Posts by Nicholas King

Arthur Fowler83 said:I can say with absolute certainty—and I mean one hundred percent certain—that at least 50-60% of the Rom community is involved in criminal activity. I wouldn't go any higher than that because, well, I don't want to be inaccurate.

By what standard exactly does this qualify as hate speech?

The standard is pretty simple: the only foundation for your one hundred percent certainty is your own gut feeling—which, let’s be honest, isn't backed up by a single shred of official data—meaning, it’s just blatant discrimination based on ethnic identity.

Saying "99% of Krinolince are mobsters" is hate speech.

But saying "According to Department of Justice records, 99% of Krinolince are involved in organized crime" is not hate speech.

Jack Hayes said:By the way, what kind of date format even is yyyy.mm.dd. using dots like that?!

That’s actually the kind of format I—well, let's just say it works for me. It seems to be a bit of a compromise between how Excel handles dates internally and how we typically write them out here in the States (with that period after the year). I don't see why anyone would have an issue with that specific notation.

The way a cell is displayed doesn't change what's actually inside it. If I feel like being eccentric, I could set a date cell to a format like yyyy,,,mm---dd///, which would make October 12, 1980, look like 1980,,,10---12///, yet I could still run every single date function perfectly fine.

I try to be extremely careful when I tell others that "this isn't how you do things"—caution, after all, is the mother of wisdom.

Linda King said:Maybe the owner isn't just being indifferent, but rather they've left the entire vision of this forum up to the administration...

Given how these options were laid out, I am honestly praying to every god in existence that the owner is simply uninterested.

Sam Wright21 said:So, what does that actually mean? Are they planning to roll out a subscription model—kind of like how Patreon works, maybe?

Are you seriously expecting me to just sit here and provide a free deep dive into what should be done—out of pure, unadulterated altruism—when we're living in a reality where the site admins are constantly telling everyone to go install AdBlock? Not to mention, they seem to think the loss of old-school users doesn't even matter because they’ll just be replaced by new, more numerous, more active, and—let's be honest—more click-happy users?

What is even the point of giving advice to a system that constantly insists everything is perfectly fine and running smoothly?

Sam Wright21 said:Supposedly they aren't making any money

Honestly, if an entrepreneur claims their business "isn't turning a profit," maybe—just maybe—they should take a hard look in the mirror and figure out where they went wrong, rather than looking to charity drives to bail them out.

Calling a completely commercial, private network hub a "humanitarian initiative" is nothing short of an ironic oxymoron.

Look, AT&T saw their revenues take a massive dive in the second quarter—so, what then? Should we organize a humanitarian drive for them too?

rustydrifter10 said:Alright, so we've settled this then. 🤷

Are you actually kidding me right now?

Unless "settling things" is defined by constant bickering over font colors used by the Admin Forum, an outrageous barrage of nonsense, the senseless and inconsistent banning of perfectly benign posts, or perhaps the desperate deployment of every available moderator power to create an illusion of unanimity, then "you" haven't resolved a single thing—no matter how far back one looks...

The only reason "you" even exist is due to the CEO's complete and utter apathy toward this forum.

But hey, let's just wait for the storm to pass... 😬

Ethan Miller3 said:BRAVO MASTER, YOU ABSOLUTE LEGEND!!!👋

Thanks, though I think you’re laying it on a bit thick 🙂.

The thing about Excel is—well, it's almost too easy—just a couple of clicks and suddenly it looks like magic... 😁

slycrane94 said:Anderlon can delete my account with a single click, or just ban me if he feels like it—honestly, I don't care. This forum isn't important enough to me that I’d bother playing nice just for the sake of political correctness.

Let's revisit this during a more reasonable hour, regarding 🙂this issue.

The issue isn't about political (un)correctness, nor is the solution found in a single click from Anderlon. What we're actually seeing is three fundamentally opposing visions for the forum fighting for oxygen right now.

The first is "yours"— the way the forum used to be: unapologetically chaotic and irreverent, throwing whatever came to mind at everyone's face, full of trolling, baiting, labeling, and all that other nonsense, along with those inevitable "remember the good old days" style comments and people just swapping high-fives. In and of itself, the concept was fine, but it completely fails to account for how much the size of the community and its structure have changed in the meantime.

The second concept belonged to the previous administration— strict order, discipline, and "not on my watch!" And that concept, you guessed it, was also fine in theory, but it totally ignored the fact that there are now (far more than before) plenty of other places where people can satisfy their urge to write (and communicate), and they aren't exactly itching to come to this online space where such rigid discipline reigns supreme.

The third is what the current administration is doing. That can't even be called a "concept" in any serious sense, because a concept implies having a coherent direction—and the current leadership has, to begin with, completely forgotten that they were brought on specifically to give the forum a more human feel. Instead, they've gotten so lost in a whirlwind of their own inconsistencies, compensations, spin, and sweeping their own mess under the rug using every means available—from minor deceptions to clones and organized cliques... that even you, as a fellow administrator, don't even recognize them anymore. All of this happens alongside claims of massive workloads and the insistence that (presumably as a result of their work) the forum looks "significantly different than it did a few years ago"—though if I wanted to see "concrete evidence" for these significant changes, I'm still waiting—and now they're just nervously waving around warnings, partial bans, and digital keys...

So, it’s not really about Anderlon’s click or a ban—without a serious structural overhaul, there won't be any real change.

The reality is that the administration keeps claiming they are replacing departing users with even more new ones, and that traffic and clicks are increasing. Alexa doesn't necessarily agree with that, but that’s beside the point—the point is that, apparently, the boss thinks everything is just fine.

As long as things stay this way, this is what we get. It's not that I have any grand illusions, intentions, or battles to fight, nor do I have an agenda—I simply responded to the call for concrete evidence.

slycrane94 said:Finally, I've got my own thread! \o/

Honestly, I hate to break it to you, but you don't.

You’ve completely misread the situation—you really have. In this particular thread, you're essentially irrelevant. We are talking about an indicator here, not some actual phenomenon.

Better luck next time, I suppose. 😢.

I’m going to quote myself this time—and I’ll be using a little bit of **bold** for emphasis:

Nicholas King Asks:
It’s honestly baffling—and frankly, a bit exhausting—that the administration hasn't been able to reach a consensus for this long regarding one of the administrators... you know, someone from the "Admin Forum" side of things. I mean, I guess it’s just how they operate, but it really makes you wonder about the efficiency of the whole setup. It feels like we're constantly waiting for a decision that should have been made weeks ago, though maybe I'm being too hard on them—but then again, when you look at the delays, it's hard not to feel a certain level of frustration.Their teams—if you can even call them that—are a complete mess.Everything we’ve worked so hard to build—all that effort that usually gets regular users slapped with sanctions or results in their threads being nuked by the mods—is just going to stop working. I guess it’s all becoming pretty much pointless if they can just shut everything down at any moment. This really just highlights the actual state of affairs regarding the reputation, credibility, and sheer competence—or lack thereof—of the administration. It shows their ability to actually resolve an issue when they aren't sitting on an absolute powerhouse advantage—you know, when they can't just fall back on the usual tactics of mass banning, partial suspensions, or those "genius" schemes involving creating clone accounts and trying to force some kind of collective strategy onto everyone. Behind the curtain.... what kind of leverage they actually hold when it comes to settling scores with the average guy on the forums. I guess Administrator AxMi—completely unintentionally, I suppose—has just given us a perfect demonstration of what actually happens when things start to go south and the lights go out.

Ethan Miller3 said:how to apply this to the whole column

First, just click on cell D1 where you've already got your formula set up.

You should see this tiny little black square sitting right in the bottom-right corner of the cell border for D1.

Just double-click that little box.

The formula ought to automatically fill down through all the rows—well, as far down as there is actual data present in the adjacent columns.

In accordance with the card-key-threat-partial management policy of our "kind" administration, from the very top comes a public call to present—and I am quoting here—"concrete evidence and claims" regarding the administration's performance.

A full list of all concrete evidence and claims concerning what we have witnessed lately in the way this administration operates would easily exceed the maximum character limit for a single post—so, I think it is much better to select one exemplary instance that perfectly (r)eveals the current state of affairs in how this forum is managed.

To be specific, a certain "long-term" (I assume technical, though it hardly matters) administrator has recently appeared on the Admin Forum and has begun trolling everyone in sight. This individual approaches forum participation with an attitude reminiscent of "the forum as it used to be," essentially doing whatever he pleases and writing whatever he wants. However, the issue is that if 90% of his posts here were written by some "ordinary mortal"—by any chance—they would be sanctioned with the entire spectrum of penalties that the current kind administration is increasingly and rather nervously waving around. (For instance, off-topic cards are flying at a completely benign and, until now, peaceful thread about "Blue Paw," and that too during an off-topic discussion *about* "Blue Paw.")

On the other hand, over at AxMi, every single absurdity goes unpunished: everything from elementary trolling and chatter to directing dissatisfied users toward another forum (which is actually one of the reasons why the current kind administration inherited its predecessor, the unkind) all the way up to direct insults toward interlocutors ("don't bullshit me").

So, what is our kind administration doing to make this stop? Nothing, of course. Actually, my apologies: perhaps they are trying to do something, but without any success whatsoever. Or, let me correct myself again: what truly stands out as being beyond the pale is being deleted (presumably so no one saw it, presumably so no one noticed), while everything else is simply left alone. I see nothing, I hear nothing—nothing is happening, nothing is happening...

Why is this a problem? It is quite simple: the fact that the administration has been unable for so long to ensure that one of its own administrators—that is, someone from their team—stops engaging in the exact behaviors for which ordinary forum members receive sanctions and threads get locked, (r)eveals the true state of the administration's reputation, credibility, competence, and ability to resolve issues. This is especially true in situations where they lack the absolute brute force advantage of issuing cards, bans, partial suspensions, or those ingenious plans involving inventing clones or orchestrating collective strategies behind the curtain... which they clearly possess when dealing with ordinary users. Administrator AxMi has, entirely unintentionally, shown us what things really look like "when the sun hides behind a cloud."

He has demonstrated that the actual strength of the current kind administration lies exclusively in the application of blunt, raw force—specifically where that force can be applied.

Those were the claims—the following are the proofs—and these are drawn exclusively from the Admin Forum, which is unique and particularly seriously moderated and serves, to quote, "to make the forum better and more polite" (not to mention that the majority of quotes come from humiliated "Questions for the Admin Forum," which was zealously scrubbed of trolling and off-topic remarks).

slycrane94 said:Maybe you should chill out a bit with the demands, and especially with that "poor me, nobody loves us, wahhh wahhh" routine. You're starting to drag in Jews who have a similar modus operandi.

(Jews have a "modus operandi"?!—users have had hate speech cards thrown at them instantly for far less than that.)
>

Look, if you're going to be this incredibly sensitive about everything—especially when, by some stroke of pure coincidence, it involves your specific religion why don't you just head over to some other forum where everyone thinks exactly like you do and enjoy yourself there.

(honestly, this is one of the primary reasons why the old administration was replaced by the current one)

slycrane94 said:I'm not an admin involved in high-level policy making, so frankly, I couldn't care less about that.

I’d prefer it if people didn't label those of us with a common cold as "sick people" either. It sounds terribly distasteful to me, and honestly, it leaves me feeling quite depressed.

(as a response to the request not to call believers "sick people")

How about this instead? Since apparently large images are such a massive grievance that they aren't allowed? Does that make you feel better now?

Problem solved.

(part of the response regarding image size restrictions)

I'm 13 years old. But I am exceptionally gifted and mature, so I practically pass for 15.

Gifted in all three PMs.

El Niño for the admin, the president, and basically God himself!

We are such a modern forum—and oh, how eco-conscious we are, using nothing but green energy. The little problem arises when the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing and we run out of power.

It would have been nicer to treat people like you with the same courtesy.

Oh, give me a break. You’re acting like you’re some kind of saint. If you’re going to be this incredibly sensitive about a little bit of profanity here and there, then maybe just move to America—people there practically live to act all high and mighty.

(deleted)

Oh, excuse me, I’m just a little girl who would *love* to sit around answering polls.

(deleted)

Let me repeat myself: all of these quotes are pulled directly from the PŽK—not from some informal, casual chat thread.

You all asked for concrete evidence and specific claims regarding the appeal against the administration's conduct? Well, here is your concrete evidence and your claims.

I am operating under the assumption that the cell has been formatted as text.

Before you even attempt to enter a formula, you really ought to select the entire column first—go ahead and set Format -> Format Cells -> Number -> General—and only then should you proceed to type in your formula.

bluerider2 said:Please apologize for casting doubt on our intentions and actions—doubt clearly signaled by your use of terms like "allegedly" and "underhanded ".

Honestly, I can't think of anything to say to that.

Regardless of what the actual reasoning might be behind such labeling, the claim that PPDF is intended equally for all Associations is—to someone standing outside this circle—just as convincing as saying "Karlovački Corner" is meant for selling every type of beer imaginable.

I am not necessarily insinuating there are malicious motives at play here; I am simply stating how it appears from the outside.

bluerider2 said:Over the last year, I’ve served as a moderator for KLJ and was also part of the board for the Blue Paw Association—just to clarify for anyone who might be out of the loop: this is a non-profit citizens' association that shares its name and interest in advocating for pet welfare with PS PPDF, but beyond that, there aren't any other specific ties to that PPDF organization.

To put it mildly, it’s completely illogical and frankly confusing that PPDF would adopt the name of a single association when they supposedly have no special connection to it—it’s meant to serve all such organizations equally, right?

To put it less mildly, whatever the intention behind this naming convention might have been, the end result is discriminatory toward all other associations—unless, of course, that was the underhanded goal all along?

Ethan Miller3 said:I tried typing the formula directly into the row where the formulas are supposed to be... but it just won't accept it.

What exactly do you mean by "won't accept it"? Like, you type the formula in and then what—does nothing happen, or is there an actual error message?

Because there's a period sitting right after the year, Excel is basically treating your data as a string—just plain old text. In a situation like this, I suppose you could try setting up a formula like this:

=RIGHT(A1,5)&MID(A1,4,3)&LEFT(A1,3)

Now, if you were to just strip away that period after the year, Excel would actually recognize the data as legitimate dates—which is much more practical, in my opinion, if you ever need to run calculations with them—and then you can simply display them however you want via Format Cells -> Custom -> yyyy.mm.dd.

hollowmason64 said:Yeah, you can really see that happening this summer 😁

Excuse me?! 🤣 🤣
Which countries are we talking about here, and what kind of rules exactly? Come on, enlighten me. 🤣

Take Venice, for instance—sitting down in Times Square is actually prohibited there. It doesn't matter if you're in a costume, dressed casually, or just wearing a coat... they basically tell you, "Don't you dare sit down."

One of the most delicate decisions when drafting a destination's tourism strategy involves deciding exactly which demographic you want to court.

The whole "work hard, play hard" mantra is everywhere these days. But let’s be clear—Maui isn't some cheap little tourist trap; it stands as one of the few truly elite destinations along the entire Atlantic Ocean. I suspect even Hegel might be spinning in his grave like a ceiling fan at this point, because in the world of tourism, sheer volume doesn't automatically translate to quality.

Choosing to pivot Maui toward a more discerning, high-end clientele is certainly a gutsy move—mostly because I know all those local backwater-commentators will be jumping for joy at any sign of failure—but it’s absolutely not a decision made out of mockery.