C-Forum

Serious question. Have you ever met the guy in person? Ever boated with him? I personally have a hard time understanding how such an iconic figure in the paddling community keeps getting booted off of "paddling" forums. It's just how he is. The way he talks on the forum is the REAL Louie. So do you guys even know him?

How long will this post be up? It seems as though things are disappearing.

I was wondering the samething. All that you are doing by banning louie, is creating an opportunity for segregation in a sport that NEEDS UNITY.

AND WHY? So people that lurk, and hardly post on cboats can feel more comfortable? You are banning someone who has done more for the canoeing world than the people that r btching will EVER DO.

ITS NOT SMART. AT ALL. Don't make growing this sport harder than it already is. All you are doing is creating enemies and creating seperation.

You are creating a situation where Cboats will no longer be the "place to go" to talk about canoeing.

You admins are censoring things at a faster rate than China. It's not right

Please. Reconsider the things that are you censoring and doing. Like I said, this sport needs Unity, and needs a community like Cboats. It doesn't need several different communities... And thats the point where we are at right now.

I've actually meet Louie a couple times and found him engaging and funny. I never have had the opportunity to paddle with him but those folks who I know, who have paddled with him, speak highly of him. From what I’ve seen I’ve think he has done a number of good deeds for the sport of paddling and canoeing in particular (ALF, Lost Tribe, and the list I’m sure goes on).

That said… there are guidelines that users are ask to follow. We’ve been pretty slack on them and Admins really don’t enjoy having to log time on the forum making sure folks adhere to them.

Louie was asked a number of times to play within the boundaries of those guidelines… that’s all… nothing more. He chose not to….that was his choice.

On a personal note I really do hope I get a chance to paddle with Louie in the future… and I wish him only good times on the river and in life!

Paul Cline

Maybe we need to fragment this more Tommy, how about a OCboats.net, Oldfartsthatdon'tpaddlejustgripe.net, Whineythinskinnedwimps.net, Humorlessprudes.net. Hmmmm there are so many possiblities.

Actually, we have NOT been deleting posts. Whomever it was that Phil was responding to and blamed us edited their own post. In general if we edit we note in the past it has been edited by us. I'd rather get back to the days when we didn't have to as in general all followed the site rules.

And yes, some of the folks here have indeed boated with Louie.

But that isn't the point.

We have simple rules here - comment all you want on boats, paddles, whether you like the equipment or not, but don't attack one-another. As you have all noted, we're a small community. There is no need to piss each other off.

We have asked Louie (and others) numerous times to keep within our guidelines. Most folks after a gentle nudge are fine, and many later apologize. We're all human. In general we give folks the benefit of the doubt.

Louie has continued to flaunt the site rules, and these are the unfortunate consequences. As I said to him in the parting e-mail before I inactivated his account, I truly do wish him the best, as he does great things for the community. I also noted that apparently he was right, he is unable to post here and follow the rules (he had said that himself before stepping back on his own a while back).

I also want to note that in this case no one has complained about Louie, so he has no one to blame but how he has chosen to conduct himself on this site (and from what I've heard in person he is indeed a southern gentlemen). I thought hard about how we've been treating the situation after Creeker was offended we entered "Yankee" in to the word censor. And I decided he had a point. We've been trying hard to keep including Louie by having to moderate more, add words that really shouldn't be there in the filter system, and try to get him and others to play nice with each other on the board. And clearly it wasn't working.

Louie has managed to become less than welcome at a number of sites - I had high hopes we could get along here OK, and didn't take any of the advice folks gave me about him, as I firmly believe we all deserve a clean slate / a second chance at times. For a long time it worked well. I'm sad that Louie (and others) chose to make things so personal.

I'll let this thread go for a bit, as I am glad to accept constructive criticism. But if this becomes a bashing thread (of us OR Louie) it will be locked and / or moved, as it will really be serving no purpose.

Well yeah, that's where this is headed... I've had a suprising(but not really) number of people contact me on numerous occasions about starting another world wide forum...

I haven't acted on it for one main reason. This sport needs Unity, and Cboats.net is an established medium that boaters across the world use to engage with each other.

I don't want segregation. But, in all honesty, with all the censorship and 'admining' going on... it's becoming hard to stay loyal to Cboats, which was if i'm not mistaken, created to organize the first ALF (ain't LOUIE fest)...

You are mistaken.

The CForum was created by Scott Wilkensen and Dave Miller for the Concordia in 1999.

I think Louie had been doing ALF before that for years, but it got bigger when he started promoting it here a few years ago (and that's when it was named ALF).


If you, or anyone else, wants to start another forum that is a free-for-all site, go for it!

As I've said all along, we aim to be the informative, albeit likely somewhat boring, site. Lots of information and folks that want to help each other out, little to no trash talk or "chat" posts that aren't about boating.

"Actually, we have NOT been deleting posts. Whomever it was that Phil was responding to and blamed us edited their own post. In general if we edit we note in the past it has been edited by us. I'd rather get back to the days when we didn't have to as in general all followed the site rules."

I've had my post deleted, and edited numerous times, into things that AREN"T MY WORDS. without anything saying it was 'edited.


I've also been one of the most personally attacked people on this website, about my professional life(or lack thereof), personal life, gfs, ect... You don't see me whinning. I don't recall admins censoring that stuff? Fair treatment for all if you are going to have those girls, should be the way things are handed...

And you guys censored the term "Yankee" GIVE ME A BREAK. I highly doubt "Creeker" was offended... and if he actually was... its probably because he was having a bad hair day or somthing.

I'm sure if you had it your way - all cboats would be, would be the same boring threads over and over again, which have been beat into the ground for years upon years.

This is headed in that direction. A direction that a large part of the Cboats.net contributors would HATE to see happen.

A few notes for you Tom:
1) I think you are talking about the automatic word filters - when you type something, and something else immediately appears, that's what has happened. And yes, they don't note that they are editing, as it is a forum system and not a moderator.
2) Yup, we've been a little lax. We've stepped in time, and time, and time again with a few folks and it wears us down. We also miss things sometimes - this isn't a paying gig. Sometimes folks let us know something has bothered them and we attend to it. Sometimes not.
3) We tried letting the forum "loosen up" a little this time last year and give folks more breathing room. In retrospect that was probably a mistake.
4) As said before, if you don't want to abide by our rules, you are welcome to post elsewhere.

I hope all of you continue to be part of the CBoats.net community, but if you choose not to I certainly understand. We try to be as welcoming and inclusive to all, but clearly not everyone wishes to post at a "G" and "PG" level.

I suspect we'll move along just fine without Louie, just as we function just fine before he found our humble site. It will certainly never be quite the same either way.

"1) I think you are talking about the automatic word filters - when you type something, and something else immediately appears, that's what has happened. And yes, they don't note that they are editing, as it is a forum system and not a moderator.
"

Thank you. I'm computer literate enough to know what an auto filter is.

I'm not talkin about that... I'm talking about the MEAT of my post being changed and such.

Are there 10 year olds on this forum? grandmas?... By keeping it PG and G.... You are lame-ifying it, and making it way less entertaining. And its that entertainment that keeps people checking this site every single day. Not "G" Rated threads and such.

As I said to Adam in a PM.... Star Players get special treatment.

In HS, my coach let me get away with things that other players wouldn't. And parents would get pissed about it, and btch about it... but the fact of the matter was, their kids sucked...and I single handedly won games.

Louie is a star player in the Cboat community. Not the people that are offended by any little prodding comment. Louie brings traffic to this site. Not the lurkers, not lame members.

If someone doesn't care for the "rules-o-the-house" then... oh crap... how does that song go again?

Oh yeah... it's like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFSlYyK1G2Q

We don't exist for entertainment here. That's why I'm not always trying to drive revenue here. We exist for information and helping each other out. Perhaps that has gotten lost this past year. It is one of several ways to help folks out who are boating - which appear to be exclusive in some folks minds (I think we can be informative AND entertaining - some of your posts have been, as well as Louies... and without going over the line too!). Perhaps my idea of entertainment is tamer than some.

And yes, I know for a fact there are at least Grandma's that read (and post!) here frequently. I suspect there are some minors as well (I know there have been in the past).