What I have to say (MarcoRP)

[MrPlugShare]

As some of you might know, last month, @corywright kicked me as editor after being probably one of the most active contributors for 3 years, because I decided to link a bunch of my finds to Twitter after quitting TMC.

For the past month, Cory has been ignoring my messages, all the while progressively moving out all the discussion links back to the forum and even going so far as to rip me off on one of my finds (Hancock, NY). I spend many hours a week gathering information and it’s an absolute slap in the face to get screwed over like this.

On top of that, the editors here are currently missing / refusing to add a lot of sites, some of which are my own contributions and some of which are others, which is leading to a lot of inaccurate information on the map. In an optimal situation, I would ask to be reinstated as editor, although I’m not banking on that happening anytime soon.

That said, what has frustrated me the most so far is the fact that my finds keep getting relinked to TMC despite my vocal resentment of that forum. I know that Supercharge Info’s policy has long been to link forum threads, but due to the circumstances and since I am the one bringing in the information, I say the link should move directly to the initial Tweet until something new is contributed. For my part, I would be more than willing to link the corresponding TMC thread as a direct reply to said Tweet.

While that may not suit everyone’s fancy, I’m open to making a compromise, but for that I’m going to require some collaboration. Only reason I’m saying that is cause so far, I haven’t had any whatsoever.

These are the terms I’m setting, but as I said I’m open to other avenues, and I’m looking forward to hearing what people have to say. @keith

[Rovastar]

I have no skin in the game as new and not an editor here or a member of the TMC forum. I just contribute by posting my findings of superchargers from places where often they are overlooked.

I get that in North America the primary forum link (and it is called a forum link) is for the TMC site. It seems a logical place to link to and gets a lot of eyeballs from the Tesla community and they can update the thread with more info eg “I live down the road and will post photos when construction begins”, etc

Linking to a tweet is not really the same.

I guess you have hang ups with the TMC community and quit and want nothing to do with them, but I don’t see how that should effect the current policy about having the primary forum link as the TMC forums.

I never thought about but I guess the some supercharger spotters want some credit for your investigating and it does seem a petty to not give a nod in your direction regarding your contribution. And lack of communication is not good either Imho.

Would you be happy if someone posted a link to your tweet in the TMC thread about it? I sort of guess not (if you don’t like that community now) but I don’t see the harm there.

tbh I am not even sure about the “rules” about what what is a valid source, etc for what is allowed to be added to this site.

Regarding Hancock, NY and you tweet

tbh I find very little info there (maybe you posted more I didn’t see I just had a quick check.
I guess you did some detective work and it is all legit but there is not much to see in that tweet as “proof” that there is a supercharger coming there. The forum post Supercharger - Hancock, NY | Tesla Motors Club has a little info more info about it.
But tbh I don’t even see enough there to even warrant adding it to the site. No permits and just speculation that Tesla was interested in setting a supercharger here. But that is not my call. shrug

Overall we all want the same thing to get more info about supercharger (on this site) it is shame everyone cannot get along to meet these goals.

[corywright]

Settle in for a long read, because I think it’s important to add some context to this situation before addressing Marco’s post.

Some History

For years Marco (MrPlugShare on this forum) had been an active and valued contributor to both TMC and supercharge.info. He put in a lot of time and effort to discover permits for previously unknown Supercharger locations, and for the most part everything went along without any problem.

However, through the years Marco started behaving as supercharge.info was his own personal website, and that his opinion overruled any other editor or community member. As supercharge.info was essentially without an administrator for a few years, there was no authority to challenge Marco when he would make changes that everyone else disagreed with, or even changes that were purely for his own entertainment. Other editors would correct the data, only to see Marco immediately revert those corrections, repeatedly.

Although this had become a much bigger problem lately, Marco was behaving this way as early as June 2019, when he refused to acknowledge Tesla’s official name for the Sainte Eulalie, QC Supercharger. This is an editor’s view of the changelog history for that site (Marco is “MrPlugShare” in these screenshots):

As shown in this screenshot, Marco renamed it to “Saint-Léonard-d’Aston, QC” and then “Not Saint Eulalie, QC” even after @chuq had corrected it twice by renaming it back to Tesla’s official name. In Marco’s mind, his name choice is more correct than even Tesla’s.

What’s more, Marco had started using supercharge.info as a platform to entertain his Twitter followers. He began caring less about maintaining accurate information and more about provoking social media responses, both on Twitter and TMC. Here is an example of him manipulating the supercharge.info database at an attempt to get attention on Twitter:

Another notorious example of this was his naming of the second and third locations in Needles, CA:

(Marco was removed as an editor on 6/21/2022, which is when we were finally able to permanently correct these and many more locations)

There are many, many more examples like these, where Marco prioritized his own social media goals over data accuracy at supercharge.info.

This was very frustrating for us other editors, who volunteer our time on this project so that a reliable, accurate database of Superchargers is available to the community. In my opinion, it was incredibly disrespectful of Marco to prioritize stroking his ego over the wishes of the other editors and the community.

This all came to a head when he began refusing to set the supercharge.info “forum” links to threads at teslamotorsclub.com (TMC). All discussion of North American Superchargers occurs on TMC, as has been convention from the beginning of supercharge.info.

The “forum” links on supercharge.info are used to direct visitors to sites where discussion occurs about any given Supercharger. Sometimes threads are created long in advance of evidence of a Supercharger, but this is ok because it gives the community a dedicated place to share any information they have. Typically once a permit is found, or construction is discovered to have begun, the conversation in that thread picks up.

However, at some point, in Marco’s mind the purpose of the “forum” link changed. He began to believe that the “forum” link should point to wherever he posts his initial discovery, whether permit, Google Map screenshot, or anything else. No other editor (or community member, as far as I can tell) agrees with this.

And because of this, Marco began creating new (duplicate) threads on TMC so that he could link the supercharge.info “forum” directly to his posts. This was counterproductive, because often a TMC thread for that location would already exist, and sometimes even contain valuable discussion. But with Marco’s posts there would be two separate threads for the same location, creating confusion.

The users and moderators over at TMC began noticing what Marco was doing, and started merging his duplicate threads into the original threads, attempting to clear up any confusion about which post was canonical.

Marco began throwing fits about this on TMC:

This is not the type of behavior that we want associated with supercharge.info.

Around this time Marco decided he was taking a break from TMC because of his frustration with the moderators merging his threads. At this point he began refusing to allow the “forum” links to point to TMC, even when threads already existed. Here’s one example where he repeatedly changed the “forum” link back to his Twitter post:

Finally, on June 14, 2022, Marco crossed a line and this is when I decided it was time to revoke his editor privileges. On the Gananoque, ON location Marco repeatedly changed the “forum” link away from TMC and instead directed it to a bit.ly link to the Rickroll video on YouTube. Chuq tried a few times to restore the link to the TMC thread, and finally Marco left a comment “chuq piss off”:

As you can see in the above changelog, I corrected the link one more time and left a message for Marco: “Marco, do not change this again. This will be the only warning.”

Marco removed my warning message, and changed the “forum” link away from TMC once more.

I revoked Marco’s editor privileges on the morning of June 21, 2022. But, it should be noted that I did not ban him from this forum.

My stance

As I stated on this forum when I took over the project, my view is that the primary objective of supercharge.info should be to provide accurate and reliable information about Superchargers to our extended community. People rely on our data to plan trips, and it’s important that all editors take that responsibility seriously.

While the data needs to be taken seriously, the project itself should be fun for those of us involved. This is a hobby for all of us, and the supercharge.info editors should respect each other. If this stops being fun, the project will lose editors and eventually die.

I took over maintenance of supercharge.info to keep the site running and to ensure that this great community continued to exist. However, due to this drama with Marco I’ve had to temporarily pause adding any new editors. Going forward there will be a “Rules for Editors” that all new editors must agree to. We’ll only be accepting new editors who have a track record of contributions either here, TMC, or in other related communities.

After the revocation

After his editor privileges were revoked Marco tried to make this seem as if it were only about a few Twitter links:

He then began sending me messages on this forum and on Twitter demanding that I reinstate him as an editor, and that I change the links to point to his Twitter posts. As you can see below, I responded and explained that he chose to ignore my warning and that there was a consequence to that action:

It’s true that I have not responded in the last month, but that is because of the ad hominem nature of his recent comments. For example,

and

My view is that there is no point in engaging with a person who is behaving this way.

Also, over the last month Marco has created fake “sockpuppet” accounts on this forum, claiming to be other people.

@RamonCeres, who claims to live in Bakersfield, shares a Montreal IP address with MrPlugShare:

As does @LIBrian (a Long Islander, obviously), who is a “long time lurker, first time poster” and recently discovered a new Supercharger on Long Island (from Montreal):

After LIBrian posted this new find, he requested to become an editor (to help out):

But hey, at least I credited LIBrian when I created the TMC thread for North Babylon, NY.

Twitter, yes or no?

Marco gripes that people are “stealing” his finds, but he specifically granted permission for people on TMC to post his tweets as long as they site the source:

Also, it’s slightly ironic that Marco so frequently “steals” photos from TMC to post to his Twitter without crediting the person who posted the photo to TMC. Here’s another case of that from two days ago.

Meanwhile, he’s upset that we aren’t adding his new “finds” that he posts to Twitter. Yet, up until this morning, he had blocked both chuq and me from his Twitter account:

Finally, to Marco

Marco, you were given a warning, and you chose to ignore that warning. The situation was entirely in your control, and yet you chose to push it.

I’m guessing you are realizing now that with only 4 Patrons on your Patreon, people on Twitter just do not care as much about your discoveries as the TMC community did. It’s a shame you’ve burned that bridge now.

If you feel that your “finds” are not fully appreciated, maybe you should quit doing it? This community and supercharge.info were here before you, and will continue without you.

So Marco, here’s the deal: You are welcome to continue posting your discoveries to this forum. A thread on TMC will be created (if one doesn’t already exist), and credit will be given to you for any permits you uncover. But, if I have to spend even 5 seconds dealing with any more drama from you, your account(s) will be banned and that will be the end of this. Again, this will be your choice. Your actions will have consequences.

[MrPlugShare]

Well Cory, you know well enough that I’m not gonna drop the subject. That said, I’d recommend you read to the end before thinking of deleting the post.
I won’t confront the “infractions”, as I’ll own up to that, but I will respond to some of the bizarre claims you make to paint me as some kind of villain who doesn’t deserve any recognition.

Site naming:

For the claim pertaining to SLdA, it is important to note the location of the Supercharger is actually in Saint Leonard, not Sainte Eulalie as Tesla claims. I even had a discussion with tes-s about the location name, and he agreed that the address matches the name I was giving the site. Now, it is well known that Tesla is notoriously bad when it comes to naming sites that are not “local”. As someone who lives in Quebec and has visited that location a few times, I would for my part say that the name Tesla gave is more confusing than the one I did. But I guess a [bot?], a Virginian and an Australian know my province better than I do, right?

Funnily enough - the same thing could be said for the “Rue Viger” location up in Montreal. I explained this one in depth on TMC, and such a bad name choice could result in confusion for locals. You haven’t changed that one by the way so if you really want to piss me off may as well edit it!!

Secondly, yes, I did use the site to name sites jokey things, and so what? There’s nothing wrong with a bit of humor. Earl Road was just for the photo and then the data was reverted no questions asked. As for Neeeedles, that was actually funny and I wasn’t the only one who thought so, but I guess we have very different ideas of what constitutes “fun”.

Also, how exactly was I sacrificing the integrity of the site with a silly name like Neeeedles? All the other data (address, coords, stalls #) was accurate, and as I had stated, all three Needles sites are on Broadway so there would be no “correct” name to give either site.

Furthermore, you act as if there was some kind of disrespect in doing what I did. I’m the one who added all the data and took the time to research, but it’s not like the name was wildly inaccurate, then the next person comes along and wipes it out, and so I restore it. Works both ways.

TMC:

And now it’s my beef with TMC. Unlike what Cory suggests, my exit from the forum was a months-long process, which essentially started when some douchebag started 10 separate Ontario Supercharger threads based on the release of Tesla’s quarterly projections. This was especially annoying for me since not only did I not even have time to scan the regional permits, but it wasn’t even the first time he had done this. The first time, we told him it was counterproductive and that Tesla’s preds had never been especially accurate, yet he ignored us and decided to do it again. Initially, I had flagged most of his new threads and asked the mods to remove them, although that went on deaf ears. Two weeks later, I find my first location in Trenton and decide to post a new thread, since the first one had nothing insightful to contribute.

However, that and the next FIVE locations I found in Eastern Canada were eventually merged into this [insert word here]’s threads, despite my visible frustration. By the time the mods merged Gananoque, I gave up and quit the forum the day after, not before telling the guy to go fuck himself (my so-called meltdown). I’ve said this on TMC (although it was deleted) but I’ll say it again. It was a good forum and most people were cool, but it was literally two doofuses that ruined the experience for me.

As for the “forum” links as you so call it, I felt my contributions were being overlooked so I decided to move the some of the Ontario finds out to my Twitter links, but that’s when Chuq, who has some strange obsession for messing around where he doesn’t belong, gets involved. After he moves the discussion to TMC, I move it right back. After a long back and forth, I eventually tell Chuq to “piss off” and to let me deal with this. Lastly, you guys seem to be forgetting the fact that if it were not for me posting these locations, you wouldn’t have anything to complain about in the first place. And yeah Cory, you didn’t ban from me the forum, but you may as well have cause you’ve ignored everything I’ve posted until now (more on that later).

Cory’s Stance:

You imply again and again that I’ve been feeding the website with plenty of inaccurate information, despite the fact virtually all my contributions this year have been legitimate and accurate (again, aside from a few site names and links). As for the conversation, you say you didn’t respond to my “offensive” remarks because of the ad hominem, yet I left a whole message which I know you saw the day it was posted and you didn’t reply, but I guess my comments from a few days ago justified it in hindsight (wtf)?

Adding locations:

In that message, I addressed the South Amboy find, which Chuq just took from my page, even though I had specifically asked people not to repost anything that week. I had hand picked that location (and others) because the source for them was notoriously difficult to find, and I presumed someone would go out looking and try to rip me off on a couple of them. Yet, I guess he was too lazy for that and just posted the basic info in plaintext, without a source, and somehow that sufficed.

(below is the original Tweet, posted 2 days prior)

In the week following my ban from Supercharge Info, I actually did post my latest releases on the thread below, and surprise surprise, they were all completely ignored.

Even when I had provided plans for several of them, Cory and the other editors simply refused to add the sites, although some of them had no problem cherry picking locations directly from my Twitter feed. And yes, I did post that Tweet granting permission for Tweet reposts, although you did miss the part where I said local region. Tbh, I’m not sure how Hobart is necessarily local to Elkhorn, Wisconsin, but I digress, Chuq was blocked mostly because of the South Amboy deal and Cory because he ignored my reply for a whole freaking month.

Cory, you act as if you would’ve added the locations if you hadn’t been blocked, but I can say for a hard fact that isn’t true. What I was actually referring to when talking about the missing sites is the unwillingness on the editors behalf to add a bunch of my and other people’s contributions for “lack of evidence”. I’ve talked a bit about this with Lawson. For some reason, you guys have been very reluctant to add sites based on the evidence I’ve provided. For example, you can’t accept an accurate map for Eagan but are totally fine with some plaintext jumble I threw together for Arcadia, which could be fake for all you know (it isn’t). Then there’s Tustin, which if I remember correctly, I said was under construction, yet it was added as permit since you needed a photo to confirm what was already obvious??? That said, I guess it’s completely fine just to add Sun City as under construction when the permit hasn’t even been reviewed lmfao. But hey, what do I know? It’s not like I’ve released hundreds of Supercharger locations based off of sheer guess work, right?

And lastly, to Cory:

You’ve made it very clear that you don’t want to hear what I’ve gotta say, yet I’m sure you’ll have no problem plucking my Supercharger finds onto your cute little database.

And for someone who’s got a problem with the ad hominem crap, you sure have no shame in taking a shot at the number of patrons I’ve got. Bet you’ll be pleased to know the subscriptions have fully covered my FOIA expenses over the past year. And where I lack in patrons I compensate with over 4000 followers on Twitter, on which I’m still posting daily Supercharger updates (the community’s been awesome with me, thanks for asking).

Also, where exactly have you seen those burnt bridges? My TMC account may be no more, but my tweets are appearing there so often I may as well still be a member, and it’s inevitable really. Year to date I’m already at over a hundred unchallenged Supercharger finds, and you sure as hell aren’t going to stop me from getting more in.

So Cory, here’s your deal. Despite you telling me to cut out the drama, I’m standing by my original request to have some of the discussion links pointing directly to my Tweets, and also that you cut it out with all this lack of evidence bullshit. If there are any doubts about a location, know that I’d be happy to answer any questions via PM.

If you want to trash my account, by all means, go right ahead and do it. Go right on and get rid of one of the most valuable assets this website has ever had. Honestly, if you really want to make me the villain, delete my account and I promise that I will make your editing job very difficult. And just remember Cory, “your actions will have consequences”.

M

[corywright]

delete my account and I promise that I will make your editing job very difficult

Given that I am not adding any of your “finds”, the only way I can see that you’d be able to make my editing job “very difficult” is through a direct attack on the supercharge.info servers. If this is what you are threatening me with, and I think it is, that is very serious and will not be taken lightly.

Please clarify your intentions. Otherwise, I will proceed accordingly.

[MrPlugShare]

Oh come on, I can’t even login without getting my IP address tracked and you think I’m gonna able to hack the server?

Right now, all I want are my requests to be met. That’s a far cry from going out of my way to wreck the website.

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Oh great. This sucks.

MarcoRP,

I really appreciate the power of your Permit hunting, and I hate to see barriers go up between your productivity and the Supercharge.info database.

But, I disagree with your approach to naming and linking.

In my opinion once the site is in the Tesla nav, it should use the Tesla name, so that Supercharge.info matches with Tesla and all other resources likely to use Tesla’s name.

To that end I also think that before it opens, editors should try to anticipate the name Tesla will give it. I’ve seen a number of obvious instances of giving it “local” naming, when Tesla’s name would obviously be different. Lake Delton, WI is one I remember in particular. It was given the locally well-known “Wisconsin Dells” even though the address is in Lake Delton and it said Lake Delton on Tesla’s permit document.

You aren’t the only person to see issues with Tesla’s naming or information. But rather than trying to “correct” Tesla by choosing a different name, I think it would be better if Supercharge.info were enhanced so that editors could add a line of “Better Than Tesla” text accessible in or from a site’s bubble.

On the links, this site was generously created by Keith as a service to the Tesla community, and I’d like to see it continue in this way, with an underlying principle that the data are public, and that nobody owns it.

To me, linking to a forum is much better than linking to a Twitter account. Forums are dedicated to a particular topic, (usually) don’t require JavaScript to view posts and aren’t trying to feed you a bunch of irrelevancies to keep your attention. I don’t have a Twitter account, and I have no intention of creating one.

I know it’s really annoying when people create threads based on Tesla Coming Whenever pins, and so must be doubly annoying to have threads merged into that earlier thread, but I’d rather have that happen than have it linking to Twitter.

If you didn’t want to link to TMC, I think a better approach would have been to create a thread on forum.supercharge.info and link to that.

Also, can you please unblock the Supercharge.info editors on Twitter so that they can easily view the information and use it to add entries? Right now it’s getting in the way of the purpose of this site.

Can we all just try to act like colleagues? We don’t have to like each other, but I think we have a common goal we want to work towards, which is getting Supercharger information out as soon as it’s available.

[MrPlugShare]

I appreciate the comment, but I am downright fed up with trying to work with the folks here on a solution. I’ve proposed avenues and workarounds, but it seems cory wasn’t exactly receptive to that and has basically ghosted me or told me to deal with it.

In terms of the blocks, every editor still has access to my Tweets (since about last month), yet it hasn’t stopped sites from either going unnoticed or simply not being added because “my evidence isn’t good enough”. I’m at the point that I don’t even care about getting my finds listed on the map, because I am tired of dealing with this red tape. I know what is legit and what isn’t, but apparently it’s a trust issue now.

As for TMC, I couldn’t care less about my finds not making it there. I’ve long been tired of that forum, and it infuriates me that they still get traffic from my finds after screwing me over.

That’s about all there is to it, but I will say one final thing.

Cory, you have been more than unhelpful in the past few weeks. You’ve done nothing but ignore me, all while racking my work onto your database. I’m giving you one last chance to propose a workaround that isn’t complete bullshit. Otherwise, I’m done.