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Reply-To: <piracy@infopop.com>
From: "Brett Harris" <piracy@infopop.com>
To: <sysop@mimf.com>, <michael@infopop.com>
Subject: I have banned your posting rights on ScriptKeeper.com
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 12:33:34 -0700
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <002601c03871$23ef0220$6e00000a@infopop>

Deb,

I am letting you know the reasons for your banning:

* The vast majority of your posts are simply self-serving - "See my Page..."
* The information contained on your page in question: http://www.forumhosts.com/reviews.htm is flat wrong.
-> We have not abandoned the UBB -> OpenTopic is not the 'next release' of the UBB - they are unique products for unique markets.

* You have zero experience with the UBB - as you are running Web Crossing and not the UBB and therefore have no business
posting on our UBB Support community board.

* You seem to have your own personal agenda which fails to assist the users on Scriptkeeper.com on the whole.

I regret that it has come to this and I'm sure that you can understand our postition on the matter.

Regards,

Brett Harris
Director of Technical Information, Infopop Corporation
Makers of the Ultimate Bulletin Board and OpenTopic
P.O.Box 1861
North Bend, WA 98045

Reply to piracy@infopop.com


There was no prior warning, although they have demanded many times that I change my negative review of their product (Ultimate Bulletin Board) at http://www.forumhosts.com/reviews.htm , with which I have a great deal of experience as a member of several UBB forums. I believe no other comment regarding the usefulness of their forum is necessary.

Actually, I have a comment: unbelievable. Dealing with a poor review by banning the author/maintainer of the site on which the review is posted will certainly not endear them to a lot of people. That they also actively censor mention of other forum software packages such as vBulletin gives a certain insight into their mentality (as does the removal of the entire Interland thread). Just adds another couple of reasons to skip that forum.

I am absolutely disgusted by their actions. Not only will I be recommend vB in the future (instead of UBB), but I'll be sending a few strongly worded e-mails to certain key individuals about the actions in that forum.

(I know, it probably won't do much, but at least they'll understand how some ppl are feeling)

I have noticed that many sites using UBB have switched to vB or other solutions.

Info Pop's site is info poop. Incidentally, go to http://www.infopoop.com It shouldn't come as any surprise.

hahaha... I can't believe they actually spent money to get that. Did they misspell Bulletin in that image?

Speaking of info poop, their site says:

See why Warner Brothers, Internet.com, and many others have switched to the UBB.

What they don't tell you is to see why Warner Bros. and Internet.com dumped their program and went to something else.

personal experience with UBB.
it eats 100x more CPU ressources and is 100x slower than ANY other mysql / php alternative.

UBB sure looks cool, but it only does that, it looks.

Precisely Felix. And vB can easily look much better depending on your graphical expertise.

Ubb goes after the cpu.
vB goes after the ram on every database connection.
There is no way out for us hosts. I have also noticed that the new clients bog down the servers faster then the older clients. Meaning less clients can fit on to one server because of the scripts run.

+------------------------+
| Mike |
| Mike@interserver.net |
| http://interserver.net |
| 877-566-8398 |
+------------------------+

In which case... Which is the lesser of two evils?

Originally posted by Duster
Speaking of info poop, their site says:

See why Warner Brothers, Internet.com, and many others have switched to the UBB.

What they don't tell you is to see why Warner Bros. and Internet.com dumped their program and went to something else.

They've both switched to the same program, which coincidentally is the one we use for our forum, and love to hate: WebCrossing.

Added later: opps, wrong about the WB forum. Not sure what they're using, it's a sloooowwww jsp clone of UBB.

[Edited by Deb Suran on 10-17-2000 at 11:38 PM]

Urgh. I hate WebCrossing - cookies don't hold properly, klutzy system and not much room for customisation... Give me free boards or vB any time.

Originally posted by interservermike
Ubb goes after the cpu.
vB goes after the ram on every database connection.

Well... MySQL use much less RAM than UBB would with the CPU... and is so much faster :)

Overall, Coding using a database is _always_ more efficient because it is optimized. Hand-made text file oparsing and editing is just the old way to do stuff. It is sluggish and never really work the way it should :)

I do agree though, new clients eats up MUCH more cpu & ram than older clients were... Which is why cobalt server are not really good anymore.

FYI, we are probably going to get something like dual 800 mhz (xeon maybe) and 1gb+ of ram for our next servers. Anyone want to guess how many clients on average can fit on these? :)

I'd have to agree with Felix, especially with the newer version of mySQL and php4+Zend. Overhead is significantly lower than a similar, threaded CGI forum. The only problem that we've run into personally, with heavy-use forums (like this one) is running out of available mySQL connections. Easily resolved, however, and doesn't add terribly to the server load.

Although I agree about the decline of the UBB efficiency (I have since moved to wwwthreads), I don't see any problem with them banning Deb.

If you have something to post that is helpful to the developers of the UBB, that's one thing. But if you are posting self-serving - "See my Page..." or negative posts about the UBB, then by all means, you should be banned in a second.

Funny thing about forums.... people tend to think it's unfair or whine about free speech when they get banned from a forum. But let me tell ya, when you go to their website, you should show courteousy and respect. After all, it's their website, and they have a job to do.

[Edited by Katana Man on 10-18-2000 at 01:29 AM]

Self serving "See my page..."? There's no money being made, Deb offers no hosting services, and it may very well help people avoid the more egregiously horrible hosts that are out there. In what way, exactly, is that self-serving for Deb?

The specific forum in question, where most of the "see this page" messages have gone since I've been reading Scriptkeeper, is "Web Hosts & ISPs", with this description:

"Review Internet Service Providers and/or web hosting companies. Which companies offer the best value."

How is it unrelated to that topic to point people at a reference that might allow them to avoid the problems that others have encountered? The description says zip about it being UBB-related only, and in fact, there are quite a few posts made in that topic that make zero mention of developing the UBB (most in that topic don't) - they are simply posts from people trying to find a decent host.

I don't have any problem with moderators of any forum taking care of their business. Unfairness in application of their rules, or retaliation based on a poor review (a review, by the way, that is not in the article about hosts) is not good business. It is simply bad manners.


[Edited by Annette on 10-18-2000 at 01:50 AM]

often times if an admin/moderator of a message board lets someone know that they are being out of line, that usually takes care of the problem. it doesn't sound like she was trolling or being rude about ubb on their forum. ~shrugs~ maybe that is just me, but i wouldn't have banned her.

Originally posted by Katana Man
But if you are posting self-serving - "See my Page..." or negative posts about the UBB, then by all means, you should be banned in a second.

That's precisely where you contradict yourself. Developers, users, web designers, moderators etc. should be able to take constructive criticism fairly and squarely on the chin. I know for a fact that vBulletin staff welcomes all complaints, criticisms and praise where due, and they certainly won't ban someone just because they criticise their product. It's through the criticisms that people improve their product or increase their understanding.

In fact, Deb's banning isn't the only issue here. If you look back through the forum in the last few days you'll notice that we've had a thread concerning the removal of posts about Interland (http://www.interland.com) from Scriptkeeper, which was this thread (http://www.webhostlink.com/showthread.php?threadid=2525). From my own observations, Duster's, Annette's and about 5 other people I've spoken to, it would seem that the mods there either have a bias towards Interland or they have some other ulterior motive they don't want to reveal.

The sum of these two parts contribute to the disgust the regulars and I feel towards Scriptkeeper.

I should also ask : have you actually read Deb's article? I read it when I originally started to look for decent web hosting and found it extraordinarily useful. It actually has correct info which has helped many in this forum avoid disasters by hosting with the wrong host.

<Personal opinion>It's a pity it's not linked more often from other web hosting sites.</personal opinion>

There goes my 2.2 cents of opinion for the day..

<edit>
When I say 'a bias towards Interland', I meant it towards the person responsible for deleting the posts in the first place - why would you delete references towards a host when it's known around the Net as the truth?
</edit>

[Edited by BC on 10-18-2000 at 03:18 AM]

Just to clarify: I have never posted a comment about their product, positive or negative, on their board. I have only participated in the "Web Hosts & ISPs" section of their forum in a sincere effort to keep other people from going through a similar hosting hell to the one I experienced with SIX hosts. I have never just said "See my webpage." I have always made a comment on the host in question, and then referred people to my totally non-commercial webpage, which is very loooong, for additional information. I *have* criticized the moderator of that section in public, once, recently, for doing a poor job by locking discussions in a very inconsistant manner.

In my opinion they'd be much better off concentrating their efforts on improving their product, from which people appear to be fleeing in droves, rather than circling the wagons regarding negative reviews and the mention of vBulletin on their forum. As I told them in an e-mail resonse to one of their employee's e-mails demanding I change my negative review of UBB: no one would be happier than I to see some *really* good forum software on the market. I think everything currently available sucks (no flames, please).

Though a few warnings surely would have been more appropriate, I did read your last post there. Something about you asking people to email you if they know of any removed posts, somethingelse, so you could review the usefulness of that forum. It was kinda, eeeeeeee, a bit, eeeee, what's the word I'm looking for? Offensive? Like as in offensive/defensive? Something like that. I think they took it as a sign of a bit of aggression and decided to go on the defense a bit. I don't think it had to do much with your posts. I say this, but I want you to keep a few things in mind: One, I don't care for that forum all that much, two, you should have been warned first, and three, just to give another side to the issue. Don't take it personally, you know?

We're glad to have you helping out here at least! :)

A member of their forum threatened, in public, on their board, to hack into my server, then stated in a second message that he had done so and could have caused damage if he'd a mind to. These messages went both undisciplined and unremarked by their forum staff, and my e-mail to InfoPop's owner about this got an "I'll look into it" response, and no action. The user was not banned, the discussion was not locked, the messages, which included details about my server, were not removed. I had already posted negative comments about UBB on my website. Hmmm.

It's crucial to the *fair* operations of any forum to state the rules for participation clearly, and then apply them equitably. They're well aware of the negative reactions to the way they run their forum as well as the unfortunate way in which they announced OpenTopic, followed by their heavy-handed censorship of the reaction to that announcement. After many e-mail refusals to alter my review, I rather think they were looking for an excuse to give me the boot. I don't take either their actions or your comments personally. I do find their actions entirely unprofessional.

WOW!

What can I say....If you can't discuss openly and honestly than why post there anyway? I know I won't.

Wow, was all that recent? I missed it (as I miss much there from not going there too often). That is annoying, and yeah, I've seen them edit/lock threads at will, but that is just them I guess. Just wondering about that post on your server. Quite annoying.

Very recent, Chicken. Take a look at http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=2525 I think you were in the hen house while it was going on and missed it. That's whh you get for not getting up with the chickens, the other ones, that is. he heh heh heh

Originally posted by Deb Suran
A member of their forum threatened, in public, on their board, to hack into my server, then stated in a second message that he had done so and could have caused damage if he'd a mind to. These messages went both undisciplined and unremarked by their forum staff, and my e-mail to InfoPop's owner about this got an "I'll look into it" response, and no action. The user was not banned, the discussion was not locked, the messages, which included details about my server, were not removed.

I caught all that, but not the part I quoted above.

The hacker threat was maybe a month or two before the ***** meltdown at the end of last year, while CI was going through a smooth patch and I was taking a lot of s**t on the Scriptkeeper forum for continuing to warn people away from them. The member who made the threat was a ***** partisan, if I remember right, who claimed that my host (I'm still with them, and very happy: http://www.gsp.com ) didn't know how to run a server and mine was so insecure he could just walk right in. I was concerned enough about it to contact my host, and they said they saw no evidence of an unauthorized entry. Unfortunately I didn't save any of those e-mails.

The amusing part is that Brett, who moderates that section and is the one who just banned me, was locking every discussion where someone asked about ***** and I responded with a warning to stay away, while leaving the discussions with those threats untouched.

Well- sorry to hear that. Your article only gives people your views and experiences (can't see how that is a bad thing???), and like I said, we're glad to have you here! :)

Deb S - Brett Harris and I are TWO DIFFERENT people, we just happen to share the same real first name. I had NOTHING to do with your banning, so leave me out of it. Thank you.