The "Newsstand Edition" Phenomenon 5 5

[xcomic]

On 10/28/2017 at 9:41 PM, xcomic said:

I am fully open to quoting the real person behind the RMA handle as an alternate named source in the article

23 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

I very highly doubt @RockMyAmadeus will take you up on your offer.

Thank you to everyone for your extreme patience with this thread's off-topic diversion.  I follow up only to say that both publicly and privately I have received opinions from members here that that RMA wishes to ReMainAnonymous instead of contributing their knowledge to the hobby in a way where writers like me can quote them in articles as a named source.  Should the situation change and they can find the future bravery to come out of the shadows and into the light where I operate, I nominate @comix4fun to act in the role of a neutral party to mediate and I'd welcome the opportunity to quote them as a future named source in future articles I may write.  As a further show of good faith I have decided to Approve their comment you all saw earlier in this thread.

Special apology to @Philflound for the disruption to this thread; I read the newsstand intro you wrote up (as posted by Marwood & I) and think you did a fantastic job on it.

Happy collecting to all!
- Ben

[comix4fun]

1 minute ago, xcomic said:

Thank you to everyone for your extreme patience with this thread's off-topic diversion.  I follow up only to say that both publicly and privately I have received opinions from members here that that RMA wishes to ReMainAnonymous instead of contributing their knowledge to the hobby in a way where writers like me can quote them in articles as a named source.  Should the situation change and they can find the future bravery to come out of the shadows and into the light where I operate, I nominate @comix4fun to act in the role of a neutral party to mediate and I'd welcome the opportunity to quote them as a future named source in future articles I may write.  As a further show of good faith I have decided to Approve their comment you all saw earlier in this thread.

Special apology to @Philflound for the disruption to this thread; I read the newsstand intro you wrote up (as posted by Marwood & I) and think you did a fantastic job on it.

Happy collecting to all!
- Ben

My one piece of advice would be to cease the condescension. "Bravery"? "into the light"?  That language sets you up as these things and these other people as, what exactly? Is that constructive? 

I've actually just received an email from RMA. He's NOT hiding in the shadows or lacking bravery after all, it turns out he's actually been suspended from the boards. The suspension came from someone actually CALLING the CGC offices to complain that they were "cyber bullied" by him in this thread, on this topic. So the lack of bravery and/or operating "in the light" might be on whomever didn't engage in the debate here, but instead short circuited the debate by having one party removed from it. 

For the sake of following your example of "bravery" and "operating in the light", whomever made those complaints should state so clearly and openly along with their specific reasons for doing so. 

People can agree or disagree with how others choose to tackle debates or differences of opinion. People can agree or disagree with how RMA chooses to frame commentary and discussion. What isn't acceptable is removing one half of the discussion in a peremptory manner, especially given the banality of the discussion contained here. 

This new information, regarding the suspension, and how it came to occur in the first place casts a new shadow over what RMA has or has not "chosen" to do regarding commentary and followup. 

[xcomic]

5 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

I've actually just received an email from RMA. He's NOT hiding in the shadows or lacking bravery after all, it turns out he's actually been suspended from the boards.

This is news to me; thanks for sharing it.  I trust since you are in communication with RMA privately, that you will keep me posted as to whether they would like to take me up on my offer in the future.

- Ben

[comix4fun]

9 minutes ago, xcomic said:

This is news to me; thanks for sharing it.  I trust since you are in communication with RMA privately, that you will keep me posted as to whether they would like to take me up on my offer in the future.

- Ben

He just emailed me about it to let me know why he's not on the boards or commenting. I don't know if he knows anything about your offer if it was made after he got suspended.

At least we can all agree that it's the antithesis of bravery to, clearly, exaggerate the disagreements in this thread to fit into the narrow focus of the actually serious issue of cyber bullying. 

It cheapens and insults people who are ACTUALLY cyber bullied and demonstrates a serious lack of personal integrity to give a false account of the circumstances. 

Whomever it is, I hope they own up to it, but given how they've chosen to approach this situation it seems they are more likely to snipe from the shadows. 

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by comix4fun

[xcomic]

3 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

He just emailed me about it to let me know why he's not on the boards or commenting. I don't know if he knows anything about your offer if it was made after he got suspended.

Every word we are typing is public and visible to the entire world, logged in, or logged out, so I hope you will link him to the offer and communicate his reaction back -- thank you for mediating.  He should still be able to read it, because anybody on the planet with a web browser can access every word written here, and as can any Bot ingest it and database it.  This is why publicly accusing someone of being a liar and a fraud, from behind an anonymous handle, on a public board, is serious enough a matter to draw me here in the first place to try and defend myself: this thread is now a part of the public online record and my name is now permanently associated with the accusations.  I hope you can try to empathize, think about how you yourself might approach a situation like this if you were a young writer in my shoes, who now has to intrude into your message boards as a visitor and navigate a resolution.  My goal arriving here was to defend myself; the offer I gave was in the spirit of turning a negative situation into a positive: by showcasing a knowledgeable person as a named source and inviting their knowledge to be a resource open to writers like me.

- Ben

[comix4fun]

10 minutes ago, xcomic said:

Every word we are typing is public and visible to the entire world, logged in, or logged out, so I hope you will link him to the offer and communicate his reaction back -- thank you for mediating.  He should still be able to read it, because anybody on the planet with a web browser can access every word written here, and as can any Bot ingest it and database it.  This is why publicly accusing someone of being a liar and a fraud, from behind an anonymous handle, on a public board, is serious enough a matter to draw me here in the first place to try and defend myself: this thread is now a part of the public online record and my name is now permanently associated with the accusations.  I hope you can try to empathize, think about how you yourself might approach a situation like this if you were a young writer in my shoes, who now has to intrude into your message boards as a visitor and navigate a resolution.  My goal arriving here was to defend myself; the offer I gave was in the spirit of turning a negative situation into a positive: by showcasing a knowledgeable person as a named source and inviting their knowledge to be a resource open to writers like me.

- Ben

I didn't realize you had such intimate knowledge with how the boards work for someone who is being disciplined. I've heard from several people that they cannot log on and cannot see the boards and cannot respond to PMs, etc. when wrist slapped, suspended, etc. Maybe it works differently for someone who isn't currently being disciplined. 

It's a shame that someone took the opportunity for you two to come together by having RMA removed from the discussion like that without anyone involved in the dispute asking for it. It's certainly short circuited your stated goal of including his perspective and point of view. 

At least we now know it's not for lack of "Bravery" that he's not posting on this topic. 

Maybe once he gets back he'll be able to discuss this with you. 

[xcomic]

5 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

I didn't realize you had such intimate knowledge with how the boards work for someone who is being disciplined. I've heard from several people that they cannot log on and cannot see the boards and cannot respond to PMs, etc. when wrist slapped, suspended, etc.

Try this test for yourself and see: (1) Copy the URL in your browser, (2) Paste it into an alternate browser where you are not logged in.  Can you still read the thread?  Performing this "test" you will find that yes, anybody in the world can see these words.  

Additionally, a Bot can ingest these words as well.  From a Linux box using the program "curl" I was able to query the entire thread and find my words: see attached.  This entire board is all public record, but posted by private anonymous handles.  Perhaps you did not understand this dynamic and thought my behavior here to be overreaction?

- Ben

[Lazyboy]

31 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

He just emailed me about it to let me know why he's not on the boards or commenting. I don't know if he knows anything about your offer if it was made after he got suspended.

At least we can all agree that it's the antithesis of bravery to, clearly, exaggerate the disagreements in this thread to fit into the narrow focus of the actually serious issue of cyber bullying. 

It cheapens and insults people who are ACTUALLY cyber bullied and demonstrates a serious lack of personal integrity to give a false account of the circumstances. 

Whomever it is, I hope they own up to it, but given how they've chosen to approach this situation it seems they are more likely to snipe from the shadows. 

 

He already did. This came about because RMA was asking him if he was Ben (this was before Ben started posting) and I told him he wasn't. This was followed by posts (that were removed) asking and answering questions that got closer to his real name (which somebody in this thread has published elsewhere, but apparently The_Investor is ashamed of being connected to that).

It's also why I posted this.

[comix4fun]

2 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

He already did. This came about because RMA was asking him if he was Ben (this was before Ben started posting) and I told him he wasn't. This was followed by posts (that were removed) asking and answering questions that got closer to his real name (which somebody in this thread has published elsewhere, but apparently The_Investor is ashamed of being connected to that).

It's also why I posted this.

Thanks for the info.

So it was "The_Investor" who did it? Interesting. 

Were there posts directed at him that "bullied" him? I  didn't see any.

[comix4fun]

5 minutes ago, xcomic said:

Try this test for yourself and see: (1) Copy the URL in your browser, (2) Paste it into an alternate browser where you are not logged in.  Can you still read the thread?  Performing this "test" you will find that yes, anybody in the world can see these words.  

Additionally, a Bot can ingest these words as well.  From a Linux box using the program "curl" I was able to query the entire thread and find my words: see attached.  This entire board is all public record, but posted by private anonymous handles.  Perhaps you did not understand this dynamic and thought my behavior here to be overreaction?

- Ben

So if you know the exact URL of a post or page and can copy and paste it. 

Do we know that people being suspended can still read and communicate from their ISP address? 

I am talking about how someone on suspension can or cannot interact with these boards, I wasn't referring to your actions or motivations. 

[WoWitHurts]

Just now, comix4fun said:

So if you know the exact URL of a post or page and can copy and paste it. 

Do we know that people being suspended can still read and communicate from their ISP address? 

I am talking about how someone on suspension can or cannot interact with these boards, I wasn't referring to your actions or motivations. 

Actually you can easily use a proxy server that masks your IP and view anything here even if they are monitoring IP's

[comix4fun]

4 minutes ago, WoWitHurts said:

Actually you can easily use a proxy server that masks your IP and view anything here even if they are monitoring IP's

Ok, my inner old man is probably showing, but that sounds complicated. 

[xcomic]

1 minute ago, comix4fun said:

Do we know that people being suspended can still read and communicate from their ISP address? 

That's good thinking, that maybe when suspended they also temporarily block access by IP Address too, but, I'd be pretty surprised if they went that far (everybody's got a smartphone these days that they could fall back on so it would seem futile to block one specific address).  Since you appear to have doubt over whether he has read the offer, and since you are in communication with him by email, can I count on you as official mediator, to copy/paste it to him?  So that you don't have to go digging I'll summarize/repeat:

(1) I offer a 500 word spotlight quote as a named source in the main body of the article he most recently commented on

(2) I demand identity verification so that I know the named source is indeed the real person behind the quote

For #2, I had proposed that CGC can resolve ID-verification fairly easily since they have all of our credit cards on file.  I know they have mine.  If it makes him feel more comfortable that it isn't one-sided I will gladly grant my authorization to CGC to confirm my identity in this manner.

- Ben

 

[comix4fun]

1 minute ago, xcomic said:

That's good thinking, that maybe when suspended they also temporarily block access by IP Address too, but, I'd be pretty surprised if they went that far (everybody's got a smartphone these days that they could fall back on so it would seem futile to block one specific address).  Since you appear to have doubt over whether he has read the offer, and since you are in communication with him by email, can I count on you as official mediator, to copy/paste it to him?  So that you don't have to go digging I'll summarize/repeat:

(1) I offer a 500 word spotlight quote as a named source in the main body of the article he most recently commented on

(2) I demand identity verification so that I know the named source is indeed the real person behind the quote

For #2, I had proposed that CGC can resolve ID-verification fairly easily since they have all of our credit cards on file.  I know they have mine.  If it makes him feel more comfortable that it isn't one-sided I will gladly grant my authorization to CGC to confirm my identity in this manner.

- Ben

 

I'll email him that information, but he'll be back in a couple weeks too, since he can't communicate with anyone on the boards due to the suspension regardless of extraordinary lengths one could possible undertake to read the threads.

 Maybe the debate will boil this down to facts to be included on your blob and will get there uninterrupted that time. 

[WoWitHurts]

9 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

Ok, my inner old man is probably showing, but that sounds complicated. 

Nah, just Google TOR browser. It's like downloading any browser. It just takes a little longer to launch.

[xcomic]

1 minute ago, comix4fun said:

he can't communicate with anyone on the boards due to the suspension

Even if he was on the boards this moment I would still be asking you to mediate -- I do not want to communicate further directly with this person for the reasons I already outlined surrounding their behavior towards me, and that has not changed as a result of the offer I made (I can't recall if my "18 word summary attempt" conveyed to you how I found out at a later date that RMA had been "simulcasting" a conversation they were having with me in my comments forum, over here on these boards behind my back, and how it made me feel to find those conversations here at a later date when someone shared the URL with me.  This is how I matched up their board handle here to the two handles from my blog's comment forum, to know that the RMA handle was one and the same person as the two handles used to comment on my blog.  Additionally, for prior context, I had recognized  the RMA handle from memory as one which had in very similar fashion simulcasted a private eBay-messages discussion between them and customer, without the customer's prior knowledge and consent, and that those simulcasted messages had revealed personal private information about the eBay customer.   So given this background, I am not going to be communicating directly  with this person any further, whether they are here or not, and was already counting on a neutral mediator: you.  Therefore, won't you please email my offer to them as a copy/paste by email, and report back?  Thanks in advance for your help,

- Ben

[xcomic]

At 3:36 PM an apparent member of this board by the name of "Stu" has just attempted to comment on my blog with profanity like I haven't seen since grade school.  I wanted everybody here to know this happened, for context.  I can supply proof if needed, or you can take my word for it.

- Ben

[Lazyboy]

Just now, comix4fun said:

Thanks for the info.

So it was "The_Investor" who did it? Interesting. 

Were there posts directed at him that "bullied" him? I  didn't see any.

The removed "bullying" was simply a post from RMA asking if his name was (a name found on Ben's blog). I guess the bullying was trying to get him to clarify his connection, if any, to Ben's blog. Something that should be seen as completely reasonable in the context of the discussion and The_Investor's posts.

Holy ! I just saw, while double-checking the Your Posts Removed by Moderators section, that the post in which I said he wasn't Ben has also been removed.

Now I want to test this out. comix4fun is not Stan Lee.

[Lazyboy]

2 minutes ago, xcomic said:

At 3:36 PM an apparent member of this board by the name of "Stu" has just attempted to comment on my blog with profanity like I haven't seen since grade school.  I wanted everybody here to know this happened, for context.  I can supply proof if needed, or you can take my word for it.

- Ben

Stu is not a member of this board. He was banned years ago. He does occasionally create new accounts (like the recent TLDR) to post before he gets booted again.

I'm sure everybody is comfortable taking your word for it.

[xcomic]

Just now, Lazyboy said:

Stu is not a member of this board. He was banned years ago. He does occasionally create new accounts (like the recent TLDR) to post before he gets booted again.

I'm sure everybody is comfortable taking your word for it.

Appreciate that @Lazyboy, thank you.   That he was banned does not surprise me given what he wrote to me and it would have been impossible to share because every other word was profanity; it also shows that banned members can indeed read the messages.  The fact that it appears to be your knowledge (and probably also common knowledge) that he occasionally creates new accounts which are later also banned, confirms to me that my assessment of the environment here was correct: any working email address is the single prerequisite to establish a fully-anonymous handle here, and then utilize that anonymous handle to smear a real person's real name with fully anonymous words that go on to become part of the public online record.  I must say as a long-time CGC customer it makes me upset that they have built this capability into the DNA of these boards, which should really be for friendly conversations about comics among CGC's customers.  Since CGC has all of our credit cards on file, and could in theory improve upon this problem by having a one-alias-per-customer policy enforced by matching up each handle to a credit card, it is within their power to create a better message board environment.

- Ben p.s.  Would you agree with the spirit of the attached quote by Leonard Lauder?