Who Killed Roth Army?

[Seshmeister]

On those three things the behavior was shocking but that's an open forum for you.

The suicide pics were deleted as soon as they were noticed, there is a thread somewhere about the Dale thing where I think we ended up coming to an understanding about the why and wherefore on that in that there was a delay in confirming if the pics were real or not.

Angel I hope remains an eFriend of me on here and a regular poster. I think it's always a dangerous route to take offence of behalf of someone else.

All that said I totally agree the atmosphere was sour and I think crossed the line many times and some people should be ashamed of the crap they were pulling particularly because it was predicated on very little. Where we may depart is in whether any of that was due to a site management issue.

Let me put it this way if 1 is a really strictly run church group forum, 4 is the VH Links and 10 is rotten.com then the Roth Army as a forum was always at least an 8.

Back in the day in the early 2000s there were posts like where member #2 Hitch posted a map to a female moderators house saying he was going to go there and fucking kill her because he mistakenly thought she had move his post from the Main forum to another one. This was not edited and no sanction was taken.

I say this to get things in proportion about this fictitious golden age of loveliness which is legendary to a lot of the people who just weren't here then.

I get times change and shifted things a to a lower number on my scale but not a whole lot lower. Sarge I'm sure remains at a higher number as does Von. If you want to talk irony my perception and feedback from chats is that Von reflects the Sarge approach much closer than I do which is part of the reason I went to him.

The other great irony of course is that the 'rebel' site(s) when they were set up quickly moved to a position lower on the scale than here.

Bottom line is that I'm just the landlord of a free hall that only costs money with no admission fee. I'm only here to protect the 1.5 million posts and allow some folk to meet up and post freely.

If someone can convince me they will do the same without being a dick they can have it.

This isn't a poor me post but how come Brentt at VH Links gets to shake down his members each year with a threat of closure if he doesn't get $4k in donations and over here someone feels it ok to have a go about a single advert for t-shirts which if anyone buys goes to Sarge as he is stuck with a bunch of them.

I mean seriously...

[kwame k]

Look...Lounge, J, kwame and me are friends, yet I do recall an unprecedented series of attacks on J. Racist comments and unfair assumptions.

Sorry, but that shit don't flow, cowboys. Non of the sentiments were sent with a hope of humor, they were ultimately mean spirited and vulgar.

hale does not deserve that, nor anyone else hanging at this site. OK, be mean, make jokes...whatever. But going after a person's bloodline does not exactly help define your own credibility when it comes to critiquing the dude's artifice.

Yep, it's like I said earlier..........battles were won with humor and not vile rancor!

[PETE'S BROTHER]

This isn't a poor me post but how come Brentt at VH Links gets to shake down his members each year with a threat of closure if he doesn't get $4k in donations and over here someone feels it ok to have a go about a single advert for t-shirts which if anyone buys goes to Sarge as he is stuck with a bunch of them.

I mean seriously...

it just hurts the eyes after so long i'll buy the rest... 142 smalls and a large left?

[Seshmeister]

it just hurts the eyes after so long i'll buy the rest... 142 smalls and a large left?

I believe that the XXLs sold out years ago and he has boxes full of female and not F A T.

[kwame k]

On those three things the behavior was shocking but that's an open forum for you.

The suicide pics were deleted as soon as they were noticed, there is a thread somewhere about the Dale thing where I think we ended up coming to an understanding about the why and wherefore on that in that there was a delay in confirming if the pics were real or not.

We talked about this awhile back and seeing it from your side after you explained some things prompted an apology from me. Things were just so damn vile here that unless you and the rest of the mods stayed logged on 24/7 it was impossible to keep up.

That's why I blame the people who posted that shit and not the mods!

Angel I hope remains an eFriend of me on here. I think it's always a dangerous route to take offence of behalf of someone else.

Angel's doing great, BTW.

I was offended personally..........it was more like,

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

All that said I totally agree the atmosphere was sour and I think crossed the line many times and some people should be ashamed of the crap they were pulling particularly because it was predicated on very little. Where we may depart is in whether any of that was due to a site management issue.

That's it exactly........those people turned more people away than anything management did!

Should they of been banned? No........Flappo for sure and of course people like Gar should be but if that's the type of person you truly are the issue is that person not the board.

Let me put it this way if 1 is a really strictly run church group forum, 4 is the VH Links and 10 is rotten.com then the Roth Army as a forum was always at least an 8.

Back in the day in the early 2000s there were posts like where member #2 Hitch posted a map to a female moderators house saying he was going to go there and fucking kill her because he mistakenly thought she had move his post from the Main forum to another one. This was not edited and no sanction was taken.

I say this to get things in proportion about this fictitious golden age of loveliness which is legendary to a lot of the people who just weren't here then.

I agree.........worse things have been done here, that's what I said in my post. The golden era wasn't as warm and fuzzy as people believe.

I get times change and shifted things a to a lower number on my scale but not a whole lot lower. Sarge I'm sure remains at a higher number as does Von. If you want to talk irony my perception and feedback from chats is that Von reflects the Sarge approach much closer than I do which is part of the reason I went to him.

Now with social networking this site will never be what it once was! There was a time that other than a telephone this was the only way to communicate with random people from around the world!

The other great irony of course is that the 'rebel' site(s) when they were set up quickly moved to a position lower on the scale than here.

How many failed attempts over the years has the Army endured? It's still here while 90% of the other ones are gone!

Bottom line is that I'm just the landlord of a free hall that only costs money with no admission fee. I'm only here to protect the 1.5 million posts and allow some folk to meet up without shit.

For that I'm personally grateful............sure things might of been handled better here during the last crisis but that happens with a ton of shit in real life.

I'd do stuff differently, in hindsight.........we all would. Everything from buying a certain brand appliance, running shoes and so on.

The site for a long time now has been running great or at least it seems to whenever I check in.........even when the reunion happened there were a ton of long time members that didn't even show up for that! The last crisis may have drove some off but I think the bulk of people just connect on FB or other social networks.

If someone can convince me they will do the same without being a dick they can have it.

They'd just become the Gary Cherone of the site and it wouldn't drive back any more members, IMHO!

[Seshmeister]

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for the lesbians and I thought wait a fucking minute this is going to seriously impinge on my leisure activities...

[Seshmeister]

I'd do stuff differently, in hindsight.........we all would.

In hindsight maybe I would.

It would definitely have been easier and more fun for me to keep the gang hut of mod pals, wait for the Rothfans site to inevitably implode and then see who came back. This becomes more attractive given the fact that many of that crowd never came back anyway.

To be honest the thing that bugs me most about all of this are the folk from the DDLR site that reappeared over there but never came back to here. That I just don't get.

[kwame k]

Ha!

Guilty as charged but it's more specific than lesbians!

It's drunken lesbian dwarf pr0n

[Seshmeister]

I'd simplify your headers and shrink them down... lose the T-Shirt advertisement it's NSFW anyhow.

With all due respect if that advertisement causes you to lose your job you should have got a better job by this point. Also surely you should be more concerned about NSFR given your age?

[kwame k]

In hindsight maybe I would.

It would definitely have been easier and more fun for me to keep the gang hut of mod pals, wait for the Rothfans site to inevitably implode and then see who came back. This becomes more attractive given the fact that many of that crowd never came back anyway.

To be honest the thing that bugs me most about all of this are the folk from the DDLR site that reappeared over there but never came back to here. That I just don't get.

I disagree.........I think getting rid of the old mods and putting in your own team was the right move at the time. Hell, most the old mods had no problems with your decision or at least the ones I'm friends with.

Here again, it comes back to the people who really are to blame, the ones who went way over the line!

Maybe a few of the old mods would of stuck around more but it would of put more stress on the decision to allow certain people to stay and made it easier to ban them .......hindsight again!

Banning someone is easy........letting them cut their own throat or show their true colors is harder. I will say the one misstep, in my opinion, was allowing Flappo to stay as long as he did. Maybe putting WARF in a short timeout at the height of his meltdown but then it would look like you guys were doing it because of the "rebel" sites and not for the vile shit he was spewing........hindsight, again!

I don't get that either...........DDLR was a great site and you had what...... three of the main mods from there here? You, Von and Twona, right?

Ironically enough, Chef turned me on to the old place when this site was down!

[chefcraig]

Fuck-A-Flying-Duck ...Do not ask...after the day I've had, the only solution is BINGO !!!

[Seshmeister]

I will say the one misstep, in my opinion, was allowing Flappo to stay as long as he did.

I could be wrong but my memory of it was he was gone in less than a week and he was banned for the weekend of that week.

I cut him some slack based on time served and many thousands of posts. I was also probably trying too hard to make it not look personal.

[kwame k]

I could be wrong but my memory of it was he was gone in less than a week and he was banned for the weekend of that week.

I cut him some slack based on time served and many thousands of posts. I was also probably trying to hard to make it not look personal.

Oh yeah........it has to be hard to ban someone who has been around this site forever and he was an original kinda guy, he just took it too far!

Looking back on it........you were in a no win position no matter what you did!

[Seshmeister]

I don't get that either...........DDLR was a great site and you had what...... three of the main mods from there here? You, Von and Twona, right?

Ironically enough, Chef turned me on to the old place when this site was down!

It's maybe a false memory but those do look like good times. It was only ever set up as a stop gap while this site was down though and then there were politics and complications which meant it had to stay up when this one came back. I think that then led to a major mistake which was the failure of a merger before Sarge went on another crazy long tour in Iraq. None of any of this matters in the great scheme of things but if we could have sorted that out(I was trying hard to), then we would have had all that fun stuff, all those members, no Mezro and no deletion of half a million posts from here and the loss of all the DDLR posts.

It was a fuck up which I think Sarge alluded too earlier in this thread. It was mainly caused by us all just being super fucking busy living in the real world. The cliche of a music fan forum being run by no life super fan comic book guy from their basement couldn't be further from the truth in this case which is maybe our biggest strength but also weakness...

[kwame k]

How Mezro deleted my account never got figured out either..........no one knew but then again, I never really cared or even pressed the issue.

I wasn't banned just went to log in and my account was gone along with thousands of posts

[chefcraig]

Oh yeah........it has to be hard to ban someone who has been around this site forever and he was an original kinda guy, he just took it too far!

Looking back on it........you were in a no win position no matter what you did!

The thing is, the guy was/is an honestly decent fellow, privately. I still do not get this whole misguided wisdom of prompting up one's shoulders and attitude for an internet persona.

[Seshmeister]

He went Caligula on the whole site with some sort of madness but the main problem is that he knew shit about how websites work.

When the site started getting slow he thought he had to delete old posts to make it quicker. I was over running DDLR with Von, Conmee was probably snorting coke off a stripper and I don't know if anyone else was consulted but he decided to pointlessly delete a couple of forums.

I don't want to sound grandiose about that but to me that's like going into a library with a flamethrower except worse because at least in a library there are other copies. It's happened twice here now in the last 16 years and we also lost the DDLR site posts. I think that's a damn shame and the biggest reason for me to step up here.

[kwame k]

The thing is, the guy was/is an honestly decent fellow, privately. I still do not get this whole misguided wisdom of prompting up one's shoulders and attitude for an internet persona.

Never got that either.........we're pretty much the same guys in real life as we are here!

[TFM_Dale]

fags

[Seshmeister]

I'm a bit more belligerent on here.

[kwame k]

He went Caligula on the whole site with some sort of madness but the main problem is that he knew shit about how websites work.

When the site started getting slow he thought he had to delete old posts to make it quicker. I was over running DDLR with Von, Conmee was probably snorting coke off a stripper and I don't know if anyone else was consulted but he decided to pointlessly delete a couple of forums.

I don't want to sound grandiose about that but to me that's like going into a library with a flamethrower except worse because at least in a library there are other copies. It's happened twice here now in the last 16 years and we also lost the DDLR site posts. I think that's a damn shame and the biggest reason for me to step up here.

Deleting the pr0n should be an automatic lifetime ban

It was real crazy here and like I said before..........you guys over at DDLR were great to us refugees!

Your problem over there was with the server service, if memories serves.

[kwame k]

fags

I'll post mean personal pictures with words on them if you don't take that back!

You've been warned

[TFM_Dale]

Be careful what you wish for. I'd ban your ass asap just for shits and giggles.

You would miss me too much.

[Seshmeister]

Deleting the pr0n should be an automatic lifetime ban

It was real crazy here and like I said before..........you guys over at DDLR were great to us refugees!

Your problem over there was with the server service, if memories serves.

We got screwed.

The bottom line was a stupid bill in a series of stupid bills for $400 to bring the site back up which we thought was complete bullshit. It was a bullshit bill about some non shit and we got stubborn on it. Again in hindsight maybe $400 for all those posts and memories was worth it but by that point with Mezro gone from here, some other stuff with the band less relevant, I was up to my ears in babies and building a new company it didn't make sense to not just come back here.

After a while I was made a moderator again.

[kwame k]

I'm a bit more belligerent on here.

Well, yeah............calling Dubya a cocksucking motherfucking son of a whore cunt might confuse my nieces and nephews on my FB page!

Plus my mom will actually call me and bitch me out if I say fuck or goddamn on FB page

"You know your young nieces and nephews read your page and you should know better!" says mom!

46 years old and my brothers and I give money monthly to my parents and I still get that phone call

[TFM_Dale]

Kinda addressing a few other posts combined with yours, Va!

My staying away really had nothing to do with Jay and Lounge being attacked...........they're big boys and could handle themselves. I thought it was absolutely beyond decency invading people's businesses and personal lives or going full on racist and said so but neither one asked me ever to come and defend them, for the record.

Going after Dale's family was a bigger reason.
People taunting Angel when she was going through that horrible time with family issues! That level of meanness and then the thread where people were posting actual real life suicide pictures taunting someone.........those three things combined really did it.

No drugs, alcohol, blackouts, personal grudges or jilted love can justify the levels that a bunch of people sunk to here.........they were always those type of people inside and the booze or anger just brought it out. Not really the type of people you want to hang with in your off time.

Those people are more to blame for people leaving here then the mods!

As far as Sesh or any mod is concerned..........we made our peace and things are back to the way they always were with us.

The irony is hilarious, though. Sesh replaces the original lead singer of this site and sites jump up all over the place bemoaning the loss of the original lead singer and how the band was so much better with Sarge at the helm

No matter what you do Sesh or have done, that will always be the case. Shitty deal but..........



Yeah, what united us was rallying around Dave and hating Spammy!

The site got a second life and was cooking when Dave got back and all the perks we were getting from DDE. A new album and a comeback tour kept this place going for awhile but now that they're pretty much content to be an oldies act and releasing live albums from the last fucking tour instead of the glory years, took a ton of steam out of the engine. I agree 100%!

FB is what killed the site, though.

30 or so of the longtime members here and I still stay in touch through FB. It's convenient, it's private and it just seems easier without having to worry about privacy issues or personal attacks on family or businesses.

You can choose who you want to deal with as opposed to an open forum.

Add in all the good and legendary trolls are gone and that was half the fun........logging in after work to see what bizarre and creepy things Katy or whoever was posting. There were some strange ass fuckers here and the flame wars were funnier. It used to be you won the argument through humor and not rancor for the most part but things did get nasty here then so it's not a new phenomenon, just seemed different and more vile the last round.

I still post here and will continue to when the mood strikes! Just not a highlight of my day like it used to be.

I wouldn't say I was ran off, just a combination of things kinda put me off..........real life is partly to blame, too.

Once I stayed away it just got easier to continue to stay away.

Things change and people move on.........That's Life

Seshy Hagar!!!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You just made my fucking night bro!

[Terry]

Reading through all these posts, I am for some reason reminded of that scene in Spinal Tap where Tap's manager responds to inquiries of the dwindling audiences on their latest tour, which can be paraphrased to apply here:

It's not that the Roth Army is dead. The site is just becoming more selective in its membership.

Nah, I kid.

I mean, who the fuck knows? A combination of everything mentioned by everyone else above? Christ, I still remember the DDLRND days of close to 20 years ago...and Slawterhouse...and then davidleerothfans started up and splintered the membership...and then the salad/halcyon days of 2004-2006...and then more splinter/breakaway sites...in some ways this site really didn't come back as strong after it went down for several months in - what the fuck was it? 2009? 2010?

As already mentioned above, there was a spike in 2012. Different people come here (or used to) for different things. Yeah, it has kinda devolved into a bunch of flaming trolls vs. longtime site icon stalwarts war posts as of late. Hey, fuck it. Call it what it is. What's the remedy? More nun porn? The return of Arielle Bot? Censoring/banning members? Turning the place over to Flappo and Grimsdale? Should a remedy even be applied, even if a solution was found? And what would anyone be looking to solve, anyway?

Maybe the site mirrors the man it's named after, in that the best days are in the past, and there's just no way to restore the army to what it was. Perhaps a requiem is premature. I mean, the site is still here. The gang may be different, but how many gangs stay together forever, anyway?

Whatever happens, it has been a fun ride.

[TFM_Dale]

If Sesh is the Spammy of the site.........does that make Va the Mitch Malloy of the site?

Discuss

Not sure on that but Von would be Mikey

[TFM_Dale]

The thing is, the guy was/is an honestly decent fellow, privately. I still do not get this whole misguided wisdom of prompting up one's shoulders and attitude for an internet persona.

A guy that posted your private messages to him, real stand up guy

[Seshmeister]

Well, yeah............calling Dubya a cocksucking motherfucking son of a whore cunt might confuse my nieces and nephews on my FB page!

Plus my mom will actually call me and bitch me out if I say fuck or goddamn on FB page

"You know your young nieces and nephews read your page and you should know better!" says mom!

46 years old and my brothers and I give money monthly to my parents and I still get that phone call

It's funny when after a few beers it spills into the real world. This has happened a few times and it's not gone well.

a) Walk into a bar to meet a few pals and a guy I don't know is saying how 9-11 was done with government drones - I do 10 minutes explaining how he is a fucking idiot like I would on here before realizing in real life that's fucking obnoxious and then apologize.

b) Explaining to my close relatives the exact reasons why they are wrong believing in organized religion.

And so on...

[kwame k]

We got screwed.

The bottom line was a stupid bill in a series of stupid bills for $400 to bring the site back up which we thought was complete bullshit. It was a bullshit bill about some non shit and we got stubborn on it. Again in hindsight maybe $400 for all those posts and memories was worth it but by that point with Mezro gone from here, some other stuff with the band less relevant, I was up to my ears in babies and building a new company it didn't make sense to not just come back here.

After a while I was made a moderator again.

Fuck.......I wouldn't of paid that much money either!

Regrets about preserving old memories.........there's photos, some of my original music and other memorabilia that got lost, left or misplaced that I would love to have today!

[TFM_Dale]

I'll post mean personal pictures with words on them if you don't take that back!

You've been warned

You came up with Seshy Hagar, you can do whatever you want.

[TFM_Dale]

After a while I was made a moderator again.

and VH brought Sammy back before also, coincidence? I think not!

[TFM_Dale]

Well, yeah............calling Dubya a cocksucking motherfucking son of a whore cunt might confuse my nieces and nephews on my FB page!

Plus my mom will actually call me and bitch me out if I say fuck or goddamn on FB page

"You know your young nieces and nephews read your page and you should know better!" says mom!

46 years old and my brothers and I give money monthly to my parents and I still get that phone call

I hear you, almost 40 (shoot me now) and anytime my wife or I mention buying something or doing something within ear shot of a mom we get the "Now do you really need that?" Yet they need 47 copies of Magnum PI on DVD and an Ipad loaded with shit that originated on stone tablet.

[Seshmeister]

Seshy Hagar!!!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You just made my fucking night bro!

I don't want to over play the analogy but I see myself more as a skinnier sexier older Wolfgang trying to keep the old legacy going while getting unfair shit from people who just don't like the way things have played.
We get blamed for you people getting older and providing an alternative to NOTHING!

[kwame k]

It's funny when after a few beers it spills into the real world. This has happened a few times and it's not gone well.

a) Walk into a bar to meet a few pals and a guy I don't know is saying how 9-11 was done with government drones - I do 10 minutes explaining how he is a fucking idiot like I would on here before realizing in real life that's fucking obnoxious and then apologize.

b) Explaining to my close relatives the exact reasons why they are wrong believing in organized religion.

And so on...

Oh man.......I have to bite my tongue about religion in real life! I still mix it up and call out hypocrisy but it's with kids gloves in the real world!

I still get pretty political on social media.......ask anyone who knows me here in the real world but nothing like the smack downs I gave BigBadBrian or the other Neocons in the FrontLine!

Which actually is another reason I don't post as much...........back in the day we had the illegal Iraq war and so much more to debate about, it seems.

Sure, there are as many problems now as then but...........we were going at it over 9/11, the Iraq war, the economy and the other numerous things that were happening during Dubya's tenure!

I was always a FrontLine guy.......my first ever post was there!

[TFM_Dale]

I don't want to over play the analogy but I see myself more as a skinnier sexier older Wolfgang trying to keep the old legacy going while getting unfair shit from people who just don't like the way things have played.
We get blamed for you people getting older and providing an alternative to NOTHING!

Yeah, but the bass player isn't singing lead for VH
I bet I could find a Cabo Wabo Kilt and mail it to you.

[kwame k]

You came up with Seshy Hagar, you can do whatever you want.

So crashing your 4th of July bash screaming, "You're my real father, why won't you acknowledge me!", in front of your friends and family is cool

[Seshmeister]

Yeah, but the bass player isn't singing lead for VH
I bet I could find a Cabo Wabo Kilt and mail it to you.

I'm still trying to get to grips with the fact you are claiming to be under 40, I assumed you were in the ZahZoo demographic.

[Seshmeister]

Oh man.......I have to bite my tongue about religion in real life! I still mix it up and call out hypocrisy but it's with kids gloves in the real world!

I still get pretty political on social media.......ask anyone who knows me here in the real world but nothing like the smack downs I gave BigBadBrian or the other Neocons in the FrontLine!

Which actually is another reason I don't post as much...........back in the day we had the illegal Iraq war and so much more to debate about, it seems.

Sure, there are as many problems now as then but...........we were going at it over 9/11, the Iraq war, the economy and the other numerous things that were happening during Dubya's tenure!

I was always a FrontLine guy.......my first ever post was there!

The Frontline used to be predominantly Republican but over time went the other way. I miss BBB because it was interesting to hear the justification for views I didn't understand. Latterly it became about ELVIS posting insane shit and and then shouting abuse at anyone that disagreed with it so no loss there except in terms of number of posts.