strange days

For anyone who visits a certain prominent video game forum, have you ever noticed some strange underpinnings?

Go over there now and look at one of the top threads under the 5200 sub-section. It deals with a 'big game' coming soon for the 5200, but the topic starter ceased posting any updates last fall. A few posters revived the thread, questioning what happened to the promised game. I think it is Exidy's Venture. After a couple posters mentioned that the topic starter was actually, according to them, stealing others' homebrew projects and claiming them for his own, the topic was locked. No comments from a mod. No reason given anywhere. Just locked. I don't believe the topic starter would have taken offense because it seems he was booted from the site, maybe last fall sometime.

Go back a couple years, and I know a person who got the boot over there for merely inquiring about a thread that mysteriously and suddenly vanished. My friend told me the thread was dealing with Atari/Infogrames and their recent use of cease and desist letters to shut down web sites with the name "Atari" in them. Seems a couple posters on that thread got to asking why Atari Age had not been hit with such a letter, and someone got nervous and pulled the thread. When a person I know asked where the thread went to, that person was banned from the site.

Are there some topics over there that a person does not dare broach? The site seems more and more these days to have a secretive and maybe even something-to-hide side to it.

Ever heard of freedom of speech? Just don't practice it over there.

I know this topic has come up on other sites with the recent announcement of the Atari brand up for sale. When Atari does sell maybe they will look at the good that these sites have done to further the Atari cause.

I have not been on Atari age for some time, but it seem to have expanded beyond just Atari. Perhaps, the time has come for a site overhaul.

Oh, I realize the touchy nature of the Atari site licensing issue, but do not understand the overall secrecy and hush-hush environment on that site. It just seems to me that the admin of that site has such a vested financial stake in the brand and his inner circle of cohorts, that anyone who inquires about the truth is seen as a threat. Getting banned over asking about the disappearance of a touchy thread is nothing short of paranoid and ridiculous.

Agree, with what you said.

When enough people have decided enough is enough things will change.