piag94 said:

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2 and 3 are a joke. No the mods just want to hide behind their username and just want to be the internet tough guy...

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third coast.. said:

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i have a long and well documented beef with her, but she is not a mod, and that came straight from brandons mouth. i do believe, however, that she has the ear of someone with moderation power. that is all i will say on that matter.

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Redstone said:

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So we have at least a couple first-hand accounts of TexAgs connection for retainer payment, which may or may not be solicitation ( I don't know), and who reported / knew what when issues.
Second, the well-articulated issues with moderation / transparency.

Brandon, again, I absolutely have respect for you, and admiration for the building of a great site, but these 2 situations here are not just serious but require a comprehensive reckoning.

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2006EE said:

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third coast.. said:

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i have a long and well documented beef with her, but she is not a mod, and that came straight from brandons mouth. i do believe, however, that she has the ear of someone with moderation power. that is all i will say on that matter.

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I'm guessing it isn't all you will say.

She has no more ears than you or I do.

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BoerneGator said:

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Redstone said:

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So we have at least a couple first-hand accounts of TexAgs connection for retainer payment, which may or may not be solicitation ( I don't know), and who reported / knew what when issues.
Second, the well-articulated issues with moderation / transparency.

Brandon, again, I absolutely have respect for you, and admiration for the building of a great site, but these 2 situations here are not just serious but require a comprehensive reckoning.

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You seem to be forgetting this is an internet message board, and not a courtroom. Ever hear the term "hearsay"?
Maybe you need to take a break?

As for "reckoning"? What do yo think THIS is?

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RCR06 said:

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There was a moderator ***** session on the outdoor board a month ago. Many posting on this thread were over there, but many more probably were not. It's kind of funny that the same things people were complaining about on the OB are being complained about here. https://texags.com/forums/34/topics/3007598/2

In that thread Brandon's response to why moderators aren't public is below. Many didnt agree, but he listed his reasoning.

WatchOle said:

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Three main reasons:

1. I want moderators to be able to participate on the forums as normal posters without the social burden of being a moderator.

2. I want moderators to moderate based on policy and not based community pressure.

3. I want moderators to be free on real world retribution by disgruntled community members.

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Reed McDonald 92 said:

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I'm here to say that he took $1000 from me, too.
I had a legitimate case against a plumber who destroyed my bathroom.
Then Damon "Jorts" Robertson added insult to injury.

Aggies neither lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate those who do.

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Leeman said:

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Deats said:

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Hearsay: the report of another person's words by a witness, which is usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law.

1st hand accounts are not hearsay.

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Would you happen to know where we can get good legal advice on this ?

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wadd96 said:

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I had a couple of calls asking for $10K while he waited for a "big settlement." I politely declined.

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Redstone said:

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First-hand accounts with paper trails are not only not hearsay, they are the most prized testimony possible.

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third coast.. said:

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He should have never been permitted back around these parts after the initial revelation of fraud was brought up. Why are you defending him being here. He's a dumpster human who has in no way done anything to cause anyone to defend him. Brandon admitted it was a known issue. You have been involved in the sane conversations I have where loads of people have admitted he's a lowlife scammer. Don't protect him or staff. Jesus Christ.

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WatchOle said:

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TexAgs,

I don't feel the need to defend Damon other than to say I want good things for him. And, for me that's this: I hope he gets the help he needs, I hope he is able to face his deeds head-on and repent, and I hope he is someday reconciled with his family, his boys, and the people here that he has injured.

I think many here would agree, Damon wasn't always the guy in the mugshot at the top of this thread. He was a obnoxious personality for sure, but he was endearing at the same time and seemed to generally care for others. There are numerous posters here that considered (and still consider) him a friend. That wasn't because of what he posted here, but because of the many personal interactions over the years. Damon was a good guy, with a big heart and he created a lot of real-life friendships with TexAgs others on this site.

Most of us knew of troubles for Damon in his personal life: His first marriage falling apart (and then his second), his drinking to excess, etc. I wasn't aware of everything that was going on because he would let me know only what he wanted me to know. He probably did this with numerous friends only letting them in on parts of his story that were advantageous.

The best I can remember, Damon and I were in good personal standing into 2013. In fact, I encouraged a family member to use him for legal counsel toward the beginning of that year. They did and Damon performed the legal work he was retained to do. However, in 2014 things seemed to fall off a cliff for Damon when it came to light that he busted for running drugs and some money related problems with a couple posters surfaced. It's at that point sometime late 2014 - that I began to put some distance between Damon personally and professionally. It's quite possible (and likely) this type of stuff was going for some time before 2014, but I was not aware of it.

I say all the above to help make this point: Damon wasn't always what can now be captured in an arrest report. We can all see now how far he has fallen and how deep his transgressions go. If I knew things were headed to this (or even on this road), I would have never been involved with Damon nor allowed him to be involved with this site.

With that, here is an accounting of what I knew about Damon and how he was involved with TexAgs over the years:

Damon was contributor to TexAgs Radio via the fan show segment starting in 2009 (when it was only a podcast) and ending in 2014.

Damon was a volunteer junior moderator from 2009 until August 2017. He was recruited to moderate because we needed someone familiar with Rivalries forum. As a junior level moderator he only had permissions to remove/edit topics and posts. He never had the ability to ban/warn/reinstate users. He moderated Rivalries, General, and Texas A&M Football initially and expanded to all forums (but not Varsity) in 2013. He was demoted back down to only Rivalries in early 2016 and removed all together as a moderator in August 2017. Most of Damon's moderation occurred before 2014 and his participation feel off considerably after that. For example, he moderated a total of 4 posts in 2016.

At no time did Damon have access to personal information of users. His involvement with TexAgs was limited to his TexAgs Radio contributions and his volunteer moderating. Damon was never an employee or paid staff of TexAgs.

As of Saturday, Damon account has been permanently suspended and all subscription levels removed. He will not be allowed back here until he has fully reconciled with users he has defrauded and otherwise injured.

What I knew (to best of my recollection):

2013 Damon was a handful, but I fully trusted him into 2013.

2013 Later in the year I learned that Damon had been arrested for drug possession.

2014 In October, a topic appeared on Varsity in which the OP accused Damon of scamming him for $1200. The OP had retained Damon for legal work but a) Damon did not perform in a timely manner and b) Damon had had his license suspended due to the drug related charge above. Damon came on and posted a lengthy confession in which he admitted the drug related charge, his financial troubles, his disbarment, and claimed that the work had started before his disbarment and that the work in question was being pursued by another firm. He claimed he was too embarrassed to tell the OP previously but confessed to all on Varsity. I left the thread open until all felt like they were heard and most, at the time, seemed satisfied with his response. The OP reached out to inform me that the matter had been resolved and asked me to remove the thread.

2014 On the same day as above, a varsity user reached out to me and informed me that they too were in conflict with Damon concerning money taken in leu of legal representation. The user wasn't interested in bringing it to forums. In hindsight I should have pushed them to do so or done it on their behalf. At the very least, I should have circled back around and checked-in on what Damon was doing to remedy this. This situation is still unreconciled.

2015 thru 2016 I don't recall any significant contact with Damon or topics discussing his offsite behavior. No one contacted me about inappropriate behavior on or through the site. I didn't have any personal contact with him (other than maybe a few texts) and He wasn't around much at all. I was hoping he was busy getting his life together.

2017 A user pulled me aside at our annual kick-off function and shared how Damon had fallen further into substance abuse and was leading this user's family member down the same path. This user also described another family loaning Damon money and money not being paid back. I sent an email at the event to our lead tech requesting that all moderation permissions still in effect be removed.

2018 I had no meaningful contact with Damon nor was I privy to his whereabouts or dealings. No one contacted me about inappropriate behavior on or through the site.

2019 A thread was started on Old Rivalries linking to a new arrest report. Some users described numerous other users being scammed by Damon through this site. This thread was left open for a full discussion. That other users had apparently been defrauded was new information to me.

To my knowledge, the admin and moderators on this site have not suppressed any discussion of Damon's behavior. If someone believes that we have, please speak up and offer examples. There are also references to users discussing the many people that Damon has misled and/or defrauded. If that discussion did happen, I'm not aware of it happening here on these forums nor did these users bring it to my attention.

Damon formed personal relationships on this site and other places (like Facebook, etc). How he cultivated those relationships and what he did offline was his own doing and we were not aware of it, other than what has been described above. His online persona was something he created and many persons were attracted to that. We are not in the business of knowing, nor have the ability to know, what those who post here do in the private lives unless they share it publicly or unless they are brought to our attention by other users.

I'll close by restating that Damon is not allowed back onto the site unless and until he is fully reconciled with the posters here. I wish him the best in his attempts to get his live together and I hope that he is successful in doing so.

Brandon

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Aggiebrewer said:

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the only issue I've ever had with a moderator was hysterical but also pathetic.

I was banned for calling someone a name.
only problem was, I didn't call that poster any name. the moderator made a mistake. and to compound the mistake, they upheld the 24 or 48 hr ban (I forget how long) and made reinstatement conditional upon me promising not to do it again. something I didn't do.

anonymity made this possible imho.

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staticdoor said:

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Excellent post by Brandon; not necessary or owed but genuinely appreciate the timeline

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