Seto Kaiba

I don't think an answer will be long in coming. And here we have it... "trolling".

Yes, I agree that people should be allowed to express their own opinions, but there comes a time after someone has used their "say" to deliberately and maliciously deceive people for personal gain that they should honestly not be given the chance to continue to use their say to deceive people. If he could break the pattern it'd be one thing, but it's been one attempt after another on his part to prop himself up as an authority on a subject he doesn't understand and portray the lot of us as idiots and frauds. I'd say the same for Doug. How many times can we expect to excuse him calling us all pedophiles and child pornographers before we stop treating it as "his say" and start treating it as reprehensible behavior? At this point, I'm reminded of a scene from Futurama where Dr. Zoidberg is trying to convince Amy to remove the rubber bands from his claws, and she fires back with "Fool me once, shame on you... fool me six or more times...". It's a damn shame HE can't see that... he might actually change his behavior if he did. MEMO may have the ability to do that on a site he has influence on, but that doesn't make it any less sleazy or wrong. In fact, I would argue that it's an even more ethically unsound to do it there, where he professes that his site is "by the fans, for the fans" and advertises it as an alternative to the ThinkPol-esque attempts to quash dissent and free expression that have become Robotech.com's characteristic traits. You don't see something wrong or ethically questionable about him exploiting his authority (self-granted or otherwise) to deliberately mislead people? We tear into Harmony Gold employees on a semi-regular basis for doing exactly that. Why should MEMO be an exception?

I can think of only one thing to say to this... "DO WANT". Hmmm... damn, now I'm gonna be tearing all over the internet looking for decade-plus old FSS models.

I actually told him as much during one of my few guest appearances when he was trying to make something at least mildly respectable out of his podcast. His legacy is, and likely always will be, one of hatred and immature trolling. Now you understand why I don't want anything to do with MEMO1DOMINION... this is, pretty much word for word, his standard MO. He doesn't actually want to debate the issue like a reasonable man, and he doesn't want to actually do the research necessary to understand the subject. He just wants to assert that his opinion is irrefutable fact. He's a habitual liar and he abuses his mod authority on other sites to get away with deliberately misleading people. What he's done with those Harmony Gold et. al. v. FASA et. al. on RobotechX is standard practice for him... assert that "it is this way" and then bury any possible dissent by any means necessary. I'm not "talking past" MEMO... but I can't say I'm talking TO him either because there's no sign that he actually ever acknowledges or understands what I say, no matter how simple I make it. I, like everyone else, am just sort talking AT him in the same way that someone might talk AT a department store mannequin. I hate to break it to you, but you've described at least 45-55% of the online Robotech fandom with this. I wish you luck on this Sisyphean endeavor you have chosen to pursue. No, it just LOOKS like we're following each other around... I've been coming here on a semi-regular basis for ages, but MEMO and Bendo are only starting to show their faces because RobotechX has turned into a ghost town, leaving MEMO lonely after days of talking to himself and Bendo with no outlet for his trollish tendencies or to shamelessly promote that waste of space he calls a podcast. I certainly wouldn't follow either of those twits around, the only encounters I've had with them have been someone inviting me to MEMO's site to offer my thoughts on a few debates, and Bendo himself wasting weeks trying to get me onto his show by alternating between polite requests and attempts to goad me into it. I seem to attract the crazy ones, if only because as a well-informed, fair-spoken figure in the Robotech fandom I have a tendency to draw the ire of the crazy ones by casually demolishing their fantasy worlds with a few well-chosen sentences that aren't even directed at them specifically. Now, let's all remember what I JUST SAID about why I don't like MEMO... because he uses his authority on Robotech.com and RobotechX to censor opinions, silence dissent, and deliberately mislead people. You now have a clear-cut example of him doing EXACTLY THAT. Now instead of saying what he does to hack me off at him, I can just point to that thread and say "THIS!". He has posted something that he knows is a lie as though it were the truth, locked the thread to prevent any kind of response refuting him, and directed all discussion of it to a hidden portion of his site so nobody will be able to see it. He is the worst kind of sleaze and people like him are the cancer that is killing Robotech. I hope Pete is feeling appropriately embarrassed by this after having gone out on a limb to defend MEMO. It doesn't... they dodge the word "Zentradi" or "Zentraedi" or however you want to spell it. The Zentradi (and in fact, the Robotech Masters too) are not even mentioned in the movie. Maia refers to herself simply as "half-alien".

What did you expect? After all, the assertion that Macross Frontier is child pornography came from Doug Bendo of all people... that it's ignorant and utterly pointless should go without saying. It's a waste of time debating the matter with him anyway. It doesn't matter how elegantly you construct your well-reasoned response, it'll almost certainly be ignored because it's inconvenient to what he wants to believe. Bendo has decided Macross Frontier is child pornography, so it's no use trying to change his mind while he still considers himself above such trivialities as facts and logic. Now Pete, let's not insult Robotech fans everywhere by making wildly inaccurate statements like "Doug Bendo is the number one Robotech fan". That's like calling a bucket of medical waste haute cuisine. Well Pete, I guess it's down to you to translate their various forms of unintelligible gibberish for us.

Oh yes, I've confronted him on that before... he tried to handwave aside the multiple nude scenes and later blatant sexual objectification of Ariel/Marlene on the grounds that she's an alien and according to him she "represents evolution" or some tripe along those lines, despite the fact that by the end of the New Generation Saga and the start of the Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles movie she's a mere 16 months old. Clearly our friend Mr. Bendo is totally okay with it so long as he can call the girl an "alien", regardless of what she actually looks like. Don't think we didn't call him out on that one either. He tried quite hard to excuse Annie's extremely young appearance, partial nudity, and husband-hunting. His excuse for the bath scene, that it doesn't matter that she's naked and underage because they cover up the naughty bits and she's with "adults", was the very picture of hypocrisy. He damn near blew a gasket when we showed him what that same scene contained in the Robotech Remastered edition.

I was thinking more of the original Berlin from the Colus-Hagooda War, rather than the SR2 model designed by Diamond Neutral that only saw major use during the Majestic Stand. It's a nice-looking MH, but it got so little love, and spent most of its time getting smacked around by the Rainbow Boowrays and Hagooda's Maglows. Yeah, I have. It makes its only significant appearance in flight mode in one of the later volumes when they show the destruction of Float Temple in JC 4100. If memory serves, F.U. Rogner uses the Cloudsschätze as his escape vehicle, carrying with him his fatima Eatta and a few others who mostly end up crammed into the cockpit with him. The other, larger non-transformable model, the Wunderschätze, makes an appearance in the previous volume piloted by Arart Ex to spook the rebel forces based in Kastenpo.

*yawn* Same old ignorant song and dance, different venue. Get some new material already, would you?

However many covers have been done for VFs, I think... I'm pretty sure he was doing all or at least most of the cover art... so there's been a good ~30 issues worth or thereabouts. I was kind of disappointed by what he did with the VF-2SS, but some of his other stuff's quite good. That is a particularly dynamic looking VF-171EX.

Yeah, that's actually pretty good... I like that. I keep wishing they'd do model kits for some of the lesser designs in the series, like the Empress Flame, the A-TOLL Scritti, and maybe the Trio de Colus's Berlins.

It's classic MEMO1DOMINION debate tactics... he's never managed to produce real evidence to support his claim that Harmony Gold has full control of Macross and can use the intellectual property of the series at will, so whenever he's cornered he will take whatever irrelevant materials can be twisted to make them say what he wants them to say, then spends several pages harping on them as though they were the smoking gun proving Harmony Gold can use Macross in any way they see fit. Last time, it was a video of an informal talk Tommy Yune gave at a convention back in like 2004 where he constructed a grammatically torturous reinterpretation of statements by Tommy Yune that, when taken literally, explicitly confirmed what I had been saying all along. Like I said, he's found something irrelevant that he thinks proves the US courts awarded the design copyrights on the Macross IP to Harmony Gold, so he's convinced that trumps that Japanese court cases. A lot of his long-running argument on this topic has been essentially a denial that there is such a thing as international copyright law. So long as he can go on believing that the court cases MIGHT be challenged by something, he can keep willfully spreading his lies about how Harmony Gold can do whatever they please with Macross. For the record, none of the original Japanese court rulings have been overturned or altered. The courts were apparently quite satisfied with the original judgments and both parties exhausted their appeals trying to challenge the ruling which favored the other party. 'kay, where'd I leave my Frothy-mouthed Fanatic-to-English dictionary? Nah, not worth my time. VFTF1's already covered it pretty damn thoroughly, and nobody here takes this clown seriously anyway. Well, that's actually good to know... I'm glad MEMO isn't fool enough to endorse your immature, hateful, ignorant, and frequently slanderous behavior. I guess he does have a little bit of common sense after all. Not to completely demolish your little ego trip here, but we decided that rather than continue coming on your show when you had pretty much sworn to continue harassing people, throwing out foul language left and right, and generally being an ignorant prat, we decided we didn't want any part of it and would much rather continue to support JT and his podcast, which is a mature, well-informed, and very well-respected show that continues to gain listeners and the attention of many important figures in the Robotech fanbase. You're just butthurt because he's beating you at you own game. It's a shame, really... for a little while there I had genuine hope that you would finally turn your show around and make something halfway respectable out of it, but those hopes were dashed when you threw what little integrity you had away in an attempt to defend Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, a show you professed to hate. Let there be no misdirection here, you're on MacrossWorld either to troll or to plug your lameass podcast, because you got booted permanently from RobotechX by SIGHUP. Nope... I have no role whatsoever in the creative process of JT's show. I've been invited to a roundtable discussion to be held on his show, but that's the entirety of my involvement. Actually, Doug claimed victory after the other people involved threw up their hands and said "enough of this poo, this boy ain't interested in having a rational debate!". It essentially ended with Doug making unsubstantiated claims based solely on the animation with no context or dialogue, and denying that the stats provided in official Robotech publications weren't valid because they were based on material from the OSM. The reason we couldn't come to a consensus on the abilities of the respective fleets is because Doug found the official sources unfavorable for his argument, and therefore tried to deny that they were, in fact, valid sources. Oh don't worry, I shant start any fights. I'm actually still rather disappointed because for a while there, I genuinely believed Doug Bendo could actually make something respectable out of his podcast, and it actually started to show promise (like the discussion of Gundam's various AU stories and Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross) before backsliding into hate and bile and ignorance. I'm not normally the sort of person who believes that people can change their habits easily, but for a while there when Doug was trying to compete with JT on JT's level, there was cause for optimism, however brief... and that those hopes were dashed was a genuine disappointment for me. Because, unfortunately, someone gave this guy mod powers on several different websites, including an official fansite, and he's been using those sites as a pulpit to maliciously spread misinformation. If you actually stop and listen to Doug's podcast on the subject, which is a lot like me asking you to buff your eardrums with 20 grit sandpaper, you'll find several interesting and pertinent facts. Namely, Doug Bendo has never actually seen Macross Frontier in any form other than raw, unsubtitled video, and he doesn't understand Japanese. Yet Doug is openly professing that despite having no way to understand the dialogue of the show, that he was able to discern each and every detail of the story simply by watching the animation. Now, anybody with a functioning brain can tell that's a load of bull, and it explains an awful lot about why Doug talks the way he does about Macross Frontier. I'd also gathered from some things he's said about his dad home-censoring movies like Akira for him, that he leads or at least led, a very sheltered lifestyle. Ultimately, if you review the whole origin of the topic, you find that it came about because I was criticizing the blatant and pointless sexual objectification of all the female protagonists in Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles, and Viper was using AMVs to illustrate the disparity in animation quality between that and the Macross Frontier to demonstrate just what an Amateur Hour production Shadow Chronicles really is. He got onto this "Macross Frontier is CP" tack for one reason and one reason only... to defend a movie he professes to hate because someone said a Macross show is better. That's all there is to this. 1. Rick Hunter vs. Hikaru Ichijo - who would win? (fighting without their VFs) No side, they're both too meek to finish the job. 2. Lyn Minmey vs. Lin Minmei song contest - who sings better? Whichever one's voiced by Mari Iijima, that's obvious. 3. Roy Focker vs. Roy Focker (who's the bigger Fokker?) The Macross one is 21cm taller according to official bio stats.

Yes, in order for Big West to license the rest of Macross for distribution in the US and abroad, they'd have to deal with those pesky trademarks or work out some kind of deal with Harmony Gold. Naturally, Harmony Gold is probably hoping for the latter. It was quite a dick move, since it was done during or shortly after the whole legal brouhaha, and smart money says it was done for the express purpose of keeping Macross out of the US.

So long as we have MEMO as a captive audience, I have a question for him. Hey MEMO, since you came out and endorsed Doug Bendo's podcast a while back, does this mean you support his position of "DEATH TO MACROSS PURISTS"? I'm also curious to know where you stand on his accusations that all Macross Frontier fans are pedophiles and child pornographers. You were actively endorsing him on RobotechX, so that means you're supporting his views, right? You MUST support it, since you've allowed belligerent users on Robotech.com to keep "DEATH TO MACROSS PURISTS" in their signatures. So tell us MEMO, do you support this? Inquiring minds want to know.

Yeah, but MEMO sure as hell won't acknowledge that... just like the last three or four times, he's latched onto something completely irrelevant and is loudly proclaiming it to be the smoking gun. He doesn't know a goddamn thing about the law or legal process, but he's determined to bullshit his way through. Starting to understand why we have issues with MEMO yet? Yes, going against a court order can get you in a world of hurt, but that court document you're trying to claim proves something doesn't prove dick. The ONLY thing that document establishes is the rationale behind the judge denying FASA's motion for summary judgment. That's all. Nothing else. It is NOT a ruling on the case itself. There's no need to go to court to change it, because the case was settled out of court, there is no ruling. Trying to change the content of that document would have as much effect as going to court to change the content of the cafeteria lunch menu from the week that document was docketed. It has no bearing on the actual case or the rights it concerned whatsoever. It is IRRELEVANT. See the above... there is no need to "change the order" because the document establishes NOTHING. It is NOT a ruling on anything. It's just the court's announcement that they're denying FASA's motion for summary judgment. It proves nothing, and that you continue to belabor the point as though it was somehow relevant just proves that you still haven't even bothered to read the effing document. No, the decision from Japan is perfectly valid because it's a judgment on copyright ownership, and is thus enforceable under a number of international treaties including the Berne Convention. Pay attention for once. This was a completely and totally incorrect statement made out of ignorance the first time you tried to claim it... and repeating it has not made it any less wrong. Under international treaties including the Berne Convention, the rulings on the ownership of the Macross copyrights made in Japan are applicable in 164 countries worldwide, including the United States. That fact WILL NOT CHANGE. They don't NEED to have a second case in the US over it, because copyrights are protected worldwide under international treaties... it's called international copyright law MEMO. Before I wrap this up, a piece of friendly advice for you MEMO. If you don't understand the subject matter (and it's painfully obvious you don't), it's unwise to attempt to bluff your way through when you're talking to someone who does.

My god... do you have to TRY to be this ignorant? Seriously man. Again, the only thing that document establishes is the court's rationale for denying FASA's motion for summary judgment. The ONLY effect it had on the case was that they would have had to actually argue the case instead of just skipping right to the judgment. That document has no bearing on the actual substance of the case itself. Again, THIS IS NOT A RULING ON THE CASE. The ONLY affect it had on the case was that FASA's motion for summary judgment was denied. That's all. NOTHING ELSE. Nothing NEEDS to be changed because it DOES NOT ESTABLISH ANYTHING REGARDING THE CASE. IT IS NOT A RULING.

It's still not a ruling on the case MEMO, all that document pertains to is the court's decision not to grant FASA's motion for summary judgment. Its only relevance is in that it establishes that the court didn't think FASA had the grounds to file for summary judgment. No matter how much you quote it, the fact that it is not a ruling and has no force will not change. What court order? That document has no relevance whatsoever outside of the court case it pertains to, and specifically FASA's motion for summary judgment in that case. There's no need to change it because there's nothing to change. The case is over, has been for ages. It wasn't ended with a judgment by the court, it ended in a confidential settlement. Just so we're clear here... "changing" that decision to deny FASA's motion for summary judgment would accomplish one thing, granting FASA's motion for summary judgment in a case that was settled a decade ago. (In short, it would accomplish NOTHING)

I guess you could say that FASA "lost", in that they decided it would be less costly to settle rather than fight it out in the courts. No matter how much of a fuss you make about it, it's still not a ruling on the case so it doesn't mean squat. Because there's nothing to challenge? The business with FASA was settled confidentially and by the look of things the current Battletech and MechWarrior license holders don't think it's worth it to go back to court when they know they'll lose on the grounds that Harmony Gold has exclusive merchandising rights to Macross (outside of Japan) obtained under license from Tatsunoko. The Japanese court rulings concerning ownership of the copyrighted intellectual property of the Macross series and ownership of the copyright on the footage have been appealed several times, and I believe both sides have run out of appeals... so the rulings stand as they are.

Yeah, right now the only thing keeping Macross out of the US is a trademark beef centering around Harmony Gold's ethically-questionable but at least nominally legal trademark on the name "Macross". Had you actually read the document in question, you would know full well that it isn't a court ruling on the case... and that as such it has no weight whatsoever. What you have here is the outcome of FASA's motion for summary judgment in the case (denied), and as you know the case concluded with a confidential settlement rather than a ruling. If only it were a ruling on the case, you might have had a point. Too bad it isn't one. This is why you should read the whole document before attempting to use it as evidence.

Oh, what the court decided is legal enough, it's just concerned with a completely different, essentially unrelated set of rights to the original Macross series. Specifically, the Harmony Gold et. al. v. FASA et. al. court ruling concerns only the merchandising rights to the show. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the intellectual property in the show. Yes, but as I have illustrated, the ruling does not contradict or in any way conflict with the Japanese court rulings because the US court ruling has nothing whatsoever to do with intellectual property rights. It's all about the merchandising rights Harmony Gold acquired from Tatsunoko in the 80s.

We don't need to "say" it's all true, it IS all true... and just for yuks, I'll prove it. Copyrights are protected internationally under a variety of treaties, including the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Big West and Studio Nue's copyrights on the intellectual property of the Macross series are honored in all 164 countries which honor the Berne convention, as well as other treaties. Both America and Japan are included in the list of countries that honor those treaties. That the copyright on a derivative work only covers new material not present in the original work and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of the copyright protection for the original work is established by law... specifically, 17 U.S.C. § 103(b). Carl Macek explained that Harmony Gold couldn't use the original character designs in an interview published in the August '95 run of Robotech comics. The pertinent excerpt from the interview is thus: There you have it... no assumptions necessary MEMO, I deal in hard facts. Well, the only company that could conceivably attempt to overturn the Japanese court rulings would be Tatsunoko, and as the appeals on both sides are pretty much exhausted, the situation regarding who owns what rights to Macross won't change. Big West/Studio Nue still own the copyrighted intellectual property of the series and the franchise itself, while Tatsunoko owns only the footage they funded the creation of (but not the Big West/Studio Nue-owned IP it contains), and the rights they were granted under their initial contract with Big West/Studio Nue (merchandising and distribution outside of Japan). As to whether someone could attempt to overturn Harmony Gold et. al. v. FASA et. al., it's certainly possible if the current owners of the Battletech/MechWarrior franchise want to make a fight of it. They'd lose horribly since there's no arguing that Harmony Gold's merchandising rights to the series in the US and abroad are exclusive and quite legitimately acquired. That whole Mechwarrior 5 thing has nothing at all to do with the intellectual property rights.

It's misinformed statements like this one that make it very difficult to take your argument seriously... you're not doing your homework before you post. Harmony Gold et. al. v. FASA et. al. was a lawsuit prompted by a violation of the merchandising rights Harmony Gold acquired from Tatsunoko under license. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the intellectual property rights to the series. Also, as I have repeatedly reminded you, the Japanese court rulings are rulings on ownership of copyrights, and those copyrights are protected by international law. I will also remind you that US copyright law firmly establishes that copyrights on derivative works only cover material which was not part of the original work, and does not grant the author of the derivative work any rights to or ownership of the original work, and thus Harmony Gold's copyright on the Robotech adaptation doesn't give them any rights to the content of the original work. Additionally, please recall that Carl Macek has gone on record to say that Harmony Gold could not use the Mikimoto character designs of the original Macross series, and Harmony Gold has never EVER offered any statement that contradicts that.

Which court ruling(s) are you referring to? None of the Japanese court rulings have been overturned, so Big West/Studio Nue still own the copyrighted intellectual property of the Macross series, the right to create derivatives based on it, and the franchise as a whole, and Tatsunoko still owns the copyright on the footage they created for the original Macross TV series but not the intellectual property contained within (as per the '03 ruling). To the best of my knowledge, nobody has challenged Harmony Gold et. al. v. FASA et. al. either... though it is quite possible that such a thing is underway and that neither party has publicized it because they're hoping for a settlement rather than a ruling handed down by a judge. I'm not convinced it's not sarcasm.

Clearly... you haven't listened to a goddamn thing I've said. Pete, I know you think you're doing something profound here, but you're thinking about this a little TOO hard and starting to see things that aren't there. This is not, nor has it ever been, about hurt feelings or any of that emotional BS. This isn't anything against MEMO as a person either. What this IS about is finding MEMO's abuse of his authority to censor opinions, silence dissent, and willfully spread misinformation objectionable. This has nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with how he does his job as a moderator and the negative impact his behavior is having on the entire Robotech fandom. You're trying to make this into a personal grievance when it isn't one. Now, can we PLEASE get back to a reasonable topic instead of all this faux touchy-feely BS?

I have no idea why you're so determined to make this into a case of "hurt feelings", I assure you it isn't. Being banned from Robotech.com was nothing more than a mild inconvenience. It hasn't stopped people from coming to me with their questions, it's just changed the way I give them their answers. As far as I'm concerned, nothing of value was lost. The same can be said for being banned from RobotechX, the site was virtually dead when I arrived, and in short order the apathy of those in charge allowed one troll after another to run riot over the site, so I consider myself well shut of the place, as do many others. If people didn't feel that way, there wouldn't be an organized boycott of the site. Like I said, I don't hate MEMO, I hate what MEMO stands for... ignorance, misinformation, censorship of opinions, and abuse of authority for personal gain. I'm not hurt by what he did to me, I'm disgusted with what he's doing to his fellow Robotech fans. Seeing jerks hopped up on fake authority mistreating people just because it makes their balls feel big really hacks me off. It wouldn't bother me much even if they did, I don't do what I do for the kudos or the respect of my peers, I do it because I want to do something nice for my fellow fans. No, I assure you that I meant what I said, and that the other people he's banned have similar feelings. There are no hurt feelings involved, just disgust at what he's done and how he treats his fellow fans. I don't give a toss if he unbans me or not, and most of the others he's banned don't either. It's not worth it to go back to those sites just to endure the same indignities again as soon as the guilt trip you're trying to use on him wears off. Rather than once again place ourselves under the ridiculous restrictions of Harmony Gold or trust that MEMO won't come over all censorship-happy again, we'd rather make our own way and deliver on the promise that RobotechX failed to fulfill and go further to do something for everyone and maybe even take some steps to remedy the shortcomings with Robotech resource sites that often lead to debates turning into games of he-said she-said. Eh, it varies depending on the individual... enough of them cared when I was banned that they still take pains to refer people to me when they fail to get the answers they need from the boards, and there's been more than one petition to unban me despite my protestations that I desire no such thing. I'd say there hasn't been much to be critical about only because there hasn't been anything worth talking about in years. It's been nothing but rehashes of the same old topics for ages now, and the lack of movement on the live-action movie and the lack of a follow-through on Shadow Chronicles did not help matters. The turnover in members has been the result of a growing discontent among the old-timers, and an increased insistence on kid-friendliness on a site devoted to a show only people in their 20s and 30s remember. Eh, the powers that be certainly took umbrage over what I had to say... but then again I understand our pal Tommy Yune is a sensitive soul.

I most sincerely disagree... MEMO didn't wrong himself, he got EXACTLY what he wanted. He silenced the people who were making him look like a fool and who were saying things he didn't like. Ultimately, the people MEMO has done the greatest disservice to are the regular Robotech fans... the fans who are now afraid to even voice their opinions about the franchise because they're afraid the Thought Police (MEMO and Maverick) are going to come along and kick them out. There's a world of difference between being vindictive and being unwilling to give someone a second chance to plant a knife in your back. I don't hate MEMO and I don't want revenge on MEMO, I find him utterly untrustworthy and I think what he stands for is disgusting, and I lament the fact that the imbeciles at Harmony Gold entrusted him to look after part of the Robotech fandom. Pete, I can't call it a victory. None of us can. It came at a high cost, and too much of that cost is falling on the fans who had nothing to do with it. I may have been vindicated, but at the expense of allowing MEMO and Maverick to stifle what little intelligent discourse remained in the fandom, and permitting them to continue spreading lies, half-truths, and malicious misinformation among the fans. While I appreciate the impassioned plea on my behalf, I have no interest in returning to Robotech.com or RobotechX, and neither do most of the people Maverick and MEMO have banned under a series of flimsy excuses for doing nothing more offensive than speaking their minds. I have no use for a website where I'm forbidden to express any view other than "Harmony Gold is great, Robotech is perfect, and Shadow Chronicles is a masterpiece". Frankly, I have even less use for a site run by someone who makes a habit of spreading malicious misinformation and supporting the hateful, frequently slanderous work of an ignorant roll. No, no it is not. It's just somewhat topical here because it illustrates exactly how deep in the shitter Robotech is these days. An alternative for the now essentially-defunct RobotechX, one that can truly live up to the moniker of "By the fans, for the fans", is already under construction and should be available by year's end. Normally I wouldn't devote my time to a project like this, but the enthusiasm and creativity that the few remaining decent people in the fanbase have shown is kind of infectious... so I don't mind lending them some unused space and bandwidth on my server. Eh... actually I've known a few that do... but they're physics majors, and physics majors do that kind of crazy poo on a daily basis. Even if he does, it proves nothing except that you can guilt him into reconsidering his actions at least in the short term, it's no guarantee that he won't slip right back into his usual MO of "YOU DISAGREE WITH ME? YOU BAN!". Nobody wants to go back to the sites he's banned them from Pete, so even if he does unban us, he's just wasting his time. We've seen how he treats people, and we've seen who he's supporting, and we want none of it.