Ron Knights produced a Weekly live ‘Tech’ Show – this used to be every Friday at 8pm EST and Saturday at 3pm EST (to cater for the European audience). Ron’s inability to deal with people meant he would block people out of his life (including me) for the smallest thing possible. He swapped from Ustream to Justin.tv – after all the Tech Buzz and all the others had done so right? He even paid the Tech Buzz some money to be part of the IRC Network – the goal here was to live in a Troll free environment as it was managed IRC server and once a person is banned – they are banned across the network.
The day it all went wrong
I shall write this story from stuff I have heard – I was there looking at the chat room at the time but I do not have all the facts to hand – you can take or leave what I write here.
On a Saturday Show – 1st May I think it was, a person came into the chat room and was asking questions (he was new) but Ron worries so much about outside people who he “thinks” are trolls that he would rather take them out then have to deal with them. The guy was kicked (and banned?) and this guy was not happy at all – so he went to the IRCops of the channel and complained that this guy ron was forcing him to register or else he would be kicked. One of the said IRCop’s – Rob Johnson took it upon himself to test this, he went under a different IP and name and asked some questions – I saw these very questions been asked and there was nothing bad about them at all. Ron was not happy – he ordered the OP’s to kick and ban this person if needed – he has not time for Trolls.
Time for the real slim shady
Rob Johnson then logged in as himself and confronted Ron while Ron was trying to do a show. I can imagine this shook ron’s world – the people who he not only looked up to and admired as been different from the rest are now acting much like I acted in his mind – a dirty rotten nasty trollish person. People got confused at this point – here was the people who run the network attacking Ron – what could the OP’s of the channel do? The show went on as planned and finished after some music was played.
The aftermath
Ron was probably so shook up by this – he left the IRC network and declared that his show is no more, he will do YouTube Video’s instead. They carried on trying to talk to him via Twitter – he went ahead and removed a whole bunch of people – the majority of the Tech Buzz staff and people.
My thoughts – Ron Side of view
He paid his money for an IRC Server and expected a level of professionalism in that the people who run and police the network should keep fully out and impartial to the actual channel and it’s contents. I have always stated that this IRC Network cannot work due to the fact if you upset someone in one channel – you end off getting g-lined from the whole network (I am living proof of this). If Ron wanted to Kick or Ban Rob – then why is this a problem? It is Ron’s channel after all right? Does he now get a refund of his money for bad service? Does the people who caused a problem not get demoted?
My Thoughts – IRC Server side
Ron struggled to deal with normal day to day life and people and if someone does not agree with him fully – he will block you in any shape or form. He runs a live show (or used to) but is not happy about people he does not recognise in there – as this is the Internet after all – that is next to impossible. Maybe his best plan would have been to password protect his show and only let the people he talks to on Skype know the password?
Wishing him the best
Even though Ron refused to have anything to do with me, I do wish him all the best on his next adventure and hope everybody has learned a valuable lesson from this entire silly thing.
