When emotions are running high as they clearly are, people can find themselves with blinders on and the irony is those blinders nullify the calls for transparency and can prevent people from seeing what is in front of them.

While I am glad Joe shared the “back story” of Rainey’s move to Epoch to erase the serious misconceptions surrounding her departure. I did want to point out we were not holding back that information: since she had our blessing and as you now know, Epoch had our blessing, all of those who needed to know the most personal of details on an official basis were already in the loop. As far as transparency to the community however, the official news was broken by Joe in a thread posted on many webmaster boards that was as much a tribute as it was an announcement, to the extraordinary work Rainey did during her tenure at PrideBucks.com since that is something we were and are very grateful for. She remains someone we still consider “family” as our relationship transcended a purely a business one long ago and that is something that will not change.

It was a week or so after that post was made that we all, Joe, David, Rainey and I, attended the Xbiz Show together. When the threads started that announced Rainey’s move to Epoch, both Joe and I heartfully posted on those threads. Finally, Rainey and Juan attended GayVN Summit together so Rainey could officially pass the torch on and make sure everyone was introduced to Juan in his new official capacity. Of course not everyone attended those shows those though between Fubar’s and WebMasterLifestyle’s online galleries, those shows were well documented. Bottom line, between a dozen plus threads on half a dozen plus boards and two webmasters shows, the only thing that could have made the affability of this move any more transparent would have been for Joe, Dave and I to walk Rainey down the aisle in a ceremony covered by CNN (we actually thought about that but even though we had rented the “jaws of life” and hired the Ladies Regiment of the Royal Canadian Mounties, we still could not force Rainey to put on that damn dress…so we just abandoned the notion).

As far as lack of follow-up comment or back story concerning Patrick, I am very reluctant to speak for anyone BUT speaking for myself, since it involved some very public legal tussles involving contracts, non-competes etc, advice from lawyers on ongoing matters is “keep quiet” and the resolutions of them generally involve binding non-disclosure clauses.

Bottom line, Rainey and Patrick both have stellar reputations and deservedly so: with a more objective look at the circumstances and events of their moves, to imply they were unwitting pawns in some political chess match is an insult their experience, maturity and capabilities.

Likewise, and while I do tread lightly on the Pandora’s Box of the Gay Forum Saga, a more objective look at things also seem to be in order. PrideBucks was very involved in the GayPhoenixForum from several trips to the CCBill office to attend planning sessions to checking out some of the venues, to a gold level sponsorship, to designing the seminar programs to speaking on 3 panels and co-sponsoring a splashy off-site party on the second night with BadPuppy. While we appreciated the call from Sean at CCBill personally to let us know there would not be another forum, a classy move from a classy guy at a classy company, we were saddened but not surprised since many months had passed before there was even talk of dates being selected. The significance of that became clear during the regular Phoenix Forum when I looked at the inside cover of the Networking Guide and the back of the Program so see the dates for next year’s regular Phoenix Forum were printed there which means the dates had been set in stone a full year plus in advance. At the very least, that indicates not just “when”, but even “if” there would be a second gay phoenix forum was far from a slam dunk certainty. So with months having passed and no announcement of a second gay forum much less a date, AVN saw an opportunity and capitalized on it. Could that be called opportunist, indeed, but business is business and that decision is not dissimilar to what we all do everyday: find an opportunity and seek to profit from it. Was it a shrewd move – a cunning one: most certainly but at least to me, not the conspiratorial community splintering jihad that has been portrayed. With regular webmaster shows now occurring monthly if not more often in some cases, 2 gay shows spread over a year is not a huge stretch of the imagination. At least on the back of my gay card, it does not say that October and the West Coast is the only time and place a gay webmaster conference could be held: there are 11 other months and many other geographic choices that could have been chosen if CCBill was committed to having a second forum. This does not mean CCBill is anything other then gracious, supportive of our community and a wonderful processor: I would say the same thing for Epoch.

We are all in this to make money and we all make our living one sale at a time: perhaps the best way to mind our business starts with minding our own business.