Diamond Talk Shakedown?

[pyramid]

I asked for many of the posts I wrote under the names Jean/Arthur to be removed from Diamondtalk but never received a reply and posts still remain. Did the woman in your group get her request honoured for GilbertZ to delete her posts?

 

[optimized]

While I understand AGBF's thoughts, I tend to agree with Sibelius. If I had contributed to the forum that now shuns me, I would expect them to remove my contributions. I wouldn't want my work to enrich the people who have discarded me and my knowledge for reasons I don't agree with, which is apparently what is happening over there. It's a shame to deprive the "innocent" visitors to DT the archived knowledge, but on the other hand maybe that will bring more of them to other forums for their information.

In the end, I would think that if I'm not good enough for them, the content I created shouldn't be either...

-Tim

 

[AGBF]

----------------
On 3/3/2003 2:41:34 PM pyramid wrote:

I asked for many of the posts I wrote under the names Jean/Arthur to be removed from Diamondtalk but never received a reply and posts still remain. Did the woman in your group get her request honoured for GilbertZ to delete her posts?
----------------

I believe so, pyramid, but I will have to ask her. I never checked out her postings myself.

 

[scotch]

Sibelius, Tim:

I do not know what happened over at DT, but I would feel it would be a great loss for everybody interested in these topics (and there are many) if your contributions and those of other banned DT'ers were deleted. I really hope you would reconsider your wish to see this information erased, as I feel it would hurt the interested public more than a few people in charge over there. Also, say there is a long thread that many people have contributed to, banned or not banned, if you remove your posts it will render also the contributions of others obsolete as the thread becomes incoherent and can not be understood any longer.

Scotch

 

[optimized]

Scotch,

First of all, the whole topic of deleting banned users' contributions is strictly hypothetical for me. I have never posted to DT so there's nothing of mine to be deleted (or preserved), and technically I haven't been banned from the site (yet). I was just projecting what I think my attitude would be if I were in that position.

As I mentioned, I definitely do think the greatest impact of any deleted threads would be to the consumer who visits the site for diamond education. But, I think I also would be loathe to allow my contributions to be exploited indefinitely by the same folks who unceremoniously booted me from the forum in which I thought I was providing a useful service. One of DTs biggest assets is their massive archives of topics, and looking at the sites under the DiamondRing umbrella it seems obvious that this is ultimately a commercial venture that is being enriched by the user base. Trying to make money off of the user-contributed content while simultaneously banning contributors for seemingly capricious reasons just isn't a tenable situation to me. But, that's just my opinion.

One thing to consider is that, even if the banned users' content were to be deleted, DT and other forums would still contain a whole lot of good information, and it's not exactly as if the whole online diamond education phenomenon would collapse. The need for information will be satiated somewhere, it's just where and by whom the need is met that becomes relevant. Since I've always been fond of this forum I am probably biased, but I wouldn't mind seeing the focus shift this way a bit.

Another thing to consider is that in my experience the copyright of content created on message boards usually remains with the creator of the content. I took a quick look at the Terms of Service over at DT a moment ago and I see nothing that contradicts that idea. Essentially, everything written by a banned user remains the property of the user, and as such they would have every right to demand that it be removed from DT. Additionally, they would be free to re-post it in another forum if they so chose. It might seem extreme, but that would be one small way to help preserve the content while not enriching those who would exploit it for their own gain.

These are all just musings of mine. My first choice would be to see DT settle down and become more contributor-friendly again...

-Tim

 

[Iiro]

Hello Leonid,

Looks like you are not banned. You status is still turqoise.
My status is also Sapphire but I cannot post there anymore.
There are few who are banned and their status is also banned.
Are we banned or not?
No emails from DT

S

 

[Iiro]

My permission to contribute in DT was denied shortly after I wrote my first post to this thread. I assume these are linked. Nathan or Gilbert is reading this.

If there is someone who does not want get banned in DT, do not post anything to this thread.

Rich, stop mumbling in shower

S

 

[pricescope]

Hey Sibelius,

Sorry man...

I actually thought that your post yesteday in this thread put you at the risk to be banned.

I checked your DT membership yesteday and you were still there but today your name has gone from the member's list.

 

[Iceman]

Its only a matter of time and they will add the banned stamp by your name

It took
them a week to do it to me

If they took all the posts off that were related to the people that were banned ,
There would be no diamond talk !

Diamond talk was made up of the knowledge of Rhino, Rockdoc, myself , Nice Ice, (Jan,Brad but they are still in)
Prices cope, along with contributors from the consumers end , like Rank Amateur
and AGBF and many others along with more experts that I forgot in this early hour
of the morning

So, they can not take them out.

 

[AGBF]

----------------
On 3/3/2003 5:24:52 PM AGBF wrote:

----------------

On 3/3/2003 2:41:34 PM pyramid wrote:


I asked for many of the posts I wrote under the names Jean/Arthur to be removed from Diamondtalk but never received a reply and posts still remain. Did the woman in your group get her request honoured for GilbertZ to delete her posts?

----------------

I believe so, pyramid, but I will have to ask her. I never checked out her postings myself.


----------------

I asked the woman to whom I was referring. She requested that her photographs (those of her and her family) be deleted. She specifically did *NOT* ask that her postings be deleted as she did not want to ruin the continuity of Diamond Talk.

Her pictures were removed by Stephanie, the current Diamond Talk moderator. Since she did *not* request that her postings be removed, I have no precedent with which to help *you*, pyramid.

For the record, she also felt that Stephanie was being forced to clean up the mess left by the decisions of the Diamond Talk owners/administrators and did not want to heap further abuse on her. I should not speak for others, but I believe that all of us on DAD have found Stephanie to be very helpful and generous with her time.

 

[fire&ice]

Deleting posts will not have any affect on DT. Boycotting the vendors will. If you are a shareholder of Ebay, writting to them could help as well. I'm not advocating either - just think these two things will impact DT. Deleting informative posts will only hurt the consumer. And, if they don't know the information was there to begin with - they are not missing anything.

The ironic thing is that "their" vendors contribute very little meaty information on DT.

 

[oldminer]

I was unable to log onto DT a couple weeks ago and found that I needed to enter a credit card to get in. I keep a card just for ID purposes so I found it worked. Before you are sure qabout being banned, I'd suggest you test the credit card ID method being employed. While I don't particularly find it pleasant, it was nothing but a minor inconvenience.

Some of the recent "banned" are most unexpected ones.

 

[Iiro]

This is something new to me.
Gilbert, I know you read this, what else do you read?
Am I banned or not? Ice thinks its only matter of time.

If am banned, and it is not a mistake from you, please do remove all the posts made by Sibelius. By the way , how do you know its the same Sibelius here as in DT?
What if I re create a new alias in here. And then say something like " In Dt there is someone who banns people." Does she / he get banned in DT?

S

 

[fire&ice]

There are some who are definitely banned - it is in their status box. Others are "unverified" or off the membership list. Perhaps these posters could rejoin by supplying a credit card.

But, why require this of some & not of others?

Old Miner, I had one of "those" credit cards; but, over the past couple of years, the cc company raised my limit to almost that of my regular cc's. Can you request they lower your limit?

 

[Iceman]

Dave ~ Im sure it was no shock to you that I got it

Sibelius ~ Its your accent they know its you

"Just kidding"

My friend don't worry, It not worth "walking on egg shells " (meaning being careful
on what you post) posting and worrying that you will be banned.

"If you want in bad enough there are ways to do it."

Price scope and diamondchitchat are more then enough to fill an empty day

I think yours is a credit card issue ~ Give up your credit card # and hope they have
a good security system. Somebody would have a good time with all those #'s

We don't even keep customers Credit cards on file , because of security issues.

 

[Iceman]

Does anybody have an up todate tally on who is banned ?

Trivia

 

[pricescope]

I created a new forum - "Diamond Hangout".

Let's move this thread there, shall we?

 

[Iiro]

Hey,
this new lodge feels like home already

 

[Iceman]

leonid


Good move

Like I told my kids


" If your going to be a Dog , be a BIG DOG "

 

[Hest88]

There are some who are definitely banned - it is in their status box. Others are "unverified" or off the membership list.

Those of us banned in the early waves have the "unverified" or have a blank next to our names, although they may have modified that with a few. In the latest wave, they had no qualms about just sticking "banned" next to the names.

 

[Iceman]

I wear the word "Banned" like a badge of Honor

People see me as one that would tell it like it is no matter what the consequences
were. I know they didn't like me posting all the banned peoples last words

Don't feel like you had the door slammed in you face, you must feel good about
yourself that you were one of the few that would stand up for what you thought was
right.
Free speech does not exist over there

With out it you do not have a forum, but puppets or now just consumers
not experts giving you their two cents

You can get that in the mall

Am I hurt ????

I can relate it to a girl on a one night stand.
Were I fell in love with DT. It used me and then when it was done and they got what they wanted they threw me to the curb

they never returned any emails

Im over it (I know it does not sound like it sometimes , but I feel a need to help others get over it and not feel bad), still care about dt and wish them well

 

[Iiro]

I went there to check if it is just cc#

No, I cannot enter the DT at all if I am logged in. I cannot give cc#

Looks like I am banned. Did I get any reason, any email? I guess I was not worth to , only 2000+ posts.

Too bad, I met some great guys there, Ice, Leonid, Garry, Serg, Rhino, Rank Amateur, and many more... but..but you are all here

Only Bruce is not

 

[Iceman]

Sibelius ~ Thats fine Im glad your over here , we all missed you. I think the learning curve is much higher over here anyway. This is were the experts need to be anyway.

Glad you are here

 

[Iiro]

Thanks Ice,
A thought. Maybe G is clearing the site for a big advetaiser. He needs to sweep competiton out.
Maybe not, I was not competition to anyone.

S

 

[Iceman]

It didn't look like "G" took out anybody that was advertising with him ?

I could be wrong but that is what it looked like.

I think he would be easier on people that were paid advertisers ?

 

[AGBF]

----------------
On 3/4/2003 10:45:34 AM Iceman wrote:


Am I hurt ????


I can relate it to a girl on a one night stand.

Were I fell in love with DT. It used me and then when it was done and they got what they wanted they threw me to the curb
----------------

I can relate to the metaphor, but I am not over it.

If Gilbert had spoken to me, confided in me, told me a reasonable reason for this sudden crackdown, I would probably still be there today. Gilbert banned me and then lectured me on how I didn't take criticism well.

That's not true. I take criticism from people qualified to give it very well.

Gilbert never bothered to let me know what he was doing (strategically) and why. He never gave me a chance to know if he was down to earth and reasonable or off-beam. Because he remained so aloof I knew his character far less than I did that of most Diamond Talk regulars.

I didn't accept Gilbert's advice to stop speaking out because I didn't have any proof he was qualified to so advise me.

Like you, I loved Diamond Talk. I am not going to lie and say I am glad I am banned. I am very unhappy without the OLD Diamond Talk. (This kind of talk got me in trouble the last few days I was still on there. People grumbled that I wanted to go back to the old days.)

I think this trouble is bad for everyone, consumers and vendors.

The vendors from whom I buy almost all my jewelry are still advertisers on Diamond Talk: Jan and Brad of Diamond Brokers of Florida. I like them, trust them, and consider them real friends. I will not stop using them.

On the other hand, I *do* feel bitter that vendors have not spoken out against this to the Diamond Talk administrators.

Perhaps they have. Perhaps some vendors dislike the bannings. (Jan and Brad have a *number* of banned customers now!) Perhaps other advertisers like the bannings.

 

[AGBF]

ShanDunf, a poster with just over 100 postings on Diamond Talk, took part in a thread called, "Something Strange is Going On". She said, "we're not idiots". Her name is now missing from the Diamond Talk membership list. Does anyone know her? Does she know about Pricescope and that she can come here?

 

[Iceman]

Its getting comical over there!

Im still puzzled , why he wont give out warnings ? He lost the people that were
making that site tick! More experts will slip and self promote and he will lose more.

I hurt for "G" , the place is being destroyed and they will not see it till its too late.
The money is coming in now and every thing about power and control is going their
way. They laugh at all our posts , because they are sitting pretty good right now.
They don't get it and when they do they will have nothing, people that got banned
you don't replace people like that. You need strong consumers like AGBF, RA ,
You cant replace people like Rock Doc, Rhino and other experts. All these people
gave a lot of time for free. You will see in a years time , they will not be what they
were today.

That's sad , these forums help consumers. I still prey they get their act together.

 

[Sierra Nevada]

I'm sorry for DT, Sibelius. You were a great contributor there, as you continue to be a great contributor here. I can't imagine you ever being anything less than a perfect guest on any forum.

It seems they have taken to throwing the baby out with the bathwater and don't care if it looks mega-creepy to ban people for pitifully small things. It seems especially distasteful to ban people for entirely reasonable remarks made on an a different forum. Yikes, where does it end? I am so very disillusioned & disappointed.

If it is true that this is being done only to non-advertising/non-network trade and consumers, then I'm afraid they have lost most of their credibility in my eyes and no longer appear to be an objective and open source of information. I have never liked forums that are obviously in the palm of the advertisers, those are just infomercials in disguise. I prefer not to be a fish in anyone's barrel. They had such a good forum with lots of great contributers who kept everything honest and only occasionally too boisterous. I can't believe they would throw it all away like this.

 

[Rank Amateur]

thread. Somebody fill Cal in, will ya? I can't believe that people are actually telling him that it is due to censoring profanity.


How lame. I see none of the members have the guts to step up and tell Cal like it is. Where is all that riteous indignation shown in all those other threads? I mean, those people were coming out of the woodwork and lining up ten deep to bash Wink (without many real facts). Now where are they? How fickle. [/u]