Nick
09-03-2007, 02:20 PM
Yesterday evening, many of you might have received an unsolicited email regarding Leisureguy, that read:
Subject: Leisureguy & Badger and Blade - The TRUTH
Michael (leisureguy) Ham has been banned!!!
I am sending this message as an email in case the mods monitor PM's.
Joel's post about the leisureguy is total rubbish. He was asked not to
post last month because he recommends Giovanni's sampler packs.
Taken from email conversations.
>From me to Michael:
"They don't like people posting about non letterK sampler packs, Hence no
fair sticky on all the sampler packs. They especially don't like posts
about Giovanni as he was banned. I know it was for good reason but I
don't think censorship has any place in a forum; in does kind of defeat
the object. I don't think they should ask you not to post either. If I
were you I would post anyway & see if they dare delete the thread. I
wonder what the other members would say about that."
>From Michael to me:
"Yeah, and the weird thing is that they're blaming me (b&b mods) for a
conflict of
interest-when LetterK is a moderator and, I think, a force for not wanting
links to other suppliers of sampler packs.
I'm going to wait until September, then ask whether I can resume posting,
and on getting the okay, will immediately post that summary of the blade
sampler packs."
So leisure guy has been banned because he won't only recommend
letterk's pack. At lease that's my take on the whole thing. Please
tell as many other B&B members you know. We can't let the mods & Joel
cover this up. After all they can't ban all of us!!!
Anyone who knows Michael knows he's not affiliated with Giovanni & is
only offering his honest opinions.
Regards,
Anon
For starters, just for fun, I'd like to respond to this email as if it came from a member in good standing, and was genuine.
Firstly, John (letterk) runs the sampler pack as a service to B&B members. Just like the Decant Club, when operational, is a service to B&B. John and his wife bust their ass to package and ship off these sampler packs. The man has a full time job that is NOT shaving-related. Having met him and his family in person, I know him to be an honorable, truthful, and very generous guy. 'Anon' is flat out wrong about a bias against 'non-letterk' sampler packs, and Michael (if that truly is an email from him) is flat out wrong in his accusation that John is a force behind not wanting links to other suppliers of sampler packs. John has pretty much kept quiet in our discussions regarding Michael abusing the rules specifically to try and avoid any conflicts of interest, even though I know there is none. If there is any bias towards John's sampler packs, it is because all of the moderators know first hand that John is a man of character, and we have no problem endorsing his efforts 100%.
Now, with regards to the purported email from Michael to 'Anon', which, I have no evidence that it is indeed genuine, but knowing the situation, I do believe it to be so. Anon, I hope you received Michael's permission to forward that email to numerous people, as I think you really did him a disservice. If it was his plan to wait until September, try and reconcile, and then CONTINUE to defy the requests of the moderators, he certainly won't get the opportunity now.
For your second to last paragraph, it's flat out bogus, and Joel has already stated our reasons.
For your last paragraph, he may not have a formal business relationship with Giovanni, but anyone who spends 5 minutes at Giovanni's site knows that there is an affiliation there.
There, with that out of the way, let me say, I toyed with the idea of not posting the original email, as it might be perceived as helping to further Anon, but I felt it necessary for people to fully appreciate the motives behind the sender.
Now onto the nitty-gritty. It would appear that a member abused the email function of the forum to mine email addresses of our members for the purpose of sending this email. He then proceeded to register what he thought was an annonymous email account on yahoo to send this unsolicited emailing. Many members forwarded this on to B&B staff (and we thank you all). From tracking identifying information that is found in the header of every email, we were able to attain the IP Address of the offender that sent it. Through searching our IP Address logs, we were able to come up with a match from the offending email, to a member here.
Yesterday we sent Paul of Suffolk Supplies an email letting him know that his account was in temporary suspension, and that if he wanted it unsuspended, he should reply with a truthful response indicating how many people he sent this unsolicited email to, and how he came across members' email addresses (whether it be by manually accessing profile pages, or using some automated script).
He responded with the following:
I don't think you would appreciate a TRUTHFUL response, so you can leave things as they are. If you want to ban someone for offering his own honest opinions,
I don't see a bright future for b&b .
In case anyone doesn't recognize the clear conflicts, in trying to anonymously assault John's character, and the service he offers, and trying to anonymously cause problems for B&B in order to lift leisureguy's ban, AND claiming no link exists between Michael and Giovanni; Paul runs Suffolk Supplies, aka Connaught Shaving. Connaught Shaving has leisureguy's book available for purchase through its website. Connaught Shaving also happens to sell its own blade sampler pack, and they undoubtedly benefitted every time Michael posted links to their sampler pack, and thus, have a financial interest in seeing Michael resume his posting of links to their site.
Paul at Suffolk Supplies was allowed to freely advertise here, even though when he initially registered, he repeatedly disregarded our requests to not flood the Shopping forum, and often responded with exasperation to our simple requests. He is no longer afforded the luxury of advertising here (or posting at all), he clearly broke the rules of this site by mining email addresses from the site, and he broke the rules of civility by cowardly trying to cause problems with what he thought was an anonymous email. I personally recommend anyone considering from him reread the anonymous email he sent, consider the circumstances under which he sent it, and decide if that's someone you'd like to conduct business with. I also recommend that any of you that did not appreciate receiving that email, feel free to let him know of your displeasure.
Along with his ban, we have changed the mechanism for emailing members (who choose to allow that option, everyone can change their preference in the User CP). Now, clicking on the email link in a member's profile will open a form on B&B, and keep the recipient's email address hidden. Just to allay any concerns, emails were never publically available, they were only available to other members, IF you allowed that option when you registered.
I know this whole situation has gotten really old, really fast, so I'll just leave you with this suggestion for those who are still on the fence: Consider who benefits, and how. Neither Joel or I make money by banning leisureguy. Neither Jeol or I make money by banning suffolksupplies. If B&B weren't perpetually in the red, and were a profitable endeavor, not just a labor of love, there would be no money in having this fiasco arise. You're free to draw your own conclusions regarding who stands to profit from their actions and how.
Thanks for your time, and we apologize to those of you that were inconvenienced by this.
-The Mods
Subject: Leisureguy & Badger and Blade - The TRUTH
Michael (leisureguy) Ham has been banned!!!
I am sending this message as an email in case the mods monitor PM's.
Joel's post about the leisureguy is total rubbish. He was asked not to
post last month because he recommends Giovanni's sampler packs.
Taken from email conversations.
>From me to Michael:
"They don't like people posting about non letterK sampler packs, Hence no
fair sticky on all the sampler packs. They especially don't like posts
about Giovanni as he was banned. I know it was for good reason but I
don't think censorship has any place in a forum; in does kind of defeat
the object. I don't think they should ask you not to post either. If I
were you I would post anyway & see if they dare delete the thread. I
wonder what the other members would say about that."
>From Michael to me:
"Yeah, and the weird thing is that they're blaming me (b&b mods) for a
conflict of
interest-when LetterK is a moderator and, I think, a force for not wanting
links to other suppliers of sampler packs.
I'm going to wait until September, then ask whether I can resume posting,
and on getting the okay, will immediately post that summary of the blade
sampler packs."
So leisure guy has been banned because he won't only recommend
letterk's pack. At lease that's my take on the whole thing. Please
tell as many other B&B members you know. We can't let the mods & Joel
cover this up. After all they can't ban all of us!!!
Anyone who knows Michael knows he's not affiliated with Giovanni & is
only offering his honest opinions.
Regards,
Anon
For starters, just for fun, I'd like to respond to this email as if it came from a member in good standing, and was genuine.
Firstly, John (letterk) runs the sampler pack as a service to B&B members. Just like the Decant Club, when operational, is a service to B&B. John and his wife bust their ass to package and ship off these sampler packs. The man has a full time job that is NOT shaving-related. Having met him and his family in person, I know him to be an honorable, truthful, and very generous guy. 'Anon' is flat out wrong about a bias against 'non-letterk' sampler packs, and Michael (if that truly is an email from him) is flat out wrong in his accusation that John is a force behind not wanting links to other suppliers of sampler packs. John has pretty much kept quiet in our discussions regarding Michael abusing the rules specifically to try and avoid any conflicts of interest, even though I know there is none. If there is any bias towards John's sampler packs, it is because all of the moderators know first hand that John is a man of character, and we have no problem endorsing his efforts 100%.
Now, with regards to the purported email from Michael to 'Anon', which, I have no evidence that it is indeed genuine, but knowing the situation, I do believe it to be so. Anon, I hope you received Michael's permission to forward that email to numerous people, as I think you really did him a disservice. If it was his plan to wait until September, try and reconcile, and then CONTINUE to defy the requests of the moderators, he certainly won't get the opportunity now.
For your second to last paragraph, it's flat out bogus, and Joel has already stated our reasons.
For your last paragraph, he may not have a formal business relationship with Giovanni, but anyone who spends 5 minutes at Giovanni's site knows that there is an affiliation there.
There, with that out of the way, let me say, I toyed with the idea of not posting the original email, as it might be perceived as helping to further Anon, but I felt it necessary for people to fully appreciate the motives behind the sender.
Now onto the nitty-gritty. It would appear that a member abused the email function of the forum to mine email addresses of our members for the purpose of sending this email. He then proceeded to register what he thought was an annonymous email account on yahoo to send this unsolicited emailing. Many members forwarded this on to B&B staff (and we thank you all). From tracking identifying information that is found in the header of every email, we were able to attain the IP Address of the offender that sent it. Through searching our IP Address logs, we were able to come up with a match from the offending email, to a member here.
Yesterday we sent Paul of Suffolk Supplies an email letting him know that his account was in temporary suspension, and that if he wanted it unsuspended, he should reply with a truthful response indicating how many people he sent this unsolicited email to, and how he came across members' email addresses (whether it be by manually accessing profile pages, or using some automated script).
He responded with the following:
I don't think you would appreciate a TRUTHFUL response, so you can leave things as they are. If you want to ban someone for offering his own honest opinions,
I don't see a bright future for b&b .
In case anyone doesn't recognize the clear conflicts, in trying to anonymously assault John's character, and the service he offers, and trying to anonymously cause problems for B&B in order to lift leisureguy's ban, AND claiming no link exists between Michael and Giovanni; Paul runs Suffolk Supplies, aka Connaught Shaving. Connaught Shaving has leisureguy's book available for purchase through its website. Connaught Shaving also happens to sell its own blade sampler pack, and they undoubtedly benefitted every time Michael posted links to their sampler pack, and thus, have a financial interest in seeing Michael resume his posting of links to their site.
Paul at Suffolk Supplies was allowed to freely advertise here, even though when he initially registered, he repeatedly disregarded our requests to not flood the Shopping forum, and often responded with exasperation to our simple requests. He is no longer afforded the luxury of advertising here (or posting at all), he clearly broke the rules of this site by mining email addresses from the site, and he broke the rules of civility by cowardly trying to cause problems with what he thought was an anonymous email. I personally recommend anyone considering from him reread the anonymous email he sent, consider the circumstances under which he sent it, and decide if that's someone you'd like to conduct business with. I also recommend that any of you that did not appreciate receiving that email, feel free to let him know of your displeasure.
Along with his ban, we have changed the mechanism for emailing members (who choose to allow that option, everyone can change their preference in the User CP). Now, clicking on the email link in a member's profile will open a form on B&B, and keep the recipient's email address hidden. Just to allay any concerns, emails were never publically available, they were only available to other members, IF you allowed that option when you registered.
I know this whole situation has gotten really old, really fast, so I'll just leave you with this suggestion for those who are still on the fence: Consider who benefits, and how. Neither Joel or I make money by banning leisureguy. Neither Jeol or I make money by banning suffolksupplies. If B&B weren't perpetually in the red, and were a profitable endeavor, not just a labor of love, there would be no money in having this fiasco arise. You're free to draw your own conclusions regarding who stands to profit from their actions and how.
Thanks for your time, and we apologize to those of you that were inconvenienced by this.
-The Mods