Statement Regarding Intellivision Amico Forum

[Albert]

I have written this statement to help clear up some confusion and misconception about removal of the Intellivision Amico forum on AtariAge several days ago. I removed the Amico forum as discussion around the Amico has been contentious at best, and it's just not worth the continued headaches to keep it around in its current form and and atmosphere surrounding the console.  When the Amico actually ships, I'll create a new Amico forum so people can discuss the console and games.  The decision to remove the Amico forum was entirely my own, although I have had input from various moderators, all of whom agreed removing the Amico forum was the best decision at this time.  When I create a new Amico forum, it's possible at that point I will also put the old forum up as a read-only archive.  Until that time, please do not start any new Amico threads on AtariAge.

In August I started a private conversation with Tommy, warning him that I was likely to remove the Amico forum wholesale, as by that point the moderators and I had enough of the drama in the forum surrounding the console.  I started this conversation on August 14, and the two of us went back and forth over a period of ten days, with the last message in the conversation August 24 from Tommy, which I did not respond to.  There were only eight messages total in that conversation between the two of us.  I was primarily focused on talking about removal of the Amico forum.  We did also discuss the "Fun Amico Discussions" thread, as Tommy was hopeful that if the forum was removed, at least that thread could continue, or at the very least be saved so it could be restored once the Amico was released and a new forum was created.  I can understand why Tommy would want that thread preserved, given how much time he (and others) had spent posting in it since its creation nearly three years ago.  But my focus was about the forum as a whole, so I didn't comment much on doing anything with regards to that one thread.  I did suggest to Tommy that Intellivision Entertainment should create their own Amico forum, and it seems Tommy began focusing more on the Amico Facebook group as a result of this.  I didn't take any action as a result of that conversation.

Earlier this week I had a conversation with Pat Contri where I stated Tommy and I only spoke once in 2021, and the conversation described above is what I was referring to.  I was wrong about that being the only conversation I had with Tommy in 2021, though.  In June, Tommy started a private conversation with me about some harassment he was receiving.  That conversation didn't include any discussion at all about removing the forum or what to do with the long-running "Amico Fun" thread.  When talking to Pat, I missed that conversation as when I searched for conversations with Tommy, I was only looking at conversations I started.  That was my mistake.

Also, just to be clear, Tommy Tallarico was not banned from the forum.  After I locked all the "general" threads, I locked the "Fun Amico Conversations" thread as well.  After I did this, Tommy reported a post from one member, and in that report he made it quite clear that he would no longer be posting on AtariAge.  However, after a few days, Tommy did respond to a post in one Amico thread, and immediately after that he created a new topic.  The new topic was mainly to promote his Amico Facebook group, and that group was mentioned in his earlier reply as well.  What ultimately set me off, though, was taking a swing at the "haters" in both posts by stating no "ding-a-lings" would be allowed.  Completely unnecessary, as I felt that would just further rile people up, and at that point I promptly removed the Amico forum.

The Amico forum was created to give people a place to discuss an upcoming gaming console, one that certainly looked interesting given its use of the Intellivision name.  We've created forums for other upcoming consoles in the past, so this was not unusual.  Had I known it was going to be such a polarizing topic, I would have held off on creating the forum until after the console was released.  Moderation of the forum could have been better, I'm not questioning that, and I take responsibility for that.  Please keep in mind nobody is getting paid to help moderate the forums, everyone is doing it in their free time.  Also, there are over 150 forums on AtariAge, the Amico forum was just one of them (albeit, a fairly busy one). 

To those of you stating that I received kickbacks or compensation from Tommy Tallarico or Intellivision Entertainment, that is patently false.  No consideration was ever asked for or offered in any way to give the Amico forum or Tommy Tallarico favorable treatment.  And to those who believe I didn't want to kill the Amico forum because of the traffic it drives to AtariAge, to date there have been no ads on the forum, so there would have been no benefit in keeping the Amico forum around due to ad revenue.  Even if the Amico forum was bringing in ad revenue, that would not have influenced my decision to remove the forum.  If you're using the Tapatalk mobile app to visit the forum, they do insert ads in their app, but I don't receive a penny from those ads being displayed.  You will not see any ads if you use a web browser to visit the forum (whether on desktop or mobile).

I have no ill will towards Tommy Tallarico or Intellivision Entertainment.  I like the premise of the console, the unique controller that hearkens back to the original Intellivision controllers, and the promise of simpler games that are easy to learn and dive into.  I'm certainly interested to see how the Amico is received once it arrives in customers' hands.  

Thank you for reading,

 ..Al