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The Reefuge

Administrator
Jul 9, 2011
4,152
1,929
Masa / Rtaw - A Vendetta Against The Reefuge?
Hello everyone,

EDIT: For the sake a clarity, the reason I am posting this here is because MASA is an authority figure in the hobby. Doing what I believe they are doing is information that should be known to hobbyists and businesses in the hobby. It was a difficult decision to make. On one hand I did not want to talk about another sites politics here. On the other, the information is important for users to know.



Before we start, I would like to say that The Reefuge is a MASOV member.

For your convenience, a link and a copy of their (MASA/RTAW) mission statement is provided below.


Source: http://www.masa.asn.au/masa/about_masa.html

The Mission of the Marine Aquarium Societies of Australia Incorporated is;
  1. To act as an information resource for all Australian marine aquarists, whether part of a marine aquarium society or not.
  2. To bring the marine aquarium hobby together within Australia, to allow growth and sharing of knowledge and expertise.
  3. To work with all relevant organisations, both national and international, in order to;
    • Educate, inform, and support best practises for sustainability, and
    • Encourage captive propagation and thereby encourage advances in marine aquarium husbandry and further reduce collection impact on the environment.
  4. To offer assistance to hobbyists in the establishment and ongoing administration of local marine aquarium societies.
  5. To actively promote sustainable practices in the hobby, including, but not limited to:
    • captive propagation, both recreationally and commercially, and
    • drastic reductions in mortality rates during collection, handling and holding of animals within the commercial sphere of the hobby.
  6. To act as a political voice at both a state and federal level on issues pertaining to marine aquarium keeping.
  7. To provide common online resources to enhance the feeling of community amongst reef keepers.

The reason for this post is because I believe that the people responsible running the message forums (Reefing The Australian Way) are in breach of their own mission statement.

This would normally not be a concern for private message forums (like most online forums), however, it is not unreasonable to conclude that MASA/RTAW could be deceiving their members by stating what their organisation represents and aims to do, but does something else. My issues arise that they are a society representing their members in Australia and not sticking to their own mission. Not how they run their site.

The issues are separated in the posts below. First, we will start off with censorship of the reefuge account on RTAW.
 
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The Reefuge

Administrator
Jul 9, 2011
4,152
1,929
I would like to first start with moderator(s) and/or administrator(s) deleting links to The Reefuge. It was stated by one of their admins/mods, directly to me, that they actively delete links to The Reefuge to prevent an "us and them mentality". This to me seems counter-intuitive. It also prevents their members finding new/different information.

There is also the issue of my own posts (a masov member) being deleted on the rtaw website. For all intents and purposes, I am silenced over there.

masapp.png


As you can see, the post was (possibly) deleted the first time I posted it. I figured it must have been a browser bug and posted it again (thus the first line of my post). This post was again deleted for no reason that I can think of. I did not break any forum rules.


Shortly after I made that post, I created a thread here, titled "Automate Membership". Unfortunately I do not have the exact contents of the post, but I will explain them below.

A while ago I was approached by a president of a masX group (who will remain anonymous until I am told otherwise). We were discussing the possibility of that particular masX group to have their member forums also hosted on The Reefuge. I came up with the idea that we could connect the payment system used on The Reefuge to the masX representative paypal/bank/cc to automate the forum membership. That is to say a user can join a masX group directly from The Reefuge and the payment will automatically set up their access on their masX forums and website. Payments will go directly to the masX.

He/she informed me that they will bring this up with their masX but I have not heard from him/her since.

However, not to let a good idea go to waste (especially as ALL of the masX forums are on Reefing The Australian Way) I made a thread suggesting the automation of memberships for their masX groups in order to make it faster and easier for their members. This thread was removed from their "Site Announcements, Questions, Comments and Suggestions" forum.

automateMembership.png
 
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The Reefuge

Administrator
Jul 9, 2011
4,152
1,929
However, it is possible that I broke a rule in the posts. The only rule I think I could have broken is explained below.


Rule I *could* be breaking - http://www.masa.asn.au/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=183421 (Found under "Business Guidelines" B1)

"A Business must be registered with MASA before any users associated with that business are permitted to participate on the RTAW Forums."
Okay, so The Reefuge is not a registered business with MASA. However, this is not out of choice.

Before making a single post on the MASA forums, I made sure to contact them in regards to getting "The Reefuge" as a registered business for MASA so I could participate on the forums. Well, funny thing is, the business registration was rejected.

After discussion and careful deliberation we have decided that we will not register your user account as a business and we will not be taking part in any business activities with The Reefuge.
However, due to the dilemma of me being a MASOV member and having access to the forums, I was told

We are happy for you to remain as a forum users, but will not allow promotion of The Reefuge site by yourself or any other users of RTAW.
Neither of those posts that were deleted mentioned The Reefuge website in any way. They did not violate forum rules, and they followed the posting guidelines. So, why were they deleted?
 
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The Reefuge

Administrator
Jul 9, 2011
4,152
1,929
I would also like to mention the following.

Any contact made to me (The Reefuge) regarding this thread, whether in public or private, can and will be posted publicly on The Reefuge. This includes but is not limited to any e-mails and private messages.

Thanks.
 
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Lesley

Member
Apr 2, 2013
2,086
1,079
yup. your right , i have checked and the post are no longer there !
 
E

ezza

Guest
Oh crap. Shouldn't have sent you that picture of me half naked... I better put it here for clarity sake...

image.jpg
 

rnscross

Member
Jul 16, 2011
161
107
As a long time internet/forum user for both marine and other subjects I find all marine hobby related websites to be rather childish.

A large amount of this comes down to the dissemination of information. People do not like to be wrong, and as there is little information in marine keeping that is actually factual it is often hard to prove anything, thus people want simple justification for what they will do anyway.

This is an important point as it forms the basis for the psyche that subsequently occurs with having such a large presence online (insert moderator of choice), those with the weakest argument often shout the loudest.

Thus what you have experienced is not surprising.
 

The Reefuge

Administrator
Jul 9, 2011
4,152
1,929
As a long time internet/forum user for both marine and other subjects I find all marine hobby related websites to be rather childish.

A large amount of this comes down to the dissemination of information. People do not like to be wrong, and as there is little information in marine keeping that is actually factual it is often hard to prove anything, thus people want simple justification for what they will do anyway.

This is an important point as it forms the basis for the psyche that subsequently occurs with having such a large presence online (insert moderator of choice), those with the weakest argument often shout the loudest.

Thus what you have experienced is not surprising.
I agree. The point I am trying to push however is that a society who is an authority figure should be doing what they claim to do. Discriminating against a business that aims to help hobbyists and businesses is something that should be known and not hidden.
 
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Buddy

Member
Mar 13, 2012
3,142
1,526
Yeah I saw that thread was deleted! Pretty childish behaviour from the rtaw mods, but sadly it is what we have come to expect from them.
 

mscott

Member
Jan 2, 2012
1,416
271
Wheelers Hill
I
Yeah I saw that thread was deleted! Pretty childish behaviour from the rtaw mods, but sadly it is what we have come to expect from them.
Indeed, I'm pretty sure that's why many of us are here anyway. The mods over there (who are just normal reefers like us) seem to have the mentality that they are God, they delete posts (even some of my own) just because the posts shine a different light on subjects that they want to go their way.
It's like playing COD with a bunch of 12 year olds, same shtt different day
 

Agent M

Member
Oct 21, 2011
3,536
1,586
Melbourne
I think its time for a Bambi rerun :p Honestly I don't concern myself with these things, I've been a member of various animal clubs over the years and they are all the same - when I was a kid I was even a part of the rat and mouse club, and the older ladies would glare at the 'rabbit' people across the pavilion at the agricultural shows.

I'm interested and I keep tabs on what is happening to this hobby, but I've noticed that the MASA forums are not what they once were. Hopefully at a time in the future things will lift again.
 

MQ-9

Member
Nov 25, 2014
281
108
I am here because of chromus. A few years back, on the goldy I had a chat with a gentleman about it all, and he made a good point. He left and I followed suit. I'd rather chill with the cool kids.
 

slin1977

Member
Jul 13, 2011
3,476
1,661
Sydney
My current statistics on that forum say I average 0.16 posts a day
Thought I would share this with someone who cared ..... Don't feed those Trolls
 
Mar 1, 2014
229
100
Ever since I have started I have been told shit things about that site and how you are ridiculed for posting a question they think is stupid even if you are new and learning.

This place is awesome. Keep to your roots and stay humble.

Thank you to a lot of people on here
 

gtrxu1

Member
Jun 25, 2012
363
196
I got a bad taste in my mouth seeing people with 20K posts attacking noobs in the beginner forum when I was starting out in the hobby. It didn't look good at all and I could never be bothered posting anything on there after seeing that.

Capture.PNG

God forbid anyone who mentions using Lanth dosing on there....
 

Ollie

Member
Oct 11, 2014
18
8
What a sad thread from you reefuge

What is the point? To make people aware that you had a post deleted?
A whole write up on it?
Childish political campaign hidden behind polite well written post.

Masa is the same as reefuge
A place for people to talk, it's the people who make it good or bad, it's what you take from it,
and a few people at masa may have gone over the line but now it seems the same is true of reefuge only its a business owner not a volunteer who is over passionate.

So below what I have heard of you

Later