That absolutely should not be what goes on (and I understand mods shouldn't be discussing this in the open, but if that's what it takes to initiate change, then so be it) and something NEEDS to change because of it. IDK what the relationship is between Mark and Mike, but Mark's got to understand that if business isn't getting done, he's got to make changes. I mean, we've seen concrete evidence that the forum is hurting, and there is correlation that the decline started with other instances (all of which I'm not up to speed on so I won't comment on them)... something needs to be done where the correct power can be given to someone else.
The last forum I adminned on, the admin group had absolutely no power to change anything... we couldn't even create subforums and shit... and none of the regular members wanted to believe that shit because they had never seen that shit happen anywhere. The owner wouldn't listen to a fucking thing, then disappeared for months, came back, and gave the admin (without notifying us) one week with the power to make the changes we needed to make, and by the time we figured out we had those powers, he had just taken them from us and told us we should have been aware, lmfao. Long story short, he refused to help, then disappeared, closed the forum down, changed over the domain name, and reopened with all of our shit still there, but removed the entire mod staff and made his own, and the forum is dead.
We need to cut out the middleman shit with Mark... he's the main guy. And people need to be given the ability to make the changes that need to happen. If Mike's not going to do shit, why the fuck is he being left in charge to see this shit die?
