About the April Fool's Joke

[daan]

The fact is is was a perfectly controlled April Fools joke designed by DA and Duke and involving consenting members. Out of left field, and totally unexpectedly, a Super Mod divulged his profile details to a member. This could have happened (but shouldnt have happened ever) yesterday, today, tomorrow, next year...whenever. The fact of the matter is the divulging of confidential Mod details to a member should not have happened.

The April Fool's joke was totally separate to the actions of sUn and Jon. In my eyes, Duke and DA and the other mods have nothing to apologise for. sUn's actions were totally separate to their joke. People are also forgetting alacrity with with the mods involved in the AFJ bolted the doors and contained the situation. They kept their cool and did a great job of discovering the root of the problem. Period.

Those who feel angry at mods have no reason to be. They should however be extremely angry at sUn and Jon for betraying everyones trust. A SM giving out info like that disgusts me, even it it was for "good" intentions. A mistake without malice yes, on Jon's part, but an unforgiveable one nonetheless.

👍 I agree entirely with that. The Mods/Admins have nothing to apologise for.

And some people need to get a grip on reality. No one died (Apart for PS's grandmother, but we don't care about that). You didn't lose any money. We didn't come round and burn down your house and steal your car.

Don't trust the mods/admins? Why? It wasn't an unprovoked joke. It was April Fool's Day!! And it was going along great until sUn/Jon threw a spanner in the works.

Can't wait to see what the Staff comes up with next year

After this year? Nothing.

 

[Jay]

I think this is a good time to put this behind us and just remember the rollercoaster that was April 1st 2005. (it was April 2nd for me which initially made it more confusing)

Next year (April 1st) Im going to sit back and believe no one.

*Edit* but I still cant understand why Jon would give sUn access, I have trouble believeing it he must have guessed the password or something.

 

[Solid Lifters]

:

After this year? Nothing.

I sure's hell hope not. I hope the staff doens't now resort to acting completely sterile after yesterday's events. This place was pretty damn dull until Duke started his joke. Again, it was great, until sUn and Jon screwed things up.

No apologizing necessary.

 

[Jay]

I am sorry that you feel that way, please understand that everything bad which happened today was completely beyond my control. The one "bad" moderator that we had has been banned, and you can rest assured that the rest of the moderator staff will be completely re-evaluated.

I will explain why I originally said I was dissapointed with the GTP staff.


The reason I was dissapointed is because although the joke was good fun, scary and very well planned out, the staff kept fueling the joke which was great but some members where starting to get almost paranoid about wether this was real or a joke (in different threads around GTP). This is where the joke should have stayed so we can speculate about whats going on but regually someone added extra fuel to the April fools fire and members like sUn got to the point where he was willing to hack or somehow access Jons SM account.

I was alittle dissapointed that this wasnt picked up by a moderator earlier, but this is where all hell broke loose. sUn posted up Dukes profile info and as that was enough to ban him and he knew it so he probably thought he might aswell go down in flames and turned this joke very serious.

Anyone that wasnt part of the joke and in reading after missing it, please keep in mind it got somewhat hectic at times and everyone except mods (before sUns rampage) were completly confused because the mods put on quite a show.

After reviewing whats happened I am NOT dissapointed like a was earlier with the actions of the GTP staff and I would like to apologise to all GTP staff for coming across like it was their fault and they had had to apologise.
(I never actually blamed staff it just may have came across that way because I didnt explain myself well)

Saying that if you decide to make anymore jokes like this in the future (as I hope you do, dont want it to get boring in here) I suggest you keep a very close eye on whats going on so we dont have a repeat of the same mistake.

Also I would like to thank all involved for completly explaining what happened and your side of view instead of just deleting threads and forgetting about it. 👍

 

[ExigeEvan]

I'll be communicating with Jordan about my status here and while I hope he sees fit to retain me so I can continue to help repair the damage, I'll accept whatever decision he chooses to make.

Retain! Retain!

You've done nothing wrong. It was a great laugh seeing the mods trying their hardest to deceive us . I don't have any problems with the mods, except Jon, but I never really knew him. sUn, I dunno, he seemed ok, but again, not really someone I talked to.

Lets see what you can brew up next year. Maybe all the mods demanding pay from Jordan and going on strike!

 

[TVRKing]

Retain! Retain!

You've done nothing wrong. It was a great laugh seeing the mods trying their hardest to deceive us . I don't have any problems with the mods, except Jon, but I never really knew him. sUn, I dunno, he seemed ok, but again, not really someone I talked to.

Lets see what you can brew up next year. Maybe all the mods demanding pay from Jordan and going on strike!

Or maybe posting a link that states that it has info on GT5 - and it opens our CD drives instead.

Honestly - I have great respect for the Mods. Had the joke gone smoothly, It probably would have been the funniest thing I'd ever seen!.

What I'm curious about now though is that a user called Stutgart 911 claimed he had a snippet of an AIM conversation which may explain how and why Jon and sUn did it, except he was scared about revealing his name in case he got banned again.

 

[cardude2004]

I'm also curious as to why so many people don't trust the staff anymore, there was one bad member of staff, everyone else was just part of an April fools joke. Just get over it, everyone did the best they could.

Blake

Those of us that saw this unfold didn't trust anybody yesterday because we didn't know who to believe. We got all of these explanations of what happened and some were contrary to what we saw. Also, we didn't know who had the power, or who was part of administration anymore because everybody had been banned and we didn't trust that we wouldn't get banned, even though we did nothing. Sorry for not trusting people yesterday. I couldn't figure out what was going on and was trying to avoid messing up my account by getting banned or something. Sorry Mod's and Administration, I realize now it wasn't your fault, it was a hackers fault. I should have picked up on that when I saw sUn's screenshot of Duke's profile.

 

[Jay]

Exactly, If you wasnt there to see it unfold you dont understand why we werent trusting anyone. It was like a sniper at one stage that anyone could be picked off at anytime.

 

[Der Alta]

Exactly, If you wasnt there to see it unfold you dont understand why we werent trusting anyone. It was like a sniper at one stage that anyone could be picked off at anytime.

As it was unfolding, everyone was guessing and there was panic. But it was controlled and in check by the staff at GTP. We were still perpatrating the joke.

Shortly after that the SM was compromised, and someone took it upon themselves to access controlled and private portions of GTP, it wasn't contained. They immediately began banning people.

The staff picked up on it very quickly, as we have a very regulated process for banning. The entire staff immediately went into damage control and worked to contain the situation. Which we did, then spent time fixing it, then sorting it out and working with Jon and sUn to sort out why they did what they did.

They gave no answer or justification why they did what they did.

That was the most discouraging part of it.

AO

 

[cardude2004]

As it was unfolding, everyone was guessing and there was panic. But it was controlled and in check by the staff at GTP. We were still perpatrating the joke.

Shortly after that the SM was compromised, and someone took it upon themselves to access controlled and private portions of GTP, it wasn't contained. They immediately began banning people.

The staff picked up on it very quickly, as we have a very regulated process for banning. The entire staff immediately went into damage control and worked to contain the situation. Which we did, then spent time fixing it, then sorting it out and working with Jon and sUn to sort out why they did what they did.

They gave no answer or justification why they did what they did.

That was the most discouraging part of it.

AO

Sorry for the mistrust. It was just like total chaos when the bannings happened. You didn't know where to go because it we like all of the administration was banned so nobody could stop them. At the same time, I was trying to protect myself so I wouldn't get banned. I was getting confused. I lost trust when I didn't know who was banning people anymore. I now have the story and am trusting of this site again.

 

[TVRKing]

They gave no answer or justification why they did what they did.

That was the most discouraging part of it.

AO

See this is one thing that ticks me off, causing havoc and then not having the balls to own up and admit it.

I noticed that quite a few people have left since this charade. I'm not going anywhere however, simply because I enjoy posting here, I have quite a few friends here, and it take more than one selfish moron to get rid of me.

 

[Duke]

I'm glad to hear everybody's getting settled down again. For yesterday morning, the fuse was burning nicely, leading up to a neat little firecracker at the end. Then around noon somebody off camera threw a pint of gasoline onto it, and it was pandemonium for a bit.

There's certainly no need for people to apologize for being upset. In the first part, we were trying to confuse people. And in the second part, it was genuinely confusing.

Thanks to everybody for your support in the aftermath.

 

[donbenni]

Glad to hear it's all worked out now. Good work guys.

Should sUn be considered a threat as a member to other forums? I've spoken to him since yesterday, and he still denies doing anything.

 

[Delirious]

yay! were one big happy family again! hugs all around!!!

 

[Race Idiot]

Seriously, damn your arses.

Thank god I edited most of my posts in that thread.

Seriously though, I can't think of anything worthwile that sUn has ever posted. He also has been guilty of brown nosing to trying to get a mod position and mentioning 'oh I mod on other forums' etc.

 

[Jordan]

It certainly does feel much better around here on this new day, doesn't it? I believe this thread has run its course now, and I'm going to close it so we can all put this bump in the road behind us and move forward. As always, if you have any more questions or concerns abou the issue, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Now, time to get back to re-opening the Leaderboards!