Brotaris,

As one who actually did have a post censored on BearshareNet, and for no good reason I might add (I will quote the original post again so that you can judge for yourself), I've got to say that it's a pretty shitty way for a developer to deal with members of his user base. I also had a post cancelled on the alt.gnutella usenet group, and although I can't prove that Vinnie cancelled the post, I can't imagine anyone else in this little community who had either the will or the ability to do it. You've got to admit that Vinnie got waaay out of hand over this issue. Let me refresh your memory with a couple of choice quotes from Mr. Falco:

1 - BearshareNet "Ad Supported Software" forum:
May-24-01, 07:03 AM (EST)
>Sorry bodhi, I had to delete your post.
>Reason: you complained about encrypted packets.

2 - Gnutelluims Bearshare Forum, thread entitled "A warning to all
about BearShare":
05-25-2001 07:19 AM (GMT)
>FFF**** you, bodhi
>Come back and post on BearShare.Net, so I can delete your
> sorry a$$ again."

3 - Gnutelluims Bearshare Forum, thread entitled "Heavy handed
moderation at BearshareNet":
05-25-2001 07:15 AM (GMT)
>Yeah I deleted your post.
>You are a nincompoop.
>The nature and content of the messages was CLEARLY
>EXPLAINED!
>You are full of caca!!!
>...snip...
>If you posted this $hit in my forum I would delete it
>instantly because its garbage.
>...snip...
>So what do you have to say for yourself now, jerk?

Does this sound like adult behavior to you? Here, once again, is the complete text of the post that elicited these responses:

[In followup to a thread in BearshareNet about Mr. Falco's threats to shut down the Adware forum and censor posts]

"Vinnie's attitude recently is the reason that have uninstalled Bearshare from my box and have moved to Gnucleus. I have always been disturbed by the spyware bundling, but put up with it because I thought Bearshare was the best servent available. Then I found out about the encrypted message packets that Bearshare sends out and that disturbed me more. I have never heard a pausible explanation for these encrypted messages from Vinnie to this date. Finally, within the past week, Vinnie has posted several messages which include vitriolic comments about folks who may have questiond his judgement in using the spyware and has threatened to shut down this forum. That was enough for me.

I decided to try a couple of servents that I had never tried to find an alternative to Bearshare and I stumbled upon Gnucleus. Let me tell you folks, Gnucleus is as good, if not better than Bearshare. In many ways it IS better than Bearshare. It is more stable, seems to return more search results which are better organized, and the download resume features are a lot more intuitve. But best of all, there is NO SPYWARE, it sends no encrypted packets, and is OPEN SOURCE. I uninstalled Bearshare and I'm not looking back. Gnucleus is serving all my Gnutella needs without all the hassle and worry associated with Bearshare. I'd urge anyone who has doubts about Bearshare to check it out.

Hope this helps..."

As you can painly see this post was neither malicious nor abusive. I was merely stating my objections to Vinnie's threats to shut down the Adware Forum, and his intention to begin a program of, as he put it, "heavy handed moderation" on BearshareNet. I was also upset over Vinnie's recent behavior and was excited about a good alternative to Bearshare. I don't believe that this post deserved deletion. Do you?

"I have never heard a pausible explanation for these encrypted messages from Vinnie to this date"

This was bull - or rather, the straw that broke the camel's back.

Why don't you go do your research again and find all the messages that preceding your posting which explain the messages.

Somehow, these were conveniently "left out".

Bodhi,

Thanks for your reply, and for the refresher course.  I am short on time this evening, so I am unable to reply back as fully as I'd like, but here's the short story......

The three examples of Vinnie's attitudinal posts you copied above all revolve around the one post by you that was deleted, and no more than one.  Vinnie's way of expressing himself is a different issue.  The issue I raised was that of people trying to create the illusion there's been a lot of censorship in the BearShare forums.  You've given only one example of censorship so far - that of deleting your post.  Perhaps someone can show one or two more examples, but beyond that.......?


As for the reprint of your deleted post:

It heavily accused Bearshare of containing spyware, it attemped to create more paranoia about the encrypted packets, and it accused Vinnie of never giving a "plausible explanation" concerning them.

1) The FACT is (http://www.abctella.com) Bearshare contains no spyware, which is starting to be proven by articles like the one at abctella.com.

2) The encrypted packets are not spy packets, and I'm becoming convinced that no matter now many times Vinnie tries to explain it in I don't know how many ways, certain people are just going to keep badgering the issue just because they like controversy and upheaval - nothing more.  Digging around a little more will reveal the information legitimate seekers of answers are looking for.

3) As just stated, Vinnie has given plenty of "plausible explanation", not only about the packets but also about the bundled 'wares in Bearshare.

You asked me this question: "I don't believe that this post deserved deletion. Do you?"
My answer: Maybe, maybe not.  Undoubtedly there are other ways to have handled it, but at the moment I suppose Vinnie was having a knee-jerk reaction to that hammer that keeps banging on his head 24/7... namely, uninformed paranoid users who jump to conclusions without doing their homework first!  (I'm not necessarily referring to you here)


I run a major e-commerce biz and right now I'm in the middle of some work that can't wait 'til morning. Hope this helped you see a slightly bigger picture than the one you've been looking at.


Brotaris

Vinnie -

First I'd like to applaud you for not resorting to profanity and name-calling. It's a lot more mature than many of your recent posts.

Perhaps I was too harsh and went too far in that sentence. What I meant to say was that although you had explained what the encrypted packets were used for, I had never seen a plausible explanation of why you felt it *SO* necessary to use them in the first place. Today you finally gave an explanation for this. It is a business decision designed to give you a leg up on your competition. Now although I may not like what you are doing, you certainly have a legal right to do it, but I still don't support it.

Surely you can understand why deleting this post from the forum made me so angry, particularly since it came on the heels of your "heavy-handed moderation" comment and your threat to shut down the forum because you didn't like the fact that some of your users were unhappy with your tactics. And particulary since one of the main subjects of the post was these very threats.

I think at this point we should just agree to disagree. I really liked Bearshare. I think it's a really fine gnutella servent. I said that in my original post. But I don't like the direction you are taking Bearshare in and I will not support it. I will continue to urge new users to try out open source servents and I will do my best to explain why it is important to keep the gnutella network as open as it can possibly be.

I will also continue to urge you to reconsider what you are doing with Bearshare, and with the protocol. I don't think you will benefit from what you are doing in the long run, and it will only serve to fragment the network. I only hope you are mature enough to really consider what I, and others, are telling you.

For some reason this forum software keeps logging me out and many of my posts come up as "Unregistered" after I submit them. The above post did come from me...

Bodhi

I agree so fully to this post (which I presume came from Bodhi, who sometimes seems to be too lazy to log in :-) as if I have written it by myself.

My respect to Bodhi.

Greetings......

[For some reason this forum software keeps logging me out and many of my posts come up as "Unregistered" after I submit them.]

Had this problem too, but not anymore since I allowed this site to set a cookie...

[The above post did come from me...]
I supposed this...

Greetings....

Brotaris -

Thank you for your reasoned reply. I will address a couple of points you raise, but the bulk of what I want to say at this point is contained in my reply to Vinnie posted above.

Knowing that mine was perhaps the only post actually deleted makes it no less infurating. It makes it more so, in fact.

I think the thing that got many of the folks over there so angry was the *threat* of censorship. The "...if you don't shut up and play nice I'm going to shut your mouths for you..." attitude was really obnoxious.

The problem I have is not with the packets in the way they are being used today necessarily. It is in the potential that exists for these kinds of packets to be used to fragment the network and destroy the open protocol. As I see it this protocol was intended, by those who first reverse-engineered it and released it publicly, to be an open protocol designed for the use of anyone who was willing to take the time and effort to write a servent to utilise it. Vinnie has made a business decision designed to get his company a leg up on his competition, and I believe that he is doing this at the expense of the network as a whole.

I had some of my messages deleted, they were there for a few hours then were gone, yes they were critical of vinnies ever loving attitude we have all come to love and admire, no explanation, no proof on my end because I don't save every session to disk, so how would anyone know he did it? then this guy wants proof, get a life, now you are pushing it. that is why this forum is so much better, you will know what is really going on and I expect that deleted posts won't be from people critical of the software.

I was thinking that maybe a bad aaasss bear attitude might be a good thing, the only gnutella client with a bad attitude, try to get help and get flamed, try to say something nice and get flamed, its fun and its free, try the new badbear.net forums! could be a marketing tool, they do it on radio.

Thank you Bodhi, This is the most mature, intelligent post i've seen on this topic! You understand it, but don't like it... I can deal with that! In the end, we're all on the same team... Believe it or not! Later folks! I'm done with this topic for good!