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An Outrage Perpetrated by Diamond Talk Against Me

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AGBF

Super_Ideal_Rock
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Today I found out that all my postings (between 3,000 and 4,000, I think) remained on Diamond Talk but that none of them was any longer attributed to me as I had signed them.

I had signed all of them "AGBF" (which was removed from all my postings). The vast majority (i.e. the 3,000-4,000) were posted under the User ID "A Girl's Best Friend". On one evening when I was locked out as "A Girl's Best Friend" I signed on as MadAsHell (a new ID) and signed my posts "AGBF".

Now *all* my posts appear under the User ID "MasAsHell" and with no "AGBF" signature...which is not how I wrote them.

I feel my intellectual property has been meddled with and stolen. Thre Diamond Talk website had kept my contributions in its archives but attributed them to someone no one knew instead of to me, the well known signer of those postings!

That means that when I use "A Girl's Best Friend" on other forums that people are unable to connect a major contributor (this MadAsHell who contributed prolifically to Diamond Talk) with my on-line persona, consistently used, of A Girl's Best Friend/AGBF.

I have been robbed of what I produced. Sibelius spoke here on Pricescope of how he would handle this.

I let Diamond Talk know (by posting about this on DCC) that I consider this to be theft of intellectual property and that I have documented it by copying a page off their website in case they attempt to hide the evidence that they did this.

I have been wondering if Diamond Talk is down, at least in part, to remove the evidence that they *WERE* continuing to keep all my postings in their archives, but without attribution to me.

That's just a theory.
 

Hest88

Ideal_Rock
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Jan 22, 2003
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Just when I thought they couldn't sink any lower...
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emnightingale

Rough_Rock
Joined
Mar 22, 2003
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Careful, MadAsHell, or you will get us banned from DT.





Oops... too late...

Em
 

babblingal

Shiny_Rock
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Mar 5, 2003
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343
I wonder what purpose it serves for DT to spend so much energy on this? I am sure it makes *sense* to someone at DT. I am glad *I* don't have to live with that person as it would probably drive me insane.
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Iceman

Brilliant_Rock
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You know what to do
 

Iceman

Brilliant_Rock
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The thread responses are getting weaker on dt , I give the place a year and a half and the sponsors on dt will be beating down the door of Pricescope to advertise and moving out of dt.

What comes around goes around.
 

babblingal

Shiny_Rock
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343
Ice,
How did you find DT initially? I am wondering if DT thinks that a new crop of experts will come to the forum to replace the banned or lost ones.

I honestly don't know how any advertiser could allow themselves to be affiliated with such an unprofessionally managed website. I suppose it is lucky I am not a business person, because my ethics would cost me a lot of income
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AGBF

Super_Ideal_Rock
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No change occurred to my postings overnight. I had hoped they would be removed from the archives. The postings written by me using the name "A Girl's Best Friend" and signed "AGBF" still appear as written by "MadAsHell" and no longer show the "AGBF" with which I signed each one.

The copyright rules currently posted may not be the ones posted when I wrote what I did.

I do not yet know the legal situation, but I know morally that everyone thinking of buying a diamond or giving advice on diamonds should beware of posting on Diamond Talk. If he posts there he runs the risk of his words be stolen. He runs the risk of writing words under one name and having them be attributed to a name under which he didn't post them while having his signature removed from his postings.

If Diamond Talk did to a professional what they did to me he could post as "Diamond Guy" 4,000+ times and sign each posting "DG" only to have Diamond Talk remove the "DG" from each posting and attribute the postings to "Jaguar", a name he used one night when a technical glitch caused him to be unable to login under "Diamond Guy".

If Diamond Talk can do this to me with impunity then they can do it to Dave Atlas or Garry Holloway or any other professional, too.

The administrators there may currently be happy to see that their latest action against me has gotten me upset. (Banning me clearly wasn't good enough to satisfy their thirst for vengeance.)

I hope that when the on-line diamond community realizes what an outrage they have perpetrated that Diamond Talk's pleasure will be mitigated by the distrust with which they will be viewed.

If they can do this to me, they can do it to you. This is not written to incite a flame war; it is a very serious warning to all of you who post there.
 

aljdewey

Ideal_Rock
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Nov 25, 2002
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9,170
Please don't think I'm making light of the situation....I'm not at all.

It seems to me that it's time to let it go with DT. I understand many of you poured your hearts and souls into responses there, and I understand how hard it is to lose something that you once found of value.

But the reality today is DT isn't what it once evidently was. If I were determining how to allot my time, I'd much rather spend 100% of my time developing that same familiarity with a new place (Pricescope) and devote 0% of my time trying to mete out justice to DT.

The ultimate justice to any site that abuses or disrespects its patrons is that it will cease to exist at some point. The rest of it (posts, banning, etc.) is just small battles that, won or lost, don't really make a significant difference in the final run.

What I'm trying to say is, the DT thing can be a thing of the past if you let it. Just move on and don't look back. Don't give anymore of your valuable time to something that won't be around in any meaningful way in the future.
 

Iceman

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
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1,374
aljdewey


I know where they are coming from , DT was a big part of our lives and in the past they let us get away with murder , then turn around with the slightest infraction and cut you like you were nothing.

These people built DT and made it what it is/ use to be.

Its hard to find experts that have the free time to give to these places let alone great consumers.

From your point I understand let it go, on the old DT people point we are still steamed.
 

AGBF

Super_Ideal_Rock
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On 5/23/2003 1
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4:23 PM aljdewey wrote:


"It seems to me that it's time to let it go with DT.
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What I'm trying to say is, the DT thing can be a thing of the past if you let it. Just move on and don't look back. Don't give anymore of your valuable time to something that won't be around in any meaningful way in the future."

Dear aljdewey,

I think you know from other threads that I respect your perspective. I find you sane and sensible.

I have weaned myself from Diamond Talk and now only visit the site if someone posts about some truly egregious conduct by the administrators. (Of course this *does* happen with great regularity.)

You are probably right that once I feel an urge even to visit under those circumstances that it will be better for me.

On the other hand, I cannot help but be struck by the malice and pettiness exhibited by the owners and administrators of Diamond Talk. Here are the facts:

They banned me *months* ago.

Why did they need to change "AGBF" to "****" long after the banning and long after I ceased to post there?

Why did they, weeks later, eliminate "****" and change the name under which I posted almost all of the 4,000+ postings there from "A Girl's Best Friend" to "MadAsHell"?

One could look at *them* and ask why *they* are so obsessed with *me*!!! Isn't it time they let go of *me* and their need for vengeance against me?

Wouldn't any sensible site owners be content with banning a poster? Would any sensible site owners make a change to a former poster's name every few weeks?

Those questions are, of course, rhetorical. The answer to both is yes and no, respectively.

Perhaps I need to let go no matter what Diamond Talk does, but the party who keeps obsessively feeding this feud is Diamond Talk! If they removed my posts and stopped mentioning me it would be a lot easier for me to ignore them. That's what they did with Ice. Why can't they let go of me?






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fire&ice

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Jul 22, 2002
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----------------
Why can't they let go of me?


/blockquote]

Because someone has to let go first.
 

AGBF

Super_Ideal_Rock
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On 5/24/2003 11
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0:58 AM fire&ice wrote in response to my asking why Diamond Talk couldn't let go of me:

"Because someone has to let go first."

You may be right :). You, like aljdewey, seem sane and sensible. I try to listen to people like you.




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Nate

Shiny_Rock
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May 17, 2003
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I might be out of place as I don't know a lot about the situation, but it seems like a wierd thing for DT to go and attribute all your posts to someone else. Could it have happened automagically when you created a new account there? If you go and create an account called "AGBF" (using the same email/etc information you did when you created "MadAsHell") then maybe all the "MadAsHell" posts would change to "AGBF"... just a thought.
 

AGBF

Super_Ideal_Rock
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On 5/25/2003 4:25
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7 AM Nate wrote:

"I might be out of place as I don't know a lot about the situation, but it seems like a wierd thing for DT to go and attribute all your posts to someone else. Could it have happened automagically when you created a new account there? If you go and create an account called "AGBF" (using the same email/etc information you did when you created "MadAsHell"
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then maybe all the "MadAsHell" posts would change to "AGBF"... just a thought."

You are not at all out of place, Nate. Thank you for attempting to be of assistance.

I created the "MadAsHell" account YEARS ago for one night, not recently, and continued to post as "A Girl's Best Friend" for years after so doing.

When I was first banned by Diamond Talk my postings as "A Girls' Best Friend" *did* appear under that name and with "AGBF" as a signature on each one.

The change took place very recently and could not have been inadvertent.

I am currently deciding whether to let Diamond Talk do this, "putting it behind me". As of now I have not made that decision; I have not decided to allow them to steal my intellectual property with impunity. I may do so, but it goes against my grain so it will not be an easy decision for me.
 

shell3072

Rough_Rock
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Messages
1
Hi, I have a quick question here for you concerning the intellectual property issue: Is it really YOUR intellectual property once you post on someone's website or does it automatically become their property once you choose to post it, since it is their website? You did have a choice to post those 10,000 posts and should have probably assumed that those posts were the property of the website once you decided to be done with the forum (or whatever happened). I don't know how you would go about demanding they take down your posts, or stop changing them, or anything about them since you posted them on their website.

I don't know, it just seems confusing to me that you would expect anything more out of a place that has wronged you as you seem to think they have.

Another way you could think about it is they obviously are very perturbed with you still - just like you are with them. A lot of crap went down with a lot of people over there, obviously because everyone involved is still talking about it MONTHS later. Your feelings seem to be more hurt than anything and I surely understand that. But honey, let that mess go as soon as you can. That will eat you alive, consuming a lot of your emotions and energy. Surely those people who did that crap to you will get it right back. You cannot go around in this world just haphazardly treating people without it coming back on you.


Don't get me wrong here, I'm usually just a lurker at these places and really don't post much, so I have no interest vested here at all.
 

Nate

Shiny_Rock
Joined
May 17, 2003
Messages
211
While scouring DT for Vache truffle pics, I came across this in a post:

"I forgot to mention Garry Halloway's clearly written diamond education material on ."

This looks to me like they have run some search and replacing to get rid of the words PriceScope and so, like you mentioned, they must've purposefully replaced your name.
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aljdewey

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Nov 25, 2002
Messages
9,170

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On 5/24/2003 10:50
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2 AM AGBF wrote:
Dear aljdewey,

I think you know from other threads that I respect your perspective. I find you sane and sensible.

Thanks, AGBF....yes, I do know that, and I appreciate your saying so.

I have weaned myself from Diamond Talk and now only visit the site if someone posts about some truly egregious conduct by the administrators. (Of course this *does* happen with great regularity.)

You are probably right that once I feel an urge even to visit under those circumstances that it will be better for me.

On the other hand, I cannot help but be struck by the malice and pettiness exhibited by the owners and administrators of Diamond Talk. Here are the facts:

They banned me *months* ago.

Why did they need to change "AGBF" to "****" long after the banning and long after I ceased to post there?

Why did they, weeks later, eliminate "****" and change the name under which I posted almost all of the 4,000+ postings there from "A Girl's Best Friend" to "MadAsHell"?

One could look at *them* and ask why *they* are so obsessed with *me*!!! Isn't it time they let go of *me* and their need for vengeance against me?

Wouldn't any sensible site owners be content with banning a poster? Would any sensible site owners make a change to a former poster's name every few weeks?

Those questions are, of course, rhetorical. The answer to both is yes and no, respectively.

Perhaps I need to let go no matter what Diamond Talk does, but the party who keeps obsessively feeding this feud is Diamond Talk! If they removed my posts and stopped mentioning me it would be a lot easier for me to ignore them. That's what they did with Ice. Why can't they let go of me?

Here's my read on it, for what it's worth: They can't let go of you because they KNOW they can get a rise out of you, and you continue to reinforce that belief every time you react to them. This is similar to the kid who perpetually acts out because he knows he'll get negative attention, which is better than getting NO ATTENTION at all.

You are expecting the administrators of DT to respond to logic.....you're expecting them to be sensible. If they had those qualities to begin with, DT would probably not be in the shambles it is now. They are acting like petty tyrants, and you cannot reason with that mentality.

It takes two sides to perpetuate a feud.....if you stop responding, it will die a natural death. Again, I know this is easier said than done, but in the long run, it's a lot less stressful for you.

Good luck!







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Iceman

Brilliant_Rock
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Its funny how pricescope filled the void
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What was that name again diamond "What"?

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Who cares
 

AGBF

Super_Ideal_Rock
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aljdewey wrote:

"You are expecting the administrators of DT to respond to logic.....you're expecting them to be sensible.
...
They are acting like petty tyrants, and you cannot reason with that mentality."

You are right. You are also right that it takes two to cause a feud. In the spirit of cooperation I will change *MY* USER ID to MadAsHell to meet them halfway. No...that might be confusing. I *was* "A Girl's Best Friend" and "AGBF" for over three years after all.

I won't *change* my name; I'll just help everyone by giving them a translation. Thank you for the wise advice :).


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MadAsHell


aka
 
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