Ethics.. A tough question

nicely said err0r. I appreciate your willingness to be upfront and honest. And would gladly read through your thoughts if you wanted to expand on any of your points. I'm not so interested in changing your mind, as glad to have an opportunity for everyone to express our different views and thus gain a better understanding of each other in the end.

And on the flip side, I think I kind of understand the mentality that went into buzzen using the msn ocx. Probably at first they were lashing out and fighting back against what they felt was an unfair situation (msn going subscription). I don't agree with their method, but I do acknowledege a sincere desire that was probably behind that, at first. I'm not completely set against the robinhood philosophy in life, as is apparent in my past choice.

But where I really see the wrong in what buzzen is now doing, is the length to which they are attempting to mislead people into supporting something as legal, when it just isn't legal.

As much as I support freedom of speach, I also support freedom of choice.

Hence, when I took that group over, I upheld freedom of speach, and freedom of choice by making the situation completely clear to everyone. Each person was able to read both sides of things, and decide for themselves if they wanted to stay, or join the other group. To ensure that people were able to maintain relationships, and did not lose any because they did not know where others moved to, I added the link to the new group onto the welcome page.

If buzzen had been upfront in what they did, and why they did it, it would have created a situation in which freedom of speach, and choice was upheld, and where people were free to choose if they wanted to agree and support buzzen, or not.

What bothers me the most about the whole buzzen situation, is the misleading. Seeing people I have known for a long time, being tricked into supporting a chat service, and sending that chat service $70 per room registration fee, because they have been misled and tricked into thinking buzzen is totally legal. These are people who never would have supported buzzen if they had been told the truth in an upfront way. That is where my biggest issue with buzzen lays, and that is where I see what I did, and what buzzen did as fundamentally different. I was open about what I did, and why, and upheld each persons right to choose to agree or disagree with me, buzzen hasn't.

**Edit**

At least you have explained your side which is much more than they have but in the end you are both just trying justifying a wrong into a right.

I'm not convinced that buzzen is trying to justify anything, well with the exception of maybe YAHOO. What I see buzzen doing is being fully aware of breaking the law, but choosing to mislead others in order to gain financial benefit and chatters.

I on the other hand might be accused of trying to justify what I did, because fundamentally when faced with 3 years of bad choices, I made what I still consider to be the best choice, out of two less than ideal choices, based on a totally wrong situation to even begin with.

And in the end, maybe at least the two who took things over first, now have a little bit of understanding for what the rest of us old owners went through, when we watched them take our room away from us.

So I acknowledge my err0rs (lol) in dealing with the situation all along, but I still really believe that after all those wrong choices, I made a choice I can live with. I used the knowledge I had to try to end wrong, instead of letting wrong perpetuate.

..And really, based on the groups history and desire for faithfulness and unity to the room, other good options, such as starting over, were ruled out because for this particular situation, they would have been ineffective and unhelpful. Yet despite my awareness that starting a new group would be ineffective and unhelpful, I still tried very hard to take that route first in hopes it would pan out to be effective and helpful. But I simply was unable to make that option known to the group because the one group owner refused to allow freedom of choice to stand.

So in a way err0r, simply acknowledging that I tried other methods first shows that I don't think my final drastic choice was the ideal way to handel things. Just as no police officer things killing someone is the ideal way to handel a dangerous situation either, but unfortunately, based on the situation at hand..sometimes less than ideal choices are deemed necessary interventions.

I just know that choices are rarely simple, and often we judge others, and even ourselves based on a simplifed world view, instead of really letting the complexity of the whole situation really sink in. And I'm guilty of that more times than not. I like to make everything black and white when in reality it's usually just not that simple.

My main goal with buzzen is to provide people who had been misled into thinking buzzen was legal, and owned the msn chat ocx (lol) with the information to realize that buzzen is not legally using that msn ocx, and thus enabling those mislead and tricked people into being able to really choose if they wanted to support illegal behavior, or not. It's all about the freedom of choice for me.

Buzzen is free to choose to do illegal things, but people should also be enabled to knowingly choose if they want to support that illegal behavior, or not. I believe buzzen has smeared this clarity, and mislead people who would not have chosen to support buzzens illegal behavior, into not only supporting illegal behavior, but sending buzzen money also. That's my biggest issue with buzzen.

Guess all roads lead to Buzzen eh Deanne?

Guess all roads lead to Buzzen eh Deanne?

I was responding to a likeness that err0r was trying to draw between my actions and the actions of buzzen.

We'll i think i need to say something here. Why your situation bothers me more than the buzzen ordeal. I'll start by saying my reason is completely unfair to you.

I'm not very close with many people online. I do consider most of the people i know online to be my friends but only a very very few know anything about me personally. You tend to get a preconceived notion about people you meet online. I only knew you through your work on CE and the few emails we swapped mostly concerning CE. I judged your character through our very small interactions. I saw through the work you put into CE and the help you provided people that you cared. The way you made CE and put it out it seemed your ideals on scripting were in line with ours at tg. I considered you one of the goodguys. When I first heard that the GWEN took a msn group i stood up and told them no way. She wouldn't do such a thing. Once I found out you did I was shocked and sorry to say highly disappointed. This wasn't fair to you in many ways. I couldn't expect you to live up to my expectations when I didn't know really who you were or what the complete situation was. I did listen to your side. I've read it over and over yet I still come to the same conclusions. I don't think taking the group was the right thing to do. I do need to apologize in a way as this issue bothered me more than buzzen but for me this issue was more personal. I don't know anyone with buzzen outside of YAHOO and there have been many times in the past he and I didn't quite agree on things. I respect YAHOO as I always have but know he and I don't see eye to eye on many things so it was really no surprise to me when we didn't agree completely on the buzzen issue. I like to see good people do good things. There is so many bad things in the world ( alot reflected in simple attitudes towards things like the msn ocx bring light to it ) that when I see a person I think is good do something that I think is wrong it does shake my faith in people a little more than it should. I hope that sheds a little more light into why this issue gets me a little more than the buzzen thing. I still think what you did was wrong yet i know you aren't a bad person for doing it.

Something very similar happened to me when i decided to leave xt. I wasn't forced out physically but I had a very similar choice as you as to what to do. Make the changes i thought needed to be made or choose another path. If you aren't familiar with that whole saga i can clarify but i think most know it.

oh jay that would so make a great buzzen slogan.. on the internet highway all roads lead to buzzen..

The internet hightway. No matter where you go you are always one click away from porn.

We'll i think i need to say something here. Why your situation bothers me more than the buzzen ordeal. I'll start by saying my reason is completely unfair to you.

 

I'm not very close with many people online. I do consider most of the people i know online to be my friends but only a very very few know anything about me personally. You tend to get a preconceived notion about people you meet online. I only knew you through your work on CE and the few emails we swapped mostly concerning CE. I judged your character through our very small interactions. I saw through the work you put into CE and the help you provided people that you cared. The way you made CE and put it out it seemed your ideals on scripting were in line with ours at tg. I considered you one of the goodguys. When I first heard that the GWEN took a msn group i stood up and told them no way. She wouldn't do such a thing. Once I found out you did I was shocked and sorry to say highly disappointed. This wasn't fair to you in many ways. I couldn't expect you to live up to my expectations when I didn't know really who you were or what the complete situation was. I did listen to your side. I've read it over and over yet I still come to the same conclusions. I don't think taking the group was the right thing to do. I do need to apologize in a way as this issue bothered me more than buzzen but for me this issue was more personal. I don't know anyone with buzzen outside of YAHOO and there have been many times in the past he and I didn't quite agree on things. I respect YAHOO as I always have but know he and I don't see eye to eye on many things so it was really no surprise to me when we didn't agree completely on the buzzen issue. I like to see good people do good things. There is so many bad things in the world ( alot reflected in simple attitudes towards things like the msn ocx bring light to it ) that when I see a person I think is good do something that I think is wrong it does shake my faith in people a little more than it should. I hope that sheds a little more light into why this issue gets me a little more than the buzzen thing. I still think what you did was wrong yet i know you aren't a bad person for doing it.

 

Something very similar happened to me when i decided to leave xt. I wasn't forced out physically but I had a very similar choice as you as to what to do. Make the changes i thought needed to be made or choose another path. If you aren't familiar with that whole saga i can clarify but i think most know it.

 

oh jay that would so make a great buzzen slogan.. on the internet highway all roads lead to buzzen..

err0r I understand and would probably feel much the same way. I know warrior was also faced with the same tough situation.

It is difficult, because I also realize that my final choice wasn't an ideal one, and agree with much that you have said--but for me, I felt cornered into sitting back and passively allowing wrong to perpetuate itself, or to use a less than ideal method to end that wrong, after trying more ideal ways to fix the situation, and having those more ideal ways not work.

But I can't say I would respect myself anymore if I had turned around and walked away from the whole issue, without taking a stand and doing what I did.

**Edit**

ps err0r, I don't think you mis-judged me. I do care, and that is why I couldn't bring myself to just sit back and watch people I cared about being treated wrongly and unfairly.

Also, I have thought alot about what if any part pride and revenge played in my decision. Ultimately, I think it was my deep sense of utter outrage at the one owners attempt to restrict the freedom of choice of the group members to see the link I was offering to a group which would not have censored or rediculed anyone. To me, if that link had been posted, the whole situation would have ended there for me. Unfortunately, that owner felt he was right to restrict that option, so I felt I was right to move onto the next level of intervention, in an attempt to end the wrong being done in that group.

Somehow I think your story is inconsistent, first you say you have no time and energy to start a new site

I realized that my current life situation did not allow me to dedicate the time needed to build up a whole new site. I had the time when I helped build the first site, but I no longer had the time necessary to do it again. <<cut>> err0r, its nobel to say you would just start over from scratch, and that is a good choice. But its another thing to realize you just don't have the time, engery or resources to start all over again.

And then you say after you took over the group you have (created?) a new group?

Hence, when I took that group over, I upheld freedom of speach, and freedom of choice by making the situation completely clear to everyone. Each person was able to read both sides of things, and decide for themselves if they wanted to stay, or join the other group. To ensure that people were able to maintain relationships, and did not lose any because they did not know where others moved to, I added the link to the new group onto the welcome page.

So whats left of your original excuse?

Error never lose faith, the cover of the book does not tell the story;)

glad to see you posting again YAHOO

Somehow I think your story is inconsistent, first you say you have no time and energy to start a new site

And then you say after you took over the group you have (created?) a new group?

So whats left of your original excuse?

Hi Webagent. The structure for the site or group is not difficult to create..but the group of people who make that group what it is, are difficult to find.

btw, the 2nd quote you used was in reference to the new group the other managers opened, not to a group I opened.. When I took back the group, those other managers quickly set up a 2nd group, so they could continue to provide the level of censorship and oppression some liked. Instead of forcing people to remain in the group I took back, I openly posted the link to their new group, so that people had the choice to join there, or stay.

And yes a few months before ever taking back the group, I had opened an alternate group for people to discuss things freely in, but the manager bent on control and censorship refused to make that link known to the members.

Creating a new group site wasn't the difficult part, and its not the part I didn't have time or energy for. The time consuming part is finding the time and ways to make a group or site known, and attracting a few thousand new group members. Anyone can create a ghost site, beautifully laid out, but with no members. The hard part is finding the members to fill that site.

I did not have time to create a whole new group by opening a whole new subscription chat room, and attracting people through that, like we did with the 1st 1800 members. Nor was it even feasible anymore, because the circumstances had changed. We attracted 1800 sda members when msn was at its peak, those 1800 members were part of our room, and our group. Then our room was taken over, and our group was closed down, and those 1800 members were then sent to the new hosts group, who had taken over our original room. Most of those 1800 members did not even join subscription chat, so there was no way to get in touch with them, and make them aware of an alternate group they could now join.

None the less, I did open an alternate group, because I felt that would solve the problems in the best way possible. I fully expected those managers to be fair, and give people the option, and the choice. My way of thinking was, then the oppressive group manager could continue to maintain his option to censor, mock, and ridicule members, but people would also have the option joining a new group, which would allow them to freely share their thoughts, and opinions, free from fear of mockery and banning. It took me only a few minutes to create that group site...but it sits virtually empty to this day, because I did not have the time to open up a subscription room to make it known, and attract members.

So in this way, simply 'creating a new site' offered nothing to help the members...because most of them never even found out about it, because sadly, the other group managers were not fair enough to provide the members with the link, and the choice. Unfortunately the one manager is a control fanatic, and rejected my every attempt at a fair resolution, so I felt justified in ending the wrong doing with more invasive methods, and accepted realizing the one owners password as a sign and a method to finally end the wrong doing that had gone on for 3 long years.

I don't mind answering more questions, basically no one has ever accused me of making the right choices all the time. But despite that, even when my choices are bad, my heart and motives behind that are generally good.

And lastly, for the record. I spent all of my time reasoning through if it was right for me to use the password to end the wrong doing, or just walk away and let the wrong doing continue. I spent alot of time weighing the pro's and con's and going through my own motives and feelings. I actually spent so much time just trying to sort out if it was the right choice for me to make, that I failed to actually think about what I wanted to do if I actually did take the group back. So once I did make the final decision to take the group back, I did so quickly..and only then realized that I had forgotten to think about what I would do with the group once I took it back.. sigh. So it did take me several days to work out what was the best option for handeling what I had done. Looking back I see alot I would change, in this regard.

So if there are no more questions or comments about what I did, maybe err0r would tell us more about what happened with xt? (I'm assume this was the extreme team forum?) If so, I was part of it, and remember that something happened, but never did get involved enough to know exactly what. I would like to hear the details if err0r wants to talk about it all.

no i don't mind talking about it..

History of err0r volume 2 lol

Once upon a time a guy named err0r happened upon MSN chat. He noticed that some users where able to do things with modes that webchatters just couldn't do. So he ventured out into cyber space to find out how they did it. He happened upon Haines Crappy Website. He learned how to work the various bots/scripts that were out but noticed there weren't many people willing to help newbs to learn these progs. He started to help people on Haines site. Along with a few other people that eventually moved to extreme computing. Anyways he got interested in webdesign and started a site of his own. err0r.vze.com. At the time he was learning his first html strings he was getting handy with MSN progs. So he combined the two into a site. Along with MSN stuff you could find conspiracy type information, wavs, pc pranks, and various other things that interested me at the time. A guy by the name of Daddy Darkson contacted me one day with a plan to combine our sites. err0r.vze.com had a small but growing user base and DD had a pretty popular MSN Group based on MSN progs. With my interest in web design and he knowing alot of the programmers/scripters in the msn world we thought we could come up with a useful website. Played around with some names and came up with TechGear. Shortly thereafter JJ's Viperbot started to become really popular and his help forum extreme computing was a good place to go for help. I started posting and helping where I could. One day I visited the forum to find out that I was a moderator and a member of the "extreme team". I was very honored and somewhat shocked as I didn't really know many of the people there outside of the forum posts and wasn't trying to gain any status there. ( i know i went from 3rd person to 1st lol ) Tellinusis, David, webagent007 were just a few of the other people that were part of the team. As the amount of progs grew and the popularity of viperbot began to shine the team started to grow. I think we did alot of good back then. The extreme team name was known by most every chatter on MSN. We did our best to help anyone that needed it. I can't count the amount of times that chatters would give me the pass to their room just to set +m for them lol. Being on the team almost gave you instant trust with the chat community. As xt grew tg grew. We had our own thread on the xt forum and only used tg for downloads. Soon the team began to grow and grow and it got to the point where JJ decided to leave. He named me the new forum admin. Now i was in charge of the forum. I've never liked to be the "only" one in charge. I tend to want to work on projects with others of equal responsibility. I thought people like David and Webagent were just as responsible for the future of xt as I was. As xt was growing I felt some of the team members were putting xt in a bad light. A very small minority of users were doing things in xt's name that I didn't agree with. I probably had the authority to remove some of the members but the more I thought about it the more I didn't like the idea. JJ had promoted them to the status of xt and I felt he had good cause to do so. I didn't want "my ideals" to become the xt standard. The team was turning into something that I was no longer proud of but changing the team around because of one man's sense of what should be done didn't feel like the right thing to do. I decided to step down from my role as admin. When I left I had no problems with any xt user. The sad thing was I didn't even know most of the new team members. After I left I saw instances where my name was brought up and a few had things to say about how kiddie tg was ( lol many still do today ). I carried on the same way on tg as I did on xt. I built a community of people helping people. Not sure why some people were threatened by that. Not sure how someone that has never spoken to me could hate me so much lol. The only real run in I had with xt after that was when a few in their xt room were badmouthing a couple of my friends. I don't care what people say about me but I will stand by anyone i consider my friend. ( boy has that blown up in my face a number of times ). Anyways that ended any contact between myself and xt. I still remember the old days of xt with great fondness. I'm not sure how many here remember those days but they were some really good times. XT was just people helping people. In the end there were several choices I could have made concerning my actions on xt. I chose to walk my own path rather than try to project my ideals on others when there was really no reason that I should have. My way while right to me may not have been what xt needed. So i left and concentrated on tg. And here we are.

It's nice to know the details of what went on with the extreme team forum. Alot of you helped me out alot back then! I never knew JJ started that forum. It's also nice to see that you respected the systems set in place by the original creator--to bad the ones who took over our room a few years back weren't more like that.

Gwen wonders if ozzy will ever unban her, so she can use her real name again.

nope think yourself lucky i didnt keep you baned

and before you mouth off to me , err0r will tell you i can keep someone baned if i put my mind to it lol

nope think yourself lucky i didnt keep you baned

and before you mouth off to me , err0r will tell you i can keep someone baned if i put my mind to it lol

*Deanne adds a new signature so people don't get confused when ozzy calls her Gwen

hmmm when u bring up viper I recall a program called k0rn...i wonder if that can be used in other chats.

pub94.ezboard.com/bextremecomputing Don`t try link! Gone now but was there a few months ago, time does pass so quickly!