Nice going, [mentaly] children (euphemism)

[Slick <PAYSlick_RCBD@hotmail.com>]

I've been away from CSA2 for over three weeks, and I come back to find
out that a prominent Apple II guru has left the A2 community. I am 1200+
messages behind in newsreading, but wanted to check Nathan Mate's A2
resources page to find out if there has been any major developements.
What do I find? That the page has been shut down. The actual text will
be quoted at the end of this message.

Those of you who are acting like children have cost us a valuable FAQ,
as well as a great page for accessing the FTP sites, and web pages such
as the Treasure Chest project. I hope your satisfied. When Dr. Tom shuts
down his grin.net site, where will we go for a listing of FTP sites?

I haven't looked at the messages yet, I just got a number from Netscape.
I also am not done with summer school. I just have some time now. I
still have another two weeks before I resume my regular posting. It will
probably take me a whole day to get caught up however. If you want me to
see a reply before then, cc my e-mail address into your news software. I
am sure there is a jubliant thread about this same topic, but I don't
feel like searching through 1200+ messages. Good Bye for now.
------------------------------------------
This page permanently deleted

It is with great regret that I must announce that I feel that the Apple
II community has been turned into a wasteland by
pirates, thieves and liars. Further, a community that refuses to stand
up to these scum is participating in their nonsense--
especially when they get suckered into believing that politeness is more
important than the truth.

The Apple II community doesn't give a shit about the constant piracy,
thievery, and hate of developers. And what's
worse is that more people throw a fit that I just used a 4 letter word
instead of being angry at the pirates that are truly
killing the Apple II's future.

I have invested many thousands of hours in Apple II creations, from
programming to maintaining the best and most
correct set of Apple II resources. Thanks to the jerks, this work has
been constantly maligned, stolen, insulted and I
now count that investment of time as a waste. The Apple II community has
been given up on years ago by people with
more common sense-- and now it is my turn to join them by turning my
back on the "community," shaking the dust off
my feet at them and moving on.

The pirates may be able to steal various works. But, the creator has the
true power that they never can match-- the
power to also destroy. To this end, I have low-leveled all HD partitions
and backups on my machines. There will not be
another GUPP update from me, no Twilight II 2.0. Many other projects in
various stages of development-- previously
unannounced due to my not wanting to promote vaporware-- will likewise
never appear on the Apple II. All files used
to create this web site have been similarly overwritten; I have *none*
of those files in my posession anymore-- and they
won't be coming back. And from my opinion, that's a good thing, as I
won't have to put up with the constant barrage
of lies and unappreciative users.

As long as the Apple II community is too idiotic to tell the difference
between the truth and lies couched in politeness, to
tell the difference between supporting pirates and developers, to tell
the difference between meaningless talk and actually
creating, it will be cursed to have more and more top developers leave.
Less and less will be created until the platform
lies in obscurity, only the domain of a few backbiting thieves who'll
never create anything new again.

Special mentions of thieves, liars, and crooks who have tried their best
to push away developers: Charles Turley (piracy
and lies), Jeff Hurlburt (aka Rubywand and SiFan-- more lies and
outright hate of developers, as the Wolf3D incident
proved), Karl Asha (running a pirate site), Patrick Kane (same), Steve
Mentzer (posting many pirated materials, then
claiming for years to not have done so). The blame for lack of Apple II
development lies firmly at their feet, but nobody
seems to have cared.

And from me to the Apple II community: goodbye and good riddance. You
asked for developers to shun you, and
they're too happy to oblige. Don't bother contacting me; filters have
been put in place to automatically toast such
messages.

Nathan Mates

7/14/98
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