Deleted posts in the Hardware BFL Thread, Double Standards, and Hypocrisy

[VenusFlyTrap]

I am not an attorney but did a little bit of research. Is Stephen Reid acting against section 7.3 http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_7_3_direct_contact_with_prospective_clients.html by soliciting his business here.

Feel free to discuss. 

[VenusFlyTrap]

He was posting in a Butterfly Labs thread, and derailing, ergo, he had SOMETHING to do with Butterfly Labs, even if it was a passing interest in joining the discussion.

Would you not agree ?

Define harassment ? Would you not agree that taking pre-order monies, not delivering products for months on end, and then antagonizing their customer base on these forums with his legendary bad behavior constitutes harassment ? Economic violence even ?

Lawyer dude decided to poke the bear. He was doxed for his derailing in a BFL thread. He cried harassment when he was unmasked. You came in on a white horse to his rescue.

Is this an accurate read ?

I'm not clear on your line of thinking, and what you are trying to rationalize here.

EDIT: Also, how on God's-green-earth is this thread not considered harassment, and should be deleted by your own standards (Information is hacked, stolen, published for the sake of harassment and intimidation, and allowed to stay up)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325772.5

Very much agree! Beautifully said.

[sbogovac]

I am not an attorney but did a little bit of research. Is Stephen Reid acting against section 7.3 http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_7_3_direct_contact_with_prospective_clients.html by soliciting his business here.

Feel free to discuss.  

Well I be a butterfly! It sure does look like Stephen M. Reid was acting against section 7.3 of the model rules of professional conduct of the American Bar association by soliciting his business here on BCT. (Not surprising as he advocated BFL's lawyers were acting professionally too.) It's a good thing then (for him) that he deleted those posts and got the remainder of these incriminating posts deleted by the moderator...

[sbogovac]

Bitcointalk is putting itself in a very bad light by the apparent conflict of interest and favouring BFL in this.

Yes. I smell BFL wind blowing in this direction. I can see Sonny Vleisides roasting chestnuts by the fire...excited.

Well, at the vary least, he can:

Either feel good because he got his money's worth by hiring Stephen M. Reid to do his bidding here;

Or be delighted that Stephen M. Reid is helping him more for free than some paid "essential employees" are...

[sbogovac]

(Xian01 tells me that this thread was created because of messages I removed in a thread about BFL)

I don't know and don't care about "dox".  I removed a ton of posts that have absolutely nothing, not even any claim, of having to do with BFL, that were basically making it impossible to find the one in ten posts that were actually about BFL.

For the abstract question ... harassing people is not okay, but there are limits to what can be done about it.

I sent you a PM, bud.

You know what would be interesting to know Bruno; whether the service of Stephen M. Reid as an army interrogator crossed paths with the service of a certain Korean army linguist aka Inaba aka BFL_Josh aka Joshua Ryan Zerlan...

That would certainly shed some light on the entanglement of these here "actors" on BCT....

[QuestionAuthority]

(Xian01 tells me that this thread was created because of messages I removed in a thread about BFL)

I don't know and don't care about "dox".  I removed a ton of posts that have absolutely nothing, not even any claim, of having to do with BFL, that were basically making it impossible to find the one in ten posts that were actually about BFL.

For the abstract question ... harassing people is not okay, but there are limits to what can be done about it.

I sent you a PM, bud.

You know what would be interesting to know Bruno; whether the service of Stephen M. Reid as an army interrogator crossed paths with the service of a certain Korean army linguist aka Inaba aka BFL_Josh aka Joshua Ryan Zerlan...

That would certainly shed some light on the entanglement of these here "actors" on BCT....

I don't think I've ever seen Maxwell be overly biased in favor of or against anyone. He's usually pretty balanced in moderation here and IRC. You an I were bullshitting about professionals posting here and it was off topic and got deleted. I know better, it was my mistake. I know to say something about the topic if I'm going to say something off topic and I didnt. He left one of my off topic posts because there was also relevant content in it.

Maxwell can eat shit! (I need to prove I'm not just kissing his ass. lol).

[efx]

I was wondering why the page count is incorrect...


So about this 'line of reasoning',

As already admitted, we do not know of the brush lawyer's exact affiliations. Add in a bit of heavy-handed (yet oddly focused) moderation and suddenly, we are less likely to reach an accurate conclusion.

I suppose certain people have forgotten how a combination of similar moderation and lack of consumer due diligence directly led to BFL being able to perpetrate their operation more successfully. Of course, one may find it rather difficult to blame consumers when potentially relevant information has been suppressed.

 

I am not an attorney but did a little bit of research. Is Stephen Reid acting against section 7.3 http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_7_3_direct_contact_with_prospective_clients.html by soliciting his business here.

Feel free to discuss.  

Well I be a butterfly! It sure does look like Stephen M. Reid was acting against section 7.3 of the model rules of professional conduct of the American Bar association by soliciting his business here on BCT. (Not surprising as he advocated BFL's lawyers were acting professionally too.) It's a good thing then (for him) that he deleted those posts and got the remainder of these incriminating posts deleted by the moderator...

I too be a butterfly.

Anyways, this isn't the first time certain parties have exhibited an idiosyncratic understanding of topic relevance, 'personal attacks' and uninfluenced moderation.

[Gleb Gamow]

(Xian01 tells me that this thread was created because of messages I removed in a thread about BFL)

I don't know and don't care about "dox".  I removed a ton of posts that have absolutely nothing, not even any claim, of having to do with BFL, that were basically making it impossible to find the one in ten posts that were actually about BFL.

For the abstract question ... harassing people is not okay, but there are limits to what can be done about it.

I sent you a PM, bud.

You know what would be interesting to know Bruno; whether the service of Stephen M. Reid as an army interrogator crossed paths with the service of a certain Korean army linguist aka Inaba aka BFL_Josh aka Joshua Ryan Zerlan...

That would certainly shed some light on the entanglement of these here "actors" on BCT....

Or, maybe via their BBS days which overlap.

http://markmail.org/message/azp6mfi7mrsfuqje

- Steve
  - Systems Manager
  - Community Internet Access, Inc.
  - Gallup and Grants, New Mexico

At that time Josh administered BBSs (plural) outta TN.

[efx]

(Xian01 tells me that this thread was created because of messages I removed in a thread about BFL)

I don't know and don't care about "dox".  I removed a ton of posts that have absolutely nothing, not even any claim, of having to do with BFL, that were basically making it impossible to find the one in ten posts that were actually about BFL.

For the abstract question ... harassing people is not okay, but there are limits to what can be done about it.

I sent you a PM, bud.

You know what would be interesting to know Bruno; whether the service of Stephen M. Reid as an army interrogator crossed paths with the service of a certain Korean army linguist aka Inaba aka BFL_Josh aka Joshua Ryan Zerlan...

That would certainly shed some light on the entanglement of these here "actors" on BCT....

I don't think I've ever seen Maxwell be overly biased in favor of or against anyone. He's usually pretty balanced in moderation here and IRC. You an I were bullshitting about professionals posting here and it was off topic and got deleted. I know better, it was my mistake. I know to say something about the topic if I'm going to say something off topic and I didnt. He left one of my off topic posts because there was also relevant content in it.

Maxwell can eat shit! (I need to prove I'm not just kissing his ass. lol).

This isn't the first thread pertaining to gmaxwell's moderation. However, the most immediate incident is the only instance I've seen with possible consequences against revealing relevant information.  Afaik, everything else is just about personal attacks and 'if you remove this, why not this' kinda stuff.  

[Gleb Gamow]

(Xian01 tells me that this thread was created because of messages I removed in a thread about BFL)

I don't know and don't care about "dox".  I removed a ton of posts that have absolutely nothing, not even any claim, of having to do with BFL, that were basically making it impossible to find the one in ten posts that were actually about BFL.

For the abstract question ... harassing people is not okay, but there are limits to what can be done about it.

I sent you a PM, bud.

You know what would be interesting to know Bruno; whether the service of Stephen M. Reid as an army interrogator crossed paths with the service of a certain Korean army linguist aka Inaba aka BFL_Josh aka Joshua Ryan Zerlan...

That would certainly shed some light on the entanglement of these here "actors" on BCT....

I don't think I've ever seen Maxwell be overly biased in favor of or against anyone. He's usually pretty balanced in moderation here and IRC. You an I were bullshitting about professionals posting here and it was off topic and got deleted. I know better, it was my mistake. I know to say something about the topic if I'm going to say something off topic and I didnt. He left one of my off topic posts because there was also relevant content in it.

Maxwell can eat shit! (I need to prove I'm not just kissing his ass. lol).

Earlier today I had a few pleasant exchanges with Max via PMs.

Now, what's this shit I'm reading about Steve Reid violating ABA rules? Guess I need to get up to speed.

Like I've stated, I haven't a clue as to what Steve tried to accomplished by having posts that mentioned his name deleted, for now instead of having ONLY one place where such info could've been found, there's now many, all within 24 hours and now indexed by the search engines to boot. Ergo, he has to be a BFL lawyer, for they only contract geniuses.  

[QuestionAuthority]

(Xian01 tells me that this thread was created because of messages I removed in a thread about BFL)

I don't know and don't care about "dox".  I removed a ton of posts that have absolutely nothing, not even any claim, of having to do with BFL, that were basically making it impossible to find the one in ten posts that were actually about BFL.

For the abstract question ... harassing people is not okay, but there are limits to what can be done about it.

I sent you a PM, bud.

You know what would be interesting to know Bruno; whether the service of Stephen M. Reid as an army interrogator crossed paths with the service of a certain Korean army linguist aka Inaba aka BFL_Josh aka Joshua Ryan Zerlan...

That would certainly shed some light on the entanglement of these here "actors" on BCT....

I don't think I've ever seen Maxwell be overly biased in favor of or against anyone. He's usually pretty balanced in moderation here and IRC. You an I were bullshitting about professionals posting here and it was off topic and got deleted. I know better, it was my mistake. I know to say something about the topic if I'm going to say something off topic and I didnt. He left one of my off topic posts because there was also relevant content in it.

Maxwell can eat shit! (I need to prove I'm not just kissing his ass. lol).

This isn't the first thread pertaining to gmaxwell's moderation. However, the most immediate incident is the only instance I've seen with possible consequences against revealing relevant information.  Afaik, everything else is just about personal attacks and 'if you remove this, why not this' kinda stuff.  

I haven't been in another one but there could be I guess. I just don't see a reason for him to delete anything but off topic stuff which my deletions clearly were.

Are you the same efx from the BTC-e troll box of long ago?

[SaltySpitoon]

I dont know, when I create a theory, I try to look for a reasonable explanation before I start making claims. What would GMaxwell's motivation be for trying to benefit BFL in any way? First off, no one likes BFL, they are the butt of so many jokes in the crypto scene, but aside from the small amounts of enjoyment people get from that, I really haven't seen anyone support BFL since the FPGA days, not counting people with preorders being hopeful. Does GMaxwell have any pending orders with BFL? Could they possibly pay him off enough to sell out?

If you can answer the underlined question with an at least plausible thought, then you have somewhere to start from.

My thoughts at this moment, unless anyone can prove otherwise, which I'd be happy to listen to if you can.
People are harrassing and poking fun at BFL, I've seen the thread its a complete mess. It was removed by Gmaxwell as spam, and the first thing people throw is the corrupt mod/censorship flag. It literally happens every day. Find some sort of motivation for Gmaxwell deleting posts, anything that would serve him or his interests, and you have a case to review. Could a post that had some substance get removed in a complete thread sweep? Yep, but that isn't what is being claimed here.

[VenusFlyTrap]

I am not an attorney but did a little bit of research. Is Stephen Reid acting against section 7.3 http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_7_3_direct_contact_with_prospective_clients.html by soliciting his business here.

Feel free to discuss.  

Well I be a butterfly! It sure does look like Stephen M. Reid was acting against section 7.3 of the model rules of professional conduct of the American Bar association by soliciting his business here on BCT. (Not surprising as he advocated BFL's lawyers were acting professionally too.) It's a good thing then (for him) that he deleted those posts and got the remainder of these incriminating posts deleted by the moderator...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=492749.0

What is even funnier that Stephen Mark Reid (Brush242) is having a legal signature attached to his pseudonym.  

[sbogovac]

[...]What would GMaxwell's motivation be for trying to benefit BFL in any way?[...]

Let me start by emphasizing this is purely speculation, but to give an example of "GMaxwell's motivation [...] for trying to benefit BFL in any way":

a. BFL has spend a substantial amount of advertising on BCT;
b. BFL has laundered millions through Bitpay;
c. once the "BFL fucked us over again" topic started finding more and more evidence of that this "lawyerdude" shows up intentionally derailing the thread;
d. dude gets doxed;
e. GMaxwell all of a sudden (yes, sudden) starts moderating the bejeezers out of cet topic...

Considering the amount of doxxing previously going on by BFL representatives (and that being allowed by the mod.) this seems highly suspicious.

So maybe BCT in general, or GMaxwell in particular still have something to gain from either BFL or Bitpay  

Again: SPECULATION, but motivation enough for you?

[SaltySpitoon]

[...]What would GMaxwell's motivation be for trying to benefit BFL in any way?[...]

Let me start by emphasizing this is purely speculation, but to give an example of "GMaxwell's motivation [to] be for trying to benefit BFL in any way":

a. BFL has spend a substantial amount of advertising on BCT;
b. BFL has laundered millions through Bitpay;
c. once the "BFL fucked us over again" topic started finding more and more evidence of that this "lawyerdude" shows up intentionally derailing the thread;
d. dude gets doxed;
e. GMaxwell all of a sudden (yes, sudden) starts moderating the bejeezers out of cet topic...

Considering the amount of doxxing previously going on by BFL representatives (althoug you seem to find that insignificant) this seems highly suspitious.

So maybe BTC in general, or GMaxwell in particular still have something to gain from either BFL or Bitpay  

Again: SPECULATION, but motivation enough for you?

Well, I can answer a few of those for you, others I don't know.

A. You are right, BFL has spent a substantial amount of advertising on BCT, not in the last 6+ months, but you are correct. Back when they were advertising and this came up very frequently, mainly about corruption of Theymos, I did a calculation. BFL's ad purchases equaled an additional $1.17 per month paid to a moderator. So pretty good indicator that no moderators were into BFL for the money.

B. No idea if GMaxwell has any connections to Bitpay, I wouldn't necessarily call that a very plausible thought, but its not outside of the realm of reality I suppose.

C. Lawyerdude intentionally derailing the thread, doesn't that give reason to delete his posts?

D. Moderators do not remove Dox. The thinking behind this is that Dox tend to be public information. If you can obtain it without breaking into somewhere to get the information, its public info, ie phone numbers, name, addresses, etc all stuff you can find with a google search or in a phone book if those still exist.

E. I'm not sure what his motivations are, but I've seen it more than a few times. A thread will start out with a controvesial topic, proponents and opponents clash, people that are bored get involved for giggles, a web of spam and insults occurs, it gets exponentially worse to the point where the only way to handle it is a clean sweep through the entire thread.

That said, besides being a moderator GMaxwell is a Bitcoin core developer, BFL hasn't been the best shining example of why people should get involved in Bitcoin, so as far as I can still tell there isn't any reason for Gmaxwell to want to help BFL. That is unless he has some connection to Bitpay as you said as a possible option, which I don't think he does, but I do give you points for writing out feasible reasons, rather than that GMaxwell is actually an alien that probed Josh once, and liked what he found, so he now has a foundness for BFL or something like that.

[sbogovac]

[...]What would GMaxwell's motivation be for trying to benefit BFL in any way?[...]

Let me start by emphasizing this is purely speculation, but to give an example of "GMaxwell's motivation [to] be for trying to benefit BFL in any way":

a. BFL has spend a substantial amount of advertising on BCT;
b. BFL has laundered millions through Bitpay;
c. once the "BFL fucked us over again" topic started finding more and more evidence of that this "lawyerdude" shows up intentionally derailing the thread;
d. dude gets doxed;
e. GMaxwell all of a sudden (yes, sudden) starts moderating the bejeezers out of cet topic...

Considering the amount of doxxing previously going on by BFL representatives (althoug you seem to find that insignificant) this seems highly suspitious.

So maybe BTC in general, or GMaxwell in particular still have something to gain from either BFL or Bitpay  

Again: SPECULATION, but motivation enough for you?

Well, I can answer a few of those for you, others I don't know.

A. You are right, BFL has spent a substantial amount of advertising on BCT, not in the last 6+ months, but you are correct. Back when they were advertising and this came up very frequently, mainly about corruption of Theymos, I did a calculation. BFL's ad purchases equaled an additional $1.17 per month paid to a moderator. So pretty good indicator that no moderators were into BFL for the money.

B. No idea if GMaxwell has any connections to Bitpay, I wouldn't necessarily call that a very plausible thought, but its not outside of the realm of reality I suppose.

C. Lawyerdude intentionally derailing the thread, doesn't that give reason to delete his posts?

D. Moderators do not remove Dox. The thinking behind this is that Dox tend to be public information. If you can obtain it without breaking into somewhere to get the information, its public info, ie phone numbers, name, addresses, etc all stuff you can find with a google search or in a phone book if those still exist.

E. I'm not sure what his motivations are, but I've seen it more than a few times. A thread will start out with a controvesial topic, proponents and opponents clash, people that are bored get involved for giggles, a web of spam and insults occurs, it gets exponentially worse to the point where the only way to handle it is a clean sweep through the entire thread.

That said, besides being a moderator GMaxwell is a Bitcoin core developer, BFL hasn't been the best shining example of why people should get involved in Bitcoin, so as far as I can still tell there isn't any reason for Gmaxwell to want to help BFL. That is unless he has some connection to Bitpay as you said as a possible option, which I don't think he does, but I do give you points for writing out feasible reasons, rather than that GMaxwell is actually an alien that probed Josh once, and liked what he found, so he now has a foundness for BFL or something like that.

  Thank you.

OT & PS Now that this is all "said and done"; I - personally - think this topic has achieved its purpose: meta-communication on the part of recent modding at the BFL thread. And although some of my posts were deleted too, I must say most of those were deleted with good cause (off topic), but I must also say that the reactions here reflect the "rightful" indignation of posts deleted that were on topic. But I am more than inclined to believe this was more because of GMaxwell's "unfamiliarity" with the thread than "ill-intent"...

[Xian01]

D. Moderators do not remove Dox.

Except for gmaxwell, who removed the dox in the Butterfly Labs thread, called it "cleaning up 10 pages of derailment", resulting in this meta thread being created, right ?

[sbogovac]

D. Moderators do not remove Dox.

Except for gmaxwell, who removed the dox in the Butterfly Labs thread, called it "cleaning up 10 pages of derailment", resulting in this meta thread being created, right ?

I myself am inclined to think this was one of those "unfamiliarity" with the thread kind of things, rather than "ill-intent".

But it would be interesting to see what Gregory has to say for himself... 

[QuestionAuthority]

D. Moderators do not remove Dox.

Except for gmaxwell, who removed the dox in the Butterfly Labs thread, called it "cleaning up 10 pages of derailment", resulting in this meta thread being created, right ?

I myself am inclined to think this was one of those "unfamiliarity" with the thread kind of things, rather than "ill-intent".

But it would be interesting to see what Gregory has to say for himself... 

He already said it. He won't be back. If he does come back to this thread it won't be to say, "oh yeah, I didn't read through them all carefully enough so I deleted things I shouldn't have because I'm unfamiliar with the topic". lol

[gmaxwell]

Except for gmaxwell, who removed the dox in the Butterfly Labs thread, called it "cleaning up 10 pages of derailment", resulting in this meta thread being created, right ?

As you yourself admitted, the posts had nothing to do with BFL other than by virtue of being posted in that thread.  I did also invite any complaints to come here, rather than to continue offtopic on that thread.

Generally when a thread is going offtopic we'll do a cleanup on the last couple pages to push it back onto the rails. There is no use in cleaning up hundreds of pages of past topic transgressions which no one is reading anymore. Many of the points I removed also had no connection to the (also offtopic) doxing posts.

SaltySpitoon, with due respect: Thanks for your support, but you're also confused. The posts in question were not related to BFL except by virtue of having been (_incorrectly_) posted in a BFL thread, and none of the posts themselves claimed to be related to BFL.  By defending my (very much real) non-connection to and non-motivation to help BFL you're just making it sound like I removed something to the betterment of BFL, which I think cannot be sanely alleged. (Quite the contrary: The mass of inscrutable, unprofessional, and irrelevant rubbish on that thread makes BFL's angry customers look bad and separates them from actual information which could be used to improve their situation).

He already said it. He won't be back. If he does come back to this thread it won't be to say, "oh yeah, I didn't read through them all carefully enough so I deleted things I shouldn't have because I'm unfamiliar with the topic". lol

It's quite likely that I deleted plenty of more borderline material (like the posts with nothing but pictures of chickens) that I might not have deleted as single isolated posts. This is the norm for pushing a thread back on topic. I used a similar approach (periodic aggressive removals) with reasonable success in some of the prior KNC threads.