Hi,
Wow, you've returned to the list and missed all of the Oben wars :)
Well, I'll try to give a brief overview of the events (to spare you
20,000,000 volumes of digests you'd have to read to get a full grasp), as
we've had enough OT stuff here over this very topic...:0
Once upon a time...
Oben joined the list and actually contributed useful posts to it, during
said time, I enjoyed having some lengthy discussions off-list with him as
well. It should also be mentioned that Oben at that time provided me the
courtesy of offering a 21/2 which was NIB for a very good price. Even though
I wasn't capable of affording the lens, I still very much appreciated the
gesture. So, all seemed swell and normal enough, and Oben even contributed a
very nice picture to the TOPE 6 gallery. Unfortunately, around that time the
trouble started. First it started innocently enough when Oben started his
own Olympus list in an attempt to create a fully on-topic (and spam-free)
Olympus forum. Fair enough, you say, and indeed this was perhaps not a bad
idea, be it that we were at the eve of OWI (i.e. Oben War I) then...
OWI: It started more or less after another list member (I won't mention any
names) made what I perceived as a childish stab at someone else's sales on
the list, so I got annoyed by that, and publicly expressed that (in rather
strong language). The reply I sent, was written based on a message by Oben
in which he had replied to the original poster's message, saying he thought
the "comments when taken in isolation" where quite funny. No damage done
yet, however, Oben was then being informed by several list members of the
history regarding such posts. Now, from here, OWI more or less took off: the
messages between Oben and several other list members went the
offensive/defensive way. Matters got nasty, a few list members in particular
were singled out and become subject to personal attacks from Oben (I've no
idea what went on behind the scenes (i.e. off-list), so I'm not certain as
to whether the flames came from both sides or not). OWI died a sudden death
when the Oly list server was down for a few days (due to the Code Red
virus?), and when the list came back up again, matters fortunately had
settled down. I should also mention that even at that time, Oben and I still
had an occassional few off-list exchanges and that he mentioned "regretting
very much the way the related threads had gone ugly on the list".
Casualties of war: none permanently.
OWII: Only some two weeks after OWI, OWII broke loose, after a list member
posted a question whether he should ask a 16-year old receptionist at work
(a professional model), if it would be o.k. to take a few studio-type
pictures of her. Via some jokes, matters got ugly again, and this time it
went down the path of having sex with minors. Many listmembers (especially
the ones who have young daughters) took serious offence to this and urged
the list to drop the topic. However, the topic was not dropped at all,
rather it got more and more ugly (and I can't even begin to imagine the
stuff that must have been going on off-list). Matters REALLY escalated
between 3 US based list members and Oben (including offensive language
coming from all parties involved, if memory serves me well), as a
consequence, one of them made a public petition to vote for whether Oben
should be allowed to stay on the list, or whether he should be booted off. A
substantial amount of list members then replied, stating that they wanted
him to get booted off the list. It seems someone subscribed Oben's e-mail
address to some teenage sex spam sites. Quite rightly so, he was not amused
by this, and (not quite rightly so, IMO) he took that out on the list by
trying to subscribe the whole list to similar sites. Furthermore, he
especially agitated against all Americans; not making a lot of friends in
the USA because of it. Oben "left" the list voluntarily, and OWII was over
with. After this, the list became closed, such that only messages coming
from subscribed e-mail addresses would be allowed.
Casualties of war: Chris O'Neill, Oben (temporarily), anyone else?
OWIII: Oben didn't really stay off-list for long. He must have spent a few
days/nights pondering on how to get even with the list, and with the three
forementioned people in particular. What happened this time then? Well, Oben
knows a bit (but not enough!) about e-mail forgery, so he forged a message
in the name of the person who had created the public "boot Oben" petition.
This, I must admit, was done in a cunning way, as indeed it seemed like the
real person had sent the message. The message contained some ridiculous
proposition for enforcing an almost dictatorial style of censorship on the
list, esp. towards the newbies. Needless to say, MANY people didn't agree
with this list of rules, and started to protest against them either on-list
or off-list. It took a while before it became clear that the offensive
e-mail came from a forged address, being one from Australia...from Oben.
Casualties of war: Dave Bulger, anyone else?
Then between the 3th and now seemingly 4th OWs, the tragedy of the
terrorists' attacks in the USA happened, so the list got flooded with
messages expressing sympathy, political views, etc. So, again, the list
suffered from a lot of OT mail, and again rude messages were exchanged (this
time not by Oben though). This caused more people to leave the list,
partially because of the OWs and partially because of the amount of OT mail
in general.
OWIV?: Well, it seems we're indeed on the eve of OWIV, as again he forged an
e-mail, this time form another one of his favourite enemies. This time the
list was quick to spot the forgery though. Nonetheless, Oben just doesn't
want to let go, and decided to insult the whole list (quote: "you are all
fools") and he pulled a query to get all the subscribers' e-mail addresses
and he said he registered all those addresses at spam sites. Well, so far I
haven't yet received any spam at this account, but Oben crossed the line. I,
for one, have never done anything to him personally that warrants
subscribing my e-mail address to spam engines or taking other annoying
actions against me, so that was when I decided to remove Oben's TOPE 6
entry. Initially I had wanted to leave his entry up so people could see he's
actually capable of doing nice stuff too, but to leave it up right now,
would be perceived by me as an insult to our community. Finally, if indeed I
will start receiving spam at this account, I know where to complain...
Casualties of war: Richard Keefer (I think), Oben's TOPE 6 entry, anyone
else?
Good, let's hope there will NOT really be an OWIV, nor an OWxxxx, but that
he will just give up and get on with his life.
Enough said about this, this message (which was intended to be short) now
has grown large again, and has zero Oly content, so I'll leave it at that
and will try to stop posting OT stuff as much as possible too...
Cheers!
Olafo
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