Source of threatening emails regarding Serpo has been discovered to be Netchicken

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Your very wrong, and if you had come to me before creating sensationalist messages, I would have provided the reality to you.

You're probably right S.O. With hindsight, knowing now you (or others) weren't involved, that's easy to say. But not knowing who was involved, just that a well-established member was the source of not just one, but two attempts to release these hoaxed emails - there was no way for me to know that.

-rdube02


[edit on 15-3-2006 by rdube02]

Originally posted by rdube02
You're probably right S.O. With hindsight, knowing now you (or others) weren't involved

Can you point to anything in our management style that would have brought about this wrong assumption?

Originally posted by Shawnna
I have to agree with SO on this. From what I can see, we have quite a few individuals who are more interested in creating drama than anything else.

Always,
Shawnna

I agree completely. Creating such an email and then attempting multiple times to inject them into the serpo discussions certainly did display an interest in creating drama.

You can imply whatever you like about my intentions Shawnna, but drama is certainly not one of them. If someone is a liar, they should be exposed. It's as simple as that. If that creates drama - I'm sorry.

-Ry

Originally posted by Nygdan
S-T-O-P-Y-E-L-L-I-N-G

yeesh.

Thats how he writes to his list?

Yes... but what makes me raise an eyebrow is that when Val posted her excellent analysis of the webmaster of serpogate, Victor/Bill referred to "self-styled amateur investigators". When "rdube" posts his piece making insinuation against ATS, Victor calls it a "full field investigation". Hmmmm. Fair and balanced?

Rdube -- weren't you just asking about (netchicken's first name removed) D. (NetChicken) just last night? You obviously didn't spend that much time studying your research for accuracy or even confirming your information with corroborating sources. You seem to have just focused on creating a skewed, defamatory analysis of ATS and ran with it haphazardly.

Given the manner in which you incorrectly portray Netchicken as a "founder" of ATS and have publicized this statement in connection with a derogatory article about ATS, you should be concerned about allegations of libel. That's what happens to "journalists" who show a reckless disregard for the facts and that's why people "sit" on their stories to make sure their facts are correct before they rush to print.

Maybe that's why those assisting you in your research didn't join in?

[edit on 15-3-2006 by Centrist]

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by rdube02
You're probably right S.O. With hindsight, knowing now you (or others) weren't involved

Can you point to anything in our management style that would have brought about this wrong assumption?

I'd rather not?

Oh...I suppose that wasn't a rhetorical question was it. That's a loaded question S.O. and I'd rather not go there, seriously. Plenty of people on these various boards have raised their own paranoid suspicions about ATS, quote a few unfounded suspicions. I doubt any of these are based on your management style - it's probably because you're running a conspiracy forum...?

I can't trust anyone 100% whom I've never met or have become friends with myself. While you seem to be an awesome guy, we haven't become friends so how on earth could I trust you 100%? For all I know you could be sitting behind a desk in an underground facility somewhere (just a joke btw). Based on a few U2U's and posts, how am I supposed to know?

-Ry

Originally posted by Centrist
Given the manner in which you incorrectly portray Netchicken as a "founder" of ATS and have publicized this statement in connection with a derogatory article about ATS, you should be concerned about allegations on libel. That's what happens to "journalists" who show a reckless disregard for the facts and that's why people "sit" on their stories to make sure their facts are correct before they rush to print.

Maybe that's why those assisting you in your research didn't join in?

Yes...you're right. I'm the evil person who exposed a saint who was trying to perpetuate a lie throughout the internet forums. You pick out a single line that you can attack, inside a full page of proven fact. Typical.

-rdube02

Originally posted by rdube02
Plenty of people on these various boards have raised their own paranoid suspicions about ATS, quote a few unfounded suspicions. I doubt any of these are based on your management style - it's probably because you're running a conspiracy forum...?

I didn't ask about the unconfirmed rumors and assumptions of paranoid schizophrenics. I asked about our overt management style. What we do, not what others "think we do".

Seems like this is getting lost in the drama of it all...

Netchicken's last words to me personally were "F" you"... He truly HATES my guts and I am pretty sure I was the personal target of his prank. After S.O., Simon and I decided to fire him, he went and plead his "case" to my Partners, Simon and S.O....

I read what he wrote in his own defense and against me, (we are partners and everything is open between the 3 of us) personally, it was childish, hurtful and pathetic. Childish, hurtful and pathetic just like the pranks and gags he likes to pull that cost him friends and "status" here months ago.

Some people just can't see past their next self satisfying move to notice the possibility others could be hurt by their actions. Some people just don't care.

As S.O. said, his family and colleagues were "stalked" by a freak who was enraged by Netchicken's antics elsewhere a couple years ago. We didn't find that out (that it was him irritating/pranking the other board) until months after the fact either... I remember talking to my FRIEND and Partner S.O., about this mess and he was genuinely WORRIED for his family and job.

My wife and I had to change our home phone number because of a disgruntled, twisted, former "friend" and staffer going NUTS. The "back side"/behind the scenes of a website this big is not always pretty to behold. We don't talk about this crap because it's not valuable to the membership and would sound like whining.

What can we say? The guy is GONE, we fired him MONTHS ago, way BEFORE serpo started, and incidentally, serpo has NEVER been more than a paltry 7% of our traffic PERIOD.

The insinuation that we would have anything to do with those emails for a "ratings boost" is beyond false, it's plain stupid.

The facts: we draw MILLIONS of people a month, 93% of whom, STILL, have NOT even heard of serpo.

Victor's email is pathetic but now we know who Victor Martinez is.

Springer...

All I have to say is you don't pick a name Like "Net Chicken", and plan to be a stand up guy.

Originally posted by rdube02
You pick out a single line that you can attack, inside a full page of proven fact. Typical.

No, it's a legal thing. One false statement suggests more might be present. It also suggests that your research was not complete when you posted it. If your intention was, in fact, to be fair and balanced, why did you rush to post before confirming your facts.

As for "proven". I'm not so sure. I think everyone believes that Netchicken is responsible, assuming that the data your relayed is factual and accurate. It's one thing to "believe" something, though. It's another thing to prove it.

As for the statement that I picked out, apparently I wasn't the first... as numerous posts above mine are addressing the exact same issue -- it was irresponsible of you to portray netchicken as a "founder" of ATS based solely on his user number.

li·bel
n.

A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.
The act of presenting such material to the public.

If you're going to do research and post things in public that may damage someone's reputation or defame them in any way, your only defense is that you posted the truth. If material facts are incorrect and that is the cause of the defamation, then you're opening yourself up to accusations of libel.

Just something to be careful of, especially if you're going to post through Victor's list -- most of the "pedigree" on that last has been involved in a lawsuit at one time or another. Believe me, it's not a rite of passage to be coveted.

Probably - but it would be a pretty neat trick to get the IP which sharpmail tracked the person with as well. It would require not just using a proxy server to anonymize your IP, but also selecting a particular IP. Possible but not very likely. The sender of the sharpmail was netchicken.

It would be fairly simple to get some ones ip from them posting.

I wont go in to details but if they really wanted to someone could have spoofed it-Posted Via ATSmobile (BETA v0.3)-

[edit on 15-3-2006 by Burgess]

Originally posted by Centrist

Just something to be careful of, especially if you're going to post through Victor's list -- most of the "pedigree" on that last has been involved in a lawsuit at one time or another. Believe me, it's not a rite of passage to be coveted.

I understand and you're right. Any time anyone exposes someone in a situation like this, of course they have to be careful. The stupid capped header at the top of the report was added by someone else, probably should have chopped that off. I never called him a founding member inside the report itself - I actually pointed out that inside ATS his status is only "member".

Anyway, I'm not about to argue semantics or law with a lawyer. I'm not about to apologize for making public the source of both hoaxed emails.

I do however apologize for the pain it causes a lot of members who were friends with the guy - as Springer described in detail above... It really is sad that someone would have done this not only to ATS but to S.O. and Springer.

-Ry

rdube02

To say I'm surprised by this thread would be an understatement.

I'm also extremely surprised by some of the replies.

Please tell us all who your two co-investigators were and who furnished you with this information.

[edit on 15-3-2006 by John bull 1]

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Can you point to anything in our management style that would have brought about this wrong assumption?

I will break the silence on this. I've done it before, but maybe this will help the understanding for newer members.

As a SuperMod (but also former Mod and Member) the management at ATS is very "hands off" as a style. The trust is placed on us to act accordingly, but yet the freedom is given to be an individual with our own thoughts and opinions.

To steal a term...it's a Circle of Trust.

An example might be the ATS Gear Store. Management will give me an idea and then leave it to me to take care of it. A shirt I make could be offensive so I have to not only consider my thoughts, but think of how my actions would reflect on ATS. This style of management works well because then there is no micro-management and each staff member is empowered to handle things day-to-day.

I (and the rest) have the personal empowerment to act if need be when a group decision can't be made. Can you imaging interacting with someone dealing with members/customers in any business, where they can't take action without approval? I can name a hundred or more companies of various types that have that have the "empowerment" style of management and they do it because it works.

In a problem situation, I would be supported and also coached on the action that I should have taken. There is never a matter that cannot be taken to Management or Owners because of this style. I have had issues with Mods brought to me and resolved them and I have taken issues to the Admin/Owners and had them resolved.

No matter the issue, it can always be taken to them. The style reflects "empowerment" for MEMBERS too. You are "empowered" to post your own thoughts (subject to the Terms & Conditions) no matter the issue...including this one.

I should think most long term members already know this.

I just want to say Kudos to SO and the rest of the staff for keeping their cool through all these allegations of them having ulterior motives.

I can't imagine how stressful this hobby could be to run a major conspiracy dicussion board, I have a fair bit of stress from my own little message board! I couldn't imagine thousands of people

Although I don't have much to add to the subject, I experienced little directly from Net Chicken, all I knew he was a mod at some point and had his status revoked.

OK, I will admit I had NOT planned to post to this thread, but Burgess' last post sort of pushed me to it.

Burgess, please understand I am not saying you intended anything other than to point out a factual possibility. But in my view, I'm inclined to completely believe what SkepticOverlord and Springer have to say about Netchicken's motivations.

I have not checked whether Netchicken has been banned or not, but I assume he was still a member as of Monday night. I know this, because I happened to witness him make the following statement in CHAT, when someone asked him the reason for the lack of MOD status.

netchicken: lets just say the bohemie of community is in reality a mirage

That is a precise quote... I'm sure there are logs that would confirm that.

I personally see that statement as being completely consistent with the "disgruntled staff" assertion made by SkepticOverlord and Springer.

I do, however, think some of you are being too hard on rdube02...

Not everyone knows what the management style is at ATS. I mean, really, the only way to know would be to stalk all of the adminstration's posts... I hate to say it, SkepticOverlord and Springer, you're interesting, but not that interesting.... j/k

As you've pointed out, HUGE numbers of people come to this site for reasons other than you guys. You really don't want groupies, now, do you???? j/k, again

All of this is low level noise....keep that in perspective.

BUT this thread is an excellent example of why this site ROCKS!!!

Keep up the good work....EVERYONE!!!

"NEXT"



(Edited for clarity.)


[edit on 15-3-2006 by loam]

Originally posted by John bull 1

Please tell us all who your two co-investigators were and who furnished you with this information.

[edit on 15-3-2006 by John bull 1]

No one furnished me with information - the three of us went through the steps outlined in the report. If you follow the report line by line, you can look up everything yourself - it's all public information (except for the sharpmail info). If you'd like the actual emails from sharpmail, I'd be happy to email them to you. Just U2U me your email address.

As far as the other guys, they are reading this I'm sure and they can share their identities if they wish. As you can see from the attacks above, it's pretty obvious why they wanted to just stay in the back.

As I said, U2U me your email and I'll send you everything I've got.

Take care,
-Ry


[edit on 15-3-2006 by rdube02]

Anyone know if NetChicken is Jewish? Maybe this whole thing was a Purim prank gone bad. Those guys have been up to some shenanigans as of late. No offense... don't mean to sound all 'blame it on the Jews' there, just going fishin'.


Don't know NC at all but based on his posts he seems to have quite the 'sense' of humor. Not a great idea, or very well thought out, but i'd doubt he had any malicious intent... this whole serpopera has been enough to drive any member mad imho.

*salute* RIP NetChicken

[edit on 15-3-2006 by Rren]

Yesterday's events were eye-opening for me and revealed a lot about ATS. S.O. is cool and on the level - you can take anything he says at face value. I believe now that Val is completely on the level as well, she is just very passionate about certain issues, in particular about people who lie - and that's completely understandable.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

rdube02/ryguy Did you not mean this? What is on the level to you? I honestly feel you are trying to be a champion for both sides.

Oh well, I guess I will move on to this cube with the cloud or something in it.

[edit on 15-3-2006 by SpittinCobra]

Originally posted by SpittinCobra

rdube02/ryguy Did you not mean this? What is on the level to you? I honestly feel you are trying to be a champion for both sides.

Oh well, I guess I will move on to this cube with the cloud or something in it.
[edit on 15-3-2006 by SpittinCobra]

lol...This is about the 4th or 5th time you've thrown something I've said previously in my face. You're a pro at that.

Truth is SpittinCobra - on the level meant exactly what I said there. Up to the moment we discovered who had created these fake emails. You know as well as I do, people you've grown to trust can suddenly be found to be untrustworthy. Wives learn this about husbands, boyfriends about girlfriends - if a person were to make a judgement call like that and ignore any new facts that prove otherwise, it would be naive and stupid.

By the way - I've just sent a follow-up statement to Victor's stream regarding S.O.'s response. Saying that I found his explanation of this whole thing to be absolutely honest and true. This was simply a disgruntled member. I asked that they show some respect for the difficult position that the 3 Amigos are in and avoid further speculation. Hope that helps a little...

I'm done... Time to try to actually get some actual work done now.

Till Next time,
-Ry