I was planning on staying out of this, because I don't have a dog in this fight. QS has always been decent and polite to me, so I have no personal grievances against him. I've said it before; I enjoy reading QS's posts, and often find his contributions welcome and valuable.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for; my unsolicited opinion about this apology:
I wanted to apologize to anyone whose trust I may have broken over the years, including but not limited to one particular
incident.
At first blush, I was really impressed. This is great. Here's an apology for 5 year old dispute, long held grudges, and an obvious abuse of the community's trust. There's even an a half-hearted acknowledgement that what we suspected is true; Panther52 is QS.
It does take a lot of balls to own up to having made a mistake. But wait, what's this:
I got the idea from another forum member who was in very good standing, and was well trusted at the time throughout the community -- I entered into a transaction with what turned out to be one of his sockpuppets, and he suggested that we use his 'main' account as a middle man. When I got caught, I lied about being banned in order to cover it up, which was wrong, is something I should not have done, and is something I regret doing.
Who cares where you got the idea? Is that supposed to absolve you of shady dealings? I watched Ocean's 11 a few weeks ago, but I'm not plotting to rob a casino now. WTF, over?
And I'll be honest, the first thing that came to mind when I read the above paragraph was: who is this guy that gave you this shitty idea, and why haven't you exposed him for the scammer that he is?
I also wanted to apologize to anyone who I may have otherwise harmed over the years in any other way (I have never stolen from anyone here, or IRL). I am a very principled person, but sometimes did not get other perspectives, or try to be able to see things from the other person's shoes before starting a topic. I should have done better.
I have always cared about my reputation here. Even when I was someone who was well trusted, I did not like it when people opened fake scam accusations because they were upset at me. My intentions were always good, even if my actions were not.
Thank you.
Here you claim that you've never stolen from anyone, but I take issue with that statement. You admitted that you were providing escrow for your own dealings, and by all appearances you were charging fees for the escrow service. Claiming that you've never stolen makes me think that semantics are more important to you than actions. Obviously you were charging for a service that was not provided. Sure, technically that's not
theft, but it's rather deceptive, and certainly fraudulent. You may not have scammed anyone through your deception, but it was deception nonetheless. A deception that earned you some marginal fees. Didn't Wells Fargo just recently get run through the wringer for doing similar stuff?
You also claim that your reputation is important to you, and I have no reason to doubt that. In fact, I believe you. You've never let your red tags get in the way of being helpful to others, and I can't recall a time when you've blatantly lied about anything. But there's a fine line between lying and not telling the truth. For five years you've been omitting or manipulating facts, obfuscating the truth, and simply steering around accusations of sockputting without actually denying it.
Put all this together, and all of the sudden your claim of being "a very principled person" starts to sound a bit laughable. Principled people don't do things they know to be wrong, they don't deny responsibility or accountability for having done things that are wrong, and they don't continue to do the wrong thing until they're caught. They don't wait 5 years after being caught to apologize for their wrongdoings. So now after having had time to really digest this apology, it comes off as rather contrite.
None of what I wrote above would prevent me from giving you the benefit of the doubt however, if you did actually start to act as if you are a very principled person. I would suggest coming clean about all of it. The sockpuppeting, the account sales, the self escrow, the doxxing, all of it. If you truly care about your reputation, that would be a good place to start. If you were to come clean, none of these gripes being aired out by Vod and Suchmoon would have any meaning. They become just that; gripes. Once you acknowledge and own them, they no longer have power over you.
Responsibility and accountability; traits of very principled people.
