Scandal at Sonic HQ?

Take a look at this, especially if you’re a Sonic HQ forumer. HQ president John Gray, known as WB to most, posted this message on the Sonic HQ Mobius Forum. Some of you may know what he’s talking about, for others, well…have a look:

First thing – the deleted posts.

For anyone that wants to know, I reinstated the two deleted topics, which are currently closed. The first one bing the Amy/Sally debate and the other one being the “Oh No” post.

Sam did not delete those posts. I did.

And I didn’t delete them, I only moved them out of the way to HOPEFULLY clear things up and make the source of arguments somewhat less tense. I figured that if the main argument was gone then it would sort of ease up on the mood. That wasn’t anything against the Amy and Sally debate and the person who started it – but it was the huge argument WITHIN that debate that I wanted to get out of the way so I could clear my head and think on this whole thing w/o a million people reacting and lashing and it accelerating.

Second – I wanna tell you why she got so up in arms about getting on everyone.

I wanna first say that no one was “picking” on anyone, there was a reason behind it – and this was the reason.

A post was recently started BY ME – concerning a newbie named Shooter. Of course, the running gag around here is that “Dub eats all newbies! YAAAAH!!!” Thats the way its always been. Well – I noticed that the newbie in question was a girl and got super silly on it. Professing “SHES MINE! I CALL DIBS!” At this point – Jin enetered the post responding to me, and playing along with the gag with “You get all the girls! She’s MINE!” We both ricochet back and forth between this for a couple of the posts and it dies out, no foul. A simple joke – right?

Not quite.

What neither of us realized was that Shooter was a 12 year old girl.

Now imagine if you were a 12 year old kid and here you have two grown men fighting over which one is gonna have you. Granted thats not the way it was MEANT by far – YOU KNOW THAT, I KNOW THAT, WE ALL KNOW THAT. But how could SHE know that. And if you notice, she hasn’t posted again. Because we scared her away/

Think about it for a bit, seriously – if you were a 12 year old girl, would that have been a welcome that would`ve made you feel all that comfortable, even at that age? Sure “Eating newbies” is one thing and the obvious running gag, but having a co-webmaster and a guy with the title `Mental Case and Horny Forum Bastard` fight over who gets to lay you is a bit of a shock… – And if you think of it, its suddenly not all that funny for the person on the recieving end. And I personally felt really bad that I contributed in scaring away a 12 year old girl.

I didn’t know about it…until after the incident between him and Sam, when she told me why she was on everyone and doing the admin thing.

The reason is, Sam, out of curiosity, checked Shooters profile – because she noticed that Shooter never responded. She was the one who found out that Shooter was 12.

Now lets just say – WHAT would happen if Shooters parents were to have come on the forum if Shooter complained to her. On the forum AT THAT TIME during the entire weekend – was a post with the title “I KNOW!!! What a space aged w$@re!” which was made by Jinsoku, the long Sexual Fantasies post which nearly EVERYONE on the forum participated in, the whole thing between Rich (sonmanic) and Mad Max about getting off on and having sexual dreams about Sally, and finally there was the Vortex post about something (which was a typo) but made a joke out of the words “raping around the screen”. Someone responded to the rape thing a joke and laughed on it for a bit.

Now if you were a parent and came into the forum and saw that your child was in a place where you see the words “Whore, Rape, Sexual Fantasies, and other things” what would YOU have said to your child?

…a lot of you guys admitted that if your parents saw what was going on in here now you’d be Net Neutered until the end of time.

And THAT my friends is why everyone – most of all Sam was going admin crazy on everyone at the time. Not to be some pushy, bossy, stuck up git that wanted to take over the forum – but HOPING to try to get everyone in line or get stuff cleared up in case we had a situation like that on our hands. She was doing her job.

She was thinking about the forum when I WASN’T thinking about it. Vec wasnt there, I was busy working on SHQ, Vass is out of town, and Lien’s harddrive has been having memory problems. Sam was the only one available to do her job as admin and at the same time was the only one who COULD do it.

…No matter what @#$% or b*tch or f*ck you have. No matter how many filters you put on the forum, no matter what – A curseword is still a curseword, A f*ck is still a f*ck, and Sexual fantasies and the words rape and wh@re whether they were MEANT THAT WAY or not, are still there. And kids ARE going to read that. And if even ONE kid goes back to mommy and says ONE THING –

Then WE are in deep deep @#%$. SHQ is in deep @#%$, and _I_ am in deep @#%$.

Myself especially because I was one of the ones that took part in it. And what does that say about your page when your Webmaster is fighting (even as a joke) over a little girl)?

…And the Shooter thing only PROVED that to us. KIDS READ AND WATCH THIS PLACE. We have cartoon characters plastered all over the website. Its gonna attract ’em like flies. Had I known about the Shooter incident earlier, I would have stepped in and intervened but I didn’t. I wasnt there. Sam was, and she was only trying to pacify a bad situation the best way she could.

…Hell I own the page – I’m not immune either. You guys don’t know how much I’m beating myself up for the whole Shooter thing. I feel like a damned pedophile.

…Was the cursing and the deleting and tenseness and the arguing all necessary at all?

Look at the posts that we have – The Sonic Underground debate where Sierra went cuckoo, The Sally/Amy debate, The Sexual Fantasies post, the Sonmanic/Mad Max stuff and the Oh, No post. Read through those, don’t laugh at them, but read through them and ask yourselves – was that really necessary? Did I have to curse there just to get my joke across? Could I have exhibited some more self control?

And we NEED to get self control guys. We need to know whats right to say and whats wrong. And we don’t need to curse after everything. Cause in reality EVERYONE’S at fault…Almost no one here cant be faulted at something in some small or large form. Its huge and complicated and some people are gonna get mad – but we HAVE ALL have to take responsibility for all our actions.

All I ask is that you all hear me out, understand what I’m saying, and respect everybody. No more cursing guys – filters or not. No more picking and feeling like you cant say anything? And just TRY and understand what I’m saying guys. OK?

We almost scared a little girl. We almost COULD have had mad parents here…

Think about it…with all the flame wars going on in several Sonic message boards, something like this was bound to happen. Read this again, and then think about how close the number one Sonic site in the world could have been to total anarchy, with parents and kids alike.