• Location: Fort Collins, CO
  • Joined: December 29, 2008

Topic: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

To begin with, the documentary is great. You should all watch it as soon as you get the chance. My wife and I watched it last night within a few hours of receiving the link and we talked about it for hours after it was finished. It's a must-see for anyone who's been a part of the hobby at any time.

When you watch it, you'll see that I'm treated a bit negatively. Not on the whole, and just for a little segment, but it does stick out a bit because I'm the only interlocutor who gets negative treatment in an otherwise positive piece.

This doesn't bother me, honestly. I think it's funny. I actually find it amusing to be the one pseudo-villain in a movie about people who make LEGO movies. Also, I understand that Philip needs to try to make the thing interesting to watch for people who aren't in the hobby, and that involves introducing at least some level of conflict. I also understand the movie isn't about the history of brickfilms.com.

But being as I'm the only person who gets negative treatment, and because nothing close to the complete story is presented in the documentary (not that it should have been), I think I should have an opportunity to clarify what actually happened before people allow the conclusions suggested by the documentary to inform their thinking.

My intention is not to cause any drama, but only to set the record straight. So here we go.

I think Philip/Smeagol did a disservice to the history of the topic by relying on Jay Silver for so much commentary. At the time I sold the site, Jay was all but absent. He hadn't been a regular for multiple years. It's definitely not a topic I ever discussed with him, and, in fact, I haven't discussed anything with Jay since probably 2004-2005. In other words, everything that Jay said on the subject was definitely hearsay.

Jay says "... to sell it to someone that didn't really have any interest in it ..." This is false. Cynthia expressed great interest in the site and understood what it was about. When she approached me about purchasing the site, I made it abundantly clear to her that for the site to continue operating the way it had been was very important to me. She convinced me that she agreed things were going the right way and wanted to take over with little impact to the way the community operated and produced films.

"I wish he hadn't done that," says Jay. OK, fair enough. But let's go back in time to examine the situation a little closer. Memory Lane...

I built up brickfilms 2.0 when I was still a student. Most of the visual design of the then-new site came from Jay himself (and it ruled), and I think he was the one who had written the code that I based my first build of the site on. The site grew and grew, which meant more traffic, which meant more hosting costs (which were, up to this point, completely out of my pocket).

Recall that this was pre-YouTube. Posting a video online was difficult. Hosting plans had very restrictive bandwidth limits and broadband Internet access was not common. We had to compress our files to just a few MB.  A huge file was 50 MB and some people wouldn't be able to download a file that big. This was a big problem, especially for our young members who had no money for hosting.

I solved both problems by moving the site to a dedicated server and sharing the server with those who wanted an inexpensive way to host large files. Back then, a dedicated server was, like, $150 a month for something cheap, way more than a student could afford, but through the introduction of the "patron" system, I was able to dilute the costs by selling hosting to brickfilmers at rates much lower than were available back then. The "digital" package was $1.50 a month, which was something like 1/8 the price of a comparable hosting package.

I finished school and went to work as a full-time engineer. I don't know how many of you know what it was like to maintain a dedicated server in 2005, but it was time consuming. I got a lot of help with the site from Z and Schlaeps, but there's only so much you can ask from volunteers. I tried to dilute the workload as much as possible across more volunteers, and thus, the Minister system.

Remember the elections? I hate to say it, but those were necessary. I needed to find a way to incentivize Ministers to keep doing their jobs. People would volunteer for a position, do a few things, and then stop doing work altogether. Firing volunteers SUCKS, so if there was a system with a built-in expiration date, non-active Ministers could just fade away and someone could step in automatically.

But the elections didn't work like I'd hoped. People got too caught up in the process of having elections and the prime objective of the site, helping each other create great films, became secondary.

So what could I have done? I didn't have the time to run it, and I didn't want the site to go to chaos. Do any of you old-timers remember me asking if you'd like to take over the site? It's been a while, but I hope at least a few of you have this memory. I offered to sell it for cheap to someone who would take care of it. I asked everyone I thought might be interested.

No one was interested.

And then Cynthia came along. She was not only interested in the site, but she had admins working for her that could handle the technical work (or so I was led to believe).

How many of you were proficient in Linux in 2003? Those that were, where were you when brickfilms needed you? I'm a regular Linux user now, but back then I barely knew enough to hold things together with bailing wire. Remember how Stefan's chat had to be restarted, like, weekly, due to a memory leak? I had no idea how to fix that. Cynthia's offer included the ability to take care of the site in a way I was unable to.

So what else could I do? What would you have done, Jay? You say you think I "goofed," which implies you think there was a better solution. What was it?

At this point in the documentary, there's animation showing a fortune in gold being delivered to an executive-type behind a desk. If that was not included as some sort of suggestion that some large sum of money contributed to a bad decision on my part, what was its purpose, Philip?

I don't remember the exact amount I got for the site, but it was nowhere near enough to cover the amount of money that I put into it. The site had only just started paying for itself at that time, and that was through sales of merchandise in addition to the patron system. (Editing, mastering, printing, and shipping dozens of DVDs is seriously time consuming). I did not see a return on my investment. Not even close.

And I wasn't looking for one. It was never a money-making endeavor. In fact, upon purchase of the site from Jason in 2003, I promised to always operate it in a non-profit way. He didn't ask me to make that promise, I offered it willingly.

The documentary leaves us with the impression that brickfilms just vanished.  *poof*. Rachel, (one of my favorite brickfilmers ever), laments: "... that family, that togetherness, just died ...".

You all know this is not the case. Where we are right now, this website, the one the documentary is literally named after, is all the evidence you need that what made brickfilms.com great never died. It left that website and came to this one.

The mass exodus from brickfilms.com to this site is one of the greatest displays of loyalty to a concept I've ever witnessed. I think that's something worth talking about.

OK, so maybe I'm bothered a bit. Truthfully, I do feel a little thrown under the bus. But, again, we're talking about a website where people make LEGO movies, so I'll be fine. I just want the record to be straight.

Last edited by RevMen (January 4, 2016 (06:35pm))

RevMen's Website

  • Joined: December 26, 2008

Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

Thank you for being understanding and not taking it out on the whole film.

The story of the schism, to me, conveys far more powerfully than the praise of the site beforehand, how much value the site and community had to these people. The focus of the latter half of that sequence was the loss these people felt, especially in light of related comments they made about the isolation they otherwise can feel at times with this hobby. I was surprised by the intensity of responses I got about the split from people. It seemed like an important part of the community history and, as you've mentioned, made for an interesting story.

I don't see you as a villain in the story; the decision to include what people had to say about your leadership of the site, and include some of your insight about YouTube in later parts of the documentary, in a positive light, was intentional. However, working with your own interview, and those of other people, there was no way that selling the site could've been portrayed as a great choice.

That doesn't make you the "bad guy." I showed that sequence to a lot of people because we wanted to be sure it came across more as an unfortunate thing that happened, in which nobody won, not a conflict with you. I never got a sense that anybody felt you were coming across as a "bad guy," and I did ask. I edited it with the intention of avoiding that impression.

At this point in the documentary, there's animation showing a fortune in gold being delivered to an executive-type behind a desk. If that was not included as some sort of suggestion that some large sum of money contributed to a bad decision on my part, what was its purpose, Philip?

This is the one detail that I can really see how you could get the impression I was aiming to villify you in some sense, although you've interpreted it differently from what was intended. To put it in literal terms, my idea was that these new owners are the people/zombies clubbing you out of the desk and bringing in their hoards of gold, all as very silly, tongue-in-cheek visual. The visual is of one figure being deposed and replaced by a new businessman. To me that read as you being the one deposed and being on the losing end of the deal. I don't think the first of the two shots there fits with your interpretation.

I remember brickfilms.com with generally positive memories and see the site, as you ran it, as a big part of what inspired me to pursue filmmaking. Those memories are tainted by what happened, yes, but I hope you can look back on what you accomplished with pride, because you did a lot of great things for this community.

The only other thing I'd like to add is that I think it would be a mischaracterization to describe the movie as 85 minutes of positivity dampered by a single attack on you. There are a number of major struggles in these peoples' lives, many of them bigger than the decline of Brickfilms.com. All of them are focused around relationships with other people, granted people who don't appear in the film.

Thank you,

Philip

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Sméagol's Website

  • Location: Fort Collins, CO
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Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

In general, I was very happy with my portrayal as a good leader, and as someone who saw the true value of the community. It's just this one little thing that bothers me, I want to be clear about that. I was flattered by most of what you chose to say about me.

Sméagol wrote:

However, working with your own interview, and those of other people

This is my hangup. None of those people were in a position to make any sort of objective determination of the quality of my decision. Least of all Jay Silver, who hadn't even been active at the site in years. I'm not saying he wasn't entitled to his opinion, or that he shouldn't have answered the question. I'm saying that using his testimony over that of the one person you interviewed who actually knew what happened made it seem to me that you weren't as interested in getting it right as you were in fitting the narrative that you'd decided on.

I'm not taking the position of saying I know what's best for your film. When you came for the interview, you told me that you didn't yet know what story was there.  I'm truly impressed at the narrative you did manage to pull from what must have seemed like endless footage. I can't even imagine undertaking that task. But I still think it's within my right to complain that I think the truth was bent a bit at my expense to fit that narrative.

What it really comes down to is I think you could shown the impact of the changeover on the main characters without Jay's comment about me making a mistake. It wasn't me that caused all of the grief at brickfilms.com; it was Cynthia and the teenagers who went against her. Jay alluded to that but then took the tone that I should have known better.

I did everything I could to help the situation. I even tried to buy the site back through a proxy, offering more money than she sold it to me for. Did you know about that? I'm guessing no. There's a lot more to the story, including all of what I explained above. And most of it is unknown to the people who actually got to tell it.

But, of course, that's not what the film is about; the sale of the site is a minor beat in the larger narrative of the main characters. And that's actually my point. I'm not arguing that you should have gone into more detail to get things right, I'm arguing that you went too far. I think you were more careless than you realize when you let Jay summarize the quality of my decision with a few, uninformed sentences.

there was no way that selling the site could've been portrayed as a great choice.

So the obvious response to this is to ask what you would have done differently, had you been in my position. If the best choice at the time was not to turn the site over to someone with the will and resources to keep it going, what was the better option?

Of course you didn't have any material that would portray the decision as a great one, but that didn't obligate you to comment on it negatively. The takeover of the site by someone with no actual ability to run it was the bad event for the characters in your story, the sale of the site was irrelevant.

The only other thing I'd like to add is that I think it would be a mischaracterization to describe the movie as 85 minutes of positivity dampered by a single attack on you. There are a number of major struggles in these peoples' lives, many of them bigger than the decline of Brickfilms.com. All of them are focused around relationships with other people, granted people who don't appear in the film.

I think you understand that I mean of all the people shown, I was the only one used to create an obstacle for the others.

Last edited by RevMen (January 4, 2016 (10:17pm))

RevMen's Website

  • Location: Cary, NC
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Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

As an outsider watching the doc I thought you came out fine

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AquaMorph's Website

  • Location: Fort Collins, CO
  • Joined: December 29, 2008

Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

Thanks for sharing your take. I agree that in all other ways I was shown in a positive way. And I like that. Of course.

It's just that the sale of the site was a major event in the story of this community, and it marks the end of a period of time when I invested heavily in it in terms of both money and time. It's important to me that history is truthful about it.

I don't care whether the world at large gets the truth. They're going to have forgotten about that detail by the end of the film. But I do care, perhaps more than I should, about people here understanding what actually happened.

It feels bad to have that big decision summed up as "bad" when, in reality, it was the only decision. It also feels bad to have that judgment made by people who, in my opinion, have no right to make it.

RevMen's Website

  • Location: Gravity Falls, OR
  • Joined: February 4, 2009

Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

I watched the film with my parents, sister and my brother and his girlfriend. My brothers girlfriend had never even seen a Brickfilm till about a year ago when she saw a few of mine and she has never even built a LEGO set.

I think I was on a hiatus from then sale when the site exchanged hands so I am a bit fuzzy on all the details and what exactly entailed at the switch. I could go on about how I know it's hard to run a major website (I designed, coded and maintained a site for about seven years for pay, and also did most of the directory coding on this site) But I don't think this is really about that.

When watching the doc for the first time, I honestly was not that into the whole section on the site split but after it was over my family did ask about it, mostly focusing on Rachel, and how important the community was to her and others. And the more I think about it, the more I feel like my issues with that section might be my own selfishness, wanting things to be more focused on 'my Brickfilm journey' or whatever, I don't feel like I was really part of the Brickfilm.com inner circle, so it just didn't effect me in the same way, but the community was so fundamentally important for folks like Dew and Jay and I don't think anyone else can tell them that it isn't. And outsiders like my family understood that, and talking about the split and showing how it affected them and what they thought of the changes.

And my family didn't blame you, they didn't blame anyone, but the emotional impact that folks like Rachel experienced had a huge impact on them and that was a very human side of internet communities that you don't often see portrayed.

I am really glad you kept brickfilms.com running for so long and am glad I got to be a part of it, it helped me grow as both a film maker and a person.

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SlothPaladin's Website

  • Joined: December 27, 2008

Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

I always saw it as an offer-you-couldn't-refuse-type situation.  If not Cynthia, then someone else would have offered.  The issue was it was an outsider who bought the site.  There was a stranger-danger reaction from the community.  The buyer didn't slither/weasel/[verb with more positive connotation than what I'm using] into our community and develop a rapport with us.  They landed like a meteor and although they came in peace, we didn't know them as well as you did, RevMen, and no amount of PR or what little interaction we had with them was going to calm us.  Brickfilms.com got a new step-mom and we didn't like her.

I always felt the internal conflict between Schlaeps and TAAB was the Schism.  In retrospect, we probably reacted prematurely (like teenagers), jumping ship and joining the BiM bandwagon just because a well-known member of the community got booted from working on the Brickfilms site.

Perhaps a bonus feature on the Schism?

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Lechnology's Website

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Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

Lechnology wrote:

Brickfilms.com got a new step-mom and we didn't like her.

That's a really good analogy.

I always felt the internal conflict between Schlaeps and TAAB was the Schism.  In retrospect, we probably reacted prematurely (like teenagers), jumping ship and joining the BiM bandwagon just because a well-known member of the community got booted from working on the Brickfilms site.?

That was my take on it, too. It was a problem but it was a solvable problem. But teenage brains were unable to see that, and so human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

Teenagers do dumb things, and everything turned out OK. I just don't want that period to be summed up in this historical document with the simple summary "Josh made a bad decision and then it was all over," especially when that's not even accurate.

RevMen's Website

  • Joined: December 27, 2008

Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

First of all Josh, I was one of those, "Teenagers who went against her…"
I stood up and asked those questions, not only for me but for the community. But those questions were never answered. The topic (and all other threads where other people also tried to ask questions) were locked and eventually deleted. At that point, after the sale had already happened, after the new owners made their statement and that was their 'final word on the matter,' how was it a solvable problem?

When I answered the question about bf.com: "... that family, that togetherness, just died ..." that's what it felt like to me when the new owners took over. There's no other way to explain it away. I do understand that everyone has their own unique perspective and feelings on the downfall of brickfilms. But right now, I wanted to let you know that everything did not "turn out okay" in the end.

When a whole bunch of people left bf.com to go to BiM, not everyone went with the transition. There are some that went, but then left shortly afterwords. There were also some people who left when bf.com got bought out initially. A number of those core people that helped make the heart and soul of what made the brickfilming community so great pretty much 'fell off the internet' so to speak. And why? Because, in a moment, that place, that huge part of my world, which I cherished so much just seemed like it fell apart when you stepped down and sold the site to total strangers. There wasn't even an official introduction thread from the new owners. No warm welcome at all from the new owners. They just stepped in like gangbusters. Worst of all, Josh, you failed to tell us that you were going to and/or had sold the site to these new owners. You had failed to keep us informed on such a major event and that was truly hurtful. Not just to me but to a great many of us in the community. You always kept us informed every step of the way all the way up until that point in history. And because of this, so many people, friends, fellow brickfilmers, just up and left.

Yeah, some of us we got together and formed a new community, BiM, but the plain, simple fact of the matter is that nothing was ever the same again after what had happened. I was never the same after that. After the exodus, I was really hurting. So bad to the point to where I went away and tried to heal from the whole ordeal as best I could. But I didn't. Every time I would visit BiM, I was constantly reminded of a lot of the great times and memories that I had on brickfilms. My pain was so terrible that I was totally addicted to reading old posts on brickfilms. Day after day I would re-read, hoping that this was all just a bad dream. That at any moment, someone would just swoop in and say "April Fools" or that the site was bought back by someone else in the community. There was this 'darkness' this 'void' that left me emotionally raw to where it was extremely difficult for me to adjust to the leap over. BF.com wasn't just a website to me. It meant so much more that very few people could ever understand. To me it was a second chance. A second chance at life and a whole new world of possibilities. I loved that site very dearly and all of the people in it….even you Josh.
The way that you handled bf.com when you were our beloved 'dictator,' it felt like you were this parental figure. You listened to us, kept us informed, cared about how we felt and worked very hard with the site in all aspects. With the new owners, they were nothing like you. You were never like them, Josh. You ran the former site with such excellent leadership unlike anything I've ever seen before. Up until the beginning of the end.

Before I made this post, I heavily debated responding to you Josh, because I value our friendship.
But after several statements from you about 'teenage brains' and how hurtful those statements were, I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to speak out and let you know how much I was crying on the sidelines while silently reading your posts.

I don't want you to read this and come away from all of this this angry.
I just want you to understand that your decision had ramifications that had a major effect on people....and on me.

"Tell stories that matter to you, not stories that'll sell." - Stephen Tobolowsky

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dewfilms's Website

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Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

Sure, let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of the schism…

In my opinion, I was actually surprised at how little the Documentary covered the topic. While I do, now, understand that the focus was on the lives of individual brickfilmers, over the story of the community, I actually thought it was going to be the other way around – covering different stories about how BricksinMotion.com became the hub for brickfilm discussion. I will say that I was pleasantly wrong on that, as, I think the more up close and personal look into some brickfilming greats made for an overall more enjoyable experience.

However, the subject of brickfilms.com really does interest me, perhaps because, while I started brickfilming in 2007, I wasn’t big on using youtube or forums, for that matter, until mid-to-late 2009, a bit after the fall of brickfilms.com. I’m more of an outsider to the whole ordeal; I feel like an archaeologist, who, while not completely consumed with discovering every last bit of the past, wouldn’t be against doing so one day.

When I joined BiM, I noticed that right from the start, brickfilms.com was a touchy subject. This was a bit awe-inspiring to me, as, from what I could read in between the lines, most people did have a fond memory of brickfilm.com… at least on some level. It was obvious that something had happened to the site, something that deeply effected them all, and, so I mostly avoided it – asking about it – or anything else concerning it.

Skipping forward a bit, the beginning of the week rolls around and I’m an advance screener. I’m excited and watch it very soon after receiving the link. This is where we obviously differ on opinion about the “fall of brickfilms.com” section.

You say Phillip vilified you to some degree, and, honestly, I don’t see that at all. If anything, I thought that the documentary vilified brickfilms.com, in a way… burying it. The documentary is called “Bricks in Motion” for a reason, after all. I knew that, when they started talking about brickfilms.com in the beginning, the subject of the exodus was going to come up…

However, if anything has come close to vilifying my perception of you, it would be your continuous rants right here. Sure, your first post came off fine, even if it was a bit long. But, you’ve continued to the extent of my own stubbornness on a certain Robota discussion...

Calling out ‘teenagers,’ which I can only assume is the brickfilm community at the time, is frankly immature. It reads like a sucker punch – completely unnecessary…

I understand the positive that you did bring to the site under your tenure, and, many people still really respect you. I am not an exclusion from that group – I, too, understand that without you, brickfilms.com could have dissolved many, many years ago. However, now, it seems like you’re tired of the subject of brickfilms.com, the community that surrounded it, and especially the sale of the site. I can only assume you felt similarly back then, and, if you did, then I agree – the decision to sell the sight was indeed a good one.

However, you must understand that, selling it to that person was a mistake. Sure, they may have seemed ok, but, as soon as things went downhill, you even say you tried to buy the site back. It only makes me wonder why you sold it in the first place… If you didn’t think you had the time to run brickfilms.com, you certainly found it after things went to crap.

I don’t want you to think I like you any less from your posts… You did originally say:

RevMan wrote:

My intention is not to cause any drama, but only to set the record straight.

And, to a large degree, I think that's all you want to do - set the record straight.

However, your refusal to accept that the sale was a bad decision is certainly mind boggling. Yes, you cared about the community, and always looked to making the right decision for it (i.e. selling the site when you couldn’t host it anymore… trying to buy it back after things went downhill) however, in retrospect, would you sell it again?

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Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

Dyland wrote:

However, your refusal to accept that the sale was a bad decision is certainly mind boggling. Yes, you cared about the community, and always looked to making the right decision for it (i.e. selling the site when you couldn’t host it anymore… trying to buy it back after things went downhill) however, in retrospect, would you sell it again?

I think what he's trying to say is that there was no decision involved if brickfilms.com was to remain extant. It sounds like had he not sold, brickfilms.com would not have continued to function, so in that respect it's not a bad decision. I was around on brickfilms.com from about 2007 but I wasn't aware of any of the politics going on, so I can't really comment, but certainly from what I've gleaned from this topic I don't think RevMen made the wrong call. While not a popular decision, it gave brickfilms.com a little longer on its legs, which it wouldn't have had if he hadn't sold.

But I have not seen the documentary, nor do I remember much (if anything) from the time, so this is purely conjecture based on what I've read in this thread. I could be completely wrong. Just throwing in my thoughts.

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Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

When I answered the question about bf.com: "... that family, that togetherness, just died ..." that's what it felt like to me when the new owners took over

This is exactly the problem, Rachel. Both you and the documentary are compressing a drawn-out series of events involving a lot of people who weren't me into one moment that involved only me. That is dishonest and unfair. I'm sorry you had a bad time, really, but it was not my fault.

I spent a couple hours going through the forums and my email this morning.

This is what happened:

-----

Summer to Fall 2007 - I am failing brickfilms.com because I can't give it the attention it needs. I found a conversation I had with my then-girlfriend about it and it clearly troubled me. I made it pretty clear to some people at the site, such as Errol, that  I was looking for a new owner. NOBODY was interested in taking the site over.

I was no longer offering hosting packages to patrons, but there were still a few dozen of you with accounts. While providing hosting on the server was a well-intentioned idea, it ended up being a bad one, because not everyone who had a site was very concerned with security and the server was compromised a time or two. So I had to shut that system down, which meant patron revenue was declining, not increasing.

November 2007 - I come up with the idea to let Schlaeps manage the site outright. Schlaeps took to the job with gusto. The community gave Schlaeps a warm welcome. This thread is still up at brickfilms.com.

This helped immensely with the problem I had with time, but it still didn't solve the money problem. I was paying $189 per month for the server, plus whatever other associated costs there were, including contest prizes. Patrons and ad revenue were covering some of this, but not all of it.

Shortly after promoting Schlaeps to manager - I was contacted by Cynthia and we discussed a sale of the site. I explain that the community at brickfilms is very important to me and I won't sell unless they are respected. She tells me that she understands and that all of the sites they are acquiring are similar to brickfilms in that they are somebody's "baby" that the owner no longer has time for. She shows me other sites that she's acquired and her story checks out.

We make an agreement. I'll save the boring details, but the important part of the agreement was that the volunteer staff, headed by Schlaeps, would continue to run the site. As Cynthia and I both wanted to avoid changing things more than necessary, this was an easy agreement for us to make. Schlaeps would continue to head his volunteer staff, while Cynthia would handle finances and provide technical support if needed.

Late November to Early December 2007 - The assets of Brickfilms LLC are transferred to Cynthia's company. Schlaeps assists in the process. Things are going smoothly.

December 2007 - Schlaeps and Trillspots hold elections for the next round of staff. The elections go as planned.

January 2007 - The new staff takes control on the 1st. Cynthia helps with problems with the chat. She posts on the forum, giving herself an "admin" title, which was probably a mistake. She was just trying to help, though.

February 2008 - Schlaeps and Cynthia decide to put up more ads to try to cover costs. Someone freaks out about seeing new ads (hoogiman?) and a discussion ensues. Many people agree that ads are acceptable to pay for the site. Cynthia comes in to explain that they are, in fact, needed, or else the site will be negative. Schlaeps supports Cynthia and explains that patrons won't see the ads. I support Cynthia and Schlaeps saying that she's on your side (which she was, at the time).

March 2008 - Schlaeps does something really stupid. He starts building an alternative site to brickfilms on the brickfilms.com server. He gets caught. A very nasty relationship between him and Cynthia develops. Schlaeps posts a private email conversation in public, which Cynthia deletes. Schlaeps has his admin privileges removed (duh) which results in him losing access to some files, which he makes a bigger stink about. The files are restored but Schlaeps has already stirred up the hornets nest.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together. mass hysteria. Cynthia loses her patience with the rioters and institutes martial law, attempting to quell the rebellion by censoring inflammatory posts.

Schlaeps starts ilovebrickfilming.com, which Cynthia has shut down, using the trademark I had applied for. More hysteria. Cynthia shows her epeen with letters form her lawyer.

Schlaeps starts BiM, and you know the rest.

-----

So you tell me, Rachel, how that entire series of events, spanning nearly half a year, involving multiple bad actors, with me out of the picture 4 months before things went to hell, can be summarized as the whole thing collapsing "in a moment." Because I don't think that's a reasonable summary at all.

How is it that I am responsible for Schlaeps's stupidity?

How was it my responsibility to ensure that Cynthia wouldn't go off the rails 4 months after I made the agreement with her?

How is it that no one else was willing to take the site over, but it was still my obligation to keep it going?

I could have just said "I can't do this anymore" and just shut it down. Would people be saying "I think he goofed" in a documentary 8 years later if I had done that?

And let me ask, again, the same question that, so far, no one has answered: If selling the site was the wrong move, what was the right one? I'm serious, people, if you want to criticize me, I think you should at least have some kind of answer to this question.

Calling out ‘teenagers,’ which I can only assume is the brickfilm community at the time, is frankly immature.

Really? Because you guys in your 20s now literally were teenagers at the time. Is that really a sign of immaturity to you?

However, your refusal to accept that the sale was a bad decision is certainly mind boggling.

You are free to answer the question I've posed multiple times. If that was the wrong move, what was the right one? Because a decision can only be considered bad if there's a better alternative.

RevMen's Website

  • Location: Fort Collins, CO
  • Joined: December 29, 2008

Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

I'll take 3 days of silence to mean I've made my point.

I'm open to criticism of my actions, but it better come with at least some level of reasoning and not just be somebody repeating "that was bad."

I was going to transfer ownership of the site one way or another. And the site was going to be running out of money one way or another. There was no way to avoid changes, including more aggressive ads. I did what I thought was right, and I think I've shown that my reasoning was sound. Things didn't go like I'd hoped, but that doesn't mean I didn't do a reasonable amount of checking, and it doesn't mean that I'm responsible for the actions of others.

I don't care if the world in general watches the documentary and thinks I goofed. But I do care if people here think that, because even though I've barely been around in the last 8 years, I do still care about this community. So as long as people at BiM understand that what the documentary suggests happened isn't true, we can all be happy.

RevMen's Website

  • Joined: December 26, 2008

Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

I sent you a private message via the forum after your previous post, please take a look when you have a chance.

I'm certainly fine with the documentary not being painted as a definitive record of the schism or any other topic it covers; the extent to which people disagree on things within the film and outside of it is part of what makes documentaries of this type interesting to me; both to watch, and to reflect on/discuss afterward. I've no problem with you making this thread and telling your side of the story.

http://i.imgur.com/wcmcdmf.png

Sméagol's Website

  • Location: Darwin, Northern Territoy
  • Joined: December 27, 2008

Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

I haven't had a chance to watch the documentary yet (not much internet access where I am), but I was around for all the drama and remember RevMen talking about selling the site. At the time, I was full of young gusto about wanting to take it over but never said anything because I didn't have the money (any money at all actually) and certainly didn't have the coding chops to manage the site even if RevMen had given it to me free of charge.

At the time (and as I documented in the page Dewfilms linked to), I don't think that what happened was any one person's fault, it was just a few small miscommunications that added up and went out of control and resulted in, as Rev said "...human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria..."

I don't see what RevMen could have done to subvert what ended up happening or even foreseeing it. Like a lot of things in life, we do our best - but have no control after we let go of the dice.

RevMen, thank you for all you did for the hobby, and I'm glad you're still active on this site.

Smile and say hello to people. It costs you nothing and can brighten their day.
  • Joined: December 26, 2008

Re: Let's talk about the BiM Documentary's treatment of The Schism.

Reading this has been a blast from the past. I haven't been active on this site in years, I must go watch this documentary now. Hope you are all doing well!

Last edited by Steve (February 3, 2016 (11:09am))