JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Tampa Stan Good

Stan was a great guy. His Fan work was legit. We bought fans for our entire family and he put together the complete histories of each fan going back more than a century at the time. I still have 3 of his fans, one he gave me at our music awards (He also gave one I think to Susan Gibson who wrote Wide Open Spaces and was playing at our 2003 Awards out in Hollywood. He carried them on the plan with him and hand delivered them. I visited him in Tampa at his workshop and it was amazing. I don't think things ever got better than they were when he was here posting for the boards.

I was out doing live events for 25 years and Stan and Bobbie and Dawg and a few others held down the fort here. I created this in 1998 when the internet was still new and I realized that lyricists were really a different group of people than the musicians and performers I would see at live events. Only a handful ever crossed over to live events and here both. I still talk to most of the living regulars every week on Facebook. If you are looking for someone alive, they are usually there. People prefer Facebook and Instagram and Youtube which is understandable. If there wasn't so much strife among those that still come here, most of them would never have left. People don't want drama and hate and sadly regulars still here love devolving there. Even though I have the second most posts, I really never spent much time here as it was simply something nice I did for folks who weren't live performers.

I appreciate those that still help pay for it and it is sad that those who still come here haven't tried a bit harder to self police like the old timers did. No one would have been tolerated who attacked others for sport. Stan didn't. But people respected him enough to behave. Same with the others. But as they passed, the negative folks dominated and pushed out most of the regular people who did not want conflict and arguments over politics etc. I have removed politics, but it still comes back. I have said from the start that politics is theater meant to divide and we see it play out here. But in DC, they do not think left/right, they think them and us. They are the 1% and their functional minions. The rest of us are considered their tax cattle, nothing more. They feed us division and some eat it up and think it is all that matters. By doing so they retain power while low info useful idiots on both sides battle it out. Those who prefer no division just avoid places where it plays out. Haters are going to hate and nothing will stop them. Some are mentally ill, others are trolls.

A smaller number are misguided people thinking they are fighting the good fight for what they believe, but their enemy has never been their neighbors from another party. They and we have no power. The enemies are ALWAYS only those with power to change things for the better who do the opposite. Stan was someone who changed what he could. Others here could do the same. If you aren't trying to make things any better, then you are simply a useful idiot for those with real power. I do my part by keeping this place going, but I have lots of positive music stuff going on and really do not have the time to directly enforce stuff here. Even though many of you dislike me, I don't knock you off line because that isn't my personality. I can fine if people don't like me. It doesn't affect my life. I still want a place for them, but making this a positive place to be is on them and everyone else. When someone cares enough to ask for my help, I do my best to help them with any good ideas they have. Otherwise, what happens here is a reflection of the people who post, what they say and do. Stan always loved this place and spent more time and effort here than anyone else and it showed. If you are complaining about the place being slow etc. then what are you doing about it other than complaining?

Either try to fix it or I have to ask how much you value your own short time on earth that you would waste it being negative and complaining without trying to fix it. There must be something more useful you'd do with that time in life. Meanwhile, there are positive people here and I keep this open for them. I have sent over a hundred people here personally in the past year and most say they can't deal with the trolls. But often they do not agree on who the trolls are depending on politics more often than not. If I update things, I have two choices at that point.

For the past 3 years no one new has been able to sign up. There is a deep programming issue that broke it, combined with Google blocking our account. There only action from this board is to send the double notification/approval emails and to send lost passwords, but still too many people have called our alerts spam and Google blocked us. If I update, I have to set up all new accounts. But the other thing I have to do at that point is get rid of the cancer. I really don't want to ban people who have been here for years. Even those who do not support or donate or even offer positive influence, it is clear they value it here nonetheless with the time they spend. If they had more in life, they would not be here. And I don't really want to take that away.

I wish they'd see the light, but since most have had years to turn it around, they don't. But if we want people to come back, either they change or they have to go. You already know who it is, and so do they. Stan used to turn people around that caused trouble. Because of that, only 1 single person has ever been outright banned here in over 28 years. I am proud of that. I hope I don't have to add any more when we update.

I still talk to Stan's wife and son. They are doing well last I heard, though it has been a bit, so maybe I will check in. We have a lot of great people that might come back but I am resistant to ask until we collectively clean things up. I get over 100 requests per day to sign up, but most are spam types and it is nearly impossible to screen them without the security stuff a working board has. But demand is still out there. I have no ads here obviously, so traffic is neither a plus or minus to me financially, but once people start coming back in the trolling and fighting will have to stop or be removed. I have offered countless truces and restarts to folks, but they rarely last. Maybe Stan could have converted them, I just do not have the time to even try.

Lastly, I have been talking with some internet archiving folks about this board. It is perhaps the last living history of the DIY era of music from the 1990s to the 2015ish era. That 20 years was unique in music history. Sadly most boards have been corporatized then deleted. I know a could still exist but they have oppressive staffs who are as joyless as an HOA with maniacal board members. For those of you who don't value this place, you might feel otherwise if it was totally gone. If we get to look in on the world after we leave it, I hope Stan is well and I say hi to him. We're still hanging on, but boy do we miss you and the others. We had it so much better than we ever realized!

Brian