Usernames and email addresses

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jharvey
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by jharvey »

Well it's offical, with out notice, I'm banned from msefi. Guess it's time for me to inquire about returning my MS unit.

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Fred
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by Fred »

Jared, If you purchased it from diyautotune.com I recommend you contact them about this and have it resolved. The MS2 is a good unit and you will be happy with it, so hang onto it, but don't drop your case. As you stated, you have a right to support for the product you have purchased. Perhaps threaten them with a bit of legal action for denying you information on their product after sales or something similar if Jerry can't help you regain access.

Lance is a rouge and needs to be stopped. It is unfortunate that you have become another one of his victims, however you are far from alone. There are many many users like you out there. 4 of us on this site since it was launched on April 1st have been banned for good from all sites. Maybe more? And many others in the past too for various reasons. Rest assured that most MSers have had a run in with Lance at one time or another.

I recommend contacting Bruce and Al directly with your concerns also. I have their contact details if you want them, just PM me.

Fred.
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jharvey
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by jharvey »

Fred wrote:Jared, If you purchased it from diyautotune.com I recommend you contact them about this and have it resolved.
I did get it from DIYautotune, and it hasn't been unpacked yet. They have been grade A, shipped on time, packaged great, and very helpful every step along the way. I have already e-mailed them, I made a significant attempt to be pleasant about it, noted the problem was efi forum admin (Lance) and not DIYautotune. I inquired about the return policy, but honestly, I really don't want to return it. I'd be much happier with the manual. I know about proxies, going to my neighbors house, ect. I mostly put up that fight because many MSers don't know how to over come those obstacles, and I shouldn't have to.

Honestly, I feel quite strong that I was banned not because of my actions there, but because of my actions here. Getting back to the this forum's topic, for many users, it's probably best to keep your accounts here and at msefi separate. The msefi forum admin will use that information maliciously.
Fred wrote:Lance is a rouge and needs to be stopped. It is unfortunate that you have become another one of his victims, however you are far from alone. There are many many users like you out there. 4 of us on this site since it was launched on April 1st have been banned for good from all sites. Maybe more? And many others in the past too for various reasons. Rest assured that most MSers have had a run in with Lance at one time or another.

I recommend contacting Bruce and Al directly with your concerns also. I have their contact details if you want them, just PM me.
4 you say. Perhaps the problem goes beyond Lance? I'd hate to get Bruce or Al directly involved. They have better things to do. I wouldn't be surprised if some back-end e-mail is exchanged between the vendor(s) Bruce, Al, and msefi forum admin. The real problem is finding a solution, assuming it's Lance, how do you fix it? Who's willing to replace him. Oh wait, there seems to be a forum already for this kind of issue...

Perhaps the best solution would be to remove control of the manual (and such documentation that is intended to be readable), to somewhere other then the msefi forums. That way they don't get into legal issues because the msefi forum admin doesn't like someone. There are many nasty laws about discrimination and public sales. I won't go that route, but I'm sure there are those that will, it's only a matter of time before the loose canon strikes it's own.

If the problem isn't Lance, then I'll expect to still have these issues in a week. I'll have to see how it goes over this next week.
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Fred
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by Fred »

jharvey wrote:I know about proxies, going to my neighbors house, ect. I mostly put up that fight because many MSers don't know how to over come those obstacles, and I shouldn't have to.
Agreed, good on you for taking a stand on their behalf. Would you like me to spread this information around where some msers can see it, or perhaps email some msers with it for you?
Honestly, I feel quite strong that I was banned not because of my actions there, but because of my actions here.
Agreed, it is extremely poor that one can be guilty by association.
Getting back to the this forum's topic, for many users, it's probably best to keep your accounts here and at msefi separate. The msefi forum admin will use that information maliciously.
Sad, but true (for now) and the reason why I posted this thread in the first place preemptively.
4 you say. Perhaps the problem goes beyond Lance? I'd hate to get Bruce or Al directly involved. They have better things to do. I wouldn't be surprised if some back-end e-mail is exchanged between the vendor(s) Bruce, Al, and msefi forum admin. The real problem is finding a solution, assuming it's Lance, how do you fix it? Who's willing to replace him.
I hate to say this, but Bruce does have the final say on everything including what Lance can or can't do. If Bruce said go away Lance, it would occur. As you pointed out below, removing server control from him would be an excellent partial solution. Back end emails DO get passed around between the vendors and B&G and other contributors. And phone calls too. I know for a fact that there were a few phone calls made in the week leading up to the 1st of April. This is a quote from Bruce shortly before I was banned some time ago :
Bruce wrote:I do not care if you call me anything you want. But when people start trashing Al, James, Ken, Phil, Eric, or Lance, on a public forum then I really get angry.

People may not agree with Lance. But he is an integral part of making MS work and has helped me and Al an extreme amount, much more than I could ever express in words. Just as James, Phil, Ken, Eric, Andy Matt, Jerry,and lots of others who have also contributed a extraordinary amount of talent and effort. If people were "dissing" any of you on a public forum I would also react the exact same.

I take full responsibility for the wording in the manual. I will have it modified. This is my mistake.

I want it to be known that I really value each and every contribution that has been given to the MS project. And I will try the best I can to keep new projects coming down the pike so that creative people like James et.al. can add real contribution. We want "MSExtra the be the place of action"!

All I ask is that people recognize the value of everyone here.
Oh wait, there seems to be a forum already for this kind of issue...
Jokes aside, the non-free section is there for precisely this reason and to allow free flow of information on the boards and software without censorship.
Perhaps the best solution would be to remove control of the manual (and such documentation that is intended to be readable), to somewhere other then the msefi forums. That way they don't get into legal issues because the msefi forum admin doesn't like someone. There are many nasty laws about discrimination and public sales. I won't go that route, but I'm sure there are those that will, it's only a matter of time before the loose canon strikes it's own.
This is a good point, however Lance has control over all of the server equipment for all of the sites. For example all links to any ms site (msextra included) are blocked by referrer from coming from this site. If he only had control over msefi it wouldn't be too big a deal as msextra.com is the place to be anyway.
If the problem isn't Lance, then I'll expect to still have these issues in a week. I'll have to see how it goes over this next week.
I wish you the best of luck.

Fred.
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jharvey
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by jharvey »

Fred wrote:Would you like me to spread this information around where some msers can see it, or perhaps email some msers with it for you?
I'm going to simply wait a bit. At this point my ban is only known to one of the MS admin folks, and that's the one who banned me. I'm going to give other MS admin folks a chance to respond before I do anything else.
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by Fred »

Bump :

If you sign up on this board under a pseudonym, please flick me a PM to introduce yourself.

Thanks,

Fred.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
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FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
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jharvey
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by jharvey »

Well it appears I have access to the msefi, msextra, ms3efi and such again. I see my cable modem IP is the same as it was, so either the msadmin messed up and unblocked me, or they chose to unblock me and not notify me about it. Either way, at this point, I'm not interested in reading up on what they have to say.

Perhaps the link from diyefi will start working again? I seem to recall there was a time where browsers were blocked if your previous page had been from diyefi. I just checked, still got that 403 forbidden message. So I think my unblocking is a mistake on their part.

Any how just FYI.
jetjockey
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by jetjockey »

Have you tried loging into Megasquirt forums through an anonymous proxy server? Try it that way and re-register under pseudonym and ficticious location.
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jharvey
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by jharvey »

As far as I'm concerned, if they don't want me, I'm not going out of my way to be there. It's not like it's cools or anything like that. I feel Open means open for anyone to read, not just the selected ones. So I feel no need to support thier efforts.
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Fred
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Re: Usernames and email addresses

Post by Fred »

It seems that James and Ken @ msextra.com are now behaving in a similar way banning legitimate users for invalid reasons, and threats of a similar nature. Latest one is "banned for ignoring admin warnings not to link to his childish videos". To be fair he was warned and did link to an amusing video from his sig. To be even more fair, he didn't ignore that warning, and replaced the childish link with one to his entire youtube account, containing videos of his MS installs, and the childish videos. What that effectively says is that you can't have freedom of expression on a third party site and not be penalised for it. Poor form. Beware.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
FreeEMS.org - the open source engine management system
FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
The ever growing list of FreeEMS success stories!
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