Lets see how far anything goes

[RUFUS]

Now i find our illustrious board police are embracing these M L M people

by advertising thier scam right here on this board, i understand the need

to bring in advertising dollars but these people dont even have a product

and by thier own admission any kind of factory for manufacturing this

pipe dream wont even begin construction till next year.

I'll throw in $10.00 if every body else on this board dose so none of us

will have to put up with this obvious insult to our intellegence.

                                                             Rufus

[WindHarvester]

Maybe I'm wrong but from where I'm sitting you make no sense.

Could you please explain.

Lonnie

[RUFUS]

  O.K.

 Try to keep up

 look up citizen re .com or look under solar on this site "lock in 25 year rates"

and decide for yourself

   "dose this look like a rip"

If i come off as a smart ass please be patient and do the research yourself i dont like people like this, trying to get rich quick on the backs of hard working people like most of the members here.

                                                            Rufus

[Volvo farmer]

I was honestly planning to stay away but logged back in just now, to reply to this.

I also saw your post, and my response disappear. That was it for me. I don't want to hang out in a place where I am censored. It pissed me off before, it happened again, so I left. Man, I have slept on the couches of the Otherpower crew and I love those guys, but this forum and its police ain't doing it for me lately.

I don't know why our posts disappeared. My gut feeling would be that it got deleted for   off-topic reasons rather than Otherpower being in bed with CitizenRE. I would be really suprised to see folks of the intelligence I've met at Otherpower getting fooled by such a scheme.

A buck is a buck. Click on any CitizenRE ads you see on this site and make money for Otherpower.

[halfcrazy]

I am with Volvo on this i signed off for good a few weeks ago but will sign in tis last time to. If any one is interested in a 10 ft turbine with scotts blades email me rstankevitz at hotmail dot com. You can llok thru my diary and find pictures but it is identical to the ones dan builds. Well officially goodbye now I will let you all enjoy the board without my hairbrain ideas and bad spelling.

[DanB]

Hi Rufus -

"Now i find our illustrious board police"

I don't think there are any 'board police' so to speak.  There are some volenteer editors who usually do a pretty nice job of keeping things clean and on topic.  But if you (or any one else) ever have issue (disagree) with anything anyone does here you're more than welcome to send me an email.

 "are embracing these M L M people

by advertising thier scam right here on this board"

Ahhh.. that is bothersome.  I'd not noticed.  Google decides which ads show up here based on the content and titles of stories.  I do have the 'power' to block certain sites from showing (I've blocked many sites that I think are scams).  I'll keep my eyes peeled for that anyhow - I don't care to be advertising for citizen RE right now.  Maybe they're legit, but I'm very suspicious and doubtful about that.  I think we keep our 'advertising campaign' here pretty small and discreet esepcially for folks who are logged in.  Its certainly not perfect, but we do make effort to control what shows up.  Again, I'll look into it - we are not 'in bed' with citizen RE by any means.

", i understand the need

to bring in advertising dollars but these people dont even have a product

and by thier own admission any kind of factory for manufacturing this

pipe dream wont even begin construction till next year."

Yes, I agree - it does seem odd.  I really cant think of a single MLM scheme thats not at least mostly scam.  Citizen RE runs a good chance of putting a sour taste in lots of peoples mouths over renewable energy Im afraid.

"I'll throw in $10.00 if every body else on this board dose so none of us

will have to put up with this obvious insult to our intellegence."

Hmmm.....  7600 users x $10 ea - that sounds nice ;-)

[DanB]

Hope you don't leave there Bob.  I expect someone axed that posting because they thought it was too off topic.  There is also the risk on this board of saying nasty things about another company and that usually results in hate mail in my email box.

I looked over that story again though - and your response and put it back.  To be honest I think it would do the world a good thing if google indexes a few pages which contain a skeptical point of veiw about citizen RE.

This has been gone over a few times before.  Very few stories get 'deleted' (they never get deleted, they just get sort of put away in a dark place).  Most of the ones that do tend to be really off topic - or contain no information.  One recently  said somethign like 'anyone check these guys out?' - with no info about who those guys were or a link or anything.  Its not censorship - it's just an effort to keep things reasonably on topic and reasonably informative.

[wdyasq]

The folks who own this board and by their grace you are allowed to read and post support it with revenue from Google ads. They have little or no control over what the group at Google Ads selects. Apparently Google gets paid by CitizenRE and their ads get placed here.

CitizenRE, as I read their site, rents/leases PV panels to those who will not or cannot afford to purchase them. Their 'rent' is what the panels produce and one would normally purchase from the electric company.  

Personally, I don't 'smell a rat'. I do see they may get some 'energy credits' and 'green credits' many would never see or be able to market. I suspect our lovely political and tax system has a large influence in the formation and income structure of this company.

I'm not sure about the legal problems one might encounter if they 'own' a website and the owner allows a poster to slander a company. As I remember your original post it was pretty accusatory for a company renting a product.

I see little difference between renting panels and renting a car or apartment. Citizen RE does require one to have an active telephone line and one is responsible

 for the property. It seems pretty standard and sensible to me. I would take into account the cost of a telephone line and if I needed to only for the panel reporting would include that in my cost/benefit analysis.

There is one other thing to consider. One is not required by threat or force of law to deal with a company. The options are yours. Owning a company and website does require one to sometimes cull material that may be unsuitable. That is the owners/moderator's choice.

One can always start their own website and maintain it.  And, be responsible for the comment.

Ron

[stop4stuff]

There's a huge difference between MLM & pyramid selling...

the latter is illegal in most countries for starters.

MLM can & does works for consumable products... ever heard of Amway or Kleeneze?

MLM will not work for non-consumable products & agreed citizenre would not work &  is a scam (imo).

Consider that most products bought off a store shelf could be thought of as MLM products... Manufacturer --> Distributor --> Wholesalers --> Retailers --> Public... all of which add their cut & put up the price before the product reaches the public.

MLM usually cuts out the middle men allowing the profits that would be taken by Wholesalers & Retailers to be paid to sales teams & managers.

I used to be a participant in an MLM scheme selling consumables direct to the public(door-to-door via a home shopping catalogue) & I enjoyed a regular income from part-time work comparable to a full-time job income... personal circumstances forced me to leave & I would go back to it if I could.

As DanB has already said, he has little control over the ads that Google places on these pages... go check out 'Google AdWords' to find out how it all works.

paul

[finnsawyer]

DanB, I'm sure you are aware of my posting of yesterday.  I was not going to say anything more because it agitated TomW so much, but since this thread developed, there is an issue I would like to address.  Namely, that it appears some people are more equal then others.  That is, privileged.  It's been pretty much my understanding that once you post something it stays unless the editors decide that it is off topic to start with.  Nor can the poster edit something they don't like or come to regret.  Now we find that a poster can request that their posts be deleted if they decide that it goes off topic.  Is this good policy?  Many posts go off topic for many reasons.  Are they all candidates for deletion?  Is the policy to be extended to everyone or just a privileged few.  If I decide to leave the site can I request that all my postings and comments be deleted?  I don't believe that would be in the best interest of the forum, nor do I believe that a post should be deleted just because the thread goes off topic, which may occur because the original posting was flawed to start with.  There is also the issue of making a thread read only.  On a number of occasions I wished to comment on a thread but could not because it was made read only.  There is a posting in my diary on nuclear power that came about for that reason.  My Huh! posting also was due to such an event, where my use of V for voltage was questioned, but I was not allowed to make a response.  Then the post disappears.  This forum has been quite democratic in nature.  I recommend that you keep it that way and that the editors be very cautious about messing with threads, which generally don't use much bandwidth anyway.  Thank you.      

[wdyasq]

I recommend you start your own forum and dictate your position there.

Ron

[TomW]

No good deed shall go unpunished.

I hope someone builds your prototype soon so you can remove me from your targetting system.

T

[finnsawyer]

I'm not dictating to anybody.  I'm just making my views known.  Did you read through this thread?  Did you notice that a couple people stated they had become unhappy with the site and had left?  Well, DanB can do what he wants, but I'm sure he will take all this into consideration.  Oh!  I get it.  You don't like a forum to be democratic.  You want to be one of the privileged few.  I don't.  I just want the threads to be left alone to evolve as they will.

[drdongle]

Life is not clean and neat, it's dirty and messy, it's imperfect. Any attempts to establish an order that offends no one and satisfy all will only end up helping no one and angering all.

I like the board as it is, imperfect, OT, and informal.

[TomW]

Lonnie;

Yeah, I had trouble tracking the meaning here, too. I guess making a coherent post is not one criteria for allowing them to remain visible.

As Editor I have  hidden a few stories that users post because, quite frankly, they are indecipherable. This one would have been a candidate had it not already gotten a bunch of comments. Not because of content but because it actually makes very little sense to me. Making references to things that you do not include as a link or explain, etc is just a waste of space.

In this case I cannot identify who the company he is upset about is? Is it CitizenRE? is it some other [secret] company? Who is running an MLM endeavor? As I recall the only story on CitizenRE I hid was hidden because it was just like this story, it was muddled and disjointed and had nothing to do with how I felt about any [one or company] it was just not of any discussion value. We see people linking to other sites a lot and I often feel it is not genuine but pimping and we don't need to drive hits for other sites.

The hidden story [all of it]:



Posted on Wed Feb 21st, 2007 at 03:30:28 AM CST

Found this in the local classifieds

These people dont have a manufacturing

plant yet but they have a really snazzy

webpage

www.citizenre.net  www.powur.com

Ok where is the discussion value in that? As far as I am concerned that stuff goes in your Diary.

Is it our mission to educate the users that there are many many scams out there and you should assume things are not what they seem?

Ok I explained again. I gotta stop that.

Gets old being the root of all evil after awhile.

T

[finnsawyer]

I'm not targeting you for anything.  It's just that these non technical issues come up from time to time.  And what did my comment have to do with any prototype?  Everything that I said dealt with how postings are handled.

[RUFUS]

HEY    all you guys are great!

    To all those i have offended i am truly sorry,

the section i posted to was Rants and Opinions,   this

is my rant and opinion, if you want to call me a lunatic

so be it but as you can see there are like minded people

on this board, and some not so,  

                                    Rufus

[RP]

GeoM,

I was the one that requested the "Power Loss Explained" thread be deleted and I'm pretty sure I'm not priveledged at all.  I'd tried to post an article for newbies to explain power loss in the resistance of cabling.

I used some simplified (layman) terminology and didn't do a good enough job explaining why.  After the thread picked up some confusing math and irrelevant terminology, I asked that it be deleted.  All I was trying to do was help explain a phenomenon to new folks in an easy to understand way but after reading the whole thread I realized it was going to add to their confusion rather reduce it.

Some time I'll try to rerwite it in a form that's more clear and submit it for the FAQ section or something.

My appologies if the whole debacle caused offense or hurt feetlings.

[DanB]

You might be right Ron, and I guess I hope you are.  I am very skeptical about citizen RE and I think a bit of a 'heads up' should be put out there for folks considering 'signing up' for systems - or... folks 'signing up' as dealers/installers.  Here we have a company that so far as I know  (could be wrong) has a very small group of folks at the top, they're looking for investors - they have a bit of a clever idea but there seems to be a lot thats unrealistic.  Any time someone has no product, but they're looking for investors I get nervous.  

This is just one persons thoughs (I think an 'ex-dealer'):

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/assets/documents/2007/CitizenreStrategyDiscussion.pdf

I worry that folks interested in real renewable energy will put off doing it - or be given unrealistic ideas by this sort of stuff.

Im also getting pretty sick of the nearly daily emails from 'ecotrenures' (or whatever they call them) emailing us and asking us to promote their citizenRE websites.  I could be wrong but I think I smell a rat and if I do I hope it gets dealt with before it causes too much damage.

There is no 'law' that forces anybody to sign up for stuff like this or do business with any company.  But there are a lot of very nice/clever people who might like to get involved in this sort of thing and get taken advantage of.  I've seen plenty of folks who invested in the 'wind tree scam' - they weren't stupid, they just didn't know better.  Even very good/smart folks can get taken advantage of.  Again I hope Im wrong and I hope that citizenRE is legit and finds itself training installers, finding dealers nation wide and installing the hundreds/thousands of 10 - 20 KW solar arrays that their customers seem to need - and I hope their customers find their systems installed on time, and at a competetive cost.  It does seem unlikely.

[veewee77]

Lets DON'T see how far anything goes!

Well,

I am going to put in my $.02 worth here. . .

Perhaps Citizenre is a scam. Perhaps it isn't. Just google it for crying out loud and just make your own decision as to whether it is or not. Sign up if you want, don't if you don't.

Drop it!

This board has been very enjoyable reading for me.  Even the worthless discussions! It is interesting to see how people just turn into opinion-freaks when something rubs them the wrong way.

We should all be thankful that Dan don't just toss up his hands and say,"I give up. I'm not wasting my time anymore with this!"

Please don't do that, Dan!

Editors, great job.  Maybe I don't always agree with you, but that is the nature of everything. You can please everyone part of the time, and part of the people every time, but never all the people all of the time. Seldom do I ever complain about the content here. Just the arguments!

I say leave it as it is and enjoy! Disregard what you don't like, enjoy what you do and just quit muddying the whole pond.

If the editors want to delete something they feel doesn't apply or doesn't represent the overall scope of this forum, they have that right.

Thanks for allowing my opinion (or disallowing my opinion if you so choose!)

Avid reader, occasional contributor,

Doug

[nanotech]

Ok, there's only so many times I can read wdyasq's rude replies to a post or thread before I have to speak up.

Why is it this obnoxious, "there's your bowl in the corner, **" spouting **hole still allowed to post here?  Every single time I see a thread with his name in it somewhere, I don't even bother clicking it to read it because his inflammatory posting style gets my back up every time.  Which kind of limits my posting or learning ability with this site.

There are some people here that are blunt, there are some that are a little abrasive, but wdyasq is just plain RUDE!!  If he ever talked to me in person the way he's spouted off to people on here, I'd be quite inclined to give him a discreet taste of the back of my hand!!

Do a search and see when the last time I posted here was.  Why do you ask has it been so long?  Because if that idiot ever came in and started in on me like he has with other people, I wouldn't be starring out my swear words.  

You can close my account as far as I'm concerned.  At least until he either leaves of his own accord, is banned, or permenantly agrees to go get a personality that doesn't involve pissing in everyone's Wheaties every time he opens his yap!!

[nanotech]

And Tom W, I don't envy you your editing job here at all.  Not one bit.  My hat's off to you, mate.  You're damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Your job is less thankful than a traffic cop's.

[JW]

Hi all,

  Allow me to play with several quotes here.

"As Editor I have  hidden a few stories that users post because, quite frankly, they are indecipherable."

-Now i find our illustrious board police are embracing these M L M people

by advertising thier scam right here on this board,-

(from the story auther)

And who can forget ;0 ~

- if every body else on this board dose so none of us

will have to put up with this obvious insult to our intellegence.-

No,No "but wait" YOU ALSO GET

'Any attempts to establish an order that offends no one and satisfy all, will only end up helping no one and angering all.

And lets not forget (big smile everybody)

"ECO-VENTURES"

I agree with the guy who said there needs to be a 'product' "that can be evaluated" not stock(whatevers) that can dissapear like smoke.

I give this one 5 smiles(thats right 5 count um). Because there is so much independant introspection...

JW

[finnsawyer]

I don't see any reason to take offense.  I think this raised a valid issue.  If everyone has to be a little more careful and think out what they are trying to say, it's all to the good.  I'm not going to stop using this site just because of this.  Generally, if I feel I have not been allowed to respond, I'll just find a workaround.  I was not happy about posting the "Huh! post, but I felt my explanation for using V rather than E for voltage was ignored.  E can also be used for energy.  P is used for power and for pressure.  V for voltage or velocity, a vector quantity.  As far as I can see there is no good way to indicate a vector using these computers.  Since there are only so many letters available duplication is inevitable.  The solution is to make sure the context is well understood.  And that is my position.  If the thread had been allowed to stand that would have been made clear.  

[Bruce S]

Dear ALL;

   For what is worth.

There are a whole bunch of ways to block the advertising both for Windows and Linux.

So if those ads offend you download one of the many free ( as in free beer) install it and set it up to block ads,popups too if you wish. I did, no mre problems :--) easy too.

I however understand why the Dans did this, they even put up an informational asking what the board though of it. How many people here have bosses that would go that far?

Sending in the $10.00 to get them off here, nope not me I'd rather send it to BT-Humble's request he's doing something worth while that will actually help other people and I for one will continue to help him with this any way I possible can.

Send that $10.00 to BT-Humble let it do some real good!!

RUFUS, not trying to offend here, but the wording on the post was really bad; I can understand your anger at them , but please try to calmly type that anger on the board so we can all understand what your trying to get across.

I was banned from using our companies high-speed link for a while, so I had to use an old laptop loaded with dialup, linux and text posting. I may have misspelt words but at least I tried to make them coherent.

Please when you do post check the wording , or load up a grammtical checker, there's a bunch of free ones :--)

For what it's worth, I looked real close at the website in discussion here, and while I can read that they seem to be selling a pipe dream, they are not breaking the law.

NOW::!

Full disclosure here, I am a percentage stake holder in a company that is putting up those wind farms in Kansas, so I have some sense on what looks and smells like a pipe dream, and just to play devils advicate, I sent the re place an email requesting more info. I will let you know.

There is or was one person on here that is/was with them perhaps we could get them to add better knowledge here.

Board police, I do think there is a need. Otherwise the board would go all over the place and end up like those that are for OU. I have at least once before requested that they chime in to cut some of the offending banter.

The reality for the ads ar e just that , it takes money to keep this board up and this site is free to all viewers, I like that otherwise I would go else where.

Time for more coffee and see if there's any donuts left.

Y'all take care and enjoy life.

Bruce S

 

[asheets]

And let me just throw this in here -- the folks who own the board ASKED us whether we thought Google Ads would be ok here, or if they should cut back on service a bit, or if they should attempt to charge us or solicit operations donations.  Damn generous of them to ask our opinion first, since they can do pretty much whatever they want, you know?

As I recall, a significant number did come forward and say that ads would be alright if they were unobtrusive (and they are unobtrusive) and on-topic (which, for the most part, they are).

Scammers can (and do) pay for advertising, too.  The trick is to balance what this board charges against what legitimate folk can pay.

-------

On the other thing Ron mentions is the board liability/slander/libel issue.  There is actually plenty of case law on this, but the most important one for a moderated board such as this is Cubby v. Compuserve.  Basically the board "might not" be liable for much, but the moderaters run a risk.  Thus, for those who watch over the operations of the board, the mantra of "the facts, and only the facts" should probably rule here.

[asheets]

As I mentioned above... I think that (while seemingly a bit heavyhanded) that you acted in the best interests of the board (and, in regard to Cubby v. Compuserve, yourself).  I looked at the various threads pertaining to this and was unable to verify or repudate much of anything -- but it did have the awesome potential of causing a big ol' mess.

[Gordy]

To; "Officer" Tom, and other board police,

Keep up the good work !!!

I like many here, are here to learn about the how to's of RE. And appreciate the work you do to keep the site clean and functional.

The lack of board police is why I left the "waist watts" group. I just got sick of all of the political, religious, and other off topic crap.

Gordy

[RUFUS]

Hey Bruce

I havent been scolded

like that in forty years

   thanks

         Rufus

[ADMIN]

We could indeed ban all Google ads from CitizenRE. But they have so many resellers (it IS a multilevel marketing scheme after all) that we'd be spending way too much time finding out what company each MLM ad represented.....none of them say "CitizenRE"

Let them them sort themselves out -- the scams will die off quickly enough. Anyone remember the WindTree? Kaput.

ADMIN

[Bruce S]

RUFUS;

 Wasn't intending to scold or offend:-)

There's enough of that already..

to your credit, this post did raise some issues and certainly got posts:--)

Cheers!!

Bruce S

[Bruce S]

Admin;

  Even though I have ALL ads blocked here at work, I do allow them at home.

I have found some of them to be right what I was looking for.

Even this one was a good read.

It's voting day in St.L; so my vote goes to leave 'em in. As you say they will be sorted out in due time.

I Also lay the credit to RUFUS for pointing this site out for what it truely is.

Cheers!!

Bruce S

[RUFUS]

I still think all you guys are great

(girls too)

          Rufus