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Winnopeg on May 03, 2008

Both.

rc on May 03, 2008

If this is correct, you must act by the rules.

But I also think that you must check all the players accounts (probably more players do/did the same). Too much work? In deed. But justice is for everyone.
Just stop the witch hunting.

---------------
Btw, once you have time to be here, I think it would be nice if you (and the other chefs), take some of your precious time to take a look at some blogs. Blogs where suggestions to improve IB are made. Blogs where complaints about your dedication to IB are posted.
Take some of your time and answer to the community.

Denise on May 03, 2008

Frankly, I find it very hard to believe the accusation!

Just curious... Why did you not take the time to whisper this allegation in his box? Why try to humiliate him?

Don't attack him personally! Take a step back and look at the whole picture! Yes, many IBers have shown him support in their comments, but most of the comments and protesting relate to your neglecting your older child because there is a newborn!

My suggestion: Help PackRat become a brother instead of a rival. Include the older child by dividing your attention evenly between them. I understand that the time invested in making the icons for RackRat is enormous. If this does not leave you time to make new sets for the IB site, then release the PackRat icon sets on the site. This would not only entice the ex-vips to return but I am sure many more would sign up. I an also sure that, if you show your loyalty to us IBers, many of us would pay more attention to PackRat.

iqon on May 03, 2008

[serious mode on]
If your accusations are accurate then “both” punishments should be applied.

BUT before any rash decisions are made you should consider what elnitido52 has said over the last year or two:
He runs an Internet café and every account accessed through the café would have the same IP address.
He tutors or teaches some sort of class and encourages his students to join IB (and give him the referral). Is this breaking the rules?
Get all the facts and let the man defend himself before you pass judgment.
[serious mode off]

rc on May 03, 2008

The presumption of innocence

- Everyone is innocent until proven guilty

thedudedean on May 03, 2008

It doesn't make much sense to punish someone for liking IB so much.

So if I get my room mate to use IB are you going to take away 50 measly points from me? If I use IB over at my buddy Leo's place does that mean I am fake now? If I have a huge LAN party some place and have ten people all sign up to IB from panera bread or some other public IB address does that make me a bad person or spammer? Just to prove you wrong I am going to do this sometime this summer.

I say neither.

hagme on May 03, 2008

Iconmaster

I'm elnitido52's oldest son.
As he is out of the city for the weekend (we celebrate Workers Day on Monday, long weekend), I can explain in his name all his referrals.
In the Dominican Republic, we have about 7 different Internet providers, most of them have a fixed IP for all his customers. Only one of them, as far as I know, has a different IP address each time you log in. Therefore, the repeated IP addresses on those members. Also, and this is personal, my father no longer lives with his family, where he used to have an Internet Center and a Computer Institute and some of the students and/or customers signed in on IconBuffet. Now he lives alone and no longer has those facilities and as you can see, he doesn;t get as many referrals as he used to. You have recently deactivate my uncle's account "Taurus"=Juan Carlos Guzman Garcia, my father's 4th brother. If you need evidence, I can send you a copy of his official documents as mine or my brothers and sister and my other uncles and my mother's or any of the referrals he has. I don't know why you did this to him, he only wanted to promote IconBuffet, which is a very addictive site. I know my father, and he will probably close his account in protest for what you have done today. I don't want this to go furthur, so let's stop this now.
You can not judge him because

MaskedJedi on May 03, 2008

Yeah, but he's making fake accounts. That's against the rules. It always has been. iconmaster, elnitido knew the rules. Yes, he payed, but he directly violated the terms of the game. Keep the money, and kick him out.

eclipse115 on May 03, 2008

He's making fake accounts. It's obvious and all the "what ifs" don't change that.

You can love a site til the cows come home but if all you do is spam the site and give the people making it a hard time you are less of a devoted fan and more like a psycho ex-girlfriend.

IB is supposed to be fun and light-hearted. Not a crazy demanding mob of the same person with multiple accounts.

I'd ban him and refund the money, just to be rid of him.

The most neutral position would be to ban the dupes, and let him keep his account but strip away the extra points he got.

Good luck John and the rest of the chefs. This divide over PR and IB is getting to be ridiculous.

Denise on May 03, 2008

@ MaskedJedi: Take a deep breath and re-read hagme's comment. The "fake" accounts are based on the IP adress which is explained.

thedudedean on May 03, 2008

I have a solution to this. Go to rapleaf.com and put all the emails into the site and wait an hour.

It will tell you if each one is a real person or not.

JBVisions on May 03, 2008

Wow, thanks Dean, that's really handy it means I can check out some potential "clients" who want a quote and give free emails. I always suspect it's another dev testing the market but you never know. That will be a big help.

thedudedean on May 03, 2008

Check these guys out; Leo, Byran, me.

I have had people say that Leo was my fake but he is real.

thedudedean on May 03, 2008

@JBVisions I always research a new space monkey before I call him up. ;-)

thedudedean on May 03, 2008

@JBVisons btw if the guy sounds like another web dev double your prices!! ;-)

eclipse115 on May 03, 2008

Rapleaf is apparently not that accurate. My email search results reported back not even half of the communities I'm involved with and somehow it pulled up my true hometown even though most of my accounts are associated with my current location.

iqon on May 03, 2008

Sometimes I really am dense. Please explain how the screenscrapes prove he is making fake accounts? All it shows is a lot of accounts created from the same IP address, a very likely scenario if it’s a shared LAN (or a single person making dupe accounts).

And speaking of the screenscrapes – should the full account name be public information? Doesn’t matter if they are fake but are they?

thedudedean on May 03, 2008

Heheheh I just notice that Rapleaf still thinks I am 34. I am younger! :-D

JBVisions on May 03, 2008

And it says my best client doesn't exist! Wonder who sent me the cheque.

thedudedean on May 03, 2008

Give it an hour or so. It will make a page for him. If he has anything on the net it will find it.

JBVisions on May 03, 2008

And if SHE doesn't?

iconmaster on May 03, 2008

iqon: I only captured the lists of accounts and referrals. On top of that, I can see when the accounts were created and whether they were ever used after their creation.

For the most part, we're looking at 200 accounts created to provide referral credit and then never used again -- all coming off the same IP. The IPs alone wouldn't bother me much -- it's the tie between IP and referrer that raises serious red flags.

hagme: you claim "Now he lives alone and no longer has those facilities and as you can see, he doesn't get as many referrals as he used to." Yet I'm seeing dummy referral accounts that were created as recently as two and a half weeks ago.

Others: I check on accounts whenever there's suspicious activity. Let me reiterate that in other situations like this one (repeated ties between IPs and referrals), we simply kill the accounts. But I never quite know what to do when the user involved is a VIP, so I'm asking for advice.

eclipse115 on May 03, 2008

He may be a VIP but he's violating the terms of use and causing more work than is necessary for you guys.

From an ROI perspective the time you spent fixing his violations isn't worth the subscription fee he has paid.

If he is creating multis to circumvent the system he's essentially ruining the experience for everyone else and as a dev you should want reputable people on your site. Generally one rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel.

To be diplomatic I would close the extra acccounts, give him a very strict warning and strip away his status related to the violations. Then if he continues that's when you deactivate the main account.

JSun on May 03, 2008

If it can be proven, I'd say both. But I'm not sure how you could prove it without a doubt.

I've referred plenty of people who have never used the site once they joined. I don't believe everybody 'gets' the Buffet as we all do.

I know two of my referrals would have the same IP as me from time to time as well. For example, as much as my Mum loves getting the icons and using them in e-mails she sends, she still has trouble understanding how she receives the sets, downloads the sets and unzips the sets and comes over here for help :)

thedudedean on May 03, 2008

@JBvisions Then she lives a simple life without so much as a digg account or myspace. ;-)

soprano on May 03, 2008

Personally, I believe that elnitido52 has violated the ToS, and should be punished accordingly, whether or not he is a VIP.

As iconmaster said in December 2007, "We've always made a point to prevent VIP status from affording any score-building advantage". Clearly, creating duplicate accounts is a score-building advantage, and so VIP status should not make any difference in the way you punish him.

Although paying for VIP status shows his support for the site, I still believe that he should be punished in the same way as anyone else.

If you don't want to repeal his VIP status and cancel his account, then I would delete all of his duplicate accounts (and remove the referral credit for them) and also remove the points associated with the extra stamps he earned for the fake referrals, but leave the genuine referrals alone.

P.S. If it took you this long to realize that he had 207 duplicate accounts, then that's a problem. You need to work on your cheater-catching algorithms.

Denise on May 03, 2008

This is the most attention we have gotten from the chefs in a long time! Too bad the time dedicated to this witch-hunt wasn't employed in the creation of a new icon set for IB.

iconmaster on May 03, 2008

Denise: it's not really relevant, but I have a set in progress. I'm just not made of time. ;)

soprano on May 03, 2008

Excuse me, it's not 207 duplicate accounts, but 207 total referrals.

debbye on May 03, 2008

i have to agree with Denise about all she has said here. i could not have said it any better.

This should not have been handled in the forum, at least, not using any person's name.

soprano on May 03, 2008

@debbye: Where should it have been handled?

Coyote on May 03, 2008

@iconmaster - For the most part, we're looking at 200 accounts created to provide referral credit and then never used again

I am the yougest son of elnitido52.
An Ex-Vip (for one month)

How come they have so many sets and points if the accounts were not used after the creation? I have been searching for several of the "fake" accounts and 90% of them have regular activities others just pick their new sets, which is normal; not everyone that signs get 100% involved in the game and there are others that just sign to please their friend but not because they are really too interested.
On the other hand, several of his referrals don't even have a Diamond set because they were following my father's advice, to get the Shanghai first and so on, many of those have receive Diamond sets from another member (not from him) so why do you take it against him? He's starting a new life and making new friends, why couldn't he has a new referral? I'm really disappointed that YOU are acting i such unreasonable way. You are just showing names (which I supposed where private) and account nicks, do we have to believe what you say because you are iconmaster? You have the power to close any account if you want to, I only ask you to be reasonable and let him gives you the evidence you need to believe that these accounts are not fake. If they were you would have them closed long ago. If you are hurt because other members showed him their support there is nothing we can do about it. Have fun!

Denise on May 03, 2008

iconmaster: it is relevant... If we were to receive the icon sets in a timely manner as we previously did, we would be be trading, sending, delivering to our hearts content! In the absence of icons, we were offered, and we admired, art which began this whole mess!

I understand you are not made of time, hence the suggestion I made in comment #3.

animuson on May 03, 2008

I don't think it should matter if he's purchased a VIP or not. He agreed that his account could be suspended if he cheated, and he cheated, so his account should be suspended. He took the risk of buying VIP status on his cheater account, that's his problem. Legally, you're not breaking any laws. I am a webmaster myself and I don't even think twice about multiple accounts.

@Coyote: I don't think you have any clue what is going on here.

eclipse115 on May 03, 2008

God you guys cause too much drama over a site made to have fun, its as bad as PackRat complainers (of which I used to be a complainer).

this matter is simple, he created dupe accounts. Treat it as such regardless of VIP status.

At the people complaining about lack of icon sets, seriously give them a break. Illustration takes time and they have a lot of stuff to work on. If they just threw out crap sets to get them done you'd be complaining about that too.

debbye on May 03, 2008

@soprano - between John & Tony. to name him in the forum like this is completely cold & uncalled for.

eclipse115 on May 03, 2008

@debbye Perhaps he considers it a public service to let everyone know what kind of person they're backing

iconmaster on May 03, 2008

Alright, that's probably about enough feedback. I'm sure elnitido will have his own explanation as well (there's always an explanation). The chefs will confer amongst themselves and decide what to do. Thanks for all your help.

me2orion on May 03, 2008

I have a friend that signed up, when we were dating. He doesn't come on at all. The only reason why he did it was because it was something I was addicted to. Now there has not only been a break-up between him and I, but also between iB and I.

Maybe it's just my emotional state and the lack of warm and fuzzy feelings that I used to feel when coming here, but iB has changed. It's not the place that it used to be. Everything changes, I understand. iB's been replaced by its cuter step-sibling, PackRat. I understand that, but we are here also. And anytime we cried for help or answers to questions, we got NOTHING.

So many people haven't renewed their VIP status because of this lack of compassion, (not sure if it's the word I want, but it works.) that we felt like being just like everyone else. Personally, I never felt that being a VIP gave me any special treatment, just more tokens. I felt for a long time that I was part of something…good. And now, not so much.

If I didn't want to keep in contact with some of the people I've grown attached to on iB, and since we are naming names, I shall too:
iqon
elnitdo52
jbvisions
mik
designfire
ceanna
and I'm sure if I had the time, I could list many more. This is really the only reason I come on anymore. I don't trade because most of the time, people don't respond. I have more stamps than a post office, and I've made suggestions about transferring those to get tokens. All unanswered. Maybe I just had expectations of something else.

Personally, I believe elnitido52 has more honor and class than to go and duplicate accounts. Didn't you start going after him last year, too, with the whole Silveria disaster? I remember questions being raised then about him.

Just make sure you have PROOF before burning him at the stake! I've really been debating canceling my account and if you feel that you must do this for me, by all means!

iconmaster on May 03, 2008

me2orion: I have proof beyond what I've posted here. The chefs will take everything into account.