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Tambs for the memories


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15 hours ago, calmac_man said:

Flat Earth told me recently that TAMB was about to snuff it, so I thought I'd come back, like a character from the third season of a series that about to end, for a bit of nostalgia and to say goodbye.

For those who don't know me, I basically lived on TAMB until about 8 or 9 years ago, if memory serves. It was a lot of fun, but it probably wasn't good for me. I encountered many stella fellas and lassies, and met more in real life. I'm not going to risk insulting anyone by listing those I liked and those I miss, but so many names on the threads about TAMB closing brought back happy memories. I argued with a lot of people I wish I hadn't, and I suspect I'd have been less rude if I'd been posting in my own name. Sorry to anyone I offended... unless you deserved it.

I will pick out two people though, and that's our good friends in Inverurie. I hope they'll forgive me for sharing a story. My mum was recovering from surgery for mouth cancer and was going to Aberdeen for treatment in yon big tank they put nearly-dead divers in. Yes, really. She wanted me to take her up for an overnight assessment at the start of it, so I needed a place to stay. Though it was pretty cheeky, I asked FE and Lamia if I could kip at theirs. They put me up and showed me kindness at a time when I was really worried. It meant a lot that they did it, but it meant even more that I knew I could ask them, even though I'd only met them in person a handful of times. They're just that kind of people.

I never did a "feck yeeze all, I'm away" post when I chucked it because I hated it when people did that. If you're going, go. But here at the end of all things it seems a good time to say why I did.

It's no coincidence that within two years of quitting TAMB I'd been promoted twice at work. I'm sure that would have happened sooner if I hadn't spent so much time, and so much of my mental energy, on TAMB. I'd like to say self-realisation was why I quit, but it's really much less impressive.

TAMB was always a great place to discuss politics, history, the world, and learn from people who knew more than I did, or saw things differently for me. I had my mind changed on all sorts of things, from circumcision to supporting Celtic (is there a connection there?). There was a good number of people who you could bicker with, but retain and build respect for. That was changing as the political situation in Scotland changed, and I felt the place was becoming over-run with fundamentalist nats.

I've been a supporter of Scottish independence since 1997, when I was 22, and a member of the SNP since 1999. I was brought up in a typical west of Scotland Labour household, and most of the values I learned are still very important to me. I was never against independence, I just thought there were more important things. I still do. Poverty and inequality at home and abroad, climate change and environmental damage, global conflict and the rise of racists at home - these all matter more than any flags and songs. I want Scotland to be independent because I think it will be better for the things I care about, not because of esoteric notions of sovereignty and freeeeeeedom. I'll leave that stuff to the Ukippers.

Things turned pretty weird around here when that viewpoint started getting me sneered at as a conditional nationalist, or a plastic nationalist. What exactly is an unconditional nationalist anyway, and why would that be something to be proud of? I got dog's abuse for saying that I would be against independence if I thought it would mean the poorest 10% of people in Scotland became meaningfully worse off. That's surely a reasonable position, even if you don't share it, and I'm sure it reflects the vast majority of people in this country. It's entirely theoretical as I'm confident independence would be best for the worst off, and I said so, but I got thoroughly mocked for it. That pissed me off.

At that time the same TAMBers were calling anyone who disagreed with them yoons and Britnats - to my embarrassment I often fell into that too. There are Britnats out there, but most of the people who voted No aren't "nat" anything. We just didn't persuade them of our case. I don't imagine calling them Britnats helped.

The atmosphere here was turning ugly and extremist and I hated it. TAMB was always very pro-independence, but the decent folk held the centre of gravity. That changed. I dipped in a few times over the years, especially during the indyref campaign, and I thought TAMB had become horrible. I honestly don't know how the unionist TAMBers who are still here stuck it out, especially the Rangers fans.

I'm sure some people will read this and say I just couldn't hack the criticism and I spat the dummy. They'd have a point and I wouldn't argue with someone who wants to take that view. I've never claimed to be thick skinned, nor would I want to be. But for years I had no problem with people taking on every position I held, including things I cared about more than independence. If I did the whole multi-quote argument thing with you, it meant I respected what you'd said and wanted to respond to it. (Neilser. Why was it so often Neilser? Always liked him too.) There's no value in arguing with a fundamentalist though, because the only thing that matters to them is the depth of your loyalty, measured by how little you question the group's beliefs. I was outnumbered and outgunned, and I knew I was wasting my time and energy. Any attempt at nuance (like when I wondered why estates with the same socio-economics in Perth and the central belt voted so differently) was met with FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD.

So that's why I chucked it. If you think that makes me a pussy, fair enough.

Not for nothing, but during the campaign my wife and I barely saw each other for well over a year, I used weeks of my holidays to do nothing but campaign, and it was my life. And I'll do it again for indyref 2. Nobody gets to question my loyalty to the cause.

A few other things I want to say - if I'm boring you now, just move on. I was a Mod for a while and I'm proud of having been part of that. We always tried to allow any issue to be debated, with limits only on how. So much of the online world is really unpleasant, and we felt it was part of the Tartan Army's ethos that it was a welcoming place for everyone. So no topic was off the table, but we were tough on abuse. I think the result of that was a wider range of contributors, talking in a different way than on other football forums, and that's a part of what made it special for a time.

The biggest lesson of being a Mod though was seeing the Admin team up close, and all that they did. I couldn't have done it. The time and skill that went into raising the money and running the site was beyond me. I hope a dedicated group can come forward and take over TAMB, but nobody should underestimate what it took for volunteers to make it what it is... or what it was.

All the Mods and Admin were sound af, but I'm not going to out anyone. Phart knew I was a mod because I once posted in the wrong place, and used my super-powers to shift the post. It was literally a 3 second job. Just my luck that suspicious b'stard happened to catch me in the act!

On my 15 minutes of TAMB fame - for the record, I did not phone every mortuary in Glasgow. I phoned every crematorium in the south west of Scotland. I appreciate that's not normal behaviour but I'm one of those guys that when I need to know something, I really need to know. I often think of our not-dead friend, and I hope his life is better for having been forced to deal with aspects of his life with which he was struggling. I only posted what I did because some people were getting really, really angry at people I knew were right. I'm still not convinced I did the right thing and I wonder how much of it was down to my ego.

The Hibbee jumping out of the plane though... it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at that.

Anyway, now I'm off to search my name, to see if anyone's been talking about me in my absence. Don't tell me you haven't done it yourself.

 

You're a good guy Calmac, cheers for taking me to the game that time. was great to see Scotland run up a huge scoreline and get run from door to door as well.

I've came to a lot of the same realizations as you about my own character flaws in the glory days... Too much certainty not enough doubt.

I never caught you, someone else did and told me. I'm the mouthpiece not the brains. You can't call me suspicious then next paragraph say you phoned every crematorium in the south west of scotland ;)  Maybe we were too alike in our thirst for answers.

Obviously iateallthepies will have to say for himself, but i think he is in a good place now so all's well that end's well i guess.

I was a greeting faced chunt with the mods a lot of times. Some cases i can make others were just the stupid need to butt heads.

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15 hours ago, calmac_man said:

 

I will pick out two people though, and that's our good friends in Inverurie. I hope they'll forgive me for sharing a story. My mum was recovering from surgery for mouth cancer and was going to Aberdeen for treatment in yon big tank they put nearly-dead divers in. Yes, really. She wanted me to take her up for an overnight assessment at the start of it, so I needed a place to stay. Though it was pretty cheeky, I asked FE and Lamia if I could kip at theirs. They put me up and showed me kindness at a time when I was really worried. It meant a lot that they did it, but it meant even more that I knew I could ask them, even though I'd only met them in person a handful of times. They're just that kind of people.

:)

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Further to Calmac's post - nobody has ever talked about the "night of the long knives"... When was it? 2003? The TAMB is dead, long live the TAMB.

Basically before the "takeover" Mirza was running the whole show, but didn't have time to be admin and moderator, the place had gone totally lawless, trolls and multiple IDs were everywhere. Probably not a lot different to how the board is now in terms of admin and moderation. But back then the board was a lot more "vital", there was no social media - just message boards and email lists. A cabal of people who believed the TAMB needed preserved were head hunted to do a complete relaunch. To build a new board from scratch, decide what the new rules were going to be, how to manage registrations, how to moderate the board, the forum structure... (Exactly what is needed now to be honest). Weeks of work, and hundreds of emails, went into that. And I don't think its possible to overstate how controversial this was at the time, how it felt like the gun powder plot - or worse! 

You could write a PHD thesis on what happened! One day the TAMB was bumbling along like a frontier town with no sheriff, then bam! The board was locked down and a link was launched to a new board. Everyone had to re-register from scratch. Every new member was vetted prior to approval, and most controversial of all the new team was anonymous. As anyone with "change management" experience could probably have told you, this way of relaunching the board created more than a few "issues"...

Certain groups/posters thought they "owned" the board, and were acting like they did. They seriously threw their toys out of the pram. "Who are you to steal OUR board?" The politics of the whole thing was an utter minefield - and a nightmare. Truth is, nobody "owned" the board. And the relaunch ensured it remained independent. For the first few years the admin/mod team paid all the running costs themselves  - cos they believed that was a price worth paying to preserve the independence of the board. To ensure anyone could join, and the board wouldn't be beholden to anybody.

So someone told me anyway...

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3 minutes ago, Flat Earth said:

Further to Calmac's post - nobody has ever talked about the "night of the long knives"... When was it? 2003? The TAMB is dead, long live the TAMB.

Basically before the "takeover" Mirza was running the whole show, but didn't have time to be admin and moderator, the place had gone totally lawless, trolls and multiple IDs were everywhere. Probably not a lot different to how the board is now in terms of admin and moderation. But back then the board was a lot more "vital", there was no social media - just message boards and email lists. A cabal of people who believed the TAMB needed preserved were head hunted to do a complete relaunch. To build a new board from scratch, decide what the new rules were going to be, how to manage registrations, how to moderate the board, the forum structure... (Exactly what is needed now to be honest). Weeks of work, and hundreds of emails, went into that. And I don't think its possible to overstate how controversial this was at the time, how it felt like the gun powder plot - or worse! 

You could write a PHD thesis on what happened! One day the TAMB was bumbling along like a frontier town with no sheriff, then bam! The board was locked down and a link was launched to a new board. Everyone had to re-register from scratch. Every new member was vetted prior to approval, and most controversial of all the new team was anonymous. As anyone with "change management" experience could probably have told you, this way of relaunching the board created more than a few "issues"...

Certain groups/posters thought they "owned" the board, and were acting like they did. They seriously threw their toys out of the pram. "Who are you to steal OUR board?" The politics of the whole thing was an utter minefield - and a nightmare. Truth is, nobody "owned" the board. And the relaunch ensured it remained independent. For the first few years the admin/mod team paid all the running costs themselves  - cos they believed that was a price worth paying to preserve the independence of the board. To ensure anyone could join, and the board wouldn't be beholden to anybody.

So someone told me anyway...

:wub: you'll always be my favourite mod11 :wub:

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1 hour ago, phart said:

I never caught you, someone else did and told me. I'm the mouthpiece not the brains. You can't call me suspicious then next paragraph say you phoned every crematorium in the south west of scotland ;)  Maybe we were too alike in our thirst for answers.

Sorry if that came across wrong, I was just being funny, I wouldn't have said that if I meant it. It was supposed to be a recognition that you're not the kind of guy on whom it would be easy to pull a fast one!

There are fewer crematoria around than I imagined, as it goes... Actually, other people did some quality digging at the time but for some reason it became associated with me. Maybe it's because I did the weirdest thing. I don't know if I mentioned it at the time, but when Khraeigh went to the great fairy story in the sky, I was worried that people were talking about raising money for a non-existant family so I contacted his nephew to say I wanted to write an article about him for the Tartan Army Magazine. He was obviously very elusive and quickly stopped returning my emails. That's what prompted me to call the crematoria and when I was satisfied there was no way the story had any truth, I shared it with some other suspicious buggers and left it at that.

I think we both like to look for answers, but would it be fair to say you're more likely to infer conspiracy, or at least ulterior motives, and I'm more likely to infer cock-up? I wouldn't presume to assert that I'm right, it's just a different starting point, and I remember you opened my eyes to stuff like the UN troops committing awful crimes in Haiti (IIRC). Experience has definitely shifted my perspective in recent years and I've encountered a lot of people who would cover up anything, or participate in awful behaviour, for a quiet life and being in with  the high-heidyins. We all see the world through the lenses of our own experiences, and they change over time.

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2 minutes ago, calmac_man said:

I think so... FE and Lamia - in their late 20's, fat, unattractive couple, yeah? 

Aye, its the @Lamia addiction to goats cheese and MacDonalds hamburgers.

A bit like you and KFC.

Take care. Hope you lose the next election clearly though. :D

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14 minutes ago, andymac said:

Aye, its the @Lamia addiction to goats cheese and MacDonalds hamburgers.

A bit like you and KFC.

Take care. Hope you lose the next election clearly though. :D

Goats cheese. Pfft. It's just a fad. A long-lasting fad, I'll admit.

KFC - their strapline should be "you call it chicken, we call it chicken, let's just call it chicken."

Between indyref, the Tories at Westminster, Brexit and Trump, I don't feel like my side have been winning all that much. In fact, coming clean, I didn't vote for my local SNP Westminster candidate in 2015 because he's a dick. I abstained. In the last Scottish Parliament election I gave my regional vote to the Greens (I was an Andy Wightman fan before I was in the SNP). But every time the SNP piss me off, they pull me back in with something I really like. 

Happy hunting bud, hope we cross paths again.

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1 hour ago, Flat Earth said:

Further to Calmac's post - nobody has ever talked about the "night of the long knives"... When was it? 2003? The TAMB is dead, long live the TAMB.

Basically before the "takeover" Mirza was running the whole show, but didn't have time to be admin and moderator, the place had gone totally lawless, trolls and multiple IDs were everywhere. Probably not a lot different to how the board is now in terms of admin and moderation. But back then the board was a lot more "vital", there was no social media - just message boards and email lists. A cabal of people who believed the TAMB needed preserved were head hunted to do a complete relaunch. To build a new board from scratch, decide what the new rules were going to be, how to manage registrations, how to moderate the board, the forum structure... (Exactly what is needed now to be honest). Weeks of work, and hundreds of emails, went into that. And I don't think its possible to overstate how controversial this was at the time, how it felt like the gun powder plot - or worse! 

You could write a PHD thesis on what happened! One day the TAMB was bumbling along like a frontier town with no sheriff, then bam! The board was locked down and a link was launched to a new board. Everyone had to re-register from scratch. Every new member was vetted prior to approval, and most controversial of all the new team was anonymous. As anyone with "change management" experience could probably have told you, this way of relaunching the board created more than a few "issues"...

Certain groups/posters thought they "owned" the board, and were acting like they did. They seriously threw their toys out of the pram. "Who are you to steal OUR board?" The politics of the whole thing was an utter minefield - and a nightmare. Truth is, nobody "owned" the board. And the relaunch ensured it remained independent. For the first few years the admin/mod team paid all the running costs themselves  - cos they believed that was a price worth paying to preserve the independence of the board. To ensure anyone could join, and the board wouldn't be beholden to anybody.

So someone told me anyway...

It was around then that I found the board so can you pass on my heartfelt thanks to that "someone who told you" please? :ok::cheers3:

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On 17/09/2017 at 5:11 AM, calmac_man said:

Flat Earth told me recently that TAMB was about to snuff it, so I thought I'd come back, like a character from the third season of a series that about to end, for a bit of nostalgia and to say goodbye.

For those who don't know me, I basically lived on TAMB until about 8 or 9 years ago, if memory serves. It was a lot of fun, but it probably wasn't good for me. I encountered many stella fellas and lassies, and met more in real life. I'm not going to risk insulting anyone by listing those I liked and those I miss, but so many names on the threads about TAMB closing brought back happy memories. I argued with a lot of people I wish I hadn't, and I suspect I'd have been less rude if I'd been posting in my own name. Sorry to anyone I offended... unless you deserved it.

I will pick out two people though, and that's our good friends in Inverurie. I hope they'll forgive me for sharing a story. My mum was recovering from surgery for mouth cancer and was going to Aberdeen for treatment in yon big tank they put nearly-dead divers in. Yes, really. She wanted me to take her up for an overnight assessment at the start of it, so I needed a place to stay. Though it was pretty cheeky, I asked FE and Lamia if I could kip at theirs. They put me up and showed me kindness at a time when I was really worried. It meant a lot that they did it, but it meant even more that I knew I could ask them, even though I'd only met them in person a handful of times. They're just that kind of people.

I never did a "feck yeeze all, I'm away" post when I chucked it because I hated it when people did that. If you're going, go. But here at the end of all things it seems a good time to say why I did.

It's no coincidence that within two years of quitting TAMB I'd been promoted twice at work. I'm sure that would have happened sooner if I hadn't spent so much time, and so much of my mental energy, on TAMB. I'd like to say self-realisation was why I quit, but it's really much less impressive.

TAMB was always a great place to discuss politics, history, the world, and learn from people who knew more than I did, or saw things differently for me. I had my mind changed on all sorts of things, from circumcision to supporting Celtic (is there a connection there?). There was a good number of people who you could bicker with, but retain and build respect for. That was changing as the political situation in Scotland changed, and I felt the place was becoming over-run with fundamentalist nats.

I've been a supporter of Scottish independence since 1997, when I was 22, and a member of the SNP since 1999. I was brought up in a typical west of Scotland Labour household, and most of the values I learned are still very important to me. I was never against independence, I just thought there were more important things. I still do. Poverty and inequality at home and abroad, climate change and environmental damage, global conflict and the rise of racists at home - these all matter more than any flags and songs. I want Scotland to be independent because I think it will be better for the things I care about, not because of esoteric notions of sovereignty and freeeeeeedom. I'll leave that stuff to the Ukippers.

Things turned pretty weird around here when that viewpoint started getting me sneered at as a conditional nationalist, or a plastic nationalist. What exactly is an unconditional nationalist anyway, and why would that be something to be proud of? I got dog's abuse for saying that I would be against independence if I thought it would mean the poorest 10% of people in Scotland became meaningfully worse off. That's surely a reasonable position, even if you don't share it, and I'm sure it reflects the vast majority of people in this country. It's entirely theoretical as I'm confident independence would be best for the worst off, and I said so, but I got thoroughly mocked for it. That pissed me off.

At that time the same TAMBers were calling anyone who disagreed with them yoons and Britnats - to my embarrassment I often fell into that too. There are Britnats out there, but most of the people who voted No aren't "nat" anything. We just didn't persuade them of our case. I don't imagine calling them Britnats helped.

The atmosphere here was turning ugly and extremist and I hated it. TAMB was always very pro-independence, but the decent folk held the centre of gravity. That changed. I dipped in a few times over the years, especially during the indyref campaign, and I thought TAMB had become horrible. I honestly don't know how the unionist TAMBers who are still here stuck it out, especially the Rangers fans.

I'm sure some people will read this and say I just couldn't hack the criticism and I spat the dummy. They'd have a point and I wouldn't argue with someone who wants to take that view. I've never claimed to be thick skinned, nor would I want to be. But for years I had no problem with people taking on every position I held, including things I cared about more than independence. If I did the whole multi-quote argument thing with you, it meant I respected what you'd said and wanted to respond to it. (Neilser. Why was it so often Neilser? Always liked him too.) There's no value in arguing with a fundamentalist though, because the only thing that matters to them is the depth of your loyalty, measured by how little you question the group's beliefs. I was outnumbered and outgunned, and I knew I was wasting my time and energy. Any attempt at nuance (like when I wondered why estates with the same socio-economics in Perth and the central belt voted so differently) was met with FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD.

So that's why I chucked it. If you think that makes me a pussy, fair enough.

Not for nothing, but during the campaign my wife and I barely saw each other for well over a year, I used weeks of my holidays to do nothing but campaign, and it was my life. And I'll do it again for indyref 2. Nobody gets to question my loyalty to the cause.

A few other things I want to say - if I'm boring you now, just move on. I was a Mod for a while and I'm proud of having been part of that. We always tried to allow any issue to be debated, with limits only on how. So much of the online world is really unpleasant, and we felt it was part of the Tartan Army's ethos that it was a welcoming place for everyone. So no topic was off the table, but we were tough on abuse. I think the result of that was a wider range of contributors, talking in a different way than on other football forums, and that's a part of what made it special for a time.

The biggest lesson of being a Mod though was seeing the Admin team up close, and all that they did. I couldn't have done it. The time and skill that went into raising the money and running the site was beyond me. I hope a dedicated group can come forward and take over TAMB, but nobody should underestimate what it took for volunteers to make it what it is... or what it was.

All the Mods and Admin were sound af, but I'm not going to out anyone. Phart knew I was a mod because I once posted in the wrong place, and used my super-powers to shift the post. It was literally a 3 second job. Just my luck that suspicious b'stard happened to catch me in the act!

On my 15 minutes of TAMB fame - for the record, I did not phone every mortuary in Glasgow. I phoned every crematorium in the south west of Scotland. I appreciate that's not normal behaviour but I'm one of those guys that when I need to know something, I really need to know. I often think of our not-dead friend, and I hope his life is better for having been forced to deal with aspects of his life with which he was struggling. I only posted what I did because some people were getting really, really angry at people I knew were right. I'm still not convinced I did the right thing and I wonder how much of it was down to my ego.

The Hibbee jumping out of the plane though... it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at that.

Anyway, now I'm off to search my name, to see if anyone's been talking about me in my absence. Don't tell me you haven't done it yourself.

 

Great to see the name again & hear you're doing well :ok:

As for the bit in bold, I'm shocked - I thought you never liked the mods :lol: 

With the rest of the post, it sounds very much like you are really just a more intelligent @Scunnered:lol:

 

 

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Remember at Walk For Wallace in 2005 in London, Longshanks was going turning up, We told hime where we would be as be good to meet up as we all got on well with him on the board, He then asked how we would know each other, Told him to shout out his name was Longshanks when he came in, His reply was or words to the effect , you expect me to come into a bar, where you have all been drinking for the 700th anniversary of Wallace's murder and you all armed to the teeth and you want me to come in and shout Hi Its me Longshanks, nae blxxdy chnace:lol:

We never did meet up that day

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48 minutes ago, G-Man said:

:lol::lol::beer2:

Lovely to see you. 

It's been 5 years I think, seen something on Facebook about the board shutting down and thought I'd look in. It's the same patients walking the halls but the asylum looks very different. 

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9 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Hey you. I resemble that remark.

We all do. 

Mind scotty believed the April fool that a dinosaur had been captured in the jungle to help support his creationism belief, I see its spiralled out of control since then and he thinks that the earth is flat. 

Sad to hear the place has went to the dogs, it was brilliant and utterly bonkers back in the day. 

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