What would Caeser do?

Yeah, unique title, isn't it? But the idea kinda seems the same. After all, Caeser was pretty much stabbed in the back by his peers, too.

Alright, let me set up the field for you. I [formerly] spent a lot of time on a forum that was centered around both technical support and a computer game, Warcraft 3. I won't say the name of the site or any of it's members for a few reasons [the biggest among them is "why the bloody hell would I help them by putting another link up for them after they all acted like immature children?"] I originally signed up back in 2005, sometime in February. That means for over 4 years, I've been a member of this community. I've been a trouble-maker to the point where they banned me, and more recently, I was a moderator and later an Administrator.

And the other day, I just resigned.

Why? Well, it started with something small that I wasn't ready to resign over. We have this one member that had been there for a long time... Only a few months after me did he sign up. And, well... He wanted to be a moderator for the longest time. There's nothing wrong with that, it's something for a young kid to aspire to in a community... But he wasn't really "mature" and had never rubbed any of the staff the right way. It didn't help that he flat out asked to become a moderator over maybe a dozen times.

Lately, he had been talking to the owner of the site through Facebook. Again, all well and good. But then the other day, the owner comes onto the private forums and flat out tells anyone and everyone who doesn't like it to kiss is butt, but this kid who the staff has PURPOSELY been kept out of the staff is now a super moderator, a step below an Administrator. Now, this alone isn't really worth leaving over. Staff members have come on and left after months, maybe even years. Members who'd been there older than me and were staff had left. It happens.

But when I ask a genuine question, litterally quoted word by word as "What inspired this?" and get a reply that's worded to sound like "FUCK YOU, I DO WHAT I WANT!" I'm not happy. I believe a lot in respect. When people don't respect me, those people are typically shown how much I do care about being respected. That, that kind of response? That is not respectful. And one of the other age-old Administrators saw the same thing.

So he left. Keep in mind, I'm an Administrator and I do a lot with helping other staff with decisions, I ban people, I try to improve the site, etc. etc. This Administrator in question maintained the server and website every single day, to my knowledge. When something went wrong with it, no one but this ONE MAN fixed it and even if he did get help from someone, he was still the driving force behind the site's maintenance. Enough of a driving force that, when he left, they kinda scrambled to fill his spot. Both people now doing so, while good people and good at what they do, even admit they're not as sure as they could be they can do as good a job as our departed Administrator.

A few threads were created to announce his leaving, as he announced it in an Administrator forum. The next notch in my "leaving" list of reasons was when a few people decided it was appropriate to start talking a bit of trash about this person, who was not only a huge part of the forum, but kind of a mentor to me in how I operated with the people at the sight. In my opinion, he taught me a lot about restraining my quick temper, handling people who judge me and just generally how to be a more professional person in the forum and in life.

Now people are saying the man's got an ego? Arrogant? Please. The guy was a volunteer for the kind of work people get PAID decent sums of money for. We have a guy at my place of business who does less work than this guy and works on a better salary than I do. But because he says things other people won't or don't like, he's now egotistical and arrogant. I can't wait to see what they say about me behind my back, especially considering that I was a bit more blunt than he was about what I thought and how I felt. I even told them that. I got one reply. Everyone else seemed to keep their mouths shut on that topic.

But that wasn't even the final straw... Just close.

The final straw was when the guy who was sucking the owner's rear end, the new super moderator decided to say something sexual in content and extremely disrespectful to my girlfriend on the forum's chat. I was so furious, I almost didn't know what to do. My first impluse when something like that happens is corrective action, so far I actually almost banned him for a day or two. Except, there's one problem. He's the owner's buddy. I couldn't do jack-shit to this kid that wouldn't be revoked or turned around back at me. So I was supposed to sit there and take this kind of disrespect? Not even disrespect to be, but my girlfriend? And I was the one who brought this girl to the forum... Is this what I brought her for? For people who an "in" with the "boss" to get to do what they want?

No. I think not. So, I posted in the Administrator forum that I resigned. I explained why and I wasn't exactly nice about it. It's crap and I know it's crap. The super moderator tries to make amends, but I just blocked him on IM, took him off my Myspace and Facebook. I'm done with bullshit like that. There is no room in my life for a place that's run like that or people who operate themselves like that.

Today, I get to work early this moring, early for my shift like usual... Decide to see if anyone's even said anything about me or if I was unnoticed in the shadow of the other Administrator. And I notice something...

I'm not an Administrator. They actually demoted me. That was the last straw. The big one. Good bye to that community. Good riddance.

I know a lot of those members come here. I know they read these posts everyday. For those of you who don't know what happened, now you know. And knowing, after all... Is half the battle.

Think on THAT philosophy. If you can.