Hello

[fyo 9]

It's me, Fyodorov/NickBarr from back in the day. I'm glad to see this place is still going. I may have been this place's worst member ever.

 

I was a huge jerk when I played here. No excuses. I was just really immature and not really very socially adjusted, and had a lot of my own demons that I think I took out on others. I simultaneously loved this place and got really into it, but at the same time, I think it was a bit of an escape for me in a negative way. You could probably tell from how I acted at the time, but i wasn't very popular in real life and didn't have many friends. I thought I wasn't popular in reality, so I could be popular on here by helping out and being active. The truth was, I was just disliked online or offline because I was a huge asshole. Truly. You probably won't be surprised to hear that this wasn't the first online community around that time period (2009-2012) where I ended up wearing out my welcome. The common denominator was me.

 

Looking back as an adult, I cringe pretty hard at who I was back in university, and am sorry for being such a huge jerk. I know I left this place in a pretty shitty spot when I disappeared after taking over a team and moving the website. I think I was just acutely aware of how much I had been disliked, and how much my own actions and the way I had behaved were to blame, and just stopped signing in one day out of shame.

 

That's the shittiest and most selfish thing I did, leaving like that and jeopardizing the hard work that went into the site by leaving the guys like Sterling (still remember going to that baseball game), Knight, Jardy (not sure if they're still here) in the lurch. I was much younger and stupider than I like to think I am now, but still old enough at the time to know better. Those guys especially didn't deserve that for all the hard work they put into this place.

 

It's bothered me for years that I was such a piece of shit to people around here, especially how I exited, and I wanted to get this off my chest. I'm sorry for what I did and how I was.

 

This isn't a comeback post - I unfortunately don't really have space for VHL in my life (nor would I expect to be welcomed back, even if I did), but I'm happy to see this place is going strong. If you played here in 2009-2012 and I made your experience negative at some point (thinking of Kendrick in particular - not sure if he's around or if he remembers me but I really gave that guy a lot of shit for some reason, to the point where it was excessive), I'm really sorry for that too. 

 

Whether I knew you or not, hope life is going well and you're all staying safe. It's not much and it doesn't make up for the things I outlined above, but I kicked in a small donation for the league. Cheers.

 

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by fyo

[gorlab 4,321]

Damn, I felt the pain of this post. 

 

 

 

Don't be too hard on yourself. Plenty of assholes zippin around on this community. Myself included. 

[thadthrasher 1,692]

Yo, dude! I wasn't around that long ago in VHL, this is only my first month! I have no idea how you were all those years ago, but this post alone shows a huge step-up in maturity from wherever you came from. There are a lot of things I look back at from my teenage years that make me cringe, but recognizing it and apologizing is a huge step. I hope all is well with you and better than it was before, and I'm sure you are always welcome back to the VHL community!

[Beketov 8,642]

4 hours ago, fyo said:

Sterling (still remember going to that baseball game), Knight, Jardy (not sure if they're still here)

Sterling lurks, mostly just to supply us with donation money when we need access to it. Knight (at least that Knight) and Jardy are gone.

 

4 hours ago, fyo said:

nor would I expect to be welcomed back, even if I did

You’d be surprised how much past shit we’ll overlook haha.

 

4 hours ago, fyo said:

thinking of Kendrick in particular - not sure if he's around

Yup, he is. There aren’t many of us old guard left but @Kendrick still is.

 

Morbid curiosity because we’ve never really gotten to the bottom of it so blame got thrown on you potentially unfairly. Did you actually bring down the second site or just left us without anyone really understanding how it worked? I’m not gonna be upset if it was you, we’ve long moved on, just genuinely curious if we can get some closure on that weirdness.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

48 minutes ago, Beketov said:

 

Morbid curiosity because we’ve never really gotten to the bottom of it so blame got thrown on you potentially unfairly. Did you actually bring down the second site or just left us without anyone really understanding how it worked? I’m not gonna be upset if it was you, we’ve long moved on, just genuinely curious if we can get some closure on that weirdness.

 

I forget - is this the DDoS incident or something else?

[Beketov 8,642]

14 minutes ago, flyersfan1453 said:

 

I forget - is this the DDoS incident or something else?

The DDOS.

 

First site we lost because Invisionfree apparently had a cap on how many posts a forum could have, which they didn’t advertise but we hit, so our old posts were being deleted. Second site we lost because someone DDOSed us, or at least that’s what it looked like to our host, so we were cut off.

[fyo 9]

1 hour ago, Beketov said:

The DDOS.

 

First site we lost because Invisionfree apparently had a cap on how many posts a forum could have, which they didn’t advertise but we hit, so our old posts were being deleted. Second site we lost because someone DDOSed us, or at least that’s what it looked like to our host, so we were cut off.

That's a bummer that you got DDoSed. I never looked back after the last time I signed in back when I was around. 

 

I didn't hate the VHL nor want to destroy it at any point. I worked hard on the website and, even standing alone as its own technical work, I was proud of it. I wouldn't have wanted to destroy it and I didn't have anything to do with that. But the fact that I'm a suspect is pretty telling of the kind of legacy I left here. 

 

EDIT TO ADD: I am guilty of leaving without telling anyone how it worked really. The website was actually a shitty, undocumented fork of the official STHS portal that I combined with some custom PHP integrations in SMF (our forum software for the second site). Once I figured out how to access the portal database from the site, I was able to do a lot of cool things (like the new finance system we had that was built into the site, and some of the stats tables that were directly embedded In the forum).

 

I wasn't a compsci student and the website was a hobby project with a lot of code hygiene issues, and so leaving without any kind of handoff or documentation was shitty. I did get one or two emails from jardy that I answered whenever a big issue came up, but I did put those guys in a really tough spot by not doing any kind of knowledge transfer or having any documentation. 

Edited November 2, 2020 by fyo

[Beketov 8,642]

59 minutes ago, fyo said:

But the fact that I'm a suspect is pretty telling of the kind of legacy I left here. 

It doesn't really. It was just that you were the only on that understood the site really and it blew up very shortly after you disappeared so I think people just jumped to the conclusion that the two were related when they completely weren't.

 

TBH I don't think your reputation is as tarnished here as you think it is. Even if it were so few of our current active members were even around to know about it.

[tcookie 672]

hey, I don't know you or what you did around here in the past, but I think this post shows whatever you may have done wrong before is something you've learned from and grown past, and you deserve a lot of credit for acknowledging and apologizing. Good for you, and I hope everything is going better for you now!

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

18 minutes ago, Beketov said:

It doesn't really. It was just that you were the only on that understood the site really and it blew up very shortly after you disappeared so I think people just jumped to the conclusion that the two were related when they completely weren't.

 

TBH I don't think your reputation is as tarnished here as you think it is. Even if it were so few of our current active members were even around to know about it.

 

I always thought it was that Eldred dude who got perma banned

[diamond_ace 3,106]

I absolutely remember you, I gmed you on Ottawa. This is a class post, and it's good to hear from you anyway. Welcome back in whatever capacity you decide, even if it's just to talk to us in this thread. 

[Kendrick 4,721]

Oh yeah I'm still kicking. We knew you as the DDOS guy and someone who thought his player was the ultimate sim legend (he wasn't) but time heals some things and we aren't upset at all!

[Victor 10,532]

 

[BOOM 8,405]

I have updated my security. 

[solas 1,946]

Never thought I’d see this return haha.  Pretty sure I was on Riga with my first player when you were (briefly) GM there.

 

(also put me in the same boat as flyersfan, I always thought it was Eldred that DDoSed the site.  Or at least that he was the only suspect we had)

[sterling 1,990]

Good to see you’re still alive, friend. 
 

I don’t think we were too upset at the time as what we had was working until the host shut us down. We were able to move on pretty successfully from that as you can see now.

 

And don’t feel any guilt, I’ve been retired for about 3 years now and the league has continued on without me, Jardy or Knight. The VHL is and always has been bigger than one person. Most of the members here don’t even know who I am

 

I’m also glad you came with me to see Halladay pitch, especially now in retrospect.

[Devise 4,475]

1 hour ago, sterling said:

Good to see you’re still alive, friend. 
 

I don’t think we were too upset at the time as what we had was working until the host shut us down. We were able to move on pretty successfully from that as you can see now.

 

And don’t feel any guilt, I’ve been retired for about 3 years now and the league has continued on without me, Jardy or Knight. The VHL is and always has been bigger than one person. Most of the members here don’t even know who I am

 

I’m also glad you came with me to see Halladay pitch, especially now in retrospect.

 

Don't worry Sterling, some of us will never forget you. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at that image of Eastwood again without thinking of the Sterling banhammer. 

[InstantRockstar 1,221]

wow, a name I have not seen in a long, long time. Welcome back! 

 

We all have our demons, I know this all too well, I found myself writing a similar post back when I first returned too. Hopefully this time around you kick some ass

[Doomsday 4,034]

You're a bit before my time, but it's never too late for redemption. It's a truly liberating feeling to drop the weight of regret off your shoulders, and I hope you continue to do well!