[katie hunter]

Originally Posted by Paul M

As many of you will know, vbulletin.org has always prided itself on being an independant site, making its own choices, and chosing its own staff (all of who are unpaid volunteers).

Unfortunately, this all changed four weeks ago.

Having left employment with IB the week before, I made it clear I intended to keep up my role as Administrator here - a position I was appointed to way back in September 2006, almost five years before I ever worked at Internet Brands.

However, on 2nd June 2017 (while I was away on holiday) I was (on the instructions of IB Management) removed from my Administrator role, and demoted to Moderator (by IB staff, not by our other admins, Lynne and Princeton). The reason given to me was that I am "no longer employed by IB".

This is despite the fact that IB employment and staff positions here have never been linked.

The staff here are all angry, and for the last few weeks we have tried to get IB management to see this isnt the right thing to have done.
They have refused to change the decision, and so it is with much regret that myself, and most of the existing staff are in the process of stepping down.

Over the next few weeks, Lynne, BirdOPrey5, MarkFL, Dismounted, Princeton and myself (Paul M) will all be stepping down.

Lynne has also announced she is resigning from vB Support.

My understanding is that TheLastSuperman intends to stay on for the moment (so really will be the Last (super) Man standing).

I believe our advisor Dave is also remaining for the moment.

I'm afraid I do not know what the future holds for vbulletin.org, or who from IB will be running it.
However, it has become clear it is no longer "our" site to run - as has previously been done for the last 15+ years.

While I've had few ups and down with Paul. He was one of the backbone of Vbulletin.org

I don't want to see any of these great staff stepping down. You still can support vb.org. I can understand trying to make a voice but I don't think this is the right approach for the community. It is sad to see Paul demoded but the decision for the others to step down is bad for vb.org and the community.

Really IB needs to rethink its direction in term of community support and vbulletin codes. I am still using vb 4.x and i love it over 5.x that i would never upgrade to.