Jeff For Fan Club President!

[Rob]

(Although if your image worked, that picture might have made a compelling case for who could replace Carlin in the inevitable sequel.)

Fixed.

[JoshEEE]

Had a nice long break from the internet this weekend, as I was working (finally) on my Star Wars room at the new house.

This is going to be my best one yet....and I can't wait to share the pictures here. 


AE said:

I often times see you say, "Well, they haven't done anything to me - so why should I be upset?" And that always bothers me. God damn, Josh - If you can remain totally passive about all that has gone on over there in the years we've been pals... I can't help but ask, at what point will you care? What is it going to take, man? I know it isn't true, or at least I hope not, but it just comes off as if you really don't care about anything or anyone else, so long as you've got what you want - these benefits, as you keep calling them, must be beyond my imagination, for you to be capable of remaining generally uncaring all this time...

And...

You've seen your pals go down, eventually it'll be you.

I really can't aruge with that I guess.  Yes, I've seen a lot of you banned from Rebelscum.  It sucks.  I don't like seeing that and I hate the fact that some of you aren't welcome over there (even if you wanted to come back).  I guess all I'm trying to get across is I don't want to be thought of as being disloyal or something, just because I continue to hang out there.  It's still a cool place as far as I'm concerned.  But yes, I realize my membership over there could get yanked from me at any moment.  Even if I was banned....I'd probably still visit to help subsidize my collecting habit. 


Every once in awhile, when I find myself defending JD to Mattkenobi, LJ, or some other yahoo over there that wants to make cracks about this place.....I wonder if it might get me in trouble.  If I get banned for NOT hating Jedidefender, yeah, that would suck.....same as it would if suddenly Chris decided to throw me out of here for not hating RS.  For the most part though....I try and follow the rules so as not to get thrown out.  I know where the line is and though I may dance around it, I try not to cross it.  I like my membership and would like to keep it.

I have a feeling that Phillip could drop a nuclear bomb on Seattle, and Josh would be the first to jump out of the ashes and support Phillip's actions...

I'm not THAT bad.

Do I think Philip having ads on his free website or sending me the occasional targeted email is evil?  No (although if it got too annoying, I might change that opinion).
Do I think that blanketing everyone from JD with bans was fair?  No.  I think it was a "Clean N Sweep" attack to solve a site war that never really was.  Plus, it was a long time ago.  In a perfect world, I'd like to see all of you were reinstated, as an acknowledgement that the community at large is better off with you in it.  However, I don't think that anyone here who's banned really wants to go back, and that's really the meat of the whole thing.

Last but not least, and on topic:

Do I think Philip somehow rigged this "election"?  No.  As evil as some make him out to be, I don't think he or Dustin would do something like that....nor do I think they'd have the power to do it even if they wanted to.   USC probably got DQed for any number of things he said or did online, or some things we never even heard about.

[ruiner]

Do I think Philip somehow rigged this "election"?  No.  As evil as some make him out to be, I don't think he or Dustin would do something like that....nor do I think they'd have the power to do it even if they wanted to.   USC probably got DQed for any number of things he said or did online, or some things we never even heard about.

Do you think their status as an official LF licensee is a conflict of interest in regards to the contest rules?

[theottomanguy]

Do you think their status as an official LF licensee is a conflict of interest in regards to the contest rules?

... rebelscum calls itself an "affiliate" of starwarshop.com.  ... as a person who distributes promotional material for IDG, Dustin is clearly ineligible to participate in the contest according to the rules as written.  ...  There's still hope that IDG can be made aware of this and everyone's distaste for these results.  I'm thinking that an email/phone campaign is gonna begin pretty soon.  So, stay tuned.

Yeah, it seems that Dustin's activities on TF.N and RS make him very clearly ineligible under the rules as published.  The question is why is no one at IDG or LFL answering inquiries pointing that out?

[JoshEEE]

Do you think their status as an official LF licensee is a conflict of interest in regards to the contest rules?

Philip did not run, Dustin did.  Had Philip run, yes....that would have been breaking the rules.
  
Dustin is not employed by Philip as far as I'm aware. From personal experience, I can say that Rebelscum doesn't pay it's staff a dime.  

[theottomanguy]

...Dustin is not employed by Philip as far as I'm aware. From personal experience, I can say that Rebelscum doesn't pay it's staff a dime. 

Being paid cash as an employee is actually not the issue on which this turns.  Unpaid interns and even family members of all such parties would also be ineligible.  But the specific clear conflict with the rules under which Dustin falls is their clause that "ANYONE INVOLVED in the distribution of promotional materials for IDG or LFL is  ineligible for the promotion".

Dustin himself reported the original story about the contest, fully quoting IDG's press release before deciding to participate.  And of course, he routinely does so on both TF.N and RS when doing his reporting.  Pay is not a factor.

[efranks]

Being paid cash as an employee is actually not the issue on which this turns.  Unpaid interns and even family members of all such parties would also be ineligible.  But the specific clear conflict with the rules under which Dustin falls is their clause that "ANYONE INVOLVED in the distribution of promotional materials for IDG or LFL is  ineligible for the promotion".

Dustin himself reported the original story about the contest, fully quoting IDG's press release before deciding to participate.  And of course, he routinely does so on both TF.N and RS when doing his reporting.  Pay is not a factor.

I think you might be taking the definition of "distribution" a little too far.  By your definition anyone in the press, anyone that ever wrote a blog or did a podcast or, potentially, any one that quoted them during a forum discussion could possibly be disqualified.  Now, if RS was an officially sponsored public relations firm for IDG and/or Lucasfilm then maybe that part of it would apply.

However, I think some of your other arguments still stand.  If you work for a company that in some way is an affiliate of those running the contest, you might be out.  That would seemingly include web sites that are affiliates, meaning you make money through sales when people click ad banners on your site. I also think OfficialPix would qualify. 

But that part about distribution, no.  I have my own blog but I don't have advertisement banners or any affiliate links on my site and I don't think I'd be counted out if I quoted their press release and discussed it.

   E...

[JoshEEE]

However, I think some of your other arguments still stand.  If you work for a company that in some way is an affiliate of those running the contest, you might be out.  That would seemingly include web sites that are affiliates, meaning you make money through sales when people click ad banners on your site. I also think OfficialPix would qualify. 

That is an interesting point.  I guess to what extent they consider Official Pix an affilliated company and to what extent Philip considers Dustin involved with Offical Pix. 

I guess what I'm more curious about is what USCwannabe did to become disqualified. That is a lot more interesting to me than why Dustin WASN'T disqualified. 

[theottomanguy]

I think you might be taking the definition of "distribution" a little too far.  By your definition anyone in the press, anyone that ever wrote a blog or did a podcast or, potentially, any one that quoted them during a forum discussion could possibly be disqualified.  Now, if RS was an officially sponsored public relations firm for IDG and/or Lucasfilm then maybe that part of it would apply.

However, I think some of your other arguments still stand.  If you work for a company that in some way is an affiliate of those running the contest, you might be out. That would seemingly include web sites that are affiliates, meaning you make money through sales when people click ad banners on your site. I also think OfficialPix would qualify. 

But that part about distribution, no.  I have my own blog but I don't have advertisement banners or any affiliate links on my site and I don't think I'd be counted out if I quoted their press release and discussed it.

   E...

Nice try, but I think he's still pinched.  The point that Phil freaked out and closed the thread about this on RS was the point right after which he admitted that RS is (his words) an "affiliate" of starwarsshop.com and that anyone that voted for Dustin by clicking through RS to there, triggered a cash kickback to RS for that vote under the starwarsshop.com affiliate program.  So, yeah, affiliate then.  That seemed to lock it in for me, and Phil.  Because when I called him out after saying that, he deleted the thread and put up what you see there now.

Your blog is safe.  But yes, according to the way these rules are written, they DO seem to exclude anyone who is a staff writer on any major site that passes on unedited promotional material for IDG, LFL or any of their affiliates.  This even means that technically, Dustin would be disqualified just for promoting RS on TF.N or somesuch, since RS is an "affiliate".  These rules are written broadly on purpose to prevent anything like this from happening.

These are THEIR rules.  If they wanted it to be different, they could have written them any way they want.  But once they publish these rules and run a contest under them, involving the public in purchases based on these rules, they are bound to follow them, or be open to claims of fraud.

As for USCWANNABE, his disqualification (while very interesting as juicy gossip to the rest of us) is protected overtly from disclosure under these rules because they say that IDG reserves the right to disqualify anyone for any violation of the rules or for failing (at IDG's sole discretion) IDG's background check and that all of IDG's decisions are final.  So, it would be hard (if not legally nearly impossible) to compell a comment out of IDG on that disqualification.

[Poggle the Greater]

Why in the world has USCWANNABE not commented on this yet?


He has to have read what's been going on...

[theottomanguy]

I'm very sure he's too ashamed to.  It had to be either cheating or being a scumbag that got him bounced (or both).  So he's probably moved on to the Zathura fandom or something.  I don't expect to ever hear from him in any public way.

[hansolo_506]

http://blogs.starwars.com/starwars4life/6

[theottomanguy]

Yeah, that's been up since April.  I can't tell if that's all that's left of his blog, or if he put that up after his blog was pulled by sw.com.  Apparantly, he wrote something horrible there that got his blog deleted at some point.  This was either what they left of it, or something he put up afterwards.  I tend to think it was there before the deletion, because of the date.  He cannot have been told he was disqualified that early because he kept up strong getting refferals right until 5/15/06.

[JoshEEE]

I can't tell if that's all that's left of his blog

I saw a few of the posts that were removed, but they don't seem to be up there now.  I believe StarWars.com removed them, not Mr. USC.

I would like to hear from him though, it'll be interesting to hear his side.

[theottomanguy]

Oh, yeah, sw.com certainly did edit/delete his blog.  Lots of people have in various places on the Internet have said they noticed that.  But no one kept close tabs on what used to be there and when things were cut.

It'd be nice to hear from him.  But I'd be really surprised if we ever do.  At most, someone who knows him might come around someday with some heresay, is the most I expect.