but this is close to what I sent.
If you did not want links posted, then disable them in your forum's admin panel. Sending rude messages to new members only encourages them to leave.
As I will. Have a nice day.
Was my message rude? Maybe. I wasn't trying to be rude. I was merely offended at the tone taken in the original message sent to me. I'll let you decide for yourself. Feel free to share your opinion with me in the comments.
My next step was to attempt to delete my post. I did try, but no such luck; once something is posted, it is there to stay. So I changed the title to "Delete" and changed the text to read:
Please delete. New members do not seem to be welcome.
I assume that message is now gone. I can't tell, because I have been IP banned from LegalFreeToAir. For those who don't know, that means not only was my account banned, but my IP address as well; I can no longer visit LegalFreeToAir from any computer in my home under any account. And why was this, you ask?
Sorry tripinva, you are banned from using this forum!
spam in profile
Yes, I am apparently a spammer. All because I wanted to share a new, helpful, previously non-existent resource on a message board that claimed to be a welcoming community. But this is not so. It is quite clear to me, and I hope to others, that LegalFreeToAir is not looking to be friendly or welcoming to new users of free to air satellite television. They wish only to play among themselves in a private community.
If you want to be welcomed, go to Satellite Guys to discuss free-to-air satellite TV. I've never met anyone there who wasn't friendly and accommodating.
Whether you think I'm in the right or in the wrong, I'm open to your opinions.
Comments
Heh - reminds me of the old R-I (c. '05).
LFTA seems to have some very specific rules, and you ran afoul of them. But there is no forgiveness there - no second chances. Only perfection allowed. I saw acronyms aplenty on a newbie forum - wow! I won't be subscribing. And no, AFAIK, Tracie's last name isn't Richards. ;)
Trip, you must've ruffled the feathers of someone who has a problem admitting when they're wrong. Some people get really pissed off when they are called out for thier mistakes- even when you do so in a cordial manner. I'm surprised that you weren't slapped across the face with a glove and invited to join him for pistols at dawn.
"I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member"- Groucho Marx
Posting links to copyrighted material without the author's permission violates the forum rules and is copyright infringement. I think you are welcome at DBSTalk.
I think the ICE should shut the site down.They're very rude and unethical. They must have a dirty secret that their forum has pirated broadcast material in it.
I just rated their site red on MyWOT for Ethical Issues.
Josh Taylor:
First of all, I looked at DBS Talk and while I'm glad to join additional communities, their FTA forum doesn't look to have had any posts for the last three weeks. I'm not sure that joining that forum would involve me in many additional discussions.
Second and more importantly, I'm confused by your post. I didn't observe copyrighted material on their site, nor is that one of my complaints. Is that something you have observed on LegalFreeToAir? I think I simply do not understand the context of your comment.
Thanks for any clarification you can provide. =)
No great loss to you Trip. That site seems to be rather thin on expertise anyway. Have you managed to find Gofastmotorsports.com. Don't let the name fool you the forum is for DVB satellite discussion in general.
Yes, I've found GoFastMotorsports. I've been mostly lurking and not so much posting, but I find it to be very useful. =)
In curiosity, I went to LFA following an "invite" included in the shipping container with a Spitfire Elite LNBF I bought last month. The increibly poor grammar and spelling exhibited by too many of that site's users made most of its posts practically unreadable (on the few sub-boards that *aren't* "Protected", anyways.)
I've had far more meaningful (and readable!) discussions on RI and here than I could probably ever have on LFA. I swear, it looks almost as if that site's really just a "hold-over" from American Offline! ;o)
Trip, you are spot on. From a glance it would appear to be a forum where new members are greeted and welcomed into their community. Their so called "Super Moderators" are about the most clannish and arrogant bunch I have encountered yet. "Tracie" is the rudest of the bunch, with "SLayers" running a close second.
I am also a very friendly person who has tried to fit in there, with numerous posts on setup tips and observations, however, after seeing a few of my posts deleted, even though they were within guidelines and what I consider helpful to new hobbyists, it was obvious that there is some sort of click, and I was not welcome there after all. It's the moderators that are driving members away, this one especially. Too many chiefs and not enough indians.
You have not missed anything though, mainly posting of daily live feeds, a cheesy contest now and then, where you can win an lnbf, a motor or a fta receiver by posting only so may times a day, but again, those posts are edited and deleted by their "Super Moderators" so apparently your odds of winning are controlled by the playground members.
If say perhaps the admin would remove some of the rude moderators, it would indeed be a friendly place. I have not been IP banned from this site, but choose to stay away. Satellite Guys seems to be a happening place, where any member can fit in.
The reason a lot of FTA sites freak out over live links (even Fridge FTA, the best, doesn't like live links) is because of the fear that someone will post a fake link that takes you to a pirate site and then the FBI comes crashing down.
Zach: I don't fault them for that, but if that's the case, then they should use their admin control panel to disable the feature that automatically turns text that looks like a link into a link. It's like having a motion sensor to turn on a light, then yelling at someone for turning on the light when they walk by.
You didnt tell the whole story Trip ! There were other issues before you got baned like 3 times so tell the truth It not a click at LFTA and nuthing is a setup and Mods dont delete posts members do when they make corections. Guess you just dont like dealing with MODs from the real world of broadcasting. Sorry your feelings got brused. Cheers
I got "baned" three times? I hate to break it to you Tracie, but you have me confused with somebody else. I registered on the forum once, attempted to be amicable as stated in the above story, and found myself promptly banned in very short order after a rather nasty private message from you, the text of which is posted above.
If you wish to share with me what accounts you associated with my IP address (which is static and does not change so long as I am at home) other than the one account that you banned, "tripinva," I will be glad to examine that evidence with you. However, I am certain such evidence does not exist and your comment here is only intended to make yourself look better in regard to my post.
Further, you claim "spam in profile" in the IP ban message, a completely false accusation. I just checked, and I still receive that message upon attempting to visit the front page. No notice was given of such material in my profile prior to banning. However, I found myself promptly banned after crossing you through what was an otherwise innocent action, attempting to provide information on the PBS schedule for those who wished to utilize it and then deleting the message when it was revealed to be a rules violation.
And a side note, that forum is not "the real world of broadcasting." Most forums at which I am a participant (and there are many) have friendly moderators, even if they are strict. Your actions do not fit that profile.
Luckily for you and your management, I am a better person than you have demonstrated yourself to be, or I would delist the broadcast station for which you are employed. However, that would be sinking to your level and would be in opposition to the purpose of RabbitEars which is to provide the best information available on whatever television- and/or broadcast-related subject I tackle. I also considered stating publicly in my post that I would never make a purchase from the company most closely associated with the forum, but declined to do so as I would hope that your actions do not reflect those of the rest of the management.
Finally, I would encourage you to consider improving your grammar when typing online to others. It is difficult to parse your comment at all and even more difficult to take you seriously when your spelling and grammar is as displayed in your comment. It similarly makes commentary like "the real world of broadcasting" laughable, as such poor grammar would not be tolerated at most television stations.
If you wish to address these issues as I stated above and share your evidence with me, my e-mail address is available in the "Contact" section of the website. Have a pleasant weekend.