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Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Xerolize on 2007 March 26, 18:24:38 is back but WAIT they want money from you. I was greeted with this unexpectant email from universal sims a day ago and just had to share their pathetic attempt at getting money. who knows if this so-called "attacker" is real. even if it is my question is what happened to all the subscriptions that were going through even though the site hasn't been updated in months?
Quote Hey Xerolize4, Over the past year, the content team at UniversalSims has been working on an exciting new line of releases for the 2007 year! We can't wait to show everyone what we've been working so hard on. However first, there is an important announcement to be made. UniversalSims needs YOUR help! In late January, and all of Februrary 2007 UniversalSims.com was attacked by someone trying to shutdown our site. This resulted in over a terabyte of bandwidth being used by the attacker. It was so clever that it went unnoticed by our meters, thus no block could be issued. Our hosting company slammed us with a $2,250.000 bill, you can imagine that feeling when I saw it. We are looking into what happenned, we think it may had been executed via a series of malicious scripts. We have requested our hosting company re-evalute the bill, but they would not negotiate, and we don't have the funds to cover a bill like this. If you could please, donate something to help cover the bill, 99% of our creations are downloaded by free accounts, if you ever thought about donating to help, now is the time. Myself and all the people who help make Universal Sims to be the best it can be appreciate all your support over the years, and hope that we can survive this incident to show everyone the surprises we have been working on the past year. Donate by amount: Click the button below, and type in the amount you would like to donate: Donate by subscribing: You can also donate by purchasing a subscription plan, click the gold button below to view the plans: Total needed: $2,250.00 USD EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS. Every one who helps, makes a difference, and brings a much needed smile to our faces. Thank you for everything over the years, let's make 2007 the best of them all. Nathan & and the Universal Sims team. P.S. I will try to get some of the surprise updates out sooner as the donation drive progresses, depending on how things go. www.UniversalSims.com Copyright 2004-2007 Universal Sims. All rights reserved. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Anouk on 2007 March 26, 19:52:04 Holy crap, if that's true, how will they ever get any money from all the people they dissapointed by never updating?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Emma on 2007 March 26, 19:54:44 LOL I got that email today too!
Luckily I don't respond to begging letters..... :P This was binned immediately after reading it. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Fresh-Prince on 2007 March 26, 20:31:31 I got that too, I was shocked though, and I think they are lying. Because, they said those attackers forced them to recieve a higher bill with more money. That's completely wrong. The hosting company doesn't charge you for going over bandwidth, because you can't unless you pay for it yourself as an upgrade. If they reached their bandwidth for the month, it would just come up of with something like "bandwidth exceeded". There's no way they can get that much of a bill unless they said to themselves, "We need more bandwidth, or lets buy more bandwidth", they can't pay more money for what was planned before. :)
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 March 26, 20:36:45 Apparently they are lying. They have this thread over at SFV and Sims graveyard keeper found this out
Quote edited to add: i just checked the domain and its still being hosted by delphy. So this sounds like a ploy for extra funds to pay for last months or this months hosting--this is what happens when you run a paysite and don't update for over 6 months--you stop getting paid! lol So yea :) If you want the rest of the thread its Here (http://forum.simsfilevault.com/viewtopic.php?t=8979) Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 March 26, 20:39:36 ummm red your link goes to an unauthorized page... :(
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 March 26, 20:41:08 =] Are you signed up for SFV?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 March 26, 20:41:57 yeah of course :P
nm it's working now... don't know why it wasn't before *shrugs* Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 March 26, 20:44:06 Oh ok! :D Glad its working for you Its a good read
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Sunkiss on 2007 March 26, 21:06:19 I got the email too yet I do not remember ever going to the site before.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Randomness on 2007 March 27, 01:38:07 Quote from: "OneEyedWillie" nm it's working now... don't know why it wasn't before *shrugs* I also had that problem because I was logged out. Once I re-logged in, I got the Unauthorized Page message, but when I clicked on the link again I got in just fine. *shrugs* No big deal. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jysudo on 2007 March 27, 04:32:39 It's pathetic. i like Universal Sims....but this really disses me off.
The last line of the notice P.S. I will try to get some of the surprise updates out sooner as the donation drive progresses, depending on how things go. sounds like a threat. It stinks of : Hell, Shove the money up my ass. If not, don't count on seeing those SURPRISE CRAP we have been spending the last 15 mins on!!! I am really kinda sad that so many people are trying to make money off the sims...do they really think simmers are millionares when most of us are just trying to survive day to day?! Jeez :roll: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 27, 07:16:50 I don't understand how they get those costs mounted up like that. On Lunarpages that amount could get you a dedicated server for six years.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: GoddessByline on 2007 March 28, 09:32:05 Quote I will try to get some of the surprise updates out sooner as the donation drive progresses, depending on how things go. What they're basically saying is, "As a thank you for donating for nothing, we will toss together a set that you can donate even more money for. You see, we need your hard earned money more than you do, suckers!" No seriously, why in pirate heavens name, would anyone direct an attack at an obscure site, that almost no one has heard of, and that has been dormant for a year or more? Now the community will be polluted with these type of requests. Other site owners, that's only into this for the money, will think, uh, that's a clever way of bleeding the simmers dry. I'll wait a month, and then I'll stage an attack on my own page and put up a sob story asking for donations. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 March 28, 12:31:15 I got that too!! I've never even heard of the site! HOW DID THEY GET MY EMAIL ADDY?!?!?!?!?!
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 March 28, 13:00:37 Now it's being alleged that Delphy is hosting them and that's who they owe the big bill to. Anyone got any info on that?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: GoddessByline on 2007 March 28, 13:06:50 Quote from: "Tchân de Bouley" I got that too!! I've never even heard of the site! HOW DID THEY GET MY EMAIL ADDY?!?!?!?!?! Yes, there's lots of reports comming from simmers, that say they have never visited that site before, or registred there, but still they get this begging email.I see two explanations for this, either Universal Sims is retriving email addys of simmers from forums and similar, like N99's POBS. Or another site is providing Universal Sims with the email addys from that sites database. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: rocket on 2007 March 28, 13:58:23 I got the same email, but didn't bother opening it until I saw this. I don't remember the Universal Sims site, and I see I'm not alone. Their stuff must have been quite craptastic.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Lorelei on 2007 March 28, 15:35:18 One of the few things I hate more than paysites is SPAM. So if I failed to conceal my email info well enough to avoid getting e-panhandled, it won't do them any good.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 March 28, 16:29:28 Yep I got an email as well. Never been there, never joined, never even heard of it.
So, I went and *politely* left a message in the Introductions forum saying that I want them to delete my account as I didnt make it...its now gone, and so is the message I left. >.< I'm annoyed at this exceptionally bad spam - i mean, if you going to get spam then it may as well be good! Something like 'Click this link if you want trees with udders on them'. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 March 28, 16:32:26 The only sites I'm a member of are MTS2, InSim, here, SFV, a couple of tiny forums, InTeen, SS2, and a very very very very very long time, I might have signed up at Simbella's.
But that's IT. Here and SFV I've hidden my addy, and the forums are unknown. That leaves MTS2, InSim, SS2 and InTeen. Who will we point the finger at, hmm? Do you think they surfed the member pages of everyone on MTS2? EDIT FOR STUPIDITY: Oh yeah, and I'm a member of TSR! A free one, mind...and I NEVER go on w/ my addy... Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 March 28, 16:36:56 Well according to 'my account' I joined in April 2006...so that rules out InSim (woo! love it there) S2C, TSR...and leaves MTS2 :roll: Oh dear
eta: i joined MTS2 in April >.< Have just checked Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 28, 16:43:04 I am not sure the contract that these sites are under is all that well suited to less technical site owners. Didn't Sapphire get into a similar (not so huge maybe) spot of bother with mounting up server costs? Maybe it would be better to go for the more standard hosting agreement where you get the site temporarily suspended when something begins to go badly wrong. Who wants to be clobbered with those debts?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Saskatchewan on 2007 March 28, 17:02:51 What a scam... I hope people don't fall for it.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 March 28, 17:46:17 Quote from: "CaptainJojoba" Well according to 'my account' I joined in April 2006...so that rules out InSim (woo! love it there) S2C, TSR...and leaves MTS2 :roll: Oh dear eta: i joined MTS2 in April >.< Have just checked You signed up at all?? :? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 March 28, 17:49:30 Nope I didnt join to Universal Sims. Recieving that email the other day was the first time I've known about the account that was set up with my email address
...or I may have an exceptionally bad memory. If so, I blame the rum and generally being a pirate :wink: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 March 28, 18:04:23 Over at N99 (at least for now) there's an interesting thread on it. Apparently Delphy is the host. He resells the account from Layered Tech. Layered Tech's policy is to bill for excess bandwidth, rather than shut down the site. So Layered Tech billed Delphy who then billed Universal Sims.
So they screwed up by not noticing a bad script that asploded their bandwidth. Delphy got the huge bill from Layered Tech and sent it on to Universal sims. Blah, blah, more technical stuff I don't understand. Maybe someone can analyse it a little better. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 March 28, 18:12:47 Could you put a link/text of it?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 28, 18:15:56 Well like I say, it shouldn't have been unexpected or unprepared for. Saphire sims who Delphy also hosted under a similar agreement I assume, also had this problem and ended up having to pay him back loads.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 March 28, 18:31:35 You can only see the forum if you're a member. It's under Sims2/Another Scam if you are. It's a PITA to register, so don't unless you really want to be a member. It will probably be cut pretty soon anyway, such discussions are rarely allowed there. A few of the posters in the thread (me included) are posting over here too. Hopefully one with a better understanding of the technical aspects will do that.
Here's a few quotes though: "No, he (Delphy) does not work for Layered Tech. Universal Sims has a dedicated server under Layered Tech, and Delphy is handling the server for them. As quoted from Delphy: It's a standalone server - they don't run on a shared account, but it's hosted by LayeredTech as a reseller server of mine. I guess you could call him their host, then, if you define it like that. He calls Layered Tech the host, and himself the administrator of the server. I don't know what technically qualifies as a host exactly." "well he is 'hosting' reseller layertech is the 'server' meaning he pays to layertech and universal sims pays to him meaning HE sent the bill to universal sims also meaning, typically, when you are a reseller your fee to your customer is higher then what you pay like wholesale but in the website hosting world this is getting weirder and weirder it still sounds fishy" "and if the servers the actual host knows that its a malicious script they would be going after the actual person the script came from which is easy to do by ip addresses they would be taking legal action right now AND the site would be shut down, there stating this bill is from the past month, meaning PAST DUE, besides the fact their going over bandwith, their bill is past due, their site would have been shut down" "As I posted earlier, Layered Tech's policy on bandwidth is that they don't shut down the site, they just bill the site for the extra bandwidth." I don't understand all the technical stuff, but it appears Delphy is quite involved on this one. It is like the Sapphire Sims deal. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 March 28, 19:07:47 Why doesn't someone ask Delphy personally? I mean he's antipaysite and whatnot, and it can be seen as a scam is being ran, and we are trying to find out if this is legit or not, and delphy would know. I don't see why we couldn't...i mean it's our money and it would be the same with any business (as if we would give them a cent though :roll: )
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 28, 19:15:23 Someone has already asked Delphy, and he's standing by the story.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Moose on 2007 March 28, 20:46:32 I got the email too, and I know for a fact that I never registered at that site. Who takes the time to gather emails from MTS2? It seems like something that would take a lot of time.
But I suppose if you're desperate for money... :roll: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 March 28, 20:58:43 Out of curiosity I checked my email addresses for this spam and I have not received it (yet) and then I checked N99. They seem to feel the same. http://p218.ezboard.com/fstarlightsimsfrm51.showMessage?topicID=14601.topic
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: keirra on 2007 March 28, 21:03:01 I'm not a member there. Do they have any info not already shared here?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 March 28, 21:06:20 Well I haven't read through it all yet but here is the "evidence" that Delphy has given them.
http://www.modyourpanties.com/hosting/070328045327-LT_Switch_Details_UniversalSims.jpg http://www.modyourpanties.com/hosting/070328045528-Bandwidth%20Accounting%20March%201st%202007.txt Title: Universal Sims... Post by: HideTheRum on 2007 March 28, 21:07:12 I got the email too, though I would have never found out had I not checked this thread. I got curious and went checking and hey, there it was in the spam bin. Like most of you I don't remember ever even visiting that site. I'm only a member at MTS2, InSim and MATW, so I guess it's becoming obvious where they got all the addresses...
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Lisa on 2007 March 28, 21:08:18 I'm regged at mts2 and that email didn't get the spam. So maybe it's from another source
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 March 28, 21:35:28 After wading through the threads, I've come to a conclusion. Delphy realized that Universal Sims was a dormant site (up to this point it hadn't been updated for a year) that had pretty much zero visitors and that he could use it for some of the MtS2 server load. He is the admin for the UniversalSims server. He certainly has the access and means to do it. On top of it all he could make someone else pay for it! It's really a perfect plan.
At this time it's unknown how they got all those email addresses but it isn't a stretch to think that they were acquired from the sites he has admin status over. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 March 28, 23:16:52 Well, that seems possible, but that doesn't mean it's true. It pains me to defend him but I'm not willing to charge him with outright fraud. He was at least sleeping on the job though and we need a lot more explaining from him.
Would a bad script leave some kind of evidence? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 March 28, 23:20:20 If past behavior is evidence of future behavior then we won't get an explanation out of him that is satisfactory on any level. If and when this happens again I won't be surprised.
Edited to add: Remember the big Sapphire Sims snafu? http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/viewtopic.php?t=301&highlight=sapphire+sims Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 28, 23:43:05 Delphy's extortion squeezes are not an unknown thing in his history. Reviewing that log shows nothing that conclusively indicates that it is A: Attributable directly to Universal Sims, and B: Not fabricated. The statistics given are for the IP as a whole, not specifically Universal Sims. I would require more substantive logs before swallowing THAT claim, and none have yet been provided. And *2000*? In the period of what, a month? That's extortion. That's more than *WE* pay for the *ENTIRE YEAR*, and at that level of payout, the Malaysians wouldn't give a flying crap about how much bandwidth we use. If I want to run the line in the red all the time serving l33t w4r3z, I can! Let's not forget the time Delphy squeezed Kathy and Insim for hundreds of dollars to do a tar -cof and a mysqldump. TWO COMMANDS. The guy demanded HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS to do TWO COMMANDS.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Randomness on 2007 March 28, 23:56:44 Quote from: "Pescado" Let's not forget the time Delphy squeezed Kathy and Insim for hundreds of dollars to do a tar -cof and a mysqldump. TWO COMMANDS. The guy demanded HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS to do TWO COMMANDS. :shock: Did they actually pay it?! Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 March 29, 00:12:28 Quote from: "Pescado" Delphy squeezed Kathy and Insim for hundreds of dollars to do a tar -cof and a mysqldump. TWO COMMANDS. The guy demanded HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS to do TWO COMMANDS. :shock: Didn't know about that one! Lends more credibility to the fraud accusations, that's for sure! I'm glad I don't donate to MTS2 anymore. Title: Posts on N99 from owner of UniversalSims Post by: missangelica on 2007 March 29, 00:13:00 This is Nathan from UniversalSims.
I'm glad this topic turned from an attack to an intelligent discussion, but there are a lot of questions I need to answer, so bare with me, and if I don't answer some, just ask and I will do my best to answer whatever you want to know. UniversalSims is hosted by LayeredTech, and managed by Delphy. I pay Delphy directly, the screenshot of the bill was sent directly from him, I don't have access to the billing section of LayeredTech. UniversalSims has not been shutdown because it is connected to Delphy's LayeredTech account, so as far as LayeredTech was concerned it was just a littler extra bandwidth from say MTS2. As someone pointed out, LayeredTech doesn't shut your down for going over, they just bill you. I was not aware of this, I assumed there was a block of some sort. When Delphy found out about what happenned he did take the site down for a few days to investigate. Every email sent out, was sent to registered members of UniversalSims. The site has been around for 2 years, so a lot of people may not remember registering. We have over 55,000 registered members, you can verify this by looking at the registered members on our forum, as it's all connected. I don't know why we were attacked over other sites, may had been deliberate, or may had been random. The site isn't as small as some people said. Some people are saying they've never heard of the site, but you can check the domain stats, search Google, look at my posts. I've been posting updates here since pretty much the beginning. UniversalSims is hardly a paysite. 98% of files are free downloads, I do make enough in donations to pay for my regular monthly hosting (sometimes I do pay for it out of my own pocket though). I've kept the site up this long because there are so many free downloads for new and old players alike. I have been creating new content for the site (a more fashionable line)...my first creations for the line were lost last year when my computer crashed so I have been recreating things since. I've been putting off updating right now because I didn't want to risk a bandwidth spike again, at least until were confident something like this wouldn't happen again. Again, if you have any questions, just ask. Nathan and then this one... tessieroo, I think I emailed you the same reply: No it's not the communities problem, and I am not blaming them! I am not holding any of you responsible for anything (where did you get that idea?). I asked for help because I have been offering a free service to the community for 2 years, and hoped that some would be willing to offer something in this time of need. I don't make a profit off the site, it's been kept up this long as my gift to the community. I've only emailed members of my site asking for help, not random people from the TS2 community. Yes, I have an internet connection, I don't see your point. TammyK I think I answered all your questions in my post, as well as others who have the facts of the situation. Sim Realty I pay Delphy the same amount each month via PayPal. I've never gone over my limit before. Since this bill was an unusual amount I requested a copy of the invoice. SimGoddessByline Thanks. Delphy manages my server but is not the host. That would be LayeredTech. I am going by Delphy's word. I've know him for years, and trust him completely. I would imagine MTS2 monthly bill is much more, there would be no reason to pass their bill on to me. He has shown me the stats, it's a very unusual situation. As for a laywer, I think it would cost more to hire one, we don't even know who the person is that's reponsible for the attack. Like Delphy said it was a very clever one. It looks like they are free from any liabilities, after looking at their TOS. I personally think they should had shutdown my site as soon as they saw something suspicious but since it was on the same account as Delphy's high traffic sites, they didn't notice anything odd. Delphy didn't get the bill until early March. Sim Realty I could move my site and not pay the bill. That would leave Delphy with a hefty bill, and I wouldn't feel right for it. Echo of the Night Perhaps your old email is forwarding it? You can see if your new email has an account at the site by logging in. It was sent via the site only to registered members, nobody else. I smell BULLSHIT! ^^; Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 00:25:08 Quote from: "Denimjo" :shock: Did they actually pay it?! Apparently so, since Delphy held their DB for ransom. The way Delphy suddenly pulled the plug on MATY suggested he might have been about to try a similar thing with us, but my paranoia had caused me to already fly the coop a night in advance. Realizing that his odds of pulling the wool over me like that were zero to none, he didn't make the attempt. Is this the thread on N99? I happen to be banned there, but someone might want to pass along my firm opinion that it is bullshit. $2000 buys you a dedicated server with UNLIMITED bandwidth for an entire freaking year, and someone is claiming that for HOW much? Did Universal sims get their own dedicated server at some point? I would recommend he move, quickly and QUIETLY. This has big red flags of "SCAM" all over it. The claims of bandwidth overages are even less credible, given that we know Delphy buys capacity in excess of what he needs, so an extra TB of usage would be well within his known surplus, and therefore makes it rather implausible that there would even have been an overage. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: GoddessByline on 2007 March 29, 00:39:08 Quote from: "Pescado" Quote from: "Denimjo" :shock: Did they actually pay it?! Is this the thread on N99? I happen to be banned there, but someone might want to pass along my firm opinion that it is bullshit. We're currently busy trying to help this Nathan right now, as it more and more seems like he/she is a victim of a scam. Apparently Delphy claims that the logs vere auto-deleted, so there's no listing anymore of the bandwidth use!!! There's more things like that unraveling, and it sreams SCAM to me. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 March 29, 00:45:39 Ok here is a copy of the invoice for all the lazies that don't want to go to the site :D !
(http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p183/RedlovesPirates/ltinvoiceusimszq9.jpg) Edit: Also for the unfairly banned *see below* :wink: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 01:35:40 Quote from: "RedLove" Ok here is a copy of the invoice for all the lazies that don't want to go to the site :D ! I'm banned from the site, for no apparent reason. And yes, I find it rather incredible that someone somehow managed to run up 4.7 TB of extra traffic on an otherwise deserted site, considering that PMBD doesn't run that much traffic. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: GoddessByline on 2007 March 29, 06:32:28 Quote from: "Pescado" I'm banned from the site, for no apparent reason. Pfthhh... There's always a valid reason when you are involved Pesky, and you know it. :twisted:Title: Universal Sims... Post by: AnneBonny on 2007 March 29, 06:53:06 The bandwidth overages on the nonexistant site are less than credible. However, MTS2 exceeding its own bandwidth limit is much more like it. This could be an alternative method to pay the bill without directly asking for more donations from the MTS2 folk.
In regards to N99, it seems reason enough the 'fish' was banned stemming out of the one permanent emotion of the inferior man; fear. Fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable, AKa Pescado. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 07:40:21 Up until yesterday I considered Delphy a friend of mine. But sorry, this smells BAD. Either he's simply been negligent, in which case he should be helping to sort it out not just billing them, or there is something I hate to think about. Delphy manouvered himself into pole position in the community provision stakes, and now he has to take some responsibility. At the very least he's mis-selling these plans to people for whom the terms are not going to be suitable.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 08:36:02 Quote from: "GoddessByline" Pfthhh... There's always a valid reason when you are involved Pesky, and you know it. :twisted: Hardly. The last thing I remember there was visiting there, doing thing, closing the window. A week later I went there and was banned. Hadn't done a thing. Unless "not visiting for a week" has become a crime there, this would qualify as "no reason". And mostly I can't be bothered to sneak back in, the atmosphere there always made me nauseous anyway. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 08:50:01 I think you just don't fit in there :) I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw you had even registered, actually.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 March 29, 09:21:57 What's this bollocks about everyone actually being a bloody member? I've never been there before in my life and I know this.
Plus 2 years ago I wasn't USING the email addy I got the message sent to!! I mean, I had it, but I NEVER used it! That's preposterous shite! It seems to me that Delphy is fucking us over. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: GoddessByline on 2007 March 29, 10:26:20 Quote from: "Pescado" Hardly. The last thing I remember there was visiting there, doing thing, closing the window. A week later I went there and was banned. I have to agree with Inge on this, you just don't fit in at N99 Pesky.Let's face it, I'm a bastard, and I recognice a fellow bastard from miles away. The difference between us is, that I'm older than you, wiser than you :P , and I have been an active member of the sims community since Jan 2000. I've seen it all, and participated in more drama than I care to admitt. I've come to a point where I'm quite feed up with all the feuds going on in the community, thus I'm able to enjoy a friendly, helpful and family oriented place like N99... you are not. Besides, whining doesn't become you. :wink: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 11:17:50 Quote from: "GoddessByline" Let's face it, I'm a bastard, and I recognice a fellow bastard from miles away. The difference between us is, that I'm older than you, wiser than you :P Not according to the data we have on file, you're not. Either you're making some assumptions, or you've entered some very false info. Quote from: "GoddessByline" I've come to a point where I'm quite feed up with all the feuds going on in the community, thus I'm able to enjoy a friendly, helpful and family oriented place like N99... you are not. Pssh. *I* never get fed up with fighting. It's bred into my bones. Fighting is what we live for, and what I have done for the 66 years I've been around. I *LIVE* to fight! And N99 friendly and helpful my ass. More like saccharine backstabbing. I've seen plenty of fighting there, they just don't carry it out in the open. Bunch of wussies. No doubt somebody there hoped to score points in their eternal political squabbles with that move. Quote from: "teadrinker" I think you just don't fit in there :) I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw you had even registered, actually. I wouldn't have bothered at all if not for the fact that they make you register just to read it. I recall I was there to watch some sort of fight. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: GoddessByline on 2007 March 29, 11:36:23 Quote from: "Pescado" Not according to the data we have on file, you're not.. My misstake then, I always picture you as a pimply teenager. :wink: Quote from: "Pescado" More like saccharine backstabbing. That was actually quite witty. I don't agree with that sentiment, as it's more fitting for other places, but it's still funny. *rotfl*Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 11:48:36 Quote from: "GoddessByline" My misstake then, I always picture you as a pimply teenager. :wink: It's because I'm male, isn't it? Quote from: "GoddessByline" That was actually quite witty. I don't agree with that sentiment, as it's more fitting for other places, but it's still funny. *rotfl* Eh, seems an apt description of what I see going on there. You people aren't allowed to just curse at someone so instead you sit there and fume in silence while thinking of catty comments to say. It's really quite unhealthy, you know. Out here, if you think someone's a stupid whale and a waste of space, you tell them so. It's very therapeutic. None of that saccharine backstabbing and catty sniping. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 12:00:47 Seems a shame to divert the thread from what could end up being the hugest scandal in Sims2dom.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: GoddessByline on 2007 March 29, 12:06:41 Quote from: "teadrinker" Seems a shame to divert the thread from what could end up being the hugest scandal in Sims2dom. Agree Inge. Back to the matter at hand... Has anyone seen any response from Delphy to all this? It seems like, right now he's the only one that can straighten out the questionmarks we have.Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 12:14:12 Yes, Delphy confirmed yesterday that he is indeed asking Universal Sims for that amount. The guy from Universal Sims claims he had no idea those expenses were being run up and usage never showed on their Cpanel stats. Delphy agrees, and says it was a process running that would not have shown up.
There is no evidence therefore that it *was* a process belonging to Universal Sims that caused the traffic to or from that server. Delphy was the admin for that server and if he couldn't see anything wrong how could Universal be expected to. I do smell a certain scamminess to the situation but it is beginning to look less and less likely that the smell is coming from Universal themselves. I mean I only heard Delphy's response from Helena, but I am assume that is the same story he'd tell anyone Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 13:00:01 Quote from: "teadrinker" Yes, Delphy confirmed yesterday that he is indeed asking Universal Sims for that amount. The guy from Universal Sims claims he had no idea those expenses were being run up and usage never showed on their Cpanel stats. Delphy agrees, and says it was a process running that would not have shown up. If it didn't show up on Cpanel, it's bogus. Pure and simple. There are no "processes" that can be running to chew up *4.7 TB* of extra bandwidth, and certainly no processes that belong to Universal Sims, as the site lacks any such code or necessity for such code. It does not exist. He is obviously attempting to pull the wool over a hapless and ignorant luser. Perhaps some MTS2-asset got linked to that server and promptly proceeded to suck down bandwidth in the way MTS2 does. Even if this were the case, demanding *2000* for what looks like a month's worth of billing is outrageous! Quote from: "teadrinker" There is no evidence therefore that it *was* a process belonging to Universal Sims that caused the traffic to or from that server. Delphy was the admin for that server and if he couldn't see anything wrong how could Universal be expected to. Of course not. Universal Sims wouldn't have any processes. Any traffic generated could easily be accounted for in the logs. This is clearly an attempt to exploit someone's general lack of knowledge about websites and Unix servers in general. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 13:09:12 At the very least it's a mis-selling, as Delphy must have known the Universal guys would not be in a position to control their own bandwidth without some overseeing from the host and some way of logging it - and almost certainly aware they would not be able to cope with a contract that simply allows costs to mount up without warning. At the very least. On the other end of the spectrum something even nastier is happening.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 13:15:56 I think you should invite the Universal Sims dude to join this conversation, since it seems that there's little else to be said without some more input from either Delphy or Universal Sims Dude. Because if this gabble is going to be carried on entirely at N99, I see little point in continuing this here as a game of telephone.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 13:19:03 Well, Delphy visits here doesn't he? I want some technical explanation about this mystery process.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: GoddessByline on 2007 March 29, 13:20:32 Quote from: "Pescado" I think you should invite the Universal Sims dude to join this conversation, since it seems that there's little else to be said without some more input from either Delphy or Universal Sims Dude. I showed him the way here yesterday after a request from him in a private PM. He has not replyed to that PM, so I don't know if he has registred here or not.Title: Universal Sims... Post by: sherrie on 2007 March 29, 14:04:55 Quote I showed him the way here yesterday after a request from him in a private PM. He has not replyed to that PM, so I don't know if he has registred here or not. yes he has, I saw him on here in the early hours of this morning (uk time) Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 14:06:06 He's probably up to his waist in booty by now, having forgotten all about why he came here.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: sherrie on 2007 March 29, 14:08:35 Quote from: "teadrinker" He's probably up to his waist in booty by now, having forgotten all about why he came here. ...That's a point Title: Universal Sims... Post by: GoddessByline on 2007 March 29, 14:20:56 Quote from: "teadrinker" He's probably up to his waist in booty by now, having forgotten all about why he came here. Honestly, I think he's very confused right now. I believe he's very young. At least I got that impression from the posts he made. And he also seems to consider Delphy a friend and mentor. Now, he is perhaps slowly starting to realise, that Delphy isn't all that much of a friend, and I can only imagine the sadness, confusion, and feeling to be way in over his head, that he's experiencing right now.Just assumptions on my part of course, but that's how I've 'read' him. *shrug* Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 14:30:48 I can still remember being young and afraid of my parents yelling at me that it didn't occurr to me that after finishing yelling they'd be wanting to support and help me. I bet he's frantically trying to raise the money cos he's afraid that otherwise Delphy will tell his parents.
But if Nathan is young and even if he's not so young, it sounds like he could really do with a trusted person he knows to help him through this. What's a bit of yelling when there's £2000 and your reputation at stake? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 17:29:49 Well if the logs do auto-wipe, all I can say is "How Very Convenient" for the person who set them up to do so.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 March 29, 17:33:39 I can understand why Nathan isn't talking much. So far there are benign explanations for his/her behavior. Of course it's possible that he is not being honest, can't be sure.
It's hard to come up with benign explanations for Delphy's behavior though. He certainly can't plead inexperience. Surely he knows by now some serious questions about his behavior have been raised. He'd better figure out how he's going to deal with it. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 17:44:14 They could be in it together. What is looking less likely now is that this is a standalone Nathan scam, given that Delphy corroborated the bill.
Erm... omg - any chance Nathan isn't even a standalone person? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 17:46:33 Quote from: "teadrinker" Well if the logs do auto-wipe, all I can say is "How Very Convenient" for the person who set them up to do so. Logfiles do autorotate and are eventually wiped within a few days, which is plausible...but if this is true, then he similarly has zero evidence to pin it on UniversalSims, so the validity of his conclusions would be very doubtful. Quote from: "teadrinker" They could be in it together. What is looking less likely now is that this is a standalone Nathan scam, given that Delphy corroborated the bill. "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem." Surely you cannot be seriously suggesting that this is the work of a many-headed conspiracy-monster when a far more obvious and plausible explanation exists. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Lorelei on 2007 March 29, 17:47:55 Quote from: "Pescado" The way Delphy suddenly pulled the plug on MATY .... :shock::shock::shock: Say WHAT, now?! *behold my very angry eyebrows* :x That is simply NOT ON. Pardon me while I recoil in my newbieness from what's apparently ancient history. God, you go get a life minus Sims for a few years and you miss out on all the best crazy shit-storms and lurid gossip. Serves me right for having other interests for a while. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 17:57:21 Well you're not a responsible or even competent host if you can't monitor the usage patterns of your hosted sites so he should pack it in and concentrate on his own site.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 18:01:49 Quote from: "Lorelei" :shock::shock::shock: Say WHAT, now?! *behold my very angry eyebrows* :x That is simply NOT ON. Pardon me while I recoil in my newbieness from what's apparently ancient history. The event occurred with relatively little associated drama around the time of early-October last year. Basically, a day in advance, in my spider senses started tingling. Placing my faith in my inner voice of paranoia, I proceeded to dump, tar, and gzip the entire server and download the files to my other servers. Not 24 hours later, Delphy PM'ed me to, apparently benignly, announce that the Relicnews server was going to be phased out and that I should begin seeking alternative hosting as the future of the server had become uncertain. At this point it fell short of an outright eviction notice. Naturally, suspicious but unperturbed, I proceeded to simply order Malaysian. Less than 12 hours after I had placed the order, Delphy spontaneously closed the MATY account, citing some spurious excuse about an IP violation and association with PMBD (despite that all this had been public knowledge for over a week and nothing had changed on that), and locked everything down. Utterly unsurprised, went to see what he had to say and if his intent was attempt to try to hold the site for ransom, a gambit he decided to apparently not play after he noticed that I had already fled with the backups not long ago. He did provide a dump of the DB on request, but I was not able to get it to function, either because of intentional obfuscation or incompatible dumping procedures, and the resulting loss of a few hours of DB may be noticeable inside the MATY statistical record. Naturally, I don't have any real PROOF of what he was planning to attempt, but it IS a rather suspicious incident in terms of timing and what we know of the historical record with what happened to Insim previously. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 March 29, 18:05:22 Quote from: "Pescado" Naturally, I don't have any real PROOF of what he was planning to attempt, but it IS a rather suspicious incident in terms of timing and what we know of the historical record with what happened to Insim previously. ...what happened to the Insim previously??! Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 March 29, 18:14:34 I asked an 18-year-old friend who understands hacking and servers today, and he says it's easy to hack into a site and crack up that amount of usage (he says you can do it in one day easily...I doubt that though somehow), HOWEVER there is no way in HELL that it would have cost that much. There's just no way, says Joe...he says it's much more likely that the bill is Delphy's.
Poor Nathan, saying he trusts Delphy...I wouldn't if I were him! And it thinks I've signed up. Quote Registered on Oct 19 2006, 01:16 PM last login: oct 19 2006, 02:02 PM That's ridiculous! It thinks I've never posted; I never sign onto a website without posting at LEAST once! On InSim I believe I've posted 5 times, but still!! I ALWAYS post! Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 18:14:45 The short and ugly? Insim outgrew MTS2's surplus hosting capacity, and Delphy thus decided to drop them. Nothing wrong with that, per-se, but his handling of the matter was flat out shady and disreputable, pulling their plug far ahead of schedule and demanding hundreds of dollars essentially as ransom for their files. The profile was pretty similar to what he may have attempted with MATY, in the same way that he announced we'd have to move, implying we had more time than he actually gave us to do so, and then pulling the plug and all access abruptly and without warning. Naturally, *I* wasn't going to fall for any spiels or ransom demands.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 March 29, 18:52:21 umm just an fyi delphy is already a registered user here.....he's posted before.....months ago....also he doesn't play the game so why would he want to download the booty?
Just thought i would clarify something :P Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 18:54:55 Quote from: "OneEyedWillie" umm just an fyi delphy is already a registered user here.....he's posted before.....months ago....also he doesn't play the game so why would he want to download the booty? We know, which is why I hardly expect him to be a frequent flier or aware of what is discussed here. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 March 29, 18:58:50 nah i know most of us oldtimers know but some of the newer users don't know that, so i was just clarifying it cause some didn't realize that a page back....shoulda quoted :oops:
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 29, 18:58:54 Oh he'll be aware, don't you worry. If he didn't see it for himself someone will be keeping him filled in on it.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 March 29, 19:05:47 I can't believe he doesn't know what's being discussed here or at N99. Someone from N99 told him about it, at least they quoted his responses on the matter at N99. I would also expect someone from here has talked to him about it as well.
I don't think he can claim he doesn't know about the controversy. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 March 29, 21:18:45 About the screencap of the bill, note that the line item entry begins with the word "Manual:"
I'm guessing the amount due was entered manually for the account, rather than automatically generated. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 March 29, 21:30:28 I have no idea what any thing on that thing means could some one clarify?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Fresh-Prince on 2007 March 29, 21:31:51 I do believe that Nathan, or the owner of Universal sims is young. My brother used to once in a while make few objects for the site, maybe a year or 2 ago this was. If I recall, the owner was 16 or around that age. I may be wrong, but I think thats what was said.
With all this conversation, it seems like the sims community is falling apart. I wonder what will happen in the near future. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 29, 21:33:34 12. There's no 16. And falling apart? This is business as usual.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Fresh-Prince on 2007 March 29, 21:36:17 Well, this business is more like a war. Someone is going to lose and someone will win. I just wonder who will win and who will lose. Just my opinion.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Fresh-Prince on 2007 March 29, 21:40:28 I never knew it was like that since sims 1. I haven't been in the community for so long, so I guess I haven't been realizing what really goes on.
I guess a lot of bad things have happened in the past. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 March 29, 21:41:12 The problem is not everyone is honest. If you build things by scamming others, it will colapse eventually. This isn't a war so much, but it is a scandal.
It is still possible that there is a logical explanation for all of this, but I'm not really hopeful of that. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 March 29, 22:36:44 It's discouraging, Fresh Prince.
We have seen people run big donation drives and then disappear, people claiming to have debilitating diseases and needing money - heck, we even had a site owner whose husband announced her "death". These last two schmucks were professional actors who also ran a "charity"; that's how their scam was uncovered. :roll: In this case, it does feel a little apocalyptic, because a very visible and long-standing community member may be at the center of this. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 30, 01:12:29 Quote from: "chlyn" In this case, it does feel a little apocalyptic, because a very visible and long-standing community member may be at the center of this. You see it that way, perhaps. I see it as business as usual. Like I said, this isn't the first time Delphy has done something like this, and the fact that Universal Sims has the option of simply running for the hills combined with Delphy's grip on the MTS2 itself will keep him from catching too much flak. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Yaardarm Monkey on 2007 March 30, 04:49:22 If this Nathan of Universal Sims is under 18 and his parents did not sign anything...under the law isnt a child (under eighteen) legally incapable of entering into a binding legal contract without parental approval?
Then Delphy hasnt a leg to stand on if Nathan tells him bite the big one :twisted: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 30, 07:38:18 I have decided Nathan is probably in on it to some extent. He doesn't seem horrified enough by the trouble he's in, and he's more concerned about keeping the site up and in its current hosting agreement than getting out of trouble and avoiding similar future problems. As I said elsewhere:
Quote I am afraid that some of Nathan's reactions to this have me feeling he isn't entirely an innocent and ignorant party to this. Surely an innocent teen in this horrendous predicament would be wanting it to all go away, not just saying "I don't want to lose my site". After all, why would someone want to continue having a hosting account that RIGHT NOW could have an undetectable runaway process creating a bill of $2000 for NEXT MONTH too? If the logs autowipe, and it doesn't show up in their stats, how do they know it's not STILL HAPPENING or could HAPPEN AGAIN? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 30, 07:42:29 It does seem rather strange that he's not running in terror and has not responded in any meaningful way, yes.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 March 30, 18:16:37 I was thinking the same thing. It's hard to imagine a kid, and a supposedly scared one at that, coming up with the idea - and the e-mail addresses - to contact thousands of people and ask for money.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: HideTheRum on 2007 March 30, 22:49:33 Oh. I didn't know anything about Delphy's past similar movements, and I had a general, if sort of distracted, opinion he was a good guy. Now, not so much anymore, not at all. I can't say I'm surprised about the way things seem to be developing though. Guess I'm jaded.
And, twistedly, sort of amused at all this. What an entertaining community indeed :mrgreen: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Sherry on 2007 March 31, 07:40:56 Quote from: "teadrinker" I have decided Nathan is probably in on it to some extent. He doesn't seem horrified enough by the trouble he's in, and he's more concerned about keeping the site up and in its current hosting agreement than getting out of trouble and avoiding similar future problems. It could be that he doesn't know what to do. Perhasp he is afriad his parents will find out, he'll be hit with a lawsuit ect. Also, he has a hard choice, if he just leaves and stiffs Delphy with a huge bill that allegedly he caused it certainly isen't going to look good on his part. Lastly, it's alot to swallow that someone you look up to and thought was helping you out, acting like a mentor, could possibly be trying to take advantage of the fact you are naive. What confuses me even more about this whole situation is why Delphy after making this whole... declaration or whatever he called that free site rant he went on about and advertised all over his site... would choose to host a site that he knew would be pay? Further, it makes me wonder what he was charging the kid to begin with? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 31, 08:15:35 Oh lol Delphy's not truly anti-paysite. If he was he wouldn't allow recolours of pay meshes on MTS2. I mean heck they have rules and rejections a-plenty for the user uploads, they could easily add that without detriment to the site. But that apparent stance he took probably did amazing things for the donations.
On the fed, MTS2 is actually a class C paysite, under the clause that they have content that requires you to part with money before you can use it. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Anouk on 2007 March 31, 09:57:23 That's what I hate about FFFS, it feels like a site is worth less than another site. I'm not joining.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 31, 10:13:01 Nouk, what does "joining" mean to you? It's ages since we had such a concept as a federation member. We have forum members that's all, and they're not necessarily site owners. You already registered, deleted your account, and then reregistered of your own free will, so you've joined! (where is the confused emoticon?)
As a separate matter, your site is in our directory of free sites. That's a passive thing, a site does not need its owner to be a forum member in order to be listed. Like most sites that maintain lists of other sites or finds, we decide what we list. Now as to whether a site with pay content or content that requires pay content in order to make it work is worth less than another site? Too damn right it is! That's what we believe anyway. If you want to prop up pay sites by making them feel of equal worth to free sites, go right ahead. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 31, 10:23:43 Heh, if you want to get delisted just link to PMBD. :P You are a Pirate!
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 31, 10:27:29 That's right, it will get you off the list - and let us know as we don't re-assess sites very often :D
But sorry it still doesn't get you chucked off the forum :P Title: Universal Sims... Post by: beawaywithit on 2007 March 31, 12:28:43 I think the host (delphy is it?) has to be negligent in some way, someone hire a lawyer? lol
teadrinker why do you get to decide who is a paysite, who is better than anyone else, etc? Nobody made you queen of the world. get off your high horse, the FFSS website (or whatever its acronym is) is empty, a pile of rubbish, nothing but people who want to known in the community (albeit for stupid reasons) You say paysites tear the community up - well so does your classification system. just let people be , paysite or non-paysite, they don't need rigorous rules i also dont think you should be listing and rating other peoples websites without their consent. On other top site lists etc you register/submit your site. going around blacklisting other websites destroys the community spirit and id say this on your website but I trie to register and put the wrong e-mail address so now I cant join it Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 31, 12:31:14 Quote from: "teadrinker" On the fed, MTS2 is actually a class C paysite, under the clause that they have content that requires you to part with money before you can use it. Ooh. What do PMBD and MATY classify as? Are we too evil to be classified? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 31, 12:43:31 PMBD is ClassP
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 31, 12:56:15 Quote from: "beawaywithit" i also dont think you should be listing and rating other peoples websites without their consent. On other top site lists etc you register/submit your site. going around blacklisting other websites destroys the community spirit This is ignorant nonsense. Lots of sites have lists and finds pages and *most* of those maintain them themselves with their own choice of sites. (eg Community Updates at N99, Parsimonious) Also many sites give out awards for various criteria - again chosen by their own staff (eg Moomoos and Featured at MTS2, SimMoms, Parsimonious again). And what about nearly every sims fansite on the planet has a page of "favourite sites" link buttons! You're just all a-fluster cos we're judging on unusual criteria rather than "quality" or "favourite". Who wants just one more quality-ranked list? Please relax the boundaries of your mind. Quote and id say this on your website but I trie to register and put the wrong e-mail address so now I cant join it Sounds like a lucky escape for you. Be happy. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 March 31, 12:56:40 What is Class P then? What does that mean?
If you link to PMBD you won't get a mention? Aiight, that's me out then... ^^^ And I'm starting to agree with everyone believing Nathan has a part of this. He doesn't show the right signs of some kid who has been hit with an inconceivably massive bill and wants to be away with it. Take me, for example. I've my own site, I'm basically a kid (nearly 18, just a couple of months). If I had someone hosting me and they slammed me with a bill so bloody huge, I'd cry a bit, complain to whoever would listen (and those who wouldn't), try and negotiate, and if nothing happened there I'd pull my site and run for the hills... Nathan really isn't acting normally... Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 31, 13:00:34 In fact, Nathan might not really be Nathan, he might have someone's hand in him. It's not that hard to pretend to be a kid, people have been known to impersonate young people on the internet, for a variety of reasons.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 March 31, 13:08:40 You're right; he may not be a kid...
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 31, 13:21:41 Quote from: "teadrinker" Also many sites give out awards for various criteria - again chosen by their own staff (eg Moomoos and Featured at MTS2, SimMoms, Parsimonious again). Cows and Trophies on MTS2 are awarded to individuals, though, not sites, so this is not a good example. Ultimately, though, meh. I bask in my disapproval! Do what you want cuz a pirate is free: YOU ARE A PIRATE! Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 31, 13:28:07 Why don't we start a separate thread for slagging off the federation? This is one thread I *don't* think should be derailed.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 31, 13:59:42 Hey, who's fault is it for starting on about the Federation, anyway? Aren't you people supposed to have a Prime Directive or something?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 31, 14:27:09 I was pointing out that Delphy is not properly anti-paysite cos his site, for which he makes up the rules, is run in such a way that it supports paysites. Forget I mentioned The F********. My opinion as an individual is that if people have recolours of pay meshes on their site, they are helping to keep paysites going. If they have links advertising paysites, they are helping to keep people going to paysites, and possibly subscribing to them while they are there.
A real anti-paysite person won't have things on their own site that direct people to paysites. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Anouk on 2007 March 31, 15:43:57 OT:
Never in my life have I made a pay item. My site has always been 100% free. I use free meshes that are originally from paysites, but can be found allmost everywhere. Out of respect to the creator and his/her creation, I link back to the site it comes from, wether it be pay or free. I do that because I don't want to claim ownership of something that I did not make. Therefore I am not a true or proper anti paysite person. However, FFFS supports paysites by allowing them to go on selling stuff that can be gotten fro free on PMND, saying it is theft. Now what is real theft?? Selling stuff that is supposed to be free, is against the EULA, or providing these files for free without harm (except financial, wich is ILLEGAL finance anyway) to paysites? PMND is not modifying their content. They offer and host it for free, like it's supposed to be. Are you a true and proper anti paysite person, (as a FFFS member)? Or are you (as FFFS), maybe, just allowing paysites to continue on by blacklisting sites that do justice by linking to somewhere to get the files for free, as they are supposed to be? Like it or not, you guys are one of the reasons that paysites keep going. Not meant to be a personal attack, but it's how I view it, and it's how it works... Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 March 31, 15:57:04 So Nouk, are you saying Delphy is anti-paysite?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Anouk on 2007 March 31, 16:42:04 No he isn't per say. He goes with popular view.
And a note: I don't dislike you or anything, just wanted to show you a double standard I think FFFS is having. It's not against you personally. So if it sounds that way, I'm sorry. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quinctia on 2007 March 31, 18:25:05 See, I don't mind the idea of distinguishing between sites that actually use pay meshes and link to the sources and completely free sites.
But essentially blacklisting sites for allowing everyone access to files is self-defeating. It's also half-ass, and it's pandering to the status quo. Now I'd really like to know what's going on here. A site I visit was recently brought down under a DDoS attack and the site owners didn't get hit with a huge bandwidth bill. They did get kinda booted from their hosting, as the company didn't want to deal with an account that seemed to be a target for attacks, but they didn't get stuck with a bill. So somone is getting ripped off somewhere in this arrangement. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 March 31, 18:38:44 DDoS operates on a different principle from bandwidth drain. In a DDoS, the idea is to overload the server with spurious requests from many different machines and prevent it from doing anything at all. Bandwidth saturation is one way to accomplish this, but usually the weakest links that fail first are the server processes, which consume all the server resources and then crash.
Bandwidth drain, on the other hand, is aimed at producing a sustained high load that does not necessarily disrupt service, as disrupting services would stop you from being able to drain off bandwidth if you overload and crash the server. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quinctia on 2007 March 31, 23:16:25 Oh, okay, I never even thought about that. Duh! I know there have been some attacks that did use bandwidth, but yeah the recent one I'm thinking of did crash the server.
But isn't the "story" that the bandwidth spike was probably an attack, since there wasn't an exceptional amount of content on the site? And wouldn't a responsible host take down the site or change the DNS temporarily? I know that's what happened to the site I was talking about after they got the server back up. They temporarily changed the DNS. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 April 01, 01:36:18 Heh, if people are silly enough to take aim at your DNS, it's funny to redirect that DNS to 127.0.0.1. :P
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quinctia on 2007 April 01, 03:07:21 Quote from: "Pescado" Heh, if people are silly enough to take aim at your DNS, it's funny to redirect that DNS to 127.0.0.1. :P That is exactly what they did! :D Title: Universal Sims... Post by: callmeird on 2007 April 01, 03:41:56 Quote from: "Pescado" Heh, if people are silly enough to take aim at your DNS, it's funny to redirect that DNS to 127.0.0.1. :P Webmaster humour! I don't get it. <.< Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 April 01, 04:05:07 Quote from: "callmeird" Webmaster humour! I don't get it. <.< 127.0.0.1 is "localhost", meaning the user's computer. If a user attacks this IP, he's shooting at himself. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 01, 04:08:19 Oh smart and sneaky!
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 01, 08:08:17 Anyway it looks pretty much like he realises his scam has been rumbled and he's given up with us. Though it looks like some people have been fooled, unless he's inventing the figures.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 01, 18:41:22 Note to self: remember to work "Go f*ck 127.0.0.1" into conversations.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Requip on 2007 April 01, 20:10:56 Nathan's latest post at N99 -
Quote Ok, I contacted LayeredTech, and they replied on 03/29/07. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello, Thank you for contacting Layered Technologies. We would like to address your concerns, however for security purposes we cannot. This email does not appear to be on file with our company. Please correspond only from your registered billing e-mail address. If you would like to register this email address as well, please send your request from your primary email and we can add the new email address as a secondary contact. Thank you, Accounts Department Layered Technologies accounts@layeredtech.com 1(866)230-0800 Toll-free (972)398-7998 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So I called them, and basically said since I wasn't on the account they couldn't help me. So, I emailed Delphy asking him to add my email address to the account so I could ask LayeredTech some questions. He replied saying it would be better to transfer the server onto a separate account, controlled completely by me. Where would that leave me with the bill? I don't know. He did say he would accept 3 payments of $783/month. That doesn't help me much though. If I were to put the server onto my own account (which I do want to do), I would want to clear everything with LayeredTech FIRST, so I replied to him saying this. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think we will do that but before going ahead wanted to ask LayeredTech a few things about the server, and moving etc, but for them to discuss that my email needs to be on the account. Id like to do that before finalizing the transfer. Nathan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He replied saying he is reluctant to add my email because of security issues, which I can understand, but there is no other option at this point, so I replied with this: Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It would only be temporary. Perhaps you could email them telling them to accept emails from my address, that should work too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Then he replied asking me which questions I would like to ask them. Well there are many, I wrote a whole letter for them, something I would like to speak with them directly about. So I replied to him with this: Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I already emailed them my questions, they wont reply until you confirm to them that its okay to email me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That last reply was on March 30th. I have yet to receive a reply from Delphy, though he has been on MSN - no answer there either. I really want to speak to LayeredTech, but right now it seems I've reached a dead end. Sorry I didnt post earlier, but I was waiting for a real response from LayeredTech...and well that just hasn't happened yet. It's in Delphy's hands right now, and I hope that he will allow me to communicate directly with LayeredTech. - Nathan Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 01, 20:32:44 I can't decide on whether he is the bad guy or the good guy O.O This is so confusing
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 01, 20:43:28 It sounds like the account is in Delphy's name, and Delphy sublet space to Nathan.
If LT doesn't even recognize Nathan, then the bill's not his problem; it's Delphy's. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: HideTheRum on 2007 April 01, 20:47:44 Quote from: "Requip" Nathan's latest post at N99 Mmm. This doesn't sound right, at all. I too was starting to think Nathan might be involved in the scam, but this post, if what he wrote is true (and I don't see why it shouldn't) truly makes Delphy look like a very shady person up to some very shady manoeuvers. I'm starting to be really disappointed, and I wish someone could do something...I'd hate for this thing to just disappear with no answers nor explanations. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 01, 20:51:41 Well if Nathan was part of the scam you could expect him to say exactly what he has said. What he's still not doing is acting the way you'd think a teen in trouble would.
And is Delphy really so thick that he'd leave this site open when the guy already can't pay him back, and the same runaway script could be starting up again... right now... to double the debt? It doesn't add up from alpha to omega. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Requip on 2007 April 01, 21:19:12 Quote If LT doesn't even recognize Nathan, then the bill's not his problem; it's Delphy's This is my thinking. And isn't Nathan a minor PLUS there was no contract? (just a verbal agreement?) Me thinks Delphy is the one who should be stuck with this, especially if he won't provide proof or let the kid talk to the them. Delphy's been too quiet about this. :? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 01, 21:20:53 Nathan could be anyone or anything, with any motive.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 01, 23:30:44 In that case, all we know for sure is that someone is asking for $2500.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Lorelei on 2007 April 02, 01:07:12 Quote from: "chlyn" In that case, all we know for sure is that someone is asking for $2500. Well, gawrsh, let me run to go get my checkbook right NOW! Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 02, 01:39:12 Quote from: "chlyn" In that case, all we know for sure is that someone is asking for $2500. So we've been stuck at square one for what a couple of days? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Cody on 2007 April 02, 02:03:24 Somebody needs to tell Nathan to run. Grab his site and run to a new host.
The account is in Delphy's name. Nathan was (may still be) a minor when the account was created. Therefore, he has no legal obligation to pay Delphy or LT anything. Delphy *could* try to sue, but he'd have no legal ground to stand on. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 April 02, 03:23:01 He should just run to Malaysia, yes. I find it implausible that Nathan ran up 4.7 TB...if he's real....with zero evidence in Cpanel to support this.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Hecubus on 2007 April 02, 13:29:29 Quote from: "Lorelei" Well, gawrsh, let me run to go get my checkbook right NOW! As long as you're offering, I've got some medical bills piling up....and I'm too drugged out to come up with my own email scam. But seriously: Doesn't this seem to be getting more and more....elaborate? There's a part of me that wonders if this is ALL a major scam....and that "Nathan" isn't even real. How do we know this $2K+ charge even EXISTS? All we've seen in the way of apparent proof is 'paperwork' from Delphy. Hell, I can make fake invoices. And I can send emails/make posts from several different IP addresses...right from my own computer. I can even change my manner of writing to approximate two different voices. Things are just not adding up right here...all the way around. My trusting nature is quickly giving way to utter cynicism. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 02, 14:22:19 Then...there is no "Nathan"; there's only Delphy wanting $2500?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 April 02, 14:35:42 This is just plain speculating now :? We don't know anything for sure unless Delphy or Nathan clarifies it, and they might not do that..or they could be untruthful if they did...
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 02, 14:58:32 I think about the only thing we can say for sure is that Delphy is trying to do something underhanded. The rest, who knows? The smartest thing for Delphy to do is what he's doing, be completely silent about the matter.
I haven't had much respect for him for some time anyway, this just further confirms it. People don't want to go after him, since he runs MTS2, and a lot just won't be aware of the issue. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Yaardarm Monkey on 2007 April 02, 17:30:58 it was mentioned at another site:
that there is several other sites on the same server..... :roll: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Marhis on 2007 April 02, 18:21:44 Quote from: "Yaardarm Monkey" it was mentioned at another site: that there is several other sites on the same server..... :roll: 8 domains total; and they have the same registrant, too, same email/nick of Nathan on N99. Now, I'm definitely puzzled. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Lorelei on 2007 April 02, 20:00:01 Quote from: "Hecubus" Quote from: "Lorelei" Well, gawrsh, let me run to go get my checkbook right NOW! As long as you're offering, I've got some medical bills piling up....and I'm too drugged out to come up with my own email scam. Sure! Anyone else want something? How about new computers, all the candy in the world, and ponies? *scribbles away* Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 02, 21:01:46 You forgot to mention that the sites are registered to a Lois. "Nathan" is nowhere to be found!
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 April 02, 21:11:42 yeah but tbh that doesn't mean that lois and nathan aren't the same person. I have so many nics, even with registration....don't like to use my RL name for ANYTHING :P
but then again it's not saying that they ARE the same either.... Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 April 03, 13:47:02 This is starting to get creepy...*hides behind Will*
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 03, 14:39:13 It's hard to imagine what type of person would call themselves both Lois and Nathan, other that someone who was quite comfortable posing as very different genders and personalities. Usually a person with several nicks they are sort of on the same theme. Like "teadrinker"
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 April 03, 14:48:50 Quote from: "teadrinker" Usually a person with several nicks they are sort of on the same theme. Like "teadrinker" Teadrinker is a theme? Me, despite what you would believe, I may have a variety of handles in various contexts, but I'm consistently me on all of them. And not 3 people like some kind of hydra. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 03, 14:56:22 I have 4 different handles, but the personality is pretty much me in all. I don't go to any lengths to seperate them really. Nothing wrong in itself with having multiple net personalities, even different genders and ages, but when it's coupled with the scamminess of this Universal Sims thing, it comes into question.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 03, 16:08:21 Different personalities are for RPers and those with mental disorders. (One and the same? ;p) How could you possibly fix something wrong with your website by calling them up and your real gender isn't what you signed up as?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 April 03, 16:15:14 lol none of my nicks are related to each other in anyway, but I'm pretty much me in all of them too. I'm too lazy to be bothered trying to be someone else....
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 April 03, 18:11:24 None of my nicknames are related to each other (see "Jersey Princess" and "Tchân de Bouley" and "Sapphire" for examples). I'm pretty much the same in all of them, but I am different in a couple of them. Especially when I'm pretending to be 18. I'm very different then. ^^ And I've attempted to be a boy before, too. It's very hard. I commend any female who pretends to be a boy for longer than an hour a day...
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: JoJo on 2007 April 03, 18:20:20 Yup, same for me - different handles different places and always myself. I think this is true for most people. However, this is not in any way supportive of a theory that Lois and Nathan are the same people - or that they are different people. The general MO of the online community is completely unrelated to such an issue.
If someone were to premeditate a scam like this it would be in their best interest to create a completely new and separate persona (or two). This scam is too obviously a scam and whoever is behind it would have known that only a certain percentage of people would actually donate money and a certain amount would see right through it. Someone has to be the fall guy, even if all parties involved are silent from here on out (the community will form their perception about it anyway). Naturally it will be assumed that Delphy is doing something dishonest, but at this point, if he remains silent there will be room for doubt. The money has already been scammed/received. No matter what happens, in the end Delphy can always just take the stance: "I had to eat the bill whilst being considered to be behind a huge scam - but I guess that's just par for the course for someone in a position such as mine. It's not easy running such a huge site and your going to run into something like this every so often." He could even go so far as to say something to the effect that he paid the bill and Nathan said he'd raise the money to pay him back, showed him how he was going about it and stiffed him. Half the suckers who bought the scam would probably feel bad for "poor Delphy" and go donate to something to MTS2 on top of it. It could be that Nathan simply dropped off the face of cyberspace a year ago and Delphy just adopted his persona. He is a kid, he could have just lost interest the moment he got his drivers license or something. When I got mine I had the Hot Rod of gaming PCs, you sort of have to to play these games efficiently enough for them to be fun - I sold it that day. The next day I bought a junker of a car... Didn't touch a computer again for over ten years. Whatever is really going on it does look like Delphy is doing something shady (again)... And it looks like that for a reason. Delphy is doing something shady, again. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 04, 06:50:30 Well apparently "nathan" is not pleased that we've dragged family members into his scam. Is he saying that Delphy is a member of his family?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: JMZ on 2007 April 04, 07:23:57 Quote from: "teadrinker" Well apparently "nathan" is not pleased that we've dragged family members into his scam. Is he saying that Delphy is a member of his family? I've been keeping up with this thread and unless I've missed something the only time his family has been mentioned was when it was said that with him being underage he would probably be afraid of his parents finding out (or something like that.) What did I miss? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 04, 08:24:02 On N99 he got the mods to lock the thread cos he didn't like the way we were implicating a family member into the scam. Though I am not always sure what he's saying.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 April 04, 11:31:09 He's an idiot child misunderstanding what others have written?
Or maybe he just wanted a quick way to make the thread shut (and confuse us poor souls)? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 04, 13:21:39 I'm surprised they left it open as long as they did. I honestly don't know what to think of Nathan, if he really exists.
Delphy appears to be a pretty shady character though. Pity he has such a lockdown on MTS2. I doubt we'll ever have a full accounting of what all happened. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 04, 14:02:56 If the mods at N99 left that thread open it's almost 100% sure it was a scam. They are usually very cautious about unfair or unsubstantiated accusations. Sinuhe (Ignorant Bliss) is a moderator at both N99 and MTS2. I will not go any further into why I mention that; hopefully it's obvious.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Lhop on 2007 April 04, 17:24:00 Quote from: "Pescado" Quote from: "GoddessByline" Let's face it, I'm a bastard, and I recognice a fellow bastard from miles away. The difference between us is, that I'm older than you, wiser than you :P Not according to the data we have on file, you're not. Either you're making some assumptions, or you've entered some very false info. Quote from: "GoddessByline" I've come to a point where I'm quite feed up with all the feuds going on in the community, thus I'm able to enjoy a friendly, helpful and family oriented place like N99... you are not. Pssh. *I* never get fed up with fighting. It's bred into my bones. Fighting is what we live for, and what I have done for the 66 years I've been around. I *LIVE* to fight! And N99 friendly and helpful my ass. More like saccharine backstabbing. I've seen plenty of fighting there, they just don't carry it out in the open. Bunch of wussies. No doubt somebody there hoped to score points in their eternal political squabbles with that move. Quote from: "teadrinker" I think you just don't fit in there :) I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw you had even registered, actually. I wouldn't have bothered at all if not for the fact that they make you register just to read it. I recall I was there to watch some sort of fight. Sorry to quote something from so far back in this thread, but I just got around to reading it. Pescado, I was really surprised when I read that you are 66 years old. I thought you were around the same age as my boyfriend (36) probably because you remind me so much of him. And I didn't picture you as a zitty teen, i pictured you as a hot guy in his thirties... I don't know if I'm right about the hot thing or not, but I guess I was wrong about the age part. Shows how much I know, I guess. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 April 04, 17:54:19 Quote from: "lhop" Sorry to quote something from so far back in this thread, but I just got around to reading it. Pescado, I was really surprised when I read that you are 66 years old. I thought you were around the same age as my boyfriend (36) probably because you remind me so much of him. And I didn't picture you as a zitty teen, i pictured you as a hot guy in his thirties... I don't know if I'm right about the hot thing or not, but I guess I was wrong about the age part. Shows how much I know, I guess. lol I thought he was in his 40s (reminds me of my English teacher who's 42)! Shows what we think, ne? ^^ :lol: 8) Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 04, 18:16:21 Somebody logged in here yesterday as "UniversalSims". I was watching to see if they posted, but apparently they did not.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: HideTheRum on 2007 April 04, 19:20:50 Heh, I think Pescado said 66 just because he's notoriously fond of the number 6, and seeing as 666 would have been clearly unlikely and anyway too mainstream, 66 is the age he picked :lol:
Back on topic: I am now convinced that Nathan is definitely not underaged. I am also more and more convinced that people really are stupid: this person has managed to gather $463.50 USD so far, yes it's far from what he says he needs, still considering the shadiness of the whole thing, I will never understand people even donating a single cent :shock: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 April 04, 19:26:50 Quote from: "HideTheRum" Heh, I think Pescado said 66 just because he's notoriously fond of the number 6, and seeing as 666 would have been clearly unlikely and anyway too mainstream, 66 is the age he picked :lol: That's not how it works, no. It happened because awhile ago I was 60 until someone who had known me since then reminded me that 66 was coming up, as per the rules. I don't tend to keep track of these things much anymore. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Bliss on 2007 April 04, 20:42:48 Quote from: "teadrinker" On N99 he got the mods to lock the thread cos he didn't like the way we were implicating a family member into the scam. Though I am not always sure what he's saying. The part that bothered me was: This issue is beyond upsetting without all the personal attacks and accusations, I don't even know why I bothered explaining everything at this point, there are so many things I am trying to deal with and as some did say...it's way too much for me. I am doing the best I can but it's beyond stressful. I don't know why one would bother asking for over $2000 without explaining anything. THAT really bothers me. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: HideTheRum on 2007 April 04, 21:17:21 Quote from: "Bliss" I don't know why one would bother asking for over $2000 without explaining anything. THAT really bothers me. That bothers me too. I've posted a question on the UniversalSims homepage with this precise thing in mind: "Frequent updates not only of the money raised, but also and especially of how the problem is developing as far as responsabilites, would be welcome. I still see no valid proof that you are legally responsible. Why do you?" I mean, you are asking for money dude. You should be spending entire days explaining why in detail, and I'm talking even the really tiny appearently less significant detail and beyond, for chrissake. Edit: BTW, I was weirded out to find I did register there, and appearently on December 2006. It was easy to find out as before registering here I've been using just the same nick since ages, but I honestly still don't remember ever even seeing the site...guess Pescado might be 66 but I'm at least 80 as far as memory :mrgreen: Either that or I have a split personality :shock: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 April 04, 21:23:41 Unfortunately for somebody (probably me with my luck), Pescado's little speech there was frighteningly cute...
How the hell did he get people to cough up nearly 500 bucks? And he thinks he's explained? What exactly has he explained? Bloody hell! Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Paden on 2007 April 05, 06:36:33 I've been keeping my eye on this thread for a bit, and haven't posted til now. Some time ago, I wanted to look at the shit on Universal Sims and had to register to do it. Well, can't remember if I found anything worth getting, but I've not gotten any begging e-mails, so I think I was lucky to be unnoticed. This whole thing is really fishy, and smells like week old carp left to rot in the sun. I don't know what is going on, but a minor under the age of 18 cannot legally be held to, nor enter a binding contract. I found that out when I was 17 and wanted to be a contractor for de-tasseling. The whole thing makes no sense. If Delphy were an uncle, yeah, he could tell a nephew, look I'll host your shit and you pay me some to keep it going. But, if the kid can't pay, Uncie needs to lock it down or absorb it into his own site. Or go to the parents. If Nathan is a kid, then he's not acting like any normal teens I know. Most of them would be going to their parents and saying, "I fucked up, could you help me out?" or, "I fucked up, what in the hell am I going to do about it?" They wouldn't just sit there like they were on Quaaludes and act like it was all going to go away and ask total strangers to bail his ass out. Well, maybe he would, but it would depend on what and how much he was smoking. Still, something isn't right. Too bad we don't have a paper trail to follow, but in this day and age, those are hard to come by. Ahhh, to have someone on the inside at the company who runs the server... Ah, well, just thought I would kick in my two bits, sorry if I bore anyone.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 05, 06:57:51 Funny thing is, UniversalSims sounds like the name someone would think up who also thought up WorldSims. If you see a site called GalaxySims - don't sign up!
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 05, 14:09:51 LOL @ teadrinker! :lol:
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 April 05, 14:38:19 Won't happen, somebody already ganked that name.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: UtopiaGlam on 2007 April 05, 16:37:27 Quote from: "teadrinker" Funny thing is, UniversalSims sounds like the name someone would think up who also thought up WorldSims. If you see a site called GalaxySims - don't sign up! LOL teadrinker! In fact there's a French site called Sims Galaxie, but don't worry, it's a forum ;) Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Cody on 2007 April 06, 04:18:02 You guys keep saying he's not acting like a teenager. I'd probably do something along the same lines....if I hadn't realized I wasn't legally binded of course. My parents don't know there's an online Sims community. If I had a site, they wouldn't know. They're computer-paranoid. They'd be the last people I turned to.
If I were him, I'd stick Delphy with the bill and book it. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 April 06, 09:33:42 I wouldn't tell my parents either. They're not understanding. But at least it would be a solution; they'd take my internet access away, and you can't be paid/pay someone you can't get ahold of...^^^^ 8) :lol: :lol:
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Caedre on 2007 April 06, 12:17:15 Why would he all of sudden make up a scam like this, after he has been away from the community for several months? Wouldn't it be more believeable to do it while the site is still active?
I believe him, until the opposite is proven, and I think that there is enough proof that Delphy isn't as good as he acts. If I was Nathan I would tell Delphy to bite me and pay the bills himself. Who sais that it is his site that used the bandwith, not Delphy's ? Since theyre all under 1 host.. it would be difficult to tell wich traffic comes from wich site... I might be wrong there since I hardly know anything about sites. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Enelar on 2007 April 06, 18:43:23 It really makes little sense to me. Maybe a sheep who has no idea how hosting actually works would fall for this but geez, it reeked of scam from day one. But you know, it honestly does not surprise me. There have always been greedy bastards in the community with their hands out doing variations of website hosting scams from day one. I even recall Openlea making up some inflated figure for what her web hosting cost to try to get sympathy and donations. If Nathan is a real underage kid, he needs to educate himself on the law and stick this back to Delphy.
Regardless, as has been said before, it's not the Sims community's job to save his ass. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 06, 18:47:08 Seeing how someone has been impersonating MikeInside, I now *know* beyond any doubt whatever real Nathan there might have once been isn't the one we know now.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Aquamarine on 2007 April 06, 20:57:25 Hahaha, oh god, this keeps getting better. So is Nathan a sockpuppet, or what?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Enelar on 2007 April 07, 17:57:31 Sure beginning to look that way.
Mnnn.. I love the smell of drama in the morning! Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 April 07, 19:06:51 :shock: MikeInside isn't real either? Who is real nowadays??? Am I? O.o
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 07, 19:22:24 Quote from: "OneEyedWillie" :shock: MikeInside isn't real either? Who is real nowadays??? Am I? O.o O.O You are not real. You are just a figment of your imagination. Wtf? MikeInside isn't real...so what was he ever real :( This is so confusing. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 April 07, 19:38:13 Poor Nii! *Saffy hugs Nii* It's alright, it's the SimDramaClub. Nothing makes sense anymore. It's not ALLOWED to. Unwritten rule.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 07, 19:54:12 PMBD missed out on the current drama. For some reason no one bothered to notify this end. To sum up someone posted on N99 about MikeInside's forum containing adults talking to minors (13-14 years old) about sex and said minors also posting pictures of their chests clothed. There was also a section where you could buy adult things for your game with "points" that you receive for posting pictures.. basically enticing minors to engage in the unseemly things. Someone asked Delphy about it and he said he couldn't do anything but then when more people complained he said he would look into it. Someone went through the forum to hide most of this stuff and banned the N99 members from the forum. The "real" Mike has been out of the sims community scene for quite a while now and many don't believe whoever is in control of the forum now is him.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 07, 19:56:35 Quote from: "Tchân de Bouley" Poor Nii! *Saffy hugs Nii* It's alright, it's the SimDramaClub. Nothing makes sense anymore. It's not ALLOWED to. Unwritten rule. :D Woo! I love hugs! But I have been a member of MikeInside and I just don't understand some of the things.... :( I'll just shut up. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Captain Feathersword on 2007 April 07, 20:50:18 Considering the host and his history, that's quite disturbing.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 07, 22:06:05 Actually, it was posted over here:
http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/viewtopic.php?t=604&start=15 It is very disturbing and raises some serious questions. I think a lot of N99 members were blindsided, not knowing Delphy's history. Many of them are middle-aged moms who play sims 2 with their kids. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 07, 22:21:18 Its really funny though. The name he was under *MikeInside* still posts regularly. I even got a pm from him about a question I had. So :( I'm still confused
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 07, 22:27:14 The last post I found by MikeInside on MTS2 was in May 2006...
Are you sure about that RedLove? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 07, 22:28:22 I'm not talking about on MTS2 I'm talking about on his site. MikeInside...His last post was like the 3 or 4
Edit: Nope his last post was today. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 07, 22:32:03 Just because it's the same username doesn't mean it's the same person behind it! Anyone can use that username if they have the password to it.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 07, 22:34:34 Quote from: "missangelica" Just because it's the same username doesn't mean it's the same person behind it! Anyone can use that username if they have the password to it. MissAngelica. Its his s/n. It has "sitepimp" aka site admin under it like his always does. It has to be him. =| Don't you think everyone would notice? Especially all the people who stay in touch with him daily and have known since the site started Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 07, 22:35:15 Mikeinside used to update his News page regularly. I believe the real Mike left the site when that page stopped being updated. I can't believe he wouldn't have either updated or deleted it in two years if it was the same guy who took so much pride in his tutorials.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 07, 22:37:14 The thought is that someone has been impersonating MikeInside to run a really pervy forum with sexual pictures of underage girls and lots of adult/child sexual activity.
Did you ever run into anything like that at that forum? I didn't see the forum myself though. Perhaps someone who did will post over here. If you're a member of N99, it's in the News section, locked but not removed. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 07, 22:40:26 Quote from: "redisenchanted" The thought is that someone has been impersonating MikeInside to run a really pervy forum with sexual pictures of underage girls and lots of adult/child sexual activity. Did you ever run into anything like that at that forum? I didn't see the forum myself though. Perhaps someone who did will post over here. If you're a member of N99, it's in the News section, locked but not removed. Oh yea! I saw one post in kinkyness where they were asking what age it was ok to lose your virginity. Lots of people voted like 13-16 or something like that. It was kinda creepy....But I do think its the real Mike. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: MizzKitty on 2007 April 07, 22:41:17 Just read all 14 pages... The plot thickens.
I have to admit that some of the conspiracy theories seem far out, but unfortunately they are plausible. Some things are simply too easy to do on the internet. Only thing I wondered was, I'm not a member on N99 so I didn't see any details of this, but you said the site was registered to a Lois. If Nathan is underage, couldn't that be his mom's name or something? Or maybe I misunderstood it all? Oh, and hi btw :P long-time lurker here... Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 07, 22:45:21 Interesting. I don't know Mike from a year ago or currently, so I don't have an opinion on his identity.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 07, 22:52:08 Lois Oltman was the name the domains were registered to. "Nathan" claimed it was his family member (where did I get sister? I can't find the source for that now) and the domains were for family members and friends.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: RedLove on 2007 April 07, 23:27:53 Quote from: "redisenchanted" Interesting. I don't know Mike from a year ago or currently, so I don't have an opinion on his identity. I guarantee its him. I've been trying to find something on the site about them deleting kinkiness/N99 ranting about it. But nothing...maybe its a secret thing you have to check in your Profile to view.. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 08, 07:54:53 Well we've all got our opinions of course, but if I was going to give more weight to yours I would want to think you knew him well enough to email or PM him and ask about it. Otherwise it's just a best guess like all of us, based on what we can all see.
I registered at that forum way back when he was doing house tuts. The news bulletins got further and further apart, along with his visits to his own forum. In the end people were posting and not getting a reply. For at least a year the forum was pretty much dead. Then it sprang back to life but this time Mike was *only* interested in the forum and in spite of being *ardently and heavily* interested in the forum must have become completely blind to everything else on his previously well-maintained site? Given that it was the original Mike's habit to update news when he updated his site, those sort of underlying habits tend not to change when one's interests do. The news would have been dealt with as before, only announcing developments in the forums instead. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 08, 19:19:19 /looks up from reading N99/
Delphy is a convicted pedophile? WTF??? Why hasn't he been drummed out of the community? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Randomness on 2007 April 08, 19:26:03 Quote from: "chlyn" /looks up from reading N99/ Delphy is a convicted pedophile? WTF??? Why hasn't he been drummed out of the community? Because pedophilia is only a black mark against you if you don't run one of the most popular and free Sims 2 sites in existence, apparently. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: sherrie on 2007 April 08, 19:26:48 I did hear 'the full story' to that a while back, but as the source of the story was atwa, I havent remarked on it as it may have been totally made up. This is the first time I have seen a mention of 'that story' since then.
I cant find the n99 forum (only the yahoo group) to see if the story is the same as I was told. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 08, 19:33:24 Inge only mentions it at N99. Apparently the full discussion is at MATY.
http://p218.ezboard.com/fstarlightsimsfrm9.showMessageRange?topicID=2968.topic Title: Universal Sims... Post by: sherrie on 2007 April 08, 19:35:51 cool thanks for that, n99 needs membership so I cant get in, but I'll have a look for it at maty :D
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 April 08, 19:39:43 I've read about it at MATY...and I don't believe everything that is on the net, even if there is truth about it its probably been exaggerated :? Well I do hope so anyway...
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: wicked_one on 2007 April 08, 19:46:33 what are you guys talking about? the delphy "story"? cant get any more real than a news article lol
besides i think we're not allowed to talk about that here or at least not give a direct link to it? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: calalily on 2007 April 08, 20:06:13 I certainly believe it - and think there was more to it. I think the whole thing at MATY was minimised a lot, and I don't agree. Prosecutors have limited budgets, and don't just hand out court cases like the state is made of money.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4098.0 Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 08, 20:18:43 It does sound minimized: "Oh, we all have porn on our hard drives - so what?"
/throws up hands/ I don't know what to think about this community any more. Basically I feel like everyone is f*cking everyone else over. Delphy is against paysites, but he too has costs and is at least partially reimbursed for them. Everyone admits they use donated money for their own expenses, and they all say "So what? I'm entitled to it." :evil: *** They all seem to be saying (at MATY), "Hey, Delphy gives us good stuff for free, so we don't care if he humps babies! That's his personal business!!!!!11111!@!!" Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Electricstatic on 2007 April 08, 20:21:53 Sounds like a good deal of the Sims 2 community need real jobs.
ETA: And by that I mean the paysite owners who make a 'living' off their creations. The rest of you who don't charge for your creations and use any donated money for real purposes like bandwidth are ok by me. :) Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 08, 20:34:56 It's not such a leap of logic to think that Delphy is behind the teen porn forum, then.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Bliss on 2007 April 08, 20:39:49 I don't know what Delphy was convicted of, and to be honest, I haven't actually dug into it. I did click on the news-link, but it wouldn't come up.
I do refuse to judge until I know more details. People can be sex offenders for the most ridiculous reasons - or the more harmful ones. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 08, 20:50:50 I don't know why people are avoiding direct linking to the news article. Read it for yourself.
http://archive.thisishampshire.net/2001/6/25/73971.html In the MATY thread of "Wow! These(sic) Stuff are so Expensive!" Delphy even admits to it. It's not pure speculation people. It is real. (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4098.msg115949#msg115949) Life is an ugly reality. I wonder how many under aged kids sent him panty pictures. He was known in the mts2 chat for having a panty fetish. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 April 08, 20:57:22 Hampshire?! Fucking hell that is too close to home...
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Feverish on 2007 April 08, 21:58:19 Someone did link to it a while back but there was a complaint saying that it was personal info and it shouldn't be linked here.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 08, 22:03:49 Someone was asking why Delphy hasn't been ousted of the community and I thought about it. Why do people still shop at Wal-mart knowing it's over running mom and pop stores? Why do people still use gasoline even though it hurts the environment and our health? Answer to all three is that it fulfills a need. Sure, getting stuff for your computer dolls is an artificial need and by that I mean it isn't one of the core needs (food, hunger, shelter) but it's a need all the same. As long as the need is there, Delphy will never be ousted.
ETA: The same could be applied to TSR and paysites in general. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 08, 22:06:03 If people say it's personal and shouldn't be discussed, that's pushing it under the rug. It's unpleasant, yes, but it involves something that's a) illegal and b) a matter of public record. I thought this forum wasn't like N99, where the least bit of unpleasantness gets locked and deleted.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Feverish on 2007 April 08, 22:08:18 Especially since there are lots of kids that visit mts2 and s2c.
But I suppose they didn't agree. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: HideTheRum on 2007 April 08, 22:16:25 Mateys, remind me to smack myself in the head should I ever question my tendency to believe the creepiest interpretation of facts and feel guilty about it, arr?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 08, 22:23:55 And er, I'm only remembering Nathan asking on n99 to take down personal information, not Delphy. Someone link me to where Delphy said it?
ETA: Dully noted, Hidetherum. :lol: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Feverish on 2007 April 08, 22:51:31 It's a bitch trying to search this place for specific posts.
This is all I was able to recover(I refuse to search anymore): http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/viewtopic.php?t=48&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=pedophile&start=75 Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 08, 23:05:50 Quote from: "Feverish" It's a bitch trying to search this place for specific posts. This is all I was able to recover(I refuse to search anymore): http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/viewtopic.php?t=48&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=pedophile&start=75 Ah, so it was just BlueSoup's decision to remove it and wasn't a request. Thanks for scrounging that up. Interesting how one's influence can extend even when they're no longer around, eh? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Tchannie on 2007 April 08, 23:17:17 I read about that sometime last year. It was pretty weird at the time, and I was disgusted for a while. But as someone said, your need stretches further than your appreciation.
My appreciation for MTS2 has now fully died. However, it does not stop Delphy being scum, nor Bluey being infuriating by deleting the first post when there was a chance it would tell people what he's REALLY up to... Title: Universal Sims... Post by: sherrie on 2007 April 08, 23:48:51 Quote from: "missangelica" I don't know why people are avoiding direct linking to the news article. Read it for yourself. http://archive.thisishampshire.net/2001/6/25/73971.html In the MATY thread of "Wow! These(sic) Stuff are so Expensive!" Delphy even admits to it. It's not pure speculation people. It is real. (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4098.msg115949#msg115949) Life is an ugly reality. I wonder how many under aged kids sent him panty pictures. He was known in the mts2 chat for having a panty fetish. Thank you for that link, it clears a lot up, the story is nothing like the one I heard and it actually clears his name from the story that is going about. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 09, 00:11:28 Quote from: "sherrie_sim" Thank you for that link, it clears a lot up, the story is nothing like the one I heard and it actually clears his name from the story that is going about. You're welcome! I was growing weary of the all speculation (including mine) with no concrete proof for all the stuff that has been going with the UniversalSims/MikeInside controversies.. at least with this, Delphy's conviction of under age porn, we know it to be true. It also makes Delphy's darker side more "real" and harder to gloss over.. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 09, 01:14:22 To answer the question why he isn't drummed out of the community...That doesn't happen very often in RL. The most disgusting perverts are excused and allowed continued access to kids. Guys that have been convicted of far worse than Delphy.
Read the post at MATY, most people wanted to give him a pass. And when Damesporkalot posted it at S2C, everyone rushed to defend him, poor misunderstood Delphy with a stranglehold on one of the biggest Sims 2 communities. I'm glad it's finally out in the open. People can judge for themselves if this is someone they want to give money to. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Lorelei on 2007 April 09, 02:10:11 Quote from: "chlyn" It does sound minimized: "Oh, we all have porn on our hard drives - so what?" Geez. I don't have any. Unless scans of fine art with nekkid Cupids and fat nekkid ladies in velvet blankets and nekkid Sim skins are now considered porny. I feel left out. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Diala on 2007 April 09, 02:24:12 Quote from: "calalily" I certainly believe it - and think there was more to it. I think the whole thing at MATY was minimised a lot, and I don't agree. Prosecutors have limited budgets, and don't just hand out court cases like the state is made of money. http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4098.0 When I first read that thread, I wasn't able to see the article in question, so I assumed that the police discovered images of older teens on his HD that he thought were adults. At least, that is what they made it sound like. Now... I don't quite know what to think. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: neriana on 2007 April 09, 03:14:02 It sounds to me like Delphy had some pictures of older teens in porn. Disgusting, but not pedophilic. It's impossible to tell the ages of the people in the pictures from that article. Also, it was years ago.
This is an incredibly touchy subject for most people, and people are all too prone to form witch hunts over it. He was convicted of having porn, apparently of older teens, on his hard drive. Not of luring young girls to his house or something. There is a difference, and a big one. If he had anything to do with the new forum which was apparently created for the purpose of sexually using teenage girls, whether in cyberspace or irl, then Delphy definitely deserves to be kicked off the internet and out of the community. But not for what has actually been proven against him in that article. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Feverish on 2007 April 09, 03:19:20 No it was child porn:
http://archive.thisishampshire.net/2001/6/25/73971.html Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 09, 03:26:37 How convenient for Delphy to admit to liking imagery of more socially acceptable "older teens". Of course, no one wants to think of themselves as a pervert. When he says "no one who accuses me knows the real me," he's in denial.
I don't believe he just downloaded a bunch of porn and "uh-oh, there was some kiddie porn in it, and I forgot to delete it." You don't accidentally stumble on and download 30 images of children. Now that N99 has this tiger by the tail, it will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. Probably not, though /yawn/. Just another typical sims community happening. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Feverish on 2007 April 09, 03:31:13 And if it was really an accident, why would he not immediately delete the porn?
I think laziness is a very poor excuse to keep child porn. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: neriana on 2007 April 09, 03:33:55 I read the article. Nowhere does it say the age of the people in the porn. "Child porn" can very well mean 16 and 17 year olds, at least in the U.S. If someone has different info about Hampshire, I'm all ears.
Also, "He had not been seeking out child pornography but didn't do anything about weeding out those images involving children." That sounds more like (rather despicable) laziness to me than anything. We all know the kind of crap that can get downloaded on our hard drives without us knowing. I once got a virus that downloaded a ton of porn onto my hard drive and locked my start page to a porn page that had all sorts of links, including to "young teen girls" porn. And, most tellingly, "a pre-sentence report stated he did not present a risk to children". I don't think we know more than the cops and counselors who gave that report. Until there is actual evidence otherwise, Delphy has done nothing within the community or without it for the past few years to deserve being metaphorically hanged for society's latest bugaboo. Again, if there is credible evidence that he was behind this Universal Sims thing, I'll be at the head of the mob with a pitchfork. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 09, 03:34:39 Both of the controversial threads have now been locked on N99 so I don't expect much more to come out of it. :/ Still, I hope this isn't buried under the rug yet again for more scandal to come to pass...
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Scratch on 2007 April 09, 03:35:13 Quote from: "neriana" This is an incredibly touchy subject for most people, and people are all too prone to form witch hunts over it. He was convicted of having porn, apparently of older teens, on his hard drive. Not of luring young girls to his house or something. There is a difference, and a big one. Finally.... some reasonable voices in an unreasonable thread. This subject was discussed to death a few months ago and the same conclusion was reached then... innuendo and accusations are not evidence. Until someone comes up with some actual evidence that Delphy is involved in that forum, lets not start something that can easily go out of control. I'm not trying to minimize what Delphy did or jump to his defence, but in the world today to many people are willing to believe the worst. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Feverish on 2007 April 09, 03:40:44 well looking at pornographic pictures of 16 and 17 year olds in my opinion is child porn and still wrong.
And if you know it is illegal porn, regardless of whether she's almost legal or not, he should have gotten rid of it and not looked at it three times. And I am not accusing him of posing as MikeInside or whoever because I honestly don't know anything about it. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 09, 03:41:56 Jesus H. Christ, we're not talking about someone who cheated at a poker game. "It's not like he actually molested anyone." Good grief, people!
The article stated the photos were of "young children". Children. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Bliss on 2007 April 09, 03:46:04 And we all know the media NEVER sensationalizes anything to make it seem seedier or more interesting.
Still, though, I'm not really defending Delphy. I don't know him. I don't participate in enough forums to really work up a good ol' anger about this. The news site said he was on the sex offenders list for five years ... six or seven years ago. Apparently he's paid his debt to society. No, I don't have kids. Not entirely sure I want them. But were I to have them (and the same went for the three kids I did babysit for) NONE of them would be on the computer, unsupervised, EVER. On ANY website. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Diala on 2007 April 09, 04:21:33 Quote from: "chlyn" The article stated the photos were of "young children". Children. Legally, anyone under 18 is considered a "child," or a minor. Hence, the term "child pornography" covers 16 and 17 year olds. (Note that I don't think the article covers what ages were in his collection, so I'd rather not assume.) While it doesn't excuse the fact that he knew the ages of these teens in the pictures that he had, I rather not accuse him of anything that he didn't do. Okay, he was accused and charged with having child pornography: that is a certain. However, we do NOT know if he went through therapy, and whether or not he still has these tendencies. After all, people can become better, or is it "Once a pedophile, always a pedophile"? I'd rather damn him for what he's actually done, rather than hate him just because of wild rumors and accusations. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Feverish on 2007 April 09, 04:28:46 I've not damned him for anything he hasn't done nor do I plan t do so.
I just don't think it's something that has to be overlooked nor do I accept his reason that laziness prevented him from deleting it. And whether 16 or 17, I still think it's bad. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Mattie on 2007 April 09, 05:23:21 Quote The article stated the photos were of "young children". Children. No, actually, it didn't. It stated "young girls" I also know people who call me (over 25) a young girl, I know people who call anything from 14-20 a "young girl" It's all a matter of context and perspective. I'm not going to defend anyone, but what I am going to say is that lynching is counter productive, in any sense of the words. Pedophilia is a heated and touchy subject, emotions run high and people get all very excitable, but there is something important to remember here. Proof that someone had unsavoury pictures on their PC some number of years ago doesn't make them guilty of anything but that, plain and simple. You can suppose, you can speculate, you can accuse but that doesn't make it fact. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Diala on 2007 April 09, 06:38:24 Quote from: "Feverish" I just don't think it's something that has to be overlooked nor do I accept his reason that laziness prevented him from deleting it. Do note that you're judging this case by one article online. There are many questions that would need to be answered if we are going to judge his actions today by actions years ago. And like I said, you don't know if he got treatment for this. Laziness is a bad excuse, yes, but like I said, we know little about the case... and about Delphy in regards to that point in time. And just to set the record clear, I do not care a bit about Delphy, nor do I believe he is completely innocent of what happened to Universal Sims, given the information provided here. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 09, 08:14:02 Passively looking at images that you have made, or that were of children going about innocent activities that just happened to look titillating to a paedophile - well that in itself surely is harmless.
Now take someone who is *probably* or *possibly* turned on by the idea of sex with underage people. The likelihood is they are going to control their actions and keep it in their imaginations. There is a *chance* that given certain circumstances, maybe a bad patch in their lives, mental stress etc, they might slide into going further. In fact I see it as a kindness to a person who is borderline paedophile to watch and step in *before* they get carried away and get themselves into trouble. It's not wrong of us to watch and warn when they're getting near that boundary of possibly going too far. The point where actual young people are actually participating in a forum set up to discuss their sexuality is teetering on the boundary of harming some of them emotionally at least. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 April 09, 09:36:31 Ok, as for treatment.....If I remember right Delphy himself said he served his sentance for his crime, whatnot....I saw it either here (in the deleted thread) or on MATY....don't remember and I'm too lazy to look on MATY :P
I'm not defending him or anything, but to me this is old news, I know that a lot of us didn't get the info and stuff about him and I think it's great that we're able to discuss things like that here. Umm one thing though, there's HUGE difference between molesting a child and looking at porn. First off, we DON'T know for sure the ages of these children.....that said, let's discuss some things in England. As Delphy is in England NOT the US, which laws are slightly different there. First it is legal, to be post topless pics of yourself at the age of 16. Age of legal consent, 16. I remember a girl who was 16 auctioning off her virginity to the highest bidder and her parents were ok with it. That in itself is disturbing, but legally she was allowed to do this, and had been posting pics of herself topless online as well. So from this info, I would assume that the pics were of boys/girls under the age of 16. Yes this is horrible and whatnot, and to think of someone having sex with a 10 year old, fucks me in the head so much, that i just wanna take a shotgun and blow his nuts off, and stand there watching him slowing bleed to death. BUT this is not the case with Delphy, they were pictures.....yes there is a difference! Granted when i think of the kids involved in order to get those pics make me gnash my teeth. And if there wasn't a market for those pics then there wouldn't be a problem in the first place....but anyway i digress. Ok basically my opinion is this....I don't care if Delphy runs MTS2, as long as that's all he does.....meaning, doesn't use the site, or any other site for that matter to solicit anything. Doesn't anyone get a second chance? Especially after they've paid for their crime? (there are of course EXCEPTIONS to this and so don't go off on a tangent about it) Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 09, 10:33:09 Absolutely he gets a second chance! And he got it. A chance to show everyone that he was not gonna do dodgy stuff like host sites that have borderline paedophilic forums etc. Ok the forums have disappeared from my view now, but a) he should have pulled them as soon as they started and b) closed the WHOLE site permanently once he found out rather than continue hosting a site with an owner like that. Assuming of course this *is* someone other than Delphy running it.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: chlyn on 2007 April 09, 13:07:53 Quote from: "neriana" Delphy has done nothing ... to deserve being metaphorically hanged for society's latest bugaboo. "latest bugaboo" LMAO Quote from: "Scratch" Innuendo and accusations are not evidence. Oh, my bad. Disregard the court records then. It's all fiction, anyway. Quote from: "Mattie" No, actually, it didn't [say children]. It stated "young girls". - "child pornography" - "young girls engaged in indecent acts" - "of which 30 involved children" - "child pornography" - "images involving children" - "a risk to children" I quoted the article correctly. It is Delphy and his lawyer that try to minimize things by talking about teens. Naturally, his lawyer's not going to say his client is a pervert. No, people can't be therapied out of a sexual interest. I'm the one that gives people the benefit of the doubt long after everyone else has figured it all out. This is hard to ignore. Whatever, I'm over it. I've been in the community since the beginning of Sims 1, and I've seen scams, perversion, fake illnesses and even a fake death. Yet people continue to make excuses. Basically no one cares as long as they can get downloads. Good luck to all with Delphy and MST2 - enjoy! :lol: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 April 09, 13:19:50 Quote from: "neriana" I read the article. Nowhere does it say the age of the people in the porn. "Child porn" can very well mean 16 and 17 year olds, at least in the U.S. If someone has different info about Hampshire, I'm all ears. You are right there. In England, you are classified as a child until you are 18...so the images could have been that of 16-17 year old girls. Paedophilla is a big issue in England (aided through the internet, and sites like Bebo, etc) and the police take it very seriously, therefore we should really listen to how they treated it, which is: Quote He was fined £2,500 with £585 costs after Judge Paul Darlow accepted Stanfield had not distributed the material and a pre-sentence report stated he did not present a risk to children. He was also placed on the sex offenders' register for five years. And also the fact that this happened back in June 2001. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 09, 13:30:57 Thanks chyln for summing it up nicely.
I'd also like to add that no one would be talking about this again if he hadn't had a pervy forum involving kids on a site he hosts. He may have had nothing to do with it, but it's opened up a huge can of worms for him. He was convicted of a crime in England. It's not innuendo. Personally, I don't want to financially support someone like that. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: MizzKitty on 2007 April 09, 13:33:25 I can believe the laziness part to an extend.
My boyfriend had a butt-load of manga (comics) on his comp once, some of it ecchi (risque) and hentai (porn) (yes he's a nerd, as am I) and one day I looked at it to find that some of it (perhaps 3 out of 500) were hentai representations of an anime (cartoon) with high school girls - which didn't bother me to be honest, considering we were just 21 at the time (about four years ago) - and one single 10 year old genius, who is in the series but who I did not want to see in this context. I told him about it and he said he hadn't had a chance to weed it out but I could delete the whole folder if I liked. I didn't, leaving it up to him and in his lazyness he didn't even look at the folder for a long time and eventually upon rediscovering it he just deleted the whole thing - as he'd told me to do in the first place. I know that this was just drawings, but the sentiment is pretty much the same, isn't it? And here the disgusting images were with a very young girl, indeed. Oh, and my boyfriend is studying to become a public school teacher. This all sounds very incriminating, doesn't it? The series in question here was one we enjoyed watching together, it's called Azumanga Daioh. He had no reason to suspect when he got the folder at a LAN party that the manga would be porn versions. Later when it wasn't deleted it was both of us who just didn't get it done. So this stuff does happen. But I digress. On to another matter. Paedophilia CAN be cured through therapy as it is not simply a matter of sexual preference (as say, if you're gay). It is a matter of, popularistic speaking, your sexuality being locked in the wrong age due to some sort of trauma. It is a disease and it's treatable if the subject is willing. I studied some psychology. Just my two cents. :) Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 09, 13:35:13 Actually we are legal minors till 18 for things like contracts, but the sexual age of consent is 16 and after that age we can shag anything of any age with no legal problems for either partner.
So underage sex and porn that is illegal for age reasons would be where the subject of the material is or appears to be under 16. The term "older teens" probably in this context therefore means 14-15 yr olds. Technically they are illegal but they are physically post-pubertal, not childlike and it would not be paedophilia proper, orientationally speaking. But obviously he was given the benefit of the doubt. 30 child photos were among many ones of young but developed teens. The child photos could have got there by accident. Or the child photos may have been the ones wanted, and the larger numbers of older ones there so as to provide the excuse for the others. Really, to have been supporting sites that had true child porn in the first place is not very responsible. The right thing for him to have done when any of these accidental child images arrived in his downloads would have been to notify the police. He should have gone elsewhere for his young woman images. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: liegenschonheit on 2007 April 09, 16:37:21 Hentai Azumanga Daioh doujinshi makes Chiyo-chan cry.
Highschool girls and barely-legal teens are a big moneymaker in the porn industry, from what I understand. Being sexually attracted to teenage girls is hardly an abnormality, as sad as that seems. I don't condone people who seek sexual contact with underage people, but having a few pics of girls who appear to be teens on his computer isn't the end of the world. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 09, 16:53:03 Quote from: "liegenschonheit" having a few pics of girls who appear to be teens on his computer isn't the end of the world. Correct, it wouldn't have been. But that's not what happened. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: neriana on 2007 April 09, 17:27:20 Quote from: "Canute" Quote from: "liegenschonheit" having a few pics of girls who appear to be teens on his computer isn't the end of the world. Correct, it wouldn't have been. But that's not what happened. First, under-18 porn is illegal, period. In the U.S., we have a huge range of "ages of consent" that change state to state, some of which are frankly scary, but pornography involving minors is always illegal. You might be able to consent to sex legally, but you can't consent to being in pornography unless you are 18. Second, you're leaping to the conclusion that he was "supporting sites that had true child porn in the first place". First, we don't know that it was "true child porn" for reasons people have already given. Second, these things are always linked; I doubt there are any adult porn sites on the internet that don't connect to child porn through some channel or other. Most importantly: People who knew the details, which none of us do, and who are trained to deal with this stuff, which I'm guessing none of us are, decided he wasn't a threat to children. Deciding you know everything about a guy from one little article on the internet isn't exactly fair or just, either. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 09, 19:43:20 Quote from: "neriana" First, we don't know that it was "true child porn" for reasons people have already given. Second, these things are always linked; I doubt there are any adult porn sites on the internet that don't connect to child porn through some channel or other. Sorry, I don't agree that either of these statements are true. a) we do know it was true child porn, the newspaper would not have been allowed to get away with saying so if it was not true, and Delphy would not have been in such trouble. It wouldn't have even made the news. b) absolute codswallop to your second point. I can understand your problem. Nobody wants to think its someone they know well. But attraction to socially unacceptable sex objects is a heck of a lot more common than most people realise. A little later: I have just checked the legal facts, and the age was raised from 16 to 18 a few years after this case, so the images would have definitely been depicting people under 16, in 2001, in order for there to be a prosecution. The newspaper makes clear that *in addition* there were 30 pictures "of children". The newspaper is obviously in its own way attempting to describe a distinction between the pictures of under-16 teens and the 30 pictures of younger children. There would have been no point in making a distinction if 300 of them looked 15 and 30 looked 14. And no matter what the experts thought at the time, a few years on we have someone hosting a website that appears to be celebrating the idea of teenage girls having sex with their fathers. But of course, in your view there's no danger in that because 6 years ago some social workers decided there wasn't going to be. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 April 09, 20:43:21 neriana it's 16 in England where delphy is...the laws are different to America.
Remember people, american laws aren't used everywhere in the world! I'm sorry but it bugs me the hell outta me when people apply their laws to other countries where it's different. So if he had pics of underage girls then it would be under the age of 16....that said, the COURT OF LAW IN ENGLAND thought he wasn't a threat (as stated by someone else) and felt he had paid for his crime. No i'm not defending him, but man this is getting old. We aren't the judge or jury (well in this case there wasn't a jury), and so we didn't hear all the evidence and whatnot.....AND ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT YOU BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ IN THE PAPERS? I'm not saying that it was wrong, as delphy himself confirmed it, but papers can distort things.... I'm not saying what happened was right, just trying to keep things in perspective. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: liegenschonheit on 2007 April 09, 20:52:52 I was not condoning or voicing approval of any behaviour involving pornography and minors, but given the facts of the case and the fact that the courts ruled that he was not a danger to children, I don't see what this has to do with the sims community. As far as I can tell, he has never harmed or intended to harm any children or teenagers, and even though his conviction IS a matter of public record I don't think it is any of our business. There is no evidence whatsoever that he has used MTS2 as a means to solicit or otherwise engage minors in sexual activity.
I'm not exactly heading up the Delphy fanclub, I think the guy seems pretty shady from time to time myself. I just don't think it's right that this business gets brought up every time a little doubt is cast on him for unrelated reasons. Courts ruled that he is not a danger, he took his punishment, and he is by all appearances keeping his nose clean. Given the context of the images, it is fair to say that it may have even been a very costly mistake on his part. I was just pointing out before that being attracted to developed teenagers does not make one a pedophile, and there is no evidence that Delphy is attracted to pre-pubescent children. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 09, 20:58:02 I think everyone was prepared to let him move on. The MikeInside stuff has forced a revisit. It's hardly unrelated!
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: liegenschonheit on 2007 April 09, 21:01:15 Knowing that the community already is aware of his conviction, Delphy would have to be pretty fucking stupid to use a sims site to solicit teens for pics, especially one he hosts. Look how fast everyone here jumped to the conclusion that Delphy must have done it. I for one would like to see more evidence.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 09, 21:08:33 Quote from: "liegenschonheit" Knowing that the community already is aware of his conviction, Delphy would have to be pretty fucking stupid to use a sims site to solicit teens for pics, especially one he hosts. Look how fast everyone here jumped to the conclusion that Delphy must have done it. I for one would like to see more evidence. He was "pretty fucking stupid" to be too lazy to delete the younger child photos too, seeing as he didn't have any use for them and was fully aware they would get him into worse trouble than the teen ones. But he has admitted this, we're not speculating. How come he wasn't so upset with MikeInside that he stopped hosting him? It's not like Delphy never decides to stop hosting people. The vast majority of people in the sims community would have pulled the plug on that site - dead. Delphy has proven himself "pretty fucking stupid" not to have made a point of responding in that way especially with his past conviction - and "pretty fucking stupid" not to realise people would speculate if he didn't. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Captain Feathersword on 2007 April 09, 21:21:08 What's with the name change Inge?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 09, 21:22:36 I call myself Canute when I get depressed about paysites.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 09, 21:25:18 The community as a whole wasn't aware of his conviction and a lot of people still aren't I suspect. A lot of people viewed MTS2 as a family-friendly site, and were understnadably not pleased to learn that the person who ran it had such a record. People like me who donated money would never have done so if we had known.
A pervy forum on a site he hosts is quite related. None of us can say we know that he was behind it, but his response to the matter has helped fuel the speculation. If people knowing all this still want to support him for running a good sims 2 site, nothing is stopping them. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 09, 22:46:59 And on the UniversalSims front, the donation total still is $463.50 USD, according to the website (http://www.universalsims.com/). It has been stuck on that number for at least a week. I hope it's grossly inaccurate and no one actually gave him money..
"Nathan" has not popped back up since he got the thread on N99 closed. Apparently you can ask for $2,500 from the community and not have to fully explain yourself.. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Aquamarine on 2007 April 09, 22:50:14 Personally, I'm wondering about the thought process that goes into donating money to random internet strangers...
"Hello fellow text personalities. Give me you moneyz cuz I needs it 4 mah stuff." "lol k." ...with NO QUESTIONS ASKED. The fact that he (Nathan/Delphy/Your mom) has almost $500 with that incredibly shady story is appalling. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Lourdes on 2007 April 09, 23:01:47 Quote from: "Aquamarine" Personally, I'm wondering about the thought process that goes into donating money to random internet strangers... "Hello fellow text personalities. Give me you moneyz cuz I needs it 4 mah stuff." "lol k." ...with NO QUESTIONS ASKED. The fact that he (Nathan/Delphy/Your mom) has almost $500 with that incredibly shady story is appalling. I've been around this community for along time. It no longer surprises me. Oh you say so and so of xyz simsite is an ax murder and uses the money to stalk his prey ok... zOMG I gotta have that buer living room set from xyz simsite. ...donate... Hey some poor sap is gonna die but at least I got that living room set in my game. Thats extreme but I've seen it 100 times over. :lol: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: MizzKitty on 2007 April 09, 23:04:28 Ax murders must be more common than I thought...
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: OneEyedWillie on 2007 April 09, 23:26:36 according to Fishie (aka Pescado) everyone you meet online is an ax murderer. And if they aren't then you are one. :P
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Hecubus on 2007 April 09, 23:51:48 I are one.
(http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u194/MusicalMaven/lizzie2.jpg) Muahahahahahaha! Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 09, 23:58:41 Oh noes, Hecubus is going to go all Lizzie Borden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Borden) on us!
Lizzie Borden took an axe Gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, Gave her father forty-one. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Captain Berg on 2007 April 10, 00:05:34 Ah, I read everything about that crime a few years ago! :D
You know you can stay in the house where it happened for a night or two (if you're rich! Man, those rates! :shock: )? https://www.lizzie-borden.com/ (turn the sound on. Or off... :wink: ) Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Feverish on 2007 April 10, 00:12:56 Quote from: "Mufushu" Quote from: "Feverish" I just don't think it's something that has to be overlooked nor do I accept his reason that laziness prevented him from deleting it. Do note that you're judging this case by one article online. There are many questions that would need to be answered if we are going to judge his actions today by actions years ago. And like I said, you don't know if he got treatment for this. Laziness is a bad excuse, yes, but like I said, we know little about the case... and about Delphy in regards to that point in time. And just to set the record clear, I do not care a bit about Delphy, nor do I believe he is completely innocent of what happened to Universal Sims, given the information provided here. What I was saying is that I don't think it's something people should be so quick to discount or hush up considering he runs a site with lots of teenage girls on it. It should be expected that people would consider or discuss his past. I'm not judging his actions today by actions years ago. I have no idea what he's doing today nor did I accuse him of doing anything today. And if most people accidentally got child porn on their computer I assume that they'd probably delete it immediately. I reserve my right to be suspicious of anyone, at anytime, for any reason. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: ghengisjohn on 2007 April 10, 02:04:34 Oh ew. What a skeezebag.
No money for him. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Diala on 2007 April 10, 05:19:34 Quote from: "Feverish" What I was saying is that I don't think it's something people should be so quick to discount or hush up considering he runs a site with lots of teenage girls on it. It should be expected that people would consider or discuss his past. I'm not judging his actions today by actions years ago. I have no idea what he's doing today nor did I accuse him of doing anything today. And if most people accidentally got child porn on their computer I assume that they'd probably delete it immediately. I reserve my right to be suspicious of anyone, at anytime, for any reason. I am not saying that it isn't okay to be suspicious. I am just saying to try to keep to the facts and what we know, rather than letting speculation get out of hand. Quote from: "chlyn" - "child pornography" - "young girls engaged in indecent acts" - "of which 30 involved children" - "child pornography" - "images involving children" - "a risk to children" Like I said, "children" = 18 US-wise, and 16 UK-wise. Quote No, people can't be therapied out of a sexual interest. This isn't like being gay or straight. This is a serious disorder that can be treated, just like alcoholism and addiction to drugs. But then again, you seemed rather convinced that pedophilia is some sort of "born" trait. Even if that were true, the right treatment can help these people ignore their "cravings." Hell, might as well take anyone who even looked at child porn and shoot them in the back of the head, since they're doomed for life. :roll: And I am not talking about the real sickos who sexually harass children. I am not saying that those who look at child pornography are not doing any harm, of course, but at that stage, they are probably most likely to respond to treatment. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: ghengisjohn on 2007 April 10, 05:40:01 Well, considering they're getting off on something that took hurting a child to create and thus creating a market for it, yes, I'd say people who stop at just child porn are, in fact, hurting children.
edit: I missed her edit before I posted this, Mufushu wasn't actually saying that. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: PirateOfMashedPotatoes on 2007 April 10, 05:55:42 Interesting point, ghengisjohn. When he had that photo album thing connected to MTS2 for a while there, it kind of freaked me out when he asked one of the younger girls/ young women if they were going to post boob shots. Then said something to the effect of "kidding!" Sheesh. :roll:
Knowing his past, he really should have known better than to host a site dealing with such crap. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Diala on 2007 April 10, 06:15:21 Quote from: "ghengisjohn" Well, considering they're getting off on something that took hurting a child to create and thus creating a market for it, yes, I'd say people who stop at just child porn are, in fact, hurting children. You probably didn't see my edit: "I am not saying that those who look at child pornography are not doing any harm, of course, but at that stage, they are probably most likely to respond to treatment." Title: Universal Sims... Post by: ghengisjohn on 2007 April 10, 06:19:12 Ah! Did not see, no. No more snappy. :)
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Marhis on 2007 April 10, 19:19:45 Honestly, I don't know exactly what to think. I second, though, what neriana said.
I don't give a crap to the article itself; I worked for years in newspapers, and although they can't lie (unless they want to be sued), the choice and the use of words is an art: you use the words and phrases that will titillate the reader's mind the way you want. The judge sentence would be an interesting source of facts, not that article. However, something on that line happened: that's a fact, of course, but exactly what we don't know: we can only speculate and gossip. My strictly personal point of view... I don't know in England, but in Italy if someone get caught with paedophilic stuff on his pc, this means jail, not a fine and a record for 5 years, like for a mortgage due date missed. That's why I think there are too many things we don't know, about that issue, apart for the newspaper touching accents on children and his wife. It sounds too weird to me. Frankly, I find the shady Universal Sims and MikeInside issue much more worthing attention. At least, in these isssues, we have some more facts and concrete suspects. I think that Delphy should came out of shades and explain a lot of stuff; being directly involved or not, he is anyway the host, hence his responsability. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Liodanna on 2007 April 17, 04:03:23 Quote from: "Bliss" And we all know the media NEVER sensationalizes anything to make it seem seedier or more interesting.. Just a little point of fact here. It's a court case report and no, the media doesn't sensationalise those because if they do, they lose any sort of privilege they get to publish the thing in the first place. There's a nice handy little book called McNae's Law for Journalists that covers exactly what you can and cannot report in a court case and, for those who might like to 'sensationalise' a court report, there's a handy little thing called the Contempt of Court Act. Quote from: "Marhis" I don't give a crap to the article itself; I worked for years in newspapers, and although they can't lie (unless they want to be sued), the choice and the use of words is an art: you use the words and phrases that will titillate the reader's mind the way you want. The judge sentence would be an interesting source of facts, not that article.. Oh really? And that's why I've spent 18 years being incredibly careful about what I write when it comes to a court case including actually, strange as it may seem quoting only what's been said in court! at the risk of a hefty bloody fine or a defence solicitor slapping a massive great law suit on me for defamation. If you've worked in newspapers for years then you know damn straight that, outside of the national tabloid media, most newspapers are printing exactly what is told to them. Unless there's something inherently different about Italian journalists that I've not come across during my career that is. As for the case itself. In England there are many and varied different levels to the Act under which he's been charged. Pornographic offences don't automatically get you a jail sentence. The topic itself. I don't give a shit whether they were 2, 12 or 20, if you put yourself into the public eye or into a community then you have to accept that any skeletons you have in your closet will be well and truly hung out to dry the minute anyone doesn't agree with you. I have no opinion on Delphy either way, other than that the impression he has always given me is someone with his head so far up his own arse of self-importance that he's seeing daylight. /goes back to lurking. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: darkangel on 2007 April 17, 08:10:57 What I really don't understand, is, why everybody is/was asskissing Delphy in that (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php) topic at the end. They were all like *it's not that bad* *we all make mistakes* *whatever*...I'm sorry, he admitted having a thing for "older teenage girls"...
and he's like..."when pretty much everybody has fucked up at some point in time" Oh yeah. I have fucked up many times. That did not include child pornography. Holy shizzles, I don't care if the kids were 6 or 16, it's child pornography and he even said he's like them young, so I think there is NO excuse for him. And I don't care if that was 5 years or 5 days ago. Pedos just don't get cured. They don't. Ever. I'm sorry I totally ranted. I just have an issue with these people as I got sexually abused as a 5-year old. :roll: Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Quorneater on 2007 April 17, 09:00:21 I think the report was trying to make it clear that a number of the photos found on his computer were of actual children (not just "technically" underage). In his defence Delphy said those were not the images he had been looking for or using they just happened to come along with the others that he did want, which were still illegal but were at least post-pubertal teens.
I don't have any evidence Delphy was not being truthful, but I hope he knows now that if he supports sites that "also" have young child material he will be indirectly damaging children anyway even if it was not his intention. Actually I have somewhat less problem with Delphy having made a one-off mistake like this than I do with his persistent arrogance as the fansite-owner-who-must-not-be-questioned. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Diala on 2007 April 17, 09:01:33 Quote from: "darkangel" Pedos just don't get cured. They don't. Ever. So no matter the root causes of their pedophilia, how much therapy they're given, or even if they put the whole incident behind them and honestly changed their lives, they're still Pedos and hence still deserve damnation for what they repented against? I am sorry, but such defeatist attitudes disgust me. I know, I know, you suffered a horrible experience in the past, and I'm sorry for that. But we should aim for the decrease of all harmful behaviors, no matter if they seem "permanent." If we humans just deemed some illnesses "incurable" and left it at that, what kind of society would we be living in today? No, I am not standing up for Pedos. I am standing up for all who wish to help themselves, and the hard work of scientists and psychologists who wish to provide that help. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: darkangel on 2007 April 17, 11:29:46 Quote from: "Mufushu" Quote from: "darkangel" Pedos just don't get cured. They don't. Ever. So no matter the root causes of their pedophilia, how much therapy they're given, or even if they put the whole incident behind them and honestly changed their lives, they're still Pedos and hence still deserve damnation for what they repented against? I am sorry, but such defeatist attitudes disgust me. I know, I know, you suffered a horrible experience in the past, and I'm sorry for that. But we should aim for the decrease of all harmful behaviors, no matter if they seem "permanent." If we humans just deemed some illnesses "incurable" and left it at that, what kind of society would we be living in today? No, I am not standing up for Pedos. I am standing up for all who wish to help themselves, and the hard work of scientists and psychologists who wish to provide that help. I have psychology class and we just had a class about pedophilia...it's being said that the relapse quota is extremely high. I only got german articles but you can say it's about 50%. That's the double percentage than a "normal" sexual abuser. Quote Einmal einschlägig straffällig gewordene Pädophile unterliegen einer hohen Rückfallgefahr. Internationale Studien haben ergeben, dass die Rückfallquote bei ihnen mit etwa 40 bis 50 Prozent etwa doppelt so hoch ist wie die durchschnittliche Quote für Sexualstraftäter von 22 Prozent (Egg 2001). So one out of two have a relapse. I'm sorry. Does hating pedophiles make me a bad person? In Germany, there are so many kids raped and murdered these days because some psychologists say *that they've recovered* and release them just so that the already convicted person can rape another kid. How awesome. Let's believe in the good of all people. Yay. I'm sorry, I believe in the bad of all people. Everyone is evil somewhere, somehow. I rather codemn too much than put someone I care about at risk. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 17, 12:54:57 Quote from: "MMEStalker" Well there is a difference between 16 and 6, as most 16 years old have gone through most of the physical changes associated with puberty, paedophilia is the paraphilia of being sexually attracted to prepubescent or peripubescent (around the average age of puberty) children. You can debate the morality of being attracted to 16 year olds but it is not paedophilia as most 16 year olds are more physically adult than child. And while paedophiles don't get cured, many, possibly even most (figures vary wildly and it's not an area where accurate figures are really possible) never act on their desires and many are capable of controlling their behaviour and avoiding contact with children and child pornography. And there are differences in re-offending rates between different types of paedophile. Firstly they were under 16, because at the time in England, that was the age of consent. If I'm not mistaken, it's now 18. I think some of the pictures were obviously children, here's why. His ex-wife found them and reported them. If they were not obviously children, why did she do that? If they were 15 year olds that looked like 20 yr olds, how did the cops know they were younger? Either they knew the identity of the girls involved (pretty unlikely) or the pictures were obviously of children. He knew they were children, his defense wasn't that he or anyone else would assume they were of age it was that he was "too lazy" to click delete. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: MMEStalker on 2007 April 17, 13:09:03 redisenchanted, sorry, I don't think I made myself clear there, wasn't referring to Delphy and his crime, just disagreeing with part of what darkangel said about paedophiles generally.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 April 17, 13:54:04 Quote from: "Mufushu" Quote from: "darkangel" Pedos just don't get cured. They don't. Ever. So no matter the root causes of their pedophilia, how much therapy they're given, or even if they put the whole incident behind them and honestly changed their lives, they're still Pedos and hence still deserve damnation for what they repented against? No amount of therapy known to modern science will change the underlying wiring. You can no more cure someone of being a pedophile than you can cure someone of being gay. What the INCIDENT is in the first place has something to do with it though. In Delphy's case, he looked porn. Woo. While certainly tasteless, the judge did not find him to be a danger to anyone. I, for one, see the matter as being the closest thing we have to a thought crime, and question whether it was right to punish him for his choice in viewing material at all. Now child molesters, on the other hand, deserve to be put to death. Delphy's past behavior, on the other hand, hasn't harmed anyone (that we know of, anyway). His more recent behavior, on the other hand, seems somewhat fraudulent. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: darkangel on 2007 April 17, 15:22:09 I agree with you Pescado but you haven't heard of the "steps" a pedophil takes, right?
First they just look at childporn...maybe just porn at first...nothing "bad" as y'all say...then they start watching...kids on playgrounds. Because they can't get the kick out of pictures anymore, they have to SEE them for REAL. And the last step would be...well...guess. Abusing a child. I'm not saying everyone who watches (child)porn becomes an abuser. I can't find the homepage nor the article but there was sth about that. I admit, that the person also has to have some sort of trigger to become actif and that the person has to have some tendencies...still. I really lack soem english vocabulary here. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Aquamarine on 2007 April 17, 15:26:39 Actually, I think *most* of those viewing child pornography don't go on to become child abusers.
That said, I don't think Delphy's alleged sexual deviancy has much to do with the thread beyond whether or not any of these situations have direct links to it. And since we don't have that information, there's no point in speculating on whether or not they do. Now, back to business. Any updates on "Nathan" himself? Title: Universal Sims... Post by: MMEStalker on 2007 April 17, 15:40:40 Quote from: "darkangel" I agree with you Pescado but you haven't heard of the "steps" a pedophil takes, right? First they just look at childporn...maybe just porn at first...nothing "bad" as y'all say...then they start watching...kids on playgrounds. Because they can't get the kick out of pictures anymore, they have to SEE them for REAL. And the last step would be...well...guess. Abusing a child. I really lack soem english vocabulary here. I think the vocabulary problem is that you seem to be using the word paedophile to mean someone who sexually abuses children, paedophiles are people with a sexual desire for children, it doesn't mean someone who abuses children, not all paedophiles act on their desires. Not all paedophiles take the steps towards child abuse you describe and not all people who sexually abuse children began the way you describe either. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: missangelica on 2007 April 17, 15:50:31 As for the UniversalSims issue, the donation given amount is still listed as the same and we haven't heard a peep out of "Nathan"..
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: darkangel on 2007 April 17, 15:57:09 Quote from: "MMEStalker" Quote from: "darkangel" I agree with you Pescado but you haven't heard of the "steps" a pedophil takes, right? First they just look at childporn...maybe just porn at first...nothing "bad" as y'all say...then they start watching...kids on playgrounds. Because they can't get the kick out of pictures anymore, they have to SEE them for REAL. And the last step would be...well...guess. Abusing a child. I really lack soem english vocabulary here. I think the vocabulary problem is that you seem to be using the word paedophile to mean someone who sexually abuses children, paedophiles are people with a sexual desire for children, it doesn't mean someone who abuses children, not all paedophiles act on their desires. Not all paedophiles take the steps towards child abuse you describe and not all people who sexually abuse children began the way you describe either. Helloooo? Oh great. You just capped out my explanation where I said Quote I'm not saying everyone who watches (child)porn becomes an abuser. I can't find the homepage nor the article but there was sth about that. I admit, that the person also has to have some sort of trigger to become actif and that the person has to have some tendencies...still. Please. If you quote, do it right and don't give me that bull when I exactly said that. You can't just ignore parts what I said EXACTLY what you are just telling me that I ignored. I really don't think that this is worth discussing, especially if the other person ignores parts of what I said completely. This is not even discussing. Geez, gimme a break. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Jojoba on 2007 April 17, 16:25:10 Quote from: "redisenchanted" Firstly they were under 16, because at the time in England, that was the age of consent. If I'm not mistaken, it's now 18. The age of consent in England is 16, and has been for a long time (me thinks). Title: Universal Sims... Post by: fourohfourerror on 2007 April 17, 16:31:18 What I want to know, is if Universal Sims is a paysite, why isn't it in the booty? :P And why can't I spell?
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Aquamarine on 2007 April 17, 17:24:06 Because no one subscribed. :P I had no idea Universal Sims even existed before this situation, and judging from the (lack of) forum activity, I'd say most people hadn't heard of it either. Which makes me wonder how Nathan got so much money so fast, and from who exactly. Assuming any of this is real, of course.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: MMEStalker on 2007 April 17, 17:25:07 Quote from: "darkangel" Please. If you quote, do it right and don't give me that bull when I exactly said that. You can't just ignore parts what I said EXACTLY what you are just telling me that I ignored. I really don't think that this is worth discussing, especially if the other person ignores parts of what I said completely. This is not even discussing. Geez, gimme a break. Huh, where did I do that? I wasn't saying that you said that everyone that watches child porn becomes an abuser. I don't get how the bit you've put in bold from my post shows I'm ignoring what you said in the bit from your post that you've put in bold. I think you may have misunderstood my post. Edited to add. I didn't intend to insult you, I was just clarifying what the various terms mean, I didn't assume that you thought that all paedophiles went through the steps you listed, I just thought that your phrasing of '"steps" a pedophil takes' for example should have read more like 'the steps some paedophiles take towards becoming a child molester' and the way you've used paedophile to mean child abuser in earlier posts could lead to some confusion as to what you mean. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: redisenchanted on 2007 April 17, 17:46:38 Delphy's past is only relevant because of the pervvy forum that was at Mikeinside, which he hosted. It's not really relevant to the whole Universal Sims fiasco, that's a whole different slimy matter. Some of the specuation may be unfair, but he hasn't articulated a very satisfactory response to either matter. It's probably the smartest thing to do though, just hunker down and let it pass. Eventually it will all fade.
MTS2 isn't going away anytime soon, at least not because of this stuff. What's likely to kill it off is their silly refusal to allow meshes to be included in uploads, even when the creator gives permission. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: ghengisjohn on 2007 April 17, 18:53:39 They don't allow meshes in the downloads? Huh.
Title: Universal Sims... Post by: MizzKitty on 2007 April 17, 19:07:47 Of course they don't!
Just look at them! They take everything that would be smart management and do the OPPOSITE. So WHY should they allow meshes? :P Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Diala on 2007 April 18, 00:09:39 Quote from: "darkangel" So one out of two have a relapse. I'm sorry. Does hating pedophiles make me a bad person? In Germany, there are so many kids raped and murdered these days because some psychologists say *that they've recovered* and release them just so that the already convicted person can rape another kid. How awesome. Let's believe in the good of all people. Yay. I'm sorry, I believe in the bad of all people. Everyone is evil somewhere, somehow. I rather codemn too much than put someone I care about at risk. I am not saying that a pedo should be magically considered "cured" and then the person in question thrust back out into society, nor do I believe that a person shouldn't pay the price of their crime. If a person had actually raped a child, then that person should rightfully be watched over by at least someone of authority for the remainder of their lives. It is just a matter of safety that way. That being said, no one really knows the root of all sexual tendencies, or what causes them. Why do you think being gay is so controversial? (No, I do not support gay reparative therapy, because being gay itself causes no harm to anyone.) Pedophilia is just one of the many issues that fall under our lack of understanding of human sexuality. I understand that the poor recovery rate of pedophilia is a problem, but we shouldn't just deem something incurable just because right now we do not know the solution to the issue. Besides, if what you said was true, that pedos always remain the same, then why is there a 50% success rate? That means 50% of those who went through therapy actually have some sort of success in their lives. There must be something that works. I also do believe it depends on whether those who go through therapy actually want to change. I just believe people who want help should have a chance of being able to return back to society in some way. We shouldn't damn people forever, even if they show progress towards being healthy and have the determination to remain well. Take whatever preventative measures are necessary, but I believe in giving sincere people a second chance. If they screw up again, despite given all the treatment they can recieve, I don't have much mercy then. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: Pescado on 2007 April 18, 02:51:23 Quote from: "darkangel" I agree with you Pescado but you haven't heard of the "steps" a pedophil takes, right? First they just look at childporn...maybe just porn at first...nothing "bad" as y'all say...then they start watching...kids on playgrounds. Because they can't get the kick out of pictures anymore, they have to SEE them for REAL. And the last step would be...well...guess. Abusing a child. Eh, I don't buy it. By that logic, the first step taken is generally being born, and we should we should get rid of them at that step, lest they become a child molester. It's an absurd solution, sure, but oddly appealing just for the sheer number of other problems it solves. Like I said, I don't agree with criminalizing thought. Quote from: "darkangel" So one out of two have a relapse. I'm sorry. Does hating pedophiles make me a bad person? In Germany, there are so many kids raped and murdered these days because some psychologists say *that they've recovered* and release them just so that the already convicted person can rape another kid. How awesome. Let's believe in the good of all people. Yay. I would like to point out that the death penalty still has a flawless 0% recidivism rate. Quote from: "darkangel" I'm sorry, I believe in the bad of all people. Everyone is evil somewhere, somehow. I rather codemn too much than put someone I care about at risk. Eh, I disagree with that. The occasional encounter with a child molester helps to remind children that the world is dangerous and full of child molesters, and that one should not accept candy from strangers. Quote from: "Mufushu" I am not saying that a pedo should be magically considered "cured" and then the person in question thrust back out into society, nor do I believe that a person shouldn't pay the price of their crime. If a person had actually raped a child, then that person should rightfully be watched over by at least someone of authority for the remainder of their lives. It is just a matter of safety that way. Again: Death penalty, 0% recidivism rate. Quote from: "Mufushu" That being said, no one really knows the root of all sexual tendencies, or what causes them. Why do you think being gay is so controversial? (No, I do not support gay reparative therapy, because being gay itself causes no harm to anyone.) Pedophilia is just one of the many issues that fall under our lack of understanding of human sexuality. It's all in the wiring. Until people figure out how to rewire people's heads, there's no way to cure this. Allegedly, some people have found out how to rewire sheep, resulting on a controversy of whether or not we SHOULD rewire said sheep, and whether or not the sheep have the right to be gay. Quote from: "Mufushu" Besides, if what you said was true, that pedos always remain the same, then why is there a 50% success rate? Because they haven't been caught yet? Quote from: "Mufushu" I just believe people who want help should have a chance of being able to return back to society in some way. We shouldn't damn people forever, even if they show progress towards being healthy and have the determination to remain well. As I said on SFV, positive history means nothing, except that they haven't been caught yet and therefore have become more devious than before. Forgiveness is a character flaw of the weak. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: ghengisjohn on 2007 April 18, 04:20:03 Er, actually, he didn't figure out how to make sheep gay/not gay. That was Peta propaganda to try and get his experiments shut down.
And no, there really isn't much of a chance of 'curing' a pedophile. I rather like the death penalty idea. Pretty damn easy to prove too. Title: Universal Sims... Post by: calalily on 2007 April 18, 04:43:26 There is actually a chance of curing pedophilia, particularly when pedophiles turn themselves in for their own behaviour. Some female pedophiles turn themselves in due to the disjunctive ideas about the 'caring mother' and the 'harmful rapist'.
Recidivism rates for offenders overall are about 64% - and statistics can't say for sure the recidivist rates of pedophiles - due to the hidden nature of the crime. One thing is sure though, is that any pedophilia treatment requires that the pedophile admit what they did was wrong. Australian correctional programs don't allow offenders to enter their courses until they admit such things. As a result, more than a few pedophiles have had to serve their full sentence and leave with no treatment whatsoever. Part of the danger is minimising it - this is what allows pedophiles to continue their actions, and feeds into cognitive dissonance (not seeing things as they really are - taking a child freezing in fear to mean that they like it). Saying "oh - just a bit of porn - I have some too" is a problem. For those that do - I ask the question - when exactly was the last time you went to court for the 'bit of porn'? Courts don't have infinite resources to spend on prosecuting every single person who does something wrong, and if it were a simple offence, it never would have gone to court. |