Ethics of Review Incentives

[Blue]

All decent forums also have rules against defammatory remarks, such as your continued use of the word "shill". NP Staff is already condemning such use of language, and they know you're self-interests

You seem to be blind without reading any of the posts that clearly demonstrate counterevidence. But of course, you've got no "incentive" in being neutral here, propagating more useless rubbish is your job. Unfortunately, this type of behaviour speaks volumes about the three of you who continually try to spread these rumors on the basis of jealousy, and in spite of having no real evidence yourselves.

A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services, who pretends no association to the seller and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage other potential customers, unaware of the set-up, to purchase said goods or services.

It is not defammatory if it is true.
This thread contains a preponderance of evidence that you offer incentives for posting positive reviews of your company.
You continue to deny what we already know. Why will you not just admit your mistakes and move on. The issue isn't going to just fade away as long as you refuse to be honest.
One of two situations can be overlooked but in this thread alone there are dozens of situations that you are unable to explain away.

My only "self interest" is that hosts are on a level playing field. When hosts are dishonest and use shill tactics and who knows what other tactics I can and I will speak out against it. It's called protecting the industry.

No one here is jealous of you, I can assure you of that. What we are is angry that you continue these methods and then lie about the fact.

 

[Senad]

A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services, who pretends no association to the seller and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage other potential customers, unaware of the set-up, to purchase said goods or services.

It is not defammatory if it is true.
This thread contains a preponderance of evidence that you offer incentives for posting positive reviews of your company.
You continue to deny what we already know. Why will you not just admit your mistakes and move on. The issue isn't going to just fade away as long as you refuse to be honest.
One of two situations can be overlooked but in this thread alone there are dozens of situations that you are unable to explain away.

My only "self interest" is that hosts are on a level playing field. When hosts are dishonest and use shill tactics and who knows what other tactics I can and I will speak out against it. It's called protecting the industry.

No one here is jealous of you, I can assure you of that. What we are is angry that you continue these methods and then lie about the fact.

Interesting that he is now not coming to HD but instead he's PMing me lies at NamePros. Anad I will quote you this time but if you read this stop the PM BS game and post what's on your mind. And I call these lies as I will pick them apart here:

Hello,

Just wanted to inform of you this as a short reply to what has been added to HD's thread:

-Dub/Steven told me when we initially hired him that he was 19 years of age. It was on that basis we hired him first, and then considered his experience and skills. Also to clarify, we do pay hourly, we recently hired a 2nd level technicial specialist who worked at HostGator & HostingZoom in the past.

-The job offering thread on Namepros is rather outdated, and we have since changed our management and policies (including many firings/hirings which explains how the newsletter leak may have went out).

-Although the apparent newsletter that went out (so far the customers we asked who were with us since day 1, said they did not receive it, instead they only received the official weblink version on our site) contained the remark of incentives, we neither offered incentives nor $NP/PayPal/otherwise to customers for reviews. I do admit we linked to webhostingjury as a place for reviews quite freely/noticeably on our website, but did not force and/or actively encourage the posting of reviews. The WHJ link was advertised on our sig, ad posts, and website at that time. No incentives were given for these reviews, as they are also independently verified by WHJ staff to ensure accuracy. As all customers get the same public messages we send, many of the customers are staff from this forum (as I've said before): they do not recall getting such a newsletter and they are ready to clarify that they did not get any incentives for posting reviews in the present or in the past.

-Some confidential details about our company were provided to jmweb as he expressed interest in buying us out. Unfortunately, on the HD thread he did not mention such a context, and instead alluded that we divulged such information. FYI, the customer figure number he quoted is not the current level.

Those are the major points I wanted to clarify. Once again, we do regret the way things turned out from the beginning, but we're working on moving ahead for clearing up the mess that was started.

Thanks for your time, feel free to add this if you wish to the HD thread

-Dub/Steven told me when we initially hired him that he was 19 years of age. It was on that basis we hired him first, and then considered his experience and skills. Also to clarify, we do pay hourly, we recently hired a 2nd level technicial specialist who worked at HostGator & HostingZoom in the past.

1) BS story. He clearly posted this on different forums with his age. If you don't hire under age people then why is he still part of your staff? Your story is again attempting to side-step the issue.

-The job offering thread on Namepros is rather outdated, and we have since changed our management and policies (including many firings/hirings which explains how the newsletter leak may have went out).

A few months ago is not out of date...

-Although the apparent newsletter that went out (so far the customers we asked who were with us since day 1, said they did not receive it, instead they only received the official weblink version on our site) contained the remark of incentives, we neither offered incentives nor $NP/PayPal/otherwise to customers for reviews. I do admit we linked to webhostingjury as a place for reviews quite freely/noticeably on our website, but did not force and/or actively encourage the posting of reviews. The WHJ link was advertised on our sig, ad posts, and website at that time. No incentives were given for these reviews, as they are also independently verified by WHJ staff to ensure accuracy. As all customers get the same public messages we send, many of the customers are staff from this forum (as I've said before): they do not recall getting such a newsletter and they are ready to clarify that they did not get any incentives for posting reviews in the present or in the past.

Since most of your staff are at NP do you not possibly THINK that these staff/customers, whatever you want to call them for your own benefit now will not say anything? As dubs stated in his last post. He doesn't want to be out of a job. Could it possibly be that you sent that incentive newletters on a random basis? Possible and likely? Do most customer read the newletters or even remember what they read? Of course not. Also YOU asking YOUR customers means nothing as we have shown that you can clearly lie flat out. The apparent newsletter? You really like to live in your own lies do you not?

-Some confidential details about our company were provided to jmweb as he expressed interest in buying us out. Unfortunately, on the HD thread he did not mention such a context, and instead alluded that we divulged such information. FYI, the customer figure number he quoted is not the current level.

Yes customer numbers change frequently in this business? So what's the point?

Those are the major points I wanted to clarify. Once again, we do regret the way things turned out from the beginning, but we're working on moving ahead for clearing up the mess that was started.

Good luck because you will now more than ever need it.


As for me, I am done. I have proved my point and I deserve a nice long rest from this. Evidence was proven, accusations were proven, and the customers now have a right to know and see the actions of a host.

 

[PolurNET]

Interesting that he is now not coming to HD but instead he's PMing me lies at NamePros. Anad I will quote you this time but if you read this stop the PM BS game and post what's on your mind. And I call these lies as I will pick them apart here:

I've PM'd on Namepros as I logged in from there initially after I read here. I now come here and will post the following reply-my last one

1) BS story. He clearly posted this on different forums with his age. If you don't hire under age people then why is he still part of your staff? Your story is again attempting to side-step the issue.

I did not hire him from those threads. I only joined recently at FWS, and knew Steve from Namepros only. He was a customer @ pnet at that time as well. We hired him only when he sold erudnet, not previously. Since I only know about his age now after you quoted the above thread, we will take action.

A few months ago is not out of date...[/quotes]

Things change considerably since then, and did for us. As I said, we since introduced per hour employment, and thus shifted our previous policies.

Since most of your staff are at NP do you not possibly THINK that these staff/customers, whatever you want to call them for your own benefit now will not say anything?

I said many customers are NP Staff (mods/admins), not the fact that our staff is mostly from NP (which is another fact). Since they were with us from day one, they likely have more credibility in vouching for us.

As dubs stated in his last post. He doesn't want to be out of a job. Could it possibly be that you sent that incentive newletters on a random basis?

Random? jmweb only provided one, and if there were others, feel free to post it as well. That one wasn't even logged/recorded on our newsletter dispatch script, only after jmweb told me on MSN in December about it. In spite of him getting ahold of it, those statements such as holding contests, offering a free domain, etc. were not held and we never had any contest from the beginning even till now.

Possible and likely? Do most customer read the newletters or even remember what they read? Of course not. Also YOU asking YOUR customers means nothing as we have shown that you can clearly lie flat out. The apparent newsletter? You really like to live in your own lies do you not?

As they had to change nameservers and such, some of them do remember what they received. I've got the forwarded newsletter messages from the ones I've asked so far. They don't match the one jm posted, but again for real evidence, the members of Namepros who are our customers, would likely be willing to clarify if they received any sort of incentives for their reviews and/or comments. Most of them are the ones who also posted on WHJ, so obviously it would be the best choice to ask them directly. As something coming from me is not credible, but if it's coming from them, I'm sure it's more realistic

Yes customer numbers change frequently in this business? So what's the point?

It was mentioned that we released company information quite "freely" to jm, when indeed he was ready to make an offer. We did not present an NDA, or any formalities, however, the context of releasing such information would be useful to know.

 

[Blue]

I have another question here.
On this page you have listed as a support staff Steven Perks, aka Dub, aka Inod, aka misdubs.
On webhostingjury one of your rave "reviews" is done by a Steven Perks. Just another coincidence?

As for hiring a minor I don't know what is worse, the fact that you would hire someone without any documentation, (are you not claiming taxes or paying GST or paying EI etc), or the fact that you would keep on an employee who lied to you about his age.
You are trusting your clients to someone who lied to you on a job application?

 

[PolurNET]

I have another question here.
On this page you have listed as a support staff Steven Perks, aka Dub, aka Inod, aka misdubs.
On webhostingjury one of your rave "reviews" is done by a Steven Perks. Just another coincidence?

I mentioned above he was a customer of ours -- this was before he joined us and sold erudnet to us (it was sold to another company initially, but turned out that guy was running a scam [exovian inc. or such] so we decided to help him out by buying the site and his server that housed his clients.

As for hiring a minor I don't know what is worse, the fact that you would hire someone without any documentation, (are you not claiming taxes or paying GST or paying EI etc), or the fact that you would keep on an employee who lied to you about his age.
You are trusting your clients to someone who lied to you on a job application?

He didn't really formally apply like the others, I decided to take him on as he was our customer and demonstrated his experience with the technical aspects of hosting. But yes, we usually do background checks, this was the one exception, and now we're aware

 

[Senad]

I've PM'd on Namepros as I logged in from there initially after I read here. I now come here and will post the following reply-my last one



I did not hire him from those threads. I only joined recently at FWS, and knew Steve from Namepros only. He was a customer @ pnet at that time as well. We hired him only when he sold erudnet, not previously. Since I only know about his age now after you quoted the above thread, we will take action.

Good glad to hear it but it is also your responsibility to do a background check on anybody you hire. Obviously you have not done so but I hope you will in the future.

Things change considerably since then, and did for us. As I said, we since introduced per hour employment, and thus shifted our previous policies.

I said many customers are NP Staff (mods/admins), not the fact that our staff is mostly from NP (which is another fact). Since they were with us from day one, they likely have more credibility in vouching for us.

This still does not make any excuse for lying to the WHT community does it?

Random? jmweb only provided one, and if there were others, feel free to post it as well. That one wasn't even logged/recorded on our newsletter dispatch script, only after jmweb told me on MSN in December about it. In spite of him getting ahold of it, those statements such as holding contests, offering a free domain, etc. were not held and we never had any contest from the beginning even till now.

As they had to change nameservers and such, some of them do remember what they received. I've got the forwarded newsletter messages from the ones I've asked so far. They don't match the one jm posted, but again for real evidence, the members of Namepros who are our customers, would likely be willing to clarify if they received any sort of incentives for their reviews and/or comments. Most of them are the ones who also posted on WHJ, so obviously it would be the best choice to ask them directly. As something coming from me is not credible, but if it's coming from them, I'm sure it's more realistic



It was mentioned that we released company information quite "freely" to jm, when indeed he was ready to make an offer. We did not present an NDA, or any formalities, however, the context of releasing such information would be useful to know.

NameServers looking at your history had to be changed during your move which was done prior to the newsletter release from what my understanding is. The ones who posted on WHJ could very much be the ones that were bought out so basically what credibility can we look at in regards to them?

 

[PolurNET]

NameServers looking at your history had to be changed during your move which was done prior to the newsletter release from what my understanding is. The ones who posted on WHJ could very much be the ones that were bought out so basically what credibility can we look at in regards to them?

Yes, the dates of the original newsletter (officially posted at polurnet.com/newsletter/issues/oct2005) coincided with when the jmw-posted newsletter was sent. So both emails should be received around the same time according to what is posted

The ones who posted on WHJ during Oct-Nov 2005 (when those letters were sent) are mostly, if not all, from Namepros. Since we can't provide direct client information, I tried to use the info they provided me here, but the best credibility would come from them directly. In any case, the recent Dec-Jan 2005 reviews are this time some from WHJ referrals themselves, and some from NP; those members have great reputations on NP, so they might be willing to clear the situation up by posting if they received incentives at all

 

[Blue]

I mentioned above he was a customer of ours -- this was before he joined us and sold erudnet to us (it was sold to another company initially, but turned out that guy was running a scam [exovian inc. or such] so we decided to help him out by buying the site and his server that housed his clients.

Out of curiousity, why would he need hosting from you if he owned his own hosting company?

 

[Artashes]

I mentioned above he was a customer of ours -- this was before he joined us and sold erudnet to us (it was sold to another company initially, but turned out that guy was running a scam [exovian inc. or such] so we decided to help him out by buying the site and his server that housed his clients.

Wouldn't that mean that Steven was operating a company "ErudNet" being under 15 years of age, who does not have the legal capacity to operate a business on his own; and that you also bought something from him that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place?
I am not sure about anyone else, but before I buy anything, I personally would like to know the person I am buying this something from.

Best,

 

[PolurNET]

Out of curiousity, why would he need hosting from you if he owned his own hosting company?

Good question; he was hosting his main domain with us, as we had dual xeon servers, whereas his own server was a P4. To be honest, it was really overloaded, and we had a lot of trouble transferring customers from the DimeNoc dc to ours.

Wouldn't that mean that Steven was operating a company "ErudNet" being under 15 years of age, who does not have the legal capacity to operate a business on his own; and that you also bought something from him that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place?
I am not sure about anyone else, but before I buy anything, I personally would like to know the person I am buying this something from.

Best,

Yes, I guess it means that, although it's not a registered company, seemed more like his FWS friends were there (all underage as well, and still active as "companies" on FWS...). As a technicality, he was "bought" by another company, but since the other company didn't follow through, we "saved" the server from being bankrupt, as we took over the bills until we got to transfer the few clients that were left

 

[PolurNET]

I was looking through the employment section here and other forums, and it seems several companies are allowing 16 years and older to apply for jobs... so I presume that is the legal minimum, not actually 18, correct (at least Canada)?

Also, some new hosts are asking for people to work for free and the position is for experience... isn't this type of thing not allowed nor encouraged?

 

[Senad]

This sounds a lot like the NullNic...where you "supposedly were going to buy them" but they disappeared so you decided to advertise on their forums anyway...which is still unethical...correct?

 

[PolurNET]

This sounds a lot like the NullNic...where you "supposedly were going to buy them" but they disappeared

I still have the convo emails with Mike and Loring (the two main people from NN) discussing the offer, if you'd like to see some proof about our proposed business deal (headers included and such). As for the advertising it is already quite clear we apologized once it was remarked for the misunderstanding on several forums at that time.

As for the Erudnet situation, it isn't our first takeover. We took over Neomedia-host (just the customers, not the site) and as for Erudnet, we bailed them out from the hosting bills and imminent loss of data that was going to happen as LT was planning to pull the plug. In the end, the ex-erudnet customers were looking for the same overselling prices but after negotiations we reached a suitable deal with each them or issued full refunds.

PS: Is this thread going to go on forever? Hope it's at least partly clarifying everyone by the answers... opcorn:

 

[Blue]

Good question; he was hosting his main domain with us, as we had dual xeon servers, whereas his own server was a P4. To be honest, it was really overloaded, and we had a lot of trouble transferring customers from the DimeNoc dc to ours.

So, not only was he dishonest with you about his age, you were also aware that he was dishonest in his business practices by pretending to have a superior server than the one he was actually putting clients on.

 

[PolurNET]

So, not only was he dishonest with you about his age, you were also aware that he was dishonest in his business practices by pretending to have a superior server than the one he was actually putting clients on.

I didn't visit the place on erudnet where it mentioned the specs, but he used the reseller with us for some shared clients (which are xeons), and his own server for shoutcast clients and resellers. I also remember he had a forum with uptime stats, server specifications and network issues, as he asked this information for the polurnet server as well. The reseller customers also seemed to know they were on P4's though, since when we contacted them about the takeover they were looking forward for dual Xeon processors...

The only thing was the one server was handling way too much, but it's far from a disaster we had when dealing with NM-H.

On a side note, since you guys raised valid concern about ages, I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about the FWS teens having hosting companies and the above employment age question...

 

[jmweb]

Last edited by PolurNET

Can't you merely get your story straight for once?

 

[PolurNET]

Can't you merely get your story straight for once?

No, I continually add things, any problems with that? The time limit is relatively short, so a simple spelling mistake shows up as edited. What can I do, I'm a perfectionist

 

[Senad]

No, I continually add things, any problems with that? The time limit is relatively short, so a simple spelling mistake shows up as edited. What can I do, I'm a perfectionist

Like this one...where I have your original quotes and you have a totally different version you stated?


http://www.namepros.com/web-hosting-discussion/139863-unreal-1-2-tb-100-gb.html?highlight=PolurNet

 

[PolurNET]

Like this one...where I have your original quotes and you have a totally different version you stated?

You're seriously obsessed with that thread, I don't see why you're still trying to act like something was there that was top-secret. It was based on my preliminary research, just as your false research that you posted in the very beginning of this thread (saying you found something illegal with us, a scam, and apparently saved the world because of that).

Anyway, I guess you ran out of ideas? I'm still waiting for a response on your policy of having 16 year olds working (it's on a thread in this forum actually), and even other 'hosts' asking for free work for experience.

 

[Senad]

You're seriously obsessed with that thread, I don't see why you're still trying to act like something was there that was top-secret. It was based on my preliminary research, just as your false research that you posted in the very beginning of this thread (saying you found something illegal with us, a scam, and apparently saved the world because of that).

Anyway, I guess you ran out of ideas? I'm still waiting for a response on your policy of having 16 year olds working (it's on a thread in this forum actually), and even other 'hosts' asking for free work for experience.

Nope I have many more ideas but don't need to show where you edit more than you can chew...because everything was proven PolurNet. I'm not obsessing over the threat but it proves that you change your story quite nicely now doesn't it? I called you by what my gut feelings showed and basically the truth came out and my gut feelings were right.

Those hosts are not true hosts. Simple of an answer as you will get is that. They are condemed within the industry. Another simple answer. No need to run around the main topic of the thread which we have proof for and you have simply not countered yet. IE: The evidence. Like I mentioned before...could it be that some got it and not others because you were carefully sending that particular newsletter to a certain group? Most certainly? Why would a client want to speak out against their host also? I know if I was a client and I had that vital information I'd be afraid of having my account canceled, data lost, or worse legal actions taken for possible conspiracy to bring down the company. Not worth the legal risk or time as a client. JMWeb clearly posted the evidence and you have yet to clearly prove it wrong. You have yet to answer the question on age clearly but try to ask a question of other hosts which has no basis on your current situation.