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This first screen shot shows the entire page including my browser window at the time. I could have cropped some of that out, but it's nice to see what the site looked like at that time (summer of 2010). This first screen shot also shows the results of the poll: 21 to support Scott's ban, and 17 to reverse the ban. That's certainly not an "overwhelming" support of Scott's ban, and I personally think that banning should require more like a 3/4 or at least a 2/3 vote. Neither of those thresholds were met in Scott's ban, and we also don't know if Jack Axaopoulos had manipulated the numbers to get to the 55% as it was.
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Here's my same original post without all the "window dressing":
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As you can see from that initial post, I clearly acknowledged that it was Jack's site. But I also pointed out that any healthy community also has the right to express its pleasure or displeasure with the site's operation.
Ryan Voight followed my post 5 minutes later (at 12:30) with his own post noting that Scott had been a contributing member (5,671 posts) since March of 2007.
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Then Jack jumped in 4 minutes later (12:34) to try to smear me for daring to post a poll about saving Scott (see post below). You'll notice that Jack's references to the HGAA (below) have nothing to do with whether Scott should be banned from hanggliding.org or not. Jack also wanted to take the opportunity to claim "ELECTION FRAUD" (in all caps) against me. But Jack's own post exonerated me by including my own original message to Jack (starting with "bobk wrote").
For those not familiar with that particular HGAA election, there were essentially two "parties": the "Tyrants" (Jack Axaopoulos, John Borton, John Wright, ...), and the "People" (Joe Faust, Scott Wise, Bob Kuczewski, ...). Those were not the official party names, but they will help to make the point. Jack Axaopoulos, of course, controlled the HGAA web site and he made up all the rules on the HGAA forum. Jack arbitrarily decided that anyone who wanted to run in the election had to post a statement with their intention to run by midnight, and no changes or additional posts could be made. There were 2 Tyrants already running (John Borton and John Wright - clearly the puppets of Jack), and both Scott and I were considering running on the People's ticket. I really wanted Scott to continue in the job, but as midnight approached, Scott wasn't sure if he wanted to run at all. So I posted that I would run, but only if Scott were NOT running. My words were very clear:
"Finally, I'd like to comment that I fully endorse Scott Wise as Transition Team Chairman in addition to myself. In fact, if Scott does accept his nomination, then I will withdraw my own candidacy in support of Scott."
It turned out that Scott did accept his nomination, and he did post his acceptance just before midnight. So by my own stated words, I should NOT have been on the ballot to "split" the vote. But Jack didn't want to see the "People" united behind just one candidate, so he put BOTH Scott and myself on the ballot to split that vote - even though I had clearly stated I would withdraw my candidacy if Scott accepted. Furthermore, according to Jack's lock down, I was not even able to announce that people should vote for Scott. I asked to be removed from the ballot, but Jack refused and he started the voting with that fraudulent ballot containing my name to draw votes from Scott. I asked Jack to either restart the election without my name on the ballot or to give my votes to Scott. The choice was up to Jack, and I openly made that request to Jack, and to the other candidates, and to all of the people involved in the election (within the constraints of Jack's communication lockdown).
Yet here is how Jack mischaracterized that situation (note that Jack also reformatted my message by enlarging his selected text without admitting he'd done that):
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It's worth noting that Jack's very first post (directly above) states "NO MORE HGAA political threads". But Jack was the first person to mention the HGAA ... at all. Go back and check my post. Did I mention the HGAA? No. Did Ryan mention the HGAA? No. Were we talking about Scott being banned from the HGAA? No. Yet that's where Jack took the discussion while accusing me of doing exactly what he had just done. It's mind-boggling.
Two minutes after that post (12:36), Jack Axaopoulos launched into Scott's ban without citing any actual quotes from Scott. In his post, Jack refers to hanggliding.org as Jack's "living room", Jack's "own forum", and Jack's "own home":
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Five minutes after that, Jack made another post (12:41) calling for a "VOTE TO BURY" to remove the topic from the general forum and put it in the "Basement". Jack didn't want anyone to rally around Scott who had been a time-honored member of the site. Jack also issued this warning:
Jack Axaopoulos wrote:Bob you are starting an enormous amount of drama.
FINAL warning. Next minor infraction and youre gone.
"FINAL warning"? For what? Was there a rule against my post (above) asking people to comment on Scott's ban? Where was that rule posted? Here's Jack's post:
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Jack apologizes "for Bob dragging all of this crap over here"? Wait a minute. I was talking about Scott being banned from hanggliding.org and not from the HGAA. No one had even mentioned the HGAA except Jack. Who was dragging the HGAA into hanggliding.org? Jack was ... right there!
Then Jack began to call in his "buddies" to support the ban of Scott. Jason was first, but Jason's post was "all about Bob". Jason didn't even mention whether Scott should be banned from hanggliding.org, and Jason's only comments about Scott were clearly about Scott's work on the HGAA and had nothing to do with him being banned from hanggliding.org:
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Ryan Voight had known Scott since Ryan was a boy. So at 1:43 Ryan pointed out that the "bury" was awfully quick. My original post was at 12:25. Jack called for the topic to be buried at 12:41. And according to the time stamp on Ryan's post, it was already in the basement by 1:43. Ryan also rightfully complained that Scott was being banned for what he said on another forum. How could that be breaking the posting rules on hanggliding.org? Ryan also pointed out that Jack had repeatedly banned and forgiven others (like noman1, noman2, and noman3).
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Ryan's post was followed by a post from Jason Rogers ("gasdive") at 2pm. Jason's post sided with Ryan's complaint about Jack banning Scott from hanggliding.org for what Scott may have posted on other forums.
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At 2:01, I responded to Jack's claim of "drama". In my last paragraph (below), I pointed out that I wanted to be supportive of Jack because I wanted him to be on the right side of the issue ... and I really did. Sadly, my words fell on deaf ears.
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My post got three "thumbs up" (see lower right corner), but Jason Rogers pointed out that I shouldn't be using Jack's real first name ("Jack") due to unspecified "events on another forum":
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John Borton ("Bubble Boy") was one of Jack's hand-picked candidates from the "Tyrant" party that I mentioned earlier. He chimed in at 2:19 trying to justify the ban of Scott by saying that my poll was showing "a near 2 to 1 margin" supporting the ban. John Borton needed to check his math.
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At 2:55, Jack Axaopoulos posted again. He again complained about being "slighted" and "on his own forum". Jack made several claims about how Scott attacked him, but he could only come up with one quote from Scott:
Wingspan34 wrote:You and your other 6 "USHPA Part II" members can hold all the votes you want.
Was that it? With all of Jack's complaining, was that the one horrible thing that Scott said that got him banned from hanggliding.org? Was that the worst thing that Jack could find? Read Jack's post to the bottom and you'll find the lie that "Keeping your voice" on hanggliding.org was "fricken easy to do". Apparently not if Scott's quote is what got him banned.
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Jack Axaopoulos posted again at 2:56pm. This time Jack accused Scott of saying "FAAAAAAAAR" more stuff, but somehow Jack was unable to quote a single line of it. Jack said that Scott blatantly attacked Jack, but again, no actual quotes were given.
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Ryan replied 9 minutes later (3:05pm) and again pointed out that people shouldn't be banned for what they say on other forums.
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Jack responded 14 minutes later (3:19pm) and again claimed that Scott was "smearing" him. But again Jack could not produce a single quote that "smeared" him or broke any rules at all. Instead, Jack again invoked his ownership of hanggliding.org as giving him some kind of special status that is protected from criticism:
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Jack posted again 18 minutes later (3:37pm) claiming that the "vote log" was clearly indicating that people wanted to bury the topic. Although, again, Jack never posts any actual numbers:
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At 3:48pm (11 minutes after Jack's last post), Ryan waved the white flag of surrender.
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Ryan's post hung there as the last word on the topic for nearly 2 days from July 28, 2010 until July 30, 2010 at 1:11pm. That's when I posted what might be my all-time shortest post on hanggliding.org:
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My comment was right on target. In 6 words I had summed up the key problem with both the HGAA and hanggliding.org - they were both controlled 100% by Jack Axaopoulos ("SG"). Tyrants cannot take that kind of criticism, and Jack hit the ban button within the hour. At 1:51pm, Jack posted:
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A few days later (August 2, 2010), Dennis Cavagnaro (HGXC) admitted that the HGAA had turned into "a PR mess" after all the bannings. Dennis had been a long time supporter of Jack Axaopoulos and hanggliding.org. You'll note that Jack's ("sg") user information shows that he "joined" hanggliding.org on July 17, 2006. The user information for Dennis Cavagnaro shows a joining date of July 22, 2006 (just five days later).
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The topic sat silently in the "basement" for nearly 2 weeks until "handgliderguy" raised some interesting questions about the timing of the burial. My guess is that he'd been watching the discussion and noted the time that the topic disappeared into the basement. Jack never marked the time that it was buried, and he never responded to these questions:
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Instead, Jack's "right hand man" John Borton ("Bubble Boy") challenged the timing claim with these two posts:
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- Scotts_Ban_Post23.png (59.59 KiB) Viewed 709 times
So that's the story behind the poll to reverse Scott's ban from hanggliding.org back in the summer of 2010. Much (if not all) of that history has been destroyed on hanggliding.org itself, and many posts have been deleted or modified. I was wise to have captured these screen shots in October of 2010 before Jack Axaopoulos destroyed so many of these posts in recent years. But even by October of 2010 it was quite possible that Jack had already tampered with some of that history. This little story also highlights many of the pathologies of hanggliding.org:
- Absolute control by one single person: Jack Axaopoulos.
- Mysterious criteria for topics being "buried" in the basement.
- People being banned for things that they say on other forums.
- People being banned for speaking out when others are mistreated.
- No adherence to any standards other than the whim of the moderator.
- Mutilation of the historical record to suit the ego of Jack Axaopoulos.
If hang gliding were a thriving sport, it could probably survive this particular pathology. But, as Rick Masters famously stated, hang gliding is being murdered by U$HPA. Sadly, hanggliding.org has been helping to bury the evidence of that homicide for over a decade now.
