Haw Haw Haw, tell your friend that he deserves this.
No one should succesfully get away with building a whole music collection in WMA format.

This is not a helpful comment, but I feel better by posting my joy of your misfortune.

Here we go again...

You're right, it's not. It's a troll.

Do you remember what I told you about this? Guess not.

Anyway, goodbye.

..the only mistake this guy made was choosing to encrypt his music collection, without backing up the security keys needed to decrypt them.

Uhm.. I kind of agree that those who use WMA are on the path to disaster. MadiZone is kind of a harsh guy, but really nice overall. He's a friend of mine.

By the way, this is my first post, but I've been reading this forum for ages, I just never spoke up.

I registered cause Madi IM'ed me and told me he was banned. Just reminded me that you guys existed. Check the IP's, his ISP is nothing like mine. You'll find I'm on adelphia.net, which is US only, and he lives in Denmark. You have to use your powers effectivley.

Wouldn't a tool to break the encryption without owning the original key be illegal? Hence non-discussable?

I have to say, banning Madi for that post, another blunt & heavy handed decision from Dibby.

I have warned MadiZone on probably about 10 different occassions now. He's had more than enough leeway as far as I'm concerned. I told him to stop trolling or he would be banned. He chose to continue trolling, so now he'll have to deal with the consequences of that.

Yes, it would be illegal, which is why I don't stand behind WMA or WMV. I do think it's applicable to talk about because there may be other ways around it, though I doubt it. Microsoft would like to believe users never format or get new PC's. I don't get it myself.

And the banning awas heavy-handed, in my opinion, but being a friend, I'm not really allowed to say. I've never banned more than one person in my many days as an admin, but to each his own, as the site owners have final say.

So what am I supposed to do? Close every thread that MadiZone decides to turn into a flamefest with his comments? Warn him every single time he decides to post something like this and make myself look irresponsible and overly passive as an admin? Sorry, but I think not. I don't have time to babysit every misfit on this forum just because they can't be arsed to show a little civility and respect for the rules.

As I already have said, I have been warning MadiZone for months now. I've also had multiple private discussions with him via PM. It usually seems that we reach an agreement, and then the next week he goes and does it again. Heh, I specifically warned him about this 2 days ago for example and, lo and behold, he completely disregards what I told him.

Really, I wonder how some of you guys can honestly feel that I haven't given him more than enough chances here. As far as most admins go, I think that I'm more than fair and willing to give someone a second or even third chance. However, my patience is not infinite, and in the end, I have many more things to worry about (including the rest of the people on the forums) than just trying to keep one person from disrupting the peace of the entire board, especially when he's not doing so for a utilitarian cause or so.

So quick to condemn those whose jobs you don't have to deal with, yet you offer no compelling insight into how you would have handled the situation or even why I was wrong. To top it off, you end with a cute little insult.

Good job.

On this very forum I entered such a discussion, which I started, and was flamed as heck.
(Untill some newbie finally gave an intelligent response and settled the issue)
And causing tension between Jan S. and rjamorim, for which I feel guilty.

Then two days ago, in a rage, I also entered such a discussion.
I again got flamed and warned by Dibrom.
That isn't such a big deal, but in my rage I also disgraced my Lord and brothers in Christ.
I feel terribly sorry for that and wish that my posts in that thread could just be wiped off this board.

So believe me when I say:
I do not want to discuss any moral, legal, religious or other philosophical issues on this or any other board.

Have you seriously been an admin for a while? I'm not questioning you, but if you run a forum this big, you have to learn to relax a little, or your ban-list will fill up really fast, and you'll find that all your members have moved into the banned group. Then you'll be sitting in an empty forum justifying your decisions to a non-existant memberbase. Yes, as admin, you can do whatever you want, and if anyone says anything, you tell them to shut up, and they have to. That's the power of the administrator. But your image to others is really important. if they see you passing off tyrannical despotism as typical rhetoric, people will speak up, you'll rationalize, they'll shut up, because they wanna stay in your memberlist. Rinse, repeat. The typical user doesn't understand why these things go on, or how it works behind the scenes, but just because someone doesn't sugarcoat their opinion, that does not mean they should get tossed into the ban-basket. We're not all politically correct, nor very nice. This is the real world.

Hehe, you know I'm a lame ass

I didn't know about all the private discussions and whatnot, I assume and assume badly. But tbh, I would of either banned him after the major ruckus with the religion+SARS, or left it for now. Banning someone for saying what most people think about WMA and the digital 'rights' issue seems a bit of a cop out.

In comparison to the patience Oleg has recieved for behaving like a total cretmo, it seems unbalanced to me

I'm 100% with you on this, I've seen you warn Madizone about 3 times in the last two days, and he keeps trolling over and over

Quite frankly name calling is a real childish way to show ones anger, and Dibrom has expresed he does not want to be called anything but Dibrom

I think with these statements you've shown that you truly have no real knowledge of this community or me as an administrator.

You want to talk about heavy handed administration and banning? Try visiting just about any other popular forum these days and see how quickly people get booted for even looking at management the wrong way.

To date, we've probably only banned about 6 people on these forums. I've successfully defused many issues and have for the most part kept the signal to noise ratio of this forum higher than just about any other in comparison.

Seriously, if you want to make some judgements or preach to me like you think I'm doing something wrong, then it would do you well to at least get a clue first.



Oh definitely. This is surely the way I act. As most members of this forum know, if you even bother to disagree with me, you'll instantly be banned. I love to shut people up after all.



Again, care to correlate your rhetoric with some actual occurances here? Or are you just talking out of your ass?

I'm very well acquanted with people not "sugercoating" their opinions on things, and being perfectly fine with that. In fact I welcome that. However, because someone decides to be an asshole or a troll does not make them correct but simply uncordeal; you still have to show merit in your discussion and in the points you make. This is the problem with MadiZone, he doesn't do that. Instead he posts overzealous and irrational comments which are designed to agrivate people (and possible boost his ego).

Case in point is that he even admitted that his post in this thread served no purpose but he posted it because it "made him feel better", and what's worse, it made him feel better by deriding another user. There is no merit in this, sugercoating or not, and I simply will not tolerate it. The rules have been laid out clearly and I had warned him, so it was not as if he did not have a choice in this matter.



Oh please. Now you're going to lecture me on political correctness. You really have no clue at all about my philosophy or modus operandi as an administrator at all...

Oh, and yes, of course this is the real world, and in the real world, there are consequences for breaking the rules and not heeding repeated warnings.

Anger, lol

I'm a little too laid back to be angry at a forum other than my own. I remember somebody having a battle with Dibrom, can't remember who... and terms like "offensive twisting of names" were used to describe "Dibby". To me, that's comedy Lighten up

Angry would involve a lot of *ing cos I don't express myself in big words when pissed off

I was being facetious, Dibrom. I've been around here for a while. Anyways, I can tell you're one of those folks who is infallable and / or always right, so I won't bother trying, I have enough of those kinds of people to deal with in real life. These people always take other comments and twist them around to make the original commenter sound like the one who is being an ass. Yes, I always sound like I'm lecturing, because I give lectures at my local college, and I write for several sources. The minute someone stops using leetspeak or starts using words of more than 6 letters, they're lecturing and being high-and-mighty. Sigh. I mean, I could have corrected your spelling and grammar, but that would have just made it worse. Point is, I don't agree with you. I voiced my opinion. No one listened. Democracy at work. Thank you all for coming.

you are absolutely wrong. I've been in this forum for about six months and Dibrom is THE most tolerant Admin, have you ever participated in other forums? You must abide the rules, they are there to stop chaos, asking Dibrom not to ban Madizone is like asking a cop not to arrest a criminal that was caught redhanded and confessed.

I didn't say he wasn't tolerant, except in this case. I just said he was jaded in voicing himself. Two different things. And yes, I frequent more than 20 forums, more than 10 of which I am an admin or mod at.

If someone gives several warnings before banningand the offender continues with his/her behaviour I consider him tolerant. He was tolerant in this case MadiZone got his 3 strikes, and now he's out.

I can't think of any culture where twisting a person's name (especially one with whom you are not well-aquainted) is not considered belittleing, offensive, and just plain rude. Doing so to Dibrom is completely inappropriate in this context, especially considering all that he does/has done for this community. Show a little respect.

I would just love to not post this, but dude if you mod/admin at 10 forums and on any of those you banned someone would you like it if someone,anyone, who never posted on your forum came along and told you you were wrong?
And the fact that you are Madi's friend certainly doesn't help your case.

Regardless if dibrom is tolerant or not, why do you think he would or should even listen to you?
All your posts here are in madi's defense (or virtually content-less remarks on the off-topic section).

dude I would just keep quiet if I were you. Have a little respect for other people's forums.

You mod 10 forums, let madi go there were he is certain not to be banned.

Edit: I think this thread should be splitsed (and I wouldn't mind the second half to be deleted, but I degress)

Of course I dislike it when a member disagrees, but I respect their opinion. And sometimes have even reversed my decisions when I realized I came on too strong. Most admins think that's a sign of weakness, and refuse to do that. That's really how [H]ardforums went to hell.

Madizone...

Brilliant use of an alias! Even your grammar and spelling have improved. I thought about doing the same thing but I'm so darned well behaved and polite, that I could never get banned (x'ing my fingers). So I'm sticking with xen, xenno, xen-uno, and 10^-27. Don't even think about taking one of them...they're TM'd by me.

You so crazy .

xen-uno

My, everyone thinks I'm MadiZone. Ask your local admin, my ISP is Adelphia, and you cannot run proxies through them. Madi's an internet friend I met on a forum called Hardware-Pacers that is now long gone. He and I run the GeekGossip.net forums, now. I usually peruse under the moniker 'SailorBob', but chose my favorite videogame character instead. As a matter of fact, he just went to bed. It's late in Denmark, but the night is young in Ohio.

Not the greatest analogy in my opinon. I feel pretty new around here but I thought i would like to add my my thoughts.

We each have our own opionons and obviously sometimes we differ on what we believe whether it be religious, politics, or lame settings, but most of the people should know in communities there is an expectation of a certain level of behaviour, and like societies we have people who's job it is to enforce that level, namely administrators (ie Dibrom). I think people should have enough repect (or at least tact) for other member not to insult them or laugh at them because they made a bad choice.

I think the vast majority of the people are considerate enough of other members and I'm happy to be a member.

How convenient. I suppose it's nice to be able to backpeddle your way out of the conversation without feeling a compromise in your principles.



Nice cop out. Since you don't want to deal with the mess that you stepped in, it's easier to blame me and claim that I'm trying to be "always right". Of course, you don't qualfiy any of this nonsense... that would take a little too much effort I suppose.



Or perhaps they simply prefer to defend their point instead of letting someone who obviously has no idea what they are speaking about, or whom are being "facetious" in their sophistical attempt to gain support. I suppose I should congatulate you on your clever shirking of all responsibility in your comments here, but unfortunately I prefer to take debate a little more seriously than that and so I don't think it would be appropriate. Nice try though.



Good for you. Is this your attempt to imply qualified authority?



It's rather sad that you feel this way. I have a hard time imagining how you could ever have a useful debate with this attitude. What's worse is that you have this attitude and you're supposedly involved with lecturing in academia. God help us... (oh, and that was a figure of speech for the religious amongst us).



Ah, the old grammar trick Good one as well. Fortunately, I think that most people here are capable of realizing that the crux of an argument is not dependant upon spelling for validity in point. Others might even realize that this is a rather informal debate where spelling and grammar issues are not always so necessarily catered to. I'm glad that you took the time to think about the matter though, however flawed your resulting conclusion might have been.



Oh, I listened. The fact is, you were wrong.

Simply because you disagree does not necessarily mean that you have a valid point to make. You seem to be confused on this matter, as you also seemed to think that simply because MadiZone decided to be a troll, contrary to common behavior, that he must have had some valid point to make too. This is incorrect.



Care to tell us what democracy has to do with anything here? I never claimed that this board was ruled democratically. Furthermore, democracy or "mob rule", similarly to the issue I mentioned above, does not provide for automatic correctness.

There really is no free ride here. If you can't make a valid point and qualfiy or justify yourself then you will not be taken seriously. So far all you've done is rant about how wrong I've been on this matter, yet you have really shown no inside knowledge of the matter or even demonstrated a familiarity with either my own philosophy or the long time workings of this board.

well, I was never good at analogies (Damn you, bloody literature teacher) but that was exacty what I meant

I don't know if he's a MadiZone II or not, but he seems just as strange as the other one

Point is, I don't agree with you. You voiced your opinion. No one cared. "Real life" at work. Thank you, now go back to the 10 forums you moderate.

I doubt it, MadiZone was just IP-banned, I suppose in a grand experiment to see if I would dissapear.

As for your comments, Dibrom, at least I admitted being facetious, rather then living under the false pretense of actually presenting yourself in a respectable manner. The staggered quotes, the insult at every single sentance... classic. This reminds me of about a million other debates I have been in. I don't feel I have qualified authority, but I feel that I have experience, at least enough not to be immediatley dismissed. The reason I didn't pull out the 'Grammar trick' (I applaud you for not spelling it 'Grammer', that's a pet peeve of mine, dunno why) is because it just serves to piss people off, but they never respect that bad spelling and grammar piss me off. I wouldn't expect them to, this is the internet, after all. All I'm saying is that I think your decision smells, and I think MadiZone is a nice guy, but just like all of us, he likes hiding behind his monitor, where none of his actions have equal or opposite reactions. All of us are guilty of that.

@ El Barto - nice try but I failed english too many times - Something I just copied out of some handbook on becoming a UN moderator

@numberlock - actually Dr. Mario's alias

I understand your concerns. But I have been here since practically the beginning. I've seen many ugly threads, even participated in a few flamewars myself (unfortunately).

But I have to say that Dibrom is a GREAT admin. There's a fine line between tolerance and chaos and Dib walks this line superbly, IMHO.

thats the usual order of things.
troll gets a warning, troll ignores the warning, troll gets banned, troll returns under different name/ip to bitch at forum admins.
IMO, MadiZone was a very annoying person and i'm happy to see that he's finally banned. apparently Dr. Mario, or rather MadiZone v2.0 is going the same way.
and yes, i consider Dibrom the most tolerant and "flameretardant" forum admin i've ever cooperated with.

Oh my.... no one listens. i would like to henceforth assure you that I am not MadiZone, or Niels Christenssen. I do not live in Denmark, I don't speak Danish, and I don't like cats. My real name is Daryl Spaulding, I live in Ohio, I speak English and some Japanese, and I can prove it, but I don't like to give away too much info on myself over the internet for obvious reasons. I figured our completley different manner of speech would tip you off, but I guess not. if you have a better way for me to prove otherwise, I would be glad to.

Soboj ostat'sya dol'she...
=
To stay myself longer...


That sig tells it all!

Presto!

http://forum.tech-pc.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=16316

It's my sig everywhere. I just like that phrase.

or better:

http://geekgossip.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=694

A thread in which both MadiZone and I posted, and I use that same sig. Really, we aren't the same guy.

LOL
Just kidding man.

It seems as though you are not MadiZone after all, or at least you are not in germany.

Looking at your site and because Adelphia is american. Also if you were MadiZone you wouldn't put a big 'Desgned by MadiZone' note on your site.

Unless you've got multiple personalities in which case your biggest concern wouldn't be postin in a forum.





OT:
I can't believe there is still people this stupid, From the Thread you mentioned eariler.

He helped me with the webdesign. That's what he goes to school for. I'm a writer and a freelance artist, hence the unfinished webcomic site. I'm glad that got sorted. I will not deny I am a long-time friend of his, nor that he posts from multiple IP's because of his weird kollegium apartment line, but all his IP's start with 80.xx.xxx.xxx, wheres all of mine start with 68.xx.xxx.xxx. I didn't like the decison, I posted my opinion, that's really all there is to it.

As for the link from that thread, I totally agree. I read it in awe. It's hard to believe that out of a billion sperm, his was the fastest. I was reading the SARS / homosexuality debate the other day as well. I would have registered and commented then, but it was over before I ever saw it.

Dr Mario,

Since you are something of a grammar and spelling maven, I'm sure that you would want to be corrected on the following points rather than to persist in error:

dissapear > disappear
rather then > rather than
sentance > sentence
immediatley > immediately

and from your previous and following posts,

infallable > infallible
nonexistant > nonexistent
completley > completely
to henceforth assure you > to assure you henceforth (Split infinitive)

No need to thank me -- I'm happy to be of assistance.

Oh no, I do thank you. Of course, you were tying to be biting and ironic, yet you do not know that I've been awake for more than 30 hours, so my spelling may be a little lax. I'm suprised I can string together sentences. Plus, I frequently spell things in the british sense, so sometimes thats misconstrewed as misspelling, though there are no examples of that in your post. Plus, I happen to like split infinitives. I have no idea why, but I think they sound right in certain instances.

Love, luck, and lollipops
Dr. Mario

Dr. Mario: I'm pretty sure that all the HA admins/mods agree with the banning of Madizone.
He has been warned far more than 3 times both publicly and privately during many months. In this sense I'd say he has been enjoying special priviledges of not being banned.

Madizone might be a nice guy and your friend, but he has broken the rules and received numerous warnings. A community this big must be kept in control. This also means that continuous useless and troll-posts aimed to fire flamewars are not appreciated, this is further emphasized when a site keeps growing bigger and bigger.

I don't know which forum you have been administrating, but I'd say that it was time to do the cleaning here. Dibrom did it, because he cares about the well-being of the community and quality of the discussion very much, just as I.

Sorry that your friend got banned, but it was the right decision.

Thread closed.