Yes I was. A hobbyist, DarthDVader, kept bumping his review of me. This is frowned upon - and rightly so! It severed the arrangement he and i had at the time bc it wound up causing me so much trouble since i had no idea what was going on until it happend.
He has since apologized and we have both moved on and remain friends. Its a shame some of you can't accept the findings from the lengthy investigation (which actually ended up exposing corrupt mods rather than a corrupt provider) and do the same.
In a nutshell, Houston and Dallas mods, Mojojo and Bob Valdez (and others I suspect) saw an IP correlation incident that (unbeknownst to them) I had actually brought to admins attention when it happened two weeks before they "found it". Based on this "evidence" they thought they had, they then shared my PRIVATE IP info with a member of the general hobby community - daaaaaman - who in turn thought to start a convo in chat that accused me of having multiple handles.
Obviously, mojojo and bob didn't know the background story as to why I had to log on from another person's computer when I couldn't log on from ANY of my devices - laptop or mobile - or about the email I sent to admin notifying them that i logged on from a hobbyist's computer the second i did it or they would have realized i was in the clear before they made an organized effort to try and get me banned. Instead they ended up looking like a bunch of idiots huddled around a bomb that never went off - except my outburst in chat when I was alerted to the accusations being made which I took a public flogging for when I tried to apologize but I digress....
Here are the findings of the multiple handles investigation in case you missed it the first second or third time its been brought up by you people who can't seem to let it go for some strange reason. Maybe its time for some counseling to help yourselves get over an accusation that was proven false months ago.
http://www.eccie.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=136
That last post by SD2011 is to a great degree my fault. I have been looking over this thread and the review for some time and I got the two confused. I gave a warning in the review that no more "quacking" would be allowed without proof
http://www.eccie.net/showpost.php?p=...4&postcount=72
I got it mixed up and thought he had continued quacking when in fact he had never posted to the review. Earlier today, I apologized to him by private message, recognized my mistake and removed the infraction that he didn't deserve. He seemed genuine in accepting my apology and I consider that issue now resolved.
It is hard to differentiate the good guys from the villains in this drama thread. Maybe there aren't any villains or good guys, just people who got carried away with their posts and accusations. On most days, this would simply amount to a he said/ she said drama thread that eventually stops getting hits when a new drama pops onto the radar screen. Typically the mods would simply let it run its course and be done with it, with little to no involvement. Unfortunately things aren't that simple this time, but I wish they were.
The drama didn't start in chat, and it wasn't dman DDV, Shep or THN who got this drama rolling. It was a member of staff who brought this review up to the Dallas mods' attention, suggesting it was a fake review. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this action, when the intention is to protect the integrity of reviews. We usually encourage others to help in this regard. Everything after that report just went downhill in this case. If you want to blame anyone first, blame some of us for not holding up our roles as moderators of ECCIE . We have a mod quacking the review while we were investigating it, we have another mod discrediting a new member in public for daring to make a harmless offer to help. Those are not our roles as forum leaders and these two individuals need to take an introspective look and determine if they are serving the community at large, or are serving a master of their own choosing.
Not that this matters much to many of you, but here is an interesting number from the front page
Members: 200,316
With these many members, it is extremely important that we extend the same customer service to every member. The staff can't afford to show preference to their close hobby friends at the expense of others. On behalf of all members of staff, I'd like to offer an apology to all members for multiple failures on our end. In an ideal world I shouldn't have to offer this apology, and the mods that needed to apologize should be typing their own mea culpa, but after three days of waiting, I am done holding my breath for their post. For the record, Namssa was trying to assist me while I researched the initial claim, so I am not referring to him.
The worst part of all this, is that whether intentional or not, this whole episode paints some of us as willing to be proxies so that some members with off board conflicts can initiate attacks against other members of the site. Again, that is not what a forum leader does and we should be careful of what actions we take..
Regarding the parties involved, there are too many things going on here that do not add up. To put one issue to rest, the sharing of IPs and computers has been examined in detail and the explanation accepted. The staff can't find fault on any of this. On the dates that this occurred, THN contacted a site administrator explaining her access issues.and revealed she was using a friend's computer and connection to test if the access error was on her end or if it was a board-wide issue. Someone doing this deceptively would have been nailed on this one, but there was a record of the communication with staff. She actually announced to us of what she was doing weeks before we questioned her actions.
I also questioned the two of them in many different ways and their answers checked out OK. I ran as many internal checks as I could behind the scenes and things are fine. There is no acceptable evidence to continue smearing their names about a fake review or the abuse of multiple handles.
THN's claims in chat, per all the comments posted here, were out of line. She has recognized that ( posted this thread ) and repeated herself on follow up replies. While we can sit here and cast stones at her, I have seen worst reactions from other members when their character was under attack. Most male members can just drop their hobby account and create a new one. Yes, so can many women. The difference is that when a woman is well established, she can't fool anyone for too long. They don't have the luxury of pulling a disappearing act as easily as the guys can. I understand her getting angrier than the guys. Her board identity and business is deeply attached to the handle.
dman, I am scratching my head on this one. For what is worth, normally I tend to side with a guy when things are this murky ( guys tend to be here for years while the women tend to have a short presence on the board ), but this whole scenario confuses me. The evidence shows that you play this game fast and hard ( no pun intended ), but it is like you forgot the fun aspect of it with this one. For starters, the scenario that this review casually came up for conversation,.the timing of it, along with the review being brought up to the staff's attention is just too convenient. The fact that you seem surprised at her reaction after you questioned the credibility of the review is silly. Look at how many posts you have invested on both the review and this thread. Compare her posts and yours and on many aspects, it could be said you both mirrored each others. The glaring difference is that you have a support crew it seems. I won't invest more time in recalling things from this thread, and I don't blame you for getting mad at being called certain names, but you should be able to pause momentarily and see how some of this was caused by your careless comments. Just like you know that missing appointments affects a provider's income, you should know that a conversation or *rumor* can have a deep impact on a woman's ability to make a living. Again, you seem to have forgotten the fun aspect of the hobby in this mess.
Shep, I don't know what to say. When I have had contact with you. you have always seemed like an OK guy to me. You tend to bring a lot of information to the site. When I have reached out to you, I have always felt you have given me straight answers. I haven't reached out to you in this one because I really could not find reasons to do so. Per the comments posted here, you were not in chat when your name got thrown out there. If I had been the one who was called that, my reaction might have been more visceral, I think. My main concern here is that this whole thing doesn't look like an spontaneous disagreement that just blew out of proportion, with many proxies involved and I will leave it at that for now. You know how to reach me if you wish to continue this portion of the post in private conversation. We should all strive to make this site a welcoming place for those who choose to partake of this hobby.
Hopefully all parties involved have learned something from this, and can now move on.
Originally Posted by Matador
I know I learned A LOT from it and have since moved on. Like I said, its a shame others can't do the same. On the bright side, every time one of you brings it up I get to highlight how Houston and Dallas mods shared a provider's personal IP info with their hobby friends in the general community.
Can you say "invasion of privacy" or "safety risk"? How about "civil suit" for sharing a woman's protected private info with male members who are not allowed to have access to that info? Good thing for them I'm not in the habit of employing lawyers. I probably wouldn't win but it would certainly make their lives hell for about year or so - not to mention putting a major dent in their hobby budget (joke not lost there) by having to defend themselves in civil court.
Keep bringing it up though y'all! I love pointing out how crooked those POS are and that your private information may be compromised by one or both of them. Mine sure as hell was. Thanks again Bob Valdez and Mojojo. Talk about discretion on the hobby.
I'm getting back to writing the stickies for the new forum now. Nice try, Tara.
Please make sure to get this message to Bestman:
Bestman, can you please take Tara back to that beach. She obviously didn't manage to dislodge her panties from her crack the first time. Poor showing on your part sir. This community expects much better from Tara's biggest fan. Please keep her happy so she can focus on bettering her inner self. She's gonna need it pretty soon and its your job as her biggest fan to help prepare for her for that. Time to pony up, sir.
On behalf of everyone that Tara still manages to harass and stalk even though her account is no longer active, id like to thank u in advance for trying to keep that one on a beach somewhere, too happy to care about the lives of people she doesn't know. Thank you bestman.
Love,
Nurse
Thanks Tara. Good luck! Send me an ecard from cancun should you be miserable enough to even remember my name once u get there.