Once Upon A Time

[Tindomul]

Originally Posted by Marty

Grab a cup of hot coco and sit by the fire, I'll tell you a story.

... Once upon a time I inherited a bunch of orchids from my brother... being clueless about them I decided to join a forum, which shall remain nameless. Right away I was ridiculed for my lack of knowledge and quickly got pissed off by the attitude of the few bullies in the know how. I'm not the push over type so the situation quickly escalated and an argument erupted and flame war started. I was then told to get lost and if I don't like their forum to start my own and run it the way I want it... I remember I was mad as hell because not only did I not get any orchid info but I also left the forum insulted. ...I created a forum where I wanted everyone to feel welcomed no matter what the knowledge and skill level or country of origin, etc. Few times we had people that tried to make OB what other forums were, but we put an end to any belittling of members. The trend quickly caught on and our awesome moderators liked the openness of orchid board and the friendly atmosphere... Here we are now, OB seems to be the busiest orchid forum on the web now and the place where I was ridiculed has been left in the dust. It hasn't always been easy though, one time I had the idea of cooperating with other forums and creating a sort of global community with forums talking with each others. My intentions were taken the wrong way and I was accused of basically trying to channel traffic to orchid board, which was idiotic. Since then I decided that it's best if we run our dog and pony show on our own terms without cooperation from other boards.

In a nut shell that's about it... OB was really created because I got ticked off, so the moral of the story is, be nice to people or they will make their own forum, which will later kick your ass!

Good story. I don't remember when I became mod, but I remember it had something to do with me being here all the time
Now, I remember the whole forums not liking our offers of alliance. Oh well. But we do have one forum we remain on friendly terms with. Big Leaf Orchids Forum run by Peter Lin.