I'm in a bit of two minds about Jacob.
On the one hand, I
really do not like talking about people and saying ill will behind their back (I'm a more say it to your face bluntly kind of person), on the other hand, It kind of feels well-deserved even though I really don't want to say that.
When I was a fresh-faced member about a year and a half ago I used to think "Why is everyone giving this guy so much jib? He seems to know what he's talking about." But over the time I've been here, I've gotten to see a little more of what Jacob is about. I think one of the first viewings I saw of "Rabid Jacob" was in a thread about
double glazing where he seemed to have not much of a real idea about what he was wittering on about but still contested pretty much everything anyone was saying including an expert. Another time was that "Grrripper" thread which was subsequently deleted after he went ballistic about the "Grrripper" product and basically seemed to get into an argument with himself, come up with a really daft idea about having a weight on top of a workpiece while surface planing and when contested about the safety about said technique he went all raving looney to anyone who thought it wasn't a good idea, which was pretty much everyone including Peter Sefton who got the Jacob treatment being told to "Fack off" and "You're only here to get people to buy stuff from your overpriced shop" if I remember correctly. The
point of what way was the correct way to plane came up again after someone wanted clarification from the deleted thread, This thread ended up being locked in the end, partly because of me admittedly but you can read the thread for yourselves. The late BBC rant thread was another example at times, where things were just pushed too far many times and if I recall correctly someone was compared to a certain historical leader of fascist-leaning by Jacob and he was banned for a week for it. Eventually, the BBC thread was deleted for reasons I'm not quite sure of, but when it did get deleted Jacob threw all his toys out of the pram metaphorically and
"accidentally" deleted his account. There was recently a
thread about the housing market which was locked after it devolved into a soapbox about left-wing politics by... You guessed it, Jacob. He then opened
another thread asking why that thread had been locked and compared the moderation of the forum to Soviet Russia and I assume that is when he was banned as of now.
I'm definitely missing some examples there but those are the main ones that come to my mind when I think of Jacob's character. As Mike said, it's not clear whether he is actually banned or not but after the way
"Morris" was dealt with a couple of weeks ago I assume he has been, for how long I have no idea.
To be brutally honest, I agree with AES. I think the ban should be on a permanent basis which is a sad thing really for a member who has been a part of woodworking forums for 15+ years but I think UKW might have been the only one left where he was welcome in the end. I wonder how many members have left quietly over the years after getting the Jacob treatment or who have avoided joining all together because they saw the conflict that happened occasionally? Again, like AES said, there have been a few threads lately where things would normally get extraordinarily heated but for the most part, they've been very civil and some excellent discussion has taken place especially in the "Electric Vehicles" thread where I only saw one comment that could be considered out of place, which was apologised for sincerely and the discussion moved on. I don't think I've ever seen Jacob apologise once, even if he was totally out of order. He only ever seems to dig ever-greater holes to avoid apologising instead of holding his hand up and saying "I made a mistake". But then, should he banned for having a very strong differing opinion to practically everything said on the forum? I dunno.
AGAIN, like AES said, is he the kind of bloke you'd want to spend time with down the pub? Putting it into forum terms, would you ever consider sending Jacob a PM to converse? I doubt many would want to. I'd like to think I could send a PM to pretty much anyone on this forum and have a bit of external forum conversation about pretty much anything and I'd like to think the same is vice versa with myself not to blow hot air up my own buttocks (I've got all the time in the world by the by if anyone wants to chat about anything :wink
, there are some
great members here, new and old.
That's my opinion on the subject.