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Hello everyone. There’s an issue that’s come up that we need to address. This post could be long, and I apologize for that, but it affects every member of this club, so please read through it all.
Jin (@FutureInterest) has had sole control of our website credentials since our website was changed to a new hosting company back in late 2019. I wasn't a member of the board then so I can't speak to how that happened. Anything I said regarding the issue would be simply hearsay. However, the fact remains that Jin has sole access to our website controls. Up until October 8th, I was able to log in to our website hosting to download backups of our website in the event that anything happened. As I'm sure most of you can recall, we had some issues with our website going down several times over the last year. The website is in Jin's personal name and is being paid with Jin's personal credit card. Up until July, I (as treasurer) have been reimbursing Jin for his expenses hosting the site.
I have reached out to Jin numerous times since September, when he last appeared online. I've texted and called numerous times. This last Sunday, I showed up at his house, and he answered the door. I asked if we could talk, he said no, and shut the door in my face.
I have attempted to maintain the relationship I had with Jin prior to all of this, as I considered him a friend, and I would hope he would have considered me such. Not to mention the couple of thousand dollars I've spent on his corals over the past 2.5 years, lol. I’ve held out hope that he would come around. He did send me a message on facebook after I left scolding me for showing up unannounced and saying “give [me] a bit more [time] and hopefully I’ll be cooled off enough to chat with yah.”
During the time that Jin has been off from our forums (since September 14th), he's started his own business with Totes, called Frag Labs. Personally, I see no issue with that. Jin told me he planned on going big a while ago, and that's fine. However, that was the impetus for me to accept the president nomination, as I don't think a coral retailer or wholesaler should be in charge of the club. During a recent face to face conversation I had with Lawrence (Totes) I was informed that Jin was upset that I allowed Adam (@Adam) to be a board member.
Now, Jin has had beef with Adam for a long time. Jin has accused Adam, as well as the entire board of 2016 (or 2017? Again, I wasn't around then) of squandering away over $17,000 in club resources to create a website that we don't even use any longer. Jin has even gone so far as to threaten to personally sue them in our forums in the officer discussion subthread. However, I did some digging, and Adam wasn't even a board member when the decisions to make these website changes took place. Adam was brought on as a trustee after the decision to build a website from scratch was made. Jin also attempted to have Justin (@jcook54), Andrew (@ActiveAngel) and myself vote @Adam and Doug (@urbanknight) off the board because he didn't want to work with them in January of 2020. We refused to comply, and that's when Jin threatened to sue them.
So - if Jin is upset, that's fine. But why is club property being held hostage as a result of him being upset with me and Adam? I can't wrap my head around this - try as I might. And why can't a simple conversation take place? I've been trying to talk for months. And I've been VERY respectful in my attempts to initiate conversation with him. I've gone out of my way to be available, and he simply hasn't reached out.
I've heard from Lawrence (Totes) that Jin plans to hand over the credentials. I held out hope and was able to persuade the other board members to keep from taking action until the beginning of 2021. Now here we are, and we don't have the website controls. We need this in order to update the website (that hasn’t been updated since it 2019 and has several security patches that need to take place) as well as implement some of the board changes that have happened since it was last updated. We can't modify anything to allow admin access to the newly elected board members who are now in place. We can't do anything if the website goes down.
At this point, our only option is to restore the website to a backup I have from October 8th.
If we do restore from a backup, we lose everything from October 9th until now. This is the ugly truth. But there it is.
I really do hope Jin does the right thing and surrenders ARC's property. But until we hear from him we don't know that he will.
I am sorry to have to unload all of this on you guys. It's been my intent to remove the drama aspect of the club so that we can get back to tending our reefs and water changes. And, God willing, this is the last thing standing in the way of that.
If we do initiate a restoration of October 8th's data, it will be very tedious and time consuming to attempt to restore new members that have joined since then. And frankly, we will have some fall through the cracks. That's just a sad reality. My stomach aches just having to type this. But that's the only thing I think we can do. I have no desire to see him and his business banned from ARC. But sadly these will be the affects of having to restore from a past backup.
I'm hoping we hear from him soon. I really am. I will keep you all up to date with any changes. I apologize to have to lay this on all of you, but I hope you all understand the position that the board has been put in. If Jin gives the controls then everything will go on as normal. If he doesn’t, then we will bring the website down on Saturday, January 16th at 9am. It should be down long. Please, go ahead and save any posts/pictures that you want to keep.
Also, I'm quite sure that there will be several people who haven't been online in ages, including Jin, who are about to come out of the woodwork to defend him. However I find this blatant refusal to peacefully surrender club property egregious, as I am sure most members of this club do. So let them attack me. It's expected. However, my only goal has been to help the club move forward and grow. I really hope we're able to do so after this issue is resolved.
We plan to hire a company to act as a trust to hold all ARC accounts so that a situation like this NEVER happens again.
Thank you all for tolerating this rather long winded post, and for your continued support and participation in ARC.
-Shawn
Jin (@FutureInterest) has had sole control of our website credentials since our website was changed to a new hosting company back in late 2019. I wasn't a member of the board then so I can't speak to how that happened. Anything I said regarding the issue would be simply hearsay. However, the fact remains that Jin has sole access to our website controls. Up until October 8th, I was able to log in to our website hosting to download backups of our website in the event that anything happened. As I'm sure most of you can recall, we had some issues with our website going down several times over the last year. The website is in Jin's personal name and is being paid with Jin's personal credit card. Up until July, I (as treasurer) have been reimbursing Jin for his expenses hosting the site.
I have reached out to Jin numerous times since September, when he last appeared online. I've texted and called numerous times. This last Sunday, I showed up at his house, and he answered the door. I asked if we could talk, he said no, and shut the door in my face.
I have attempted to maintain the relationship I had with Jin prior to all of this, as I considered him a friend, and I would hope he would have considered me such. Not to mention the couple of thousand dollars I've spent on his corals over the past 2.5 years, lol. I’ve held out hope that he would come around. He did send me a message on facebook after I left scolding me for showing up unannounced and saying “give [me] a bit more [time] and hopefully I’ll be cooled off enough to chat with yah.”
During the time that Jin has been off from our forums (since September 14th), he's started his own business with Totes, called Frag Labs. Personally, I see no issue with that. Jin told me he planned on going big a while ago, and that's fine. However, that was the impetus for me to accept the president nomination, as I don't think a coral retailer or wholesaler should be in charge of the club. During a recent face to face conversation I had with Lawrence (Totes) I was informed that Jin was upset that I allowed Adam (@Adam) to be a board member.
Now, Jin has had beef with Adam for a long time. Jin has accused Adam, as well as the entire board of 2016 (or 2017? Again, I wasn't around then) of squandering away over $17,000 in club resources to create a website that we don't even use any longer. Jin has even gone so far as to threaten to personally sue them in our forums in the officer discussion subthread. However, I did some digging, and Adam wasn't even a board member when the decisions to make these website changes took place. Adam was brought on as a trustee after the decision to build a website from scratch was made. Jin also attempted to have Justin (@jcook54), Andrew (@ActiveAngel) and myself vote @Adam and Doug (@urbanknight) off the board because he didn't want to work with them in January of 2020. We refused to comply, and that's when Jin threatened to sue them.
So - if Jin is upset, that's fine. But why is club property being held hostage as a result of him being upset with me and Adam? I can't wrap my head around this - try as I might. And why can't a simple conversation take place? I've been trying to talk for months. And I've been VERY respectful in my attempts to initiate conversation with him. I've gone out of my way to be available, and he simply hasn't reached out.
I've heard from Lawrence (Totes) that Jin plans to hand over the credentials. I held out hope and was able to persuade the other board members to keep from taking action until the beginning of 2021. Now here we are, and we don't have the website controls. We need this in order to update the website (that hasn’t been updated since it 2019 and has several security patches that need to take place) as well as implement some of the board changes that have happened since it was last updated. We can't modify anything to allow admin access to the newly elected board members who are now in place. We can't do anything if the website goes down.
At this point, our only option is to restore the website to a backup I have from October 8th.
If we do restore from a backup, we lose everything from October 9th until now. This is the ugly truth. But there it is.
I really do hope Jin does the right thing and surrenders ARC's property. But until we hear from him we don't know that he will.
I am sorry to have to unload all of this on you guys. It's been my intent to remove the drama aspect of the club so that we can get back to tending our reefs and water changes. And, God willing, this is the last thing standing in the way of that.
If we do initiate a restoration of October 8th's data, it will be very tedious and time consuming to attempt to restore new members that have joined since then. And frankly, we will have some fall through the cracks. That's just a sad reality. My stomach aches just having to type this. But that's the only thing I think we can do. I have no desire to see him and his business banned from ARC. But sadly these will be the affects of having to restore from a past backup.
I'm hoping we hear from him soon. I really am. I will keep you all up to date with any changes. I apologize to have to lay this on all of you, but I hope you all understand the position that the board has been put in. If Jin gives the controls then everything will go on as normal. If he doesn’t, then we will bring the website down on Saturday, January 16th at 9am. It should be down long. Please, go ahead and save any posts/pictures that you want to keep.
Also, I'm quite sure that there will be several people who haven't been online in ages, including Jin, who are about to come out of the woodwork to defend him. However I find this blatant refusal to peacefully surrender club property egregious, as I am sure most members of this club do. So let them attack me. It's expected. However, my only goal has been to help the club move forward and grow. I really hope we're able to do so after this issue is resolved.
We plan to hire a company to act as a trust to hold all ARC accounts so that a situation like this NEVER happens again.
Thank you all for tolerating this rather long winded post, and for your continued support and participation in ARC.
-Shawn
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