It has come to our attention that AmigaWorld regular "Drebben" is in fact Matt Parsons (aka Bloodline) of the core AROS development team.

In the past we have asked the (fake) identity "Ben Drebben" to tone down his often sarcasticly formulated messages, trolling and flamebaiting behaviour here at the AmigaWorld portal.


Some of the most recent examples:

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"The arrogance of some people here is actually funny. I expect that what you really enjoy is being the centre of attention within a (small) group of people, which I imagine is quite a new experience for you.

I look forward to more pointless ramblings to brighten my day."

Ask Fleecy:

"May I ask, how were you able to see AmigaOS4 running on an AmigaONE a year ago, when Hyperion have only in the last month, started work on the A1 version?

I have ?235 bet that Fleccy will not answer this!!"

Ask Fleecy:

"With all this constant bashing of AmigaOS 4 and AmigaONE, the constant stream of people pointing out it's flaws and limiations, relentless suggestions that they are inferiorto your immediate and not immediate competitors systems. Not to mention all the highly organised teams of people lining up to jump on every single little inconsistancy in yours and the Amiga Inc. announcments, coupled with the obvious anti Amiga Inc. Zealotry that is now infesting all the Amiga forums, and the nonstop tide of hatered that is directed at you personally and others employed (despite what the evil Smurfs say) by Amiga Inc. Do you ever want to give up?"

"AG2 is nothing, it does not exist, no one knows anything about it, Why bother?"
------------------



The true identity of "Ben Drebben" was brought to our attention within this news item posted by "new" AmigaWorld member "Bloodline". Mistakenly Matt used his Drebben account to post the following message:

"I have sent an Email to Eyetech requesting a board and developer support for AROS. But have not yet received a reply.

AROS is woefully short of "Hardware Hackers", If we were provided with a Board one of the Team would have to learn about it which would take time. I would prefer an experienced A1 develoepr to join the team and help get AROS booting using the UBoot Firmware.

Thanks."

For reference here is a screenshot of the message before it was quickly replaced. After another "Drebben" posting the message got posted again but this time under the registered nick "Bloodline", which complies with earlier AO discussions.

The AmigaWorld staff would like to make the following appeal to Mr. Parsons:

Choose with which account you like to remain active here at AmigaWorld and which other account should be deleted. We also urge you to stop any trolling or flamebaiting against rival projects or to post messages of support under fake identities in reply to your own news items!

Non compliance to our terms will result into your known accounts/IP(s) being banned from the AmigaWorld portal, including exclusion from future promotions, for an unkown period of time.

???

[edit]
@MikeB - Please see PM

I second that.

IMHO it`s Not good

_________________
No cause is lost if there is but one fool left to fight for it.

@ Bloodline

Quote:

???

I know you can do better than that. The AW team is unhappy about the way you fooled us these last couple of months.

You have asked many questions under the nick Drebben and never was satisfied with any input. On some occasions we have even asked your questions to Fleecy, with you afterwards stating your displeasure with regard to any efforts by default.

We appreciate the generally constructive environment here at AmigaWorld created by our visitors, but sadly you haven't contributed and in fact have been actively working against our efforts anonymously.

Mike, i think you need to reasess what you consider flame bait... Some of those where good question and facts... such as the comment about G2 being nothing and no one knows anything about it. Well, we dont, and atm it is nothing, to most of us.

And i find it hard to believe that theres been people, at Amiga Inc, developing G2. I wouldnt normaly say it in a forum cause i didnt think it was that interesting, but latly i've been wondering, how can they do it. Amiga Inc arnt tell us much except that employees are suing them for not paying them, they have no office etc... You have to look at things from other peoples perspective, from an outsider who isnt so caught up, in all the amiga stuff, it does look like theres a whole lot of something that we arnt being told, dont know and may never know.

Anyway, the fact that he made a nick to maybe distance himself from AROS should be saying something. That is, he doesnt feel confident to express himself. Has this what this forum has come to? We should be able to say what we want, with in reason (no bad langauge).

If however the nick was made to just flame away, then boooo :P

The fact that you may not like some of the comments doesnt warrant you to call it flame bait. It may seem like this to someone with "insider knowledge" but i too would wonder this stuff.

Well the screenshots are pretty open and shut to me, I also went in there before Matt had modified his Drebben post and reposted it under the right identity and was surprised to see the Drebben post dissapear.

Own up Matt and stick with your Bloodline ID.

@pods

To me the flame bait stuff is irrelevant ( but you can't argue that some of those comments were acceptable ), the issue at hand is faking an identity with the intent to do a bit of arms length trolling.

One identity per user on here please. The moderators are here to decide what requires moderation and what the line is, of course to some it is going to be subjective and some will disagree. This is not however the issue under discussion.

Quote:

Choose with which account you like to remain active here at AmigaWorld and which other account should be deleted. We also urge you to stop any trolling or flamebaiting against rival projects or to post messages of support under fake identities in reply to your own news items!

I find questionable that you keep so tight control on people's postings up to the point that you feel the urgency to make screenshots of a message which you yourself said was "quicly replaced": it really seems like a paranoid behaviour, to me, and not respectful of people's privacy.

Also, I can't understand why people shouldn't be entitled to multiple accounts under fake names, if they so wish, and in any case what's the purpose of such a public statement? If you are seriously concerned about Matt's behaviour, couldn't you tell him these things privately? Seeing that you've done all you could to put Matt in a bad light with this message, even linking this message in a completely unrelated thread (to make things even worse), I can't help but questioning myself and you whether you are just pursuing your old agenda.

In any case, apart from all the above, I can't find anything questionable in what you say are the postings made by Matt under his alledged other identity. It's, as always, your point of view against the one of the other party.

And now, before this post gets deleted - because it has a fair chance of being deleted - I'll make a screenshot of it as well, so that these words won't be written invain.

Best regards,
Fabio Alemagna

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@ Pods

These are just some recent examples. And I agree that some questions were interesting and that's why we have posted them.

The problem however is that this was Bloodline doing all this all along. As stated we require him to remove (at least) one identity, not to try to start a fight with anyone and not reply to his own news submission in support.

We consider this unacceptable abuse of this website.

Quote:

I find questionable that you keep so tight control on people's postings up to the point that you feel the urgency to make screenshots of a message which you yourself said was "quicly replaced":

So? It proved that Drebben was Bloodline. Havent you ever heard of having multiple browser windows open and the "back" button?

Quote:

it really seems like a paranoid behaviour, to me, and not respectful of people's privacy.

What privacy issue? Its a public forum.

Quote:

Also, I can't understand why people shouldn't be entitled to multiple accounts under fake names, if they so wish,

Entitled? This is a privately owned website not a government service. Even on Amiga.org they do not allow multiple accounts under fake names. Because you find it morally acceptable to do does not mean that the owners of AmigaWorld.net should do so.

Quote:

and in any case what's the purpose of such a public statement?

To bring it to light out in the open, perhaps maybe to avoid someone trying to misrepresent the issue on other sites for their own purposes? You see moderators get hung for publically commenting and hung for privately commenting. If you cannot take the consequences of being found out then don't come here.

Quote:

Seeing that you've done all you could to put Matt in a bad light with this message, even linking this message in a completely unrelated thread (to make things even worse)

The whole point Fabio is Matt has put himself in a bad light, the issue is merely out in the open. The evidence is on the "unrelated" thread ( making it totally related ). What is your point?


Quote:

, I can't help but questioning myself and you whether you are just pursuing your old agenda.

Change the record, it got boring years ago.


Quote:

And now, before this post gets deleted - which it has a fair chance of being deleted - I'll make a screenshot of it as well, so that these words won't be written invain.

To quote you, that shows an amazing level of paranoia

@ Fabio

First welcome to AmigaWorld. (probably )

Please look at this more objectively and not from a "Matt is a member of our team perspective".

We believe that AmigaWorld visitors are entitled to know who "Ben Drebben" is in reality, someone they may have had multiple discussions with in the past .

For instance within the latest Q&A session with Fleecy Moss, he personally asked me to clarify things. After this specific request directed towards me I did alot of effort to help him. His behaviour was unconstructive instead of being thankful.

Now would I have known that Drebben was just Matt playing games, I wouldn't even have bothered investing precious time.

@Falemagn

Mike made the screenshots available so as to illustrate a point and so that Drebben/Bloodline (or whatever he wants to be called today) couldn't deny what he did. If you are going to accuse someone of something don't you think that providing evidence is proper?

The use of mulitple accounts is by far for the simple means to post trolling/abusive comments, that is why it is discouraged.

It isn't just MikeBs point of view, all the staff were consulted and we all agreed on this course of action.

Why do you think your post will be deleted?

Anyway, Drebben/Bloodline has to choose his ID, one has to go, which one, is upto him.

_________________

I would just like to say that, as a part of the masses and not the staff, i also find this behaviour disturbing and belive they did the right thing.

_________________
AMiGA

Quote:

So? It proved that Drebben was Bloodline. Havent you ever heard of having multiple browser windows open and the "back" button?

I'm sorry to say this, but screenshots prove really nothing. This is not to say that particular screenshot is a fake, it's just to respond to your statement.

Quote:

What privacy issue? Its a public forum.

Privacy issues like relations between nickames and real names? Let me quote the policy terms of this site:

Quote:

Our site's registration form asks users to give us information like, your name, email address, occupation, and personal interests, this information is password-protected for your privacy (your password is stored encrypted in our database). Amigaworld.net will not sell, rent or giveaway your information to anyone. We occasionally use member's email addresses to send important information about the site and/or its services.

So, this Mike Bouma's message goes against the very same policies of this site, it should really be deleted.

Quote:

Entitled? This is a privately owned website not a government service. Even on Amiga.org they do not allow multiple accounts under fake names. Because you find it morally acceptable to do does not mean that the owners of AmigaWorld.net should do so.

In the site's terms of use is nowhere stated that multiple account under fake names are not allowed. The site's moderators should at least know what rules apply to the site they moderate, shouldn't they?

Quote:

To bring it to light out in the open, perhaps maybe to avoid someone trying to misrepresent the issue on other sites for their own purposes?

There would have been no issue to mispresent if the issue wouldn't have brought to the light in the first place!

This is the link to the site's terms of use, read it carefully and tell me if Matt did something against those rules, or if Mike Bouma did:

Site's terms of use

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

Quote:

We believe that AmigaWorld visitors are entitled to know who "Ben Drebben" is in reality, someone they may have had multiple discussions with in the past.

You believe that, but the terms of use of your site state otherwise: no one, apart from the site's mantainers, is entitled to know who the person behind a nickname really is.

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

Quote:

falemagn wrote: I'm sorry to say this, but screenshots prove really nothing. This is not to say that particular screenshot is a fake, it's just to respond to your statement.

Oh right, so witnesses are more useful to you? Well I saw it happen also. Unless you want to call me a liar I suggest you stop trying to fight Matts battles for him.

Quote:

So, this Mike Bouma's message goes against the very same policies of this site, it should really be deleted.

Read it again. The issue was not abusing personal information, it was catching Matt out using both of his identities by mistake in a PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE THREAD.

Quote:

In the site's terms of use is nowhere stated that multiple account under fake names are not allowed. The site's moderators should at least know what rules apply to the site they moderate, shouldn't they?

Its up to the moderators to answer to this one. Moderators aren't just there to enforce the rules, they are there to enforce decision making in individual cases. No doubt in the light of this recent discovery the terms of use may become plainer.

Quote:

There would have been no issue to mispresent if the issue wouldn't have brought to the light in the first place!

LOL

Thats right, no crime is committed unless a policeman discovers it right?

IMHO a troll defending another one, has no credibility whatsoever

_________________
No cause is lost if there is but one fool left to fight for it.

Fabio.

No private information was used to detect this, Matt had filled in fake details in his drebben account and had not marked them as private in any case. There is no privacy issue.

Your spirited defense of Matt is admirable but ultimately pointless.

Dave.

@ Fabio

Everything stated in our Terms of use is correct. We did not uncover Drebben's true identity with any registered information. This information was false anyway, we uncovered Drebben's true identity by his abuse of this website.

You are allowed to hide behind a nick, but you are not allowed to register fake "real names" or have multiple identities. (e.g. one to start fights with or waste people's time with)

I don't agree with what Matt has done, if it is true, or support fake accounts in any way.
But, this should have been conducted as a private matter between Matt and the AW staff.

Personally I think Matt should have been contacted first before
being hung drawn and quarted in public.

Editted for typos

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