Out with the Old

Right. So at the request of Gordon, I'm writing the official "Goodbye Post" that I should have made way back when I first backed out of IWF. You know...the one that was replaced by the "Yup, fuck it, I'm gone" post that you actually did get.

So...I think I should probably explain a few things:

I had originally planned to not return at all. Back in April, I had a lot of bad things going on in my personal life that needed my immediate attention, and IWF was hindering my ability to deal with them. If memory serves, Corey eventually got fed up with my ever-decreasing reliability and increasing volatility in IWF, confronted me about it. We had a sort of argument, which mostly ended in my saying "Alright. Fuck it, then. I'm out." I made the mistake of resigning that night, when I was still fuming, and at that moment in time, my intention was to burn every bridge on my way out and not be welcomed back.

Over the next couple months, I'd pop in once in a while to say hello. Started chatting with Tim over facebook and shit. He helped me to write a storyline in the event that Chuck ever returned. Against my better judgment, I elaborated it, twisted it a bit, and came back with Jason Slade to run it.

I did my FTA match against Sean, because I'd promised him a long time ago that I would have my FTA match against him, provided IWF lasted until FTA 3. Alex let me return for the match, let me hype it up, write the match myself. Sean and I had a great battle (seriously, awesome job, Sean). Now here we are.

I figure, with the new site representing the new era of IWF, it's time for the old era to finally take his final bow and respectfully back out for good.

Here's the thing: I envisioned IWF to be a fed run by the members, not the staff. I never wanted to be an owner. Rather, I saw myself as the guy that just kept maintenance up and kept things running smoothly. You guys named the PPV's. When a rule of IWF wasn't working, you guys called a vote and changed it. Members read RP's and decided on match winners themselves rather than a committee determining what was a "good rp." When someone was acting up, you banded together and made it known that it wasn't okay. I figured that the "by the people, for the people" approach was the best way to go, and for two years, it proved to be. We had a solid, ever-growing core of guys. We grew exponentially. We managed to take in the members of three feds over our tenure. Whatever we were doing, we did it right.

I think the only real problem we had with our old Original Three system is that Brandon, Corey and I were never really on the same page when the question came to where we wanted IWF to be. Corey enjoyed the free-form, no-censors, small but die-hard audience. Brandon liked the thought of building it bigger and bigger. My priority was always keeping power spread as thin as possible, because I saw firsthand how devastating it would be to put power into the hands of one guy.

That all being said...after I left, there was an unspoken agreement that in doing so, I was relinquishing all power that I had for Brandon and Corey to pass off or keep as they saw fit. They ran things for a bit, and eventually passed full control to Alex.

Fact of the matter is, though, there are decisions that Alex has made that I don't necessarily agree with, because they go against my own philosophies on how these things should be done. Most of the time, they're things that I can shrug off and say "Maybe this will be for the best." This is not one of those things. This is the thing that officially steps over the line for me, to the point that given the choice between "Go along with it" or "Quit," the latter is the viable option.

Alex has done a fine job creating the new site. It looks fantastic. But I can't get on board with it. Thing is, IWF is my baby. This is the empire that I helped to build over the course of my two-year tenure. There's an emotional investment that I had made with this place. A good captain always goes down with his ship. I respect Alex's power and the decision to move over to a new site. I think that the fact that this was met with little to no resistance serves as a testament to how strong of a leader he is. But while I respect his decision, I am under no obligation to like it, and even less to obey it. Between moving things to a new locale, handing power to one guy, selecting winners by a committee...I've been in that system before. I've been at the higher end of that position before. It's not a system I enjoy being in, and it's exactly that system that compelled CC and I to make IWF in the first place. To me, it's a big step backwards, and I'm not willing or able to make that jump.

With all of that said, it's been fun. I've gotten to know a lot of you guys pretty well over the years. We've had some great times. Some awesome laughs. Met some great writers, and I think in the end, I've become a better writer as a result. Brandon, you're one of the coolest guys I've never met. Corey and Tim, I talk to you fuckers in real life anyway and I'm not even going to say goodbye to you. Sean, thanks for giving me a fucking awesome last match. To the handful of you guys that I chat with now and then on facebook or whatever, keep in touch.

The New Era of IWF is here, which means it's time for the Old Era to step back, as we said we would, and let you guys take the ball and run with it. I'm an Old Era guy. I don't fit in with the New Era, and I'm not entirely sure I'd like to try. So this is where I bid you all adieu.

Take care, guys.

I don't quite understand this but needless to say Chuck, I hold nothing against you. That doesn't mean I'm not going to combat or at least correct some of your statements.

I remember the PM you had sent me about loving everything I was doing with the place and wanting back in so naturally I'd never deny one of the original three back into their own fed! That would just be something I'd never even consider as an option. You three will always be allowed in IWF.

Now I'd end on a heartfelt goodbye but I feel I need to at least address a few things stated. I've really done nothing as drastic as you may think. Everything remains the same minus some necessary cleanup to keep things from being cluttered. As for being given the choice to either go with it or quit, I never gave such an option. This is the first I even heard about you leaving. It's a little hurtful to be painted out to be some bad guy bully that pushed you out. As if I came in, big dick swinging, pushing my weight around...I'm not like that and I think everyone can attest to that. All I do here is make every attempt to give everyone new things to enjoy, to make this game as fun as possible while being original and doing things no other fed is doing.

The problem with the voting system is that it is MAJORLY flawed. Numerous instances we only would get 2-4 sets of votes. Even CC and BMac have admitted that to be true in the past. So what did I do, I simply removed the voting system and made the people that voted all the time the new voting committee. Easy fix. Oh and I've yet to receive a PM from someone asking about the why they lost their match since we've done it that way.

To say the fed isn't run by the "people" anymore is insulting. People still have a say in EVERYTHING even to the point that I put up to vote if Ali or Hart should be allowed back. I allow people to run whatever SLs they want to with the exception of SLs that have to do with championships. I'm more than fair and more than willing to work with people as long as they consistently RP and don't no show regularly.

This post while a little bit more gracious than your old farewell post, is full of passive aggressive comments and it comes across as a senseless tirade.

I'm sorry you feel as though moving to a new message board, so that I could make things more visually stunning for everyone as well as institute a proper domain name, that it's changed your views on me. How one can change their tune so quickly is beyond me.

Take care Chuck, I will leave you with this...the captain abandoned ship a long time ago. I was just a deckhand placed into the captain's chair doing things the best way he knows how.