An Apology to the FTA Community

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Scott Greczkowski

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Looks like the Debate is kinda over, should this thread be deleted, or Scrambled (meaning Locked) ?
The debate is not over unfortunately, as Rick still has not taken action to correct this issue for all of us.

I will not stop harping on this until Rick does the right thing for all of FTA Lovers and that is require a login to view the feeds.

So come on Rick, again I ask you PLEASE on behalf of the entire FTA Community to protect the hobby for us all and require a login to view feeds. If you do it then NOBODY can say that a Feed was scrambled because of postings at your site again. Please stop the Google Bots and other spiders from indexing this stuff and require logins for the feeds. Thank You Rick!
 

Scott Greczkowski

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Here is a note I have posted over at Rick's Site.

Rick,

Hi it's Scott here again from SatelliteGuys. I write this to you with the utmost respect. What do you have to lose by making the feeds only viewable by people logged in?

You run a GREAT forum here I have said that again and again and again. The issue here is the stupid bots which index everything here almost instantly.

Everytime a feed gets scrambled, people come to me moaning that another feed got scrambled because of the folks at Rick's. ITS TIME TO STOP BLAMING RICK'S FOR THE PROBLEM, but the only way this can be done is to require a login so the bots can index things.

Sure feeds will still get scrambled after you require logins for the feeds, but at least no one can blame your site anymore because you took action to protect the feeds.

I talked to CBS about this last issue personally and they told me those CBS feeds were indeed scrambled because of the post from Feedman here. And thats the way the bean counters found out was from Google using a Google Alert.

So I ask you to please do whats best for the ENTIRE Free To Air community and require a login to view the feeds forums and only the feeds forums.

Mikel likes quoteing Alexa stats, which only measures traffic from people using the Alexa Toolbar, but if you want real measurements try Quantcast.COM. Anyone who runs a website knows the Alexa stats are a farce. I am proud that out of all the websites out there, Quantcast ranks us as the 8,205 out of all websites, while your site is ranked at 224,669. I just looked at our stats and am actually shocked to see us pumping out over 1.1 million hits a day. (Ouch no wonder why my last bandwidth bill was so high!)

I will even offer you an olive branch if you can do this, and that would be to give you a direct link to your site from my site within our FTA forums directly to your forums. This should help bring you new traffic and more new friends.

You run a great site here, but please for the sake of all of us who love our Free To Air and watching all these feeds please consider this and take action so that the bots will be kept out and nobody can blame your site again for feeds going scrambled. I know I am tired of hearing it and I am sure you are too.

Let's enjoy this amazing hobby together.

Thank you and God Bless,

Scott
 

sat_action

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Dec 18, 2009
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As is most often the case, perceived problems always require someone else to change.

Effect your own change!
Open up the WUT (behind a login only) and give poor souls like the OP a bot-free alternative.
 

Scott Greczkowski

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sat_action,

I got to be honest. I have wanted to open it up and infact tried to before, but a few of our members got upset about it fearing that posts would leak out, so we moved it back the way it was again.

But honestly as I see it, requesting access to get in and being approved really does no good.I know some of you guys will get made at me for saying that but we have seen that when we have given people access they have just reposted the info elsewhere anyways. To me the walled garden that we have really does not work in those cases.

I personally would like to see it opened up to people logged in, or perhaps (and I don't even know if this is possible to do) but only show it to members who are logged in and who have x number of posts. I also wouldn't mind just sending people to Rick's looking for feeds if he fixed the issue. (These are my thoughts only, I have not talked to Iceberg about this.. I am just giving you my honest feelings on the matter.)

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, but ask if you want to discuss this to start another thread as its a completely different ball of wax. :)

And there you have it.
 

Bill_KY

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Apr 2, 2008
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I personally would like to see it opened up to people logged in, or perhaps (and I don't even know if this is possible to do) but only show it to members who are logged in and who have x number of posts. I also wouldn't mind just sending people to Rick's looking for feeds if he fixed the issue. (These are my thoughts only, I have not talked to Iceberg about this.. I am just giving you my honest feelings on the matter.)

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, but ask if you want to discuss this to start another thread as its a completely different ball of wax. :)

And there you have it.

My opinion is to keep it the way we have it now. As far as sending people over to Rick's for feeds (if he fixed the issue), my opinion is that we should not have to go to another site to find what we can find here. What we have with (the closed off) WUT seems to work for the most part.

If anything has to be changed here ... I think before we do anything, lets see what Rick's response is. And then put it to a vote, into another thread...with a poll.
 

sat_action

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Dec 18, 2009
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I don't see it as completely different at all.
The end result here would be the exact same as proposed for the "other" site.
If the mods/members here are unwilling to do - in your own words - whats best for the ENTIRE Free To Air community, then how can you expect to convince any other site to do it.
 

pro96

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Jul 18, 2005
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Hehe, just saw the "new" log in post at that infamous site
 

Scott Greczkowski

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Here is Rick's Reply...

Scott,

I tried to put this issue to rest and close the other threads already and I thought I made my point of view clear there in as nice and friendly was as possible.

I think you are a Great Person and that you have many Great People in your Forum. I am not at war with you or your Forum, but it seems that it is your Forum and some of the members their that continue to make personal attacks on me and this forum.

I have not read all of the comments on your forum, as I do not care to hear them or do I have the time to deal with all of this negative talk.

The forum that I host, has a personality of it's own, that is carried out by the members herethat agree with rules of the forum and if they do not agree, then they can leave the forum.

It would appear that we have conflicting information, as the person that I know from CBS and have know for a long time told me something entirely different from what you have just stated.

My Olive branch has always been extended to you and Satellite Guys, but again and again, I have been trashed and blamed for many things openly in your forum and have never known of any thing being done about it.

It would have been nice if you had wroteto me or called me privately to discuss this issue, rather than airing it in the forums, but this is how you have chosen to do it, so Iwill respond in the forum.

I do not ask or tell you how to run your forum. It is your forum to run, maintain and allow the types of posts that you want and I respect that.

It is the same forthe Ricks Satellite Forum that I host. Yes, I host it, but it is the Members who make the forum what it is.

Logging in will not stop any one that still wants to gain access to the information that is on either forum.

So to me, this is not an issue and I am not ready to require people to log in to be able to view information in this forum.

We have different opinions about what is best for the people that want to learn about Legal Free To Air Satellite Signals. I want to continue to bring new people into Free To Air and make the information about it easy to find and have it available in a Friendly Environment.

So those that want to get along, can do so and those that want to continue to call names and make accusations will also continue to do so.

I wish you and all of you forum members the best in life, but it is time to put this issue to rest.

This forum wasdeveloped for many of the reasons that are going on right now. No matter what is done, there will always be someone looking to blame someone else for a feed that goes scrambled.

It no longer needs to be discussed in this forum.

Thanks and God Bless You!

So basically what I am reading here (unless I am reading it wrong) is he does not think he site is hurting the hobby or killing the feeds for all of us, and because its his board and if he wants feeds to be grabed by Google and the search engines then he is going to do as he damn well pleases.

Ricks not thinking about the entire community here and its unfortunate, Rick is only thinking about Rick.

I have no plans to back down on this as I feel it is important for all of us who love Free To Air to fight is this to protect what we love so much.

If I have to get louder or go through extremes I will continue to make my voice heard on the matter.

The Free to Air Community needs to stand up and work together.. most of them sit on their hands and just say oh well something else gone that I can't get anymore. The entire mission here is to get the bots (Google, Bing etc) from indexing this stuff. I showed you yesterday with Google Alerts how quickly this stuff is indexed. We need to protect our hobby together.
 

fly_daddy

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Mar 17, 2009
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What is the criteria to be a part of the WUT forum? I have requested access previously and was not approved. I have recently again requested access and my request is pending.
 

Babadem

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May 21, 2007
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Here is Rick's Reply...



So basically what I am reading here (unless I am reading it wrong) is he does not think he site is hurting the hobby or killing the feeds for all of us, and because its his board and if he wants feeds to be grabed by Google and the search engines then he is going to do as he damn well pleases.

Ricks not thinking about the entire community here and its unfortunate, Rick is only thinking about Rick.

I have no plans to back down on this as I feel it is important for all of us who love Free To Air to fight is this to protect what we love so much.

If I have to get louder or go through extremes I will continue to make my voice heard on the matter.

The Free to Air Community needs to stand up and work together.. most of them sit on their hands and just say oh well something else gone that I can't get anymore. The entire mission here is to get the bots (Google, Bing etc) from indexing this stuff. I showed you yesterday with Google Alerts how quickly this stuff is indexed. We need to protect our hobby together.
Quote from Rick below:
My Olive branch has always been extended to you and Satellite Guys, but again and again, I have been trashed and blamed for many things openly in your forum and have never known of any thing being done about it.

It would have been nice if you had wroteto me or called me privately to discuss this issue, rather than airing it in the forums, but this is how you have chosen to do it, so Iwill respond in the forum.
Why don't you discuss this matter off-line with Rick as he suggested, instead of making it a free for all in the open forum? I know you're working in the interest of all, but the way this is being handled with name calling and insults will not produce the desired result or response. You may want to change your method of delivery, Scott.
 

Scott Greczkowski

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That I dont know, Iceberg is the one who control of the WUT forum and admissions. :)

I do know that some members wanted people to be a member for so long and have so many posts before getting it to discurage leeching as before people were just logging in seeing what was there and then reposting it to the unsecure site.

They didn't want their feed posts be used to shut down what they were watching and didn't want them posted at other sites because of this.

I also know that many of the good feed finders out there no longer posts to any forum out of fear if they post it here it will get reposted to the other unsecure site by someone.
 

Scott Greczkowski

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Why don't you discuss this matter off-line with Rick as he suggested, instead of making it a free for all in the open forum? I know you're working in the interest of all, but the way this is being handled with name calling and insults will not produce the desired result or response. You may want to change your method of delivery, Scott.
Because an open forum is where it needs to be. This is not a fight for Scott, this is not a fight for SatelliteGuys this is a fight for all of us who love FTA.

Stand up for what you believe in or soon your satellite receiver might be a doorstop. Look at what happened to the 4DTV, nobody stood up and made any noise and look at what happened to it.

Why does Rick Caylor not care about the industry or those who follow it? Making the forums require a login is a 30 second thing to setup. And its effect could help this hobby for many many years by keeping the bots out!
 

Scott Greczkowski

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Why don't you discuss this matter off-line with Rick as he suggested.
BTW I should note that I did email him about this to his AOL address the other day and got no reply.

Its nice to try acting grown up and saying lets talk offline, but its silly to ignore emails when you try to talk to him ofline. But who knows, hes on AOL there is a chance he didn't get it. (I hate AOL.) :D
 

stogie5150

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Jan 7, 2007
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What is the criteria to be a part of the WUT forum? I have requested access previously and was not approved. I have recently again requested access and my request is pending.

4 posts isn't going to give the mods a decent idea of who you are, and what you stand for. That may be the reason you weren't let in. I think I had over 500 posts or so before I even asked...and I was surprised to be let in then. Because most forums that have private areas, you either have to pay, or a current member of the private area has to propose letting you in, and that nomination is put up to a vote of the current membership of the private area. That keeps out leechers and bugs out. Which is how I would love the WUT to be, as well as Rick's forum. If someone doesn't know who you are, no sensitive info gets shared. That would also keep the networks out. :)
 
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