[scrawnybob]

right - I'm not going to get involved in personal slanging matches

one thing above all else that makes this forum a nicer place than others is that I will not allow it to decend into personal name calling etc

and anyone bringing the tone of the forum down is as likely to get banned / warnings as anyone breaking any of OUR other rules

I've made my opinions clear on the password issue before

Password POSTERS are the source of the problem -

anyone posting our passwords is 100% not tollerated and will be banned

if I see people who are members here posting either OUR passwords or OTHER SITES passwords then I WILL ban them - thats an easily provable "crime"

but

Password USERS fall into 3 categories - which are not neccessarily mutually exclusive but IMHO are very different from password posters.

1) people who use other forums passwords which they get from a site(s) that shouldnt post them ... but DONT use our passwords or join our site (partly because they are warned not to use our passwords unless they are a legitimate member and get the password correctly)

2) people who use our passwords and other forums passwords they get from a site(s) that shouldnt post them ... They use OUR passwords but DONT join the site

3) people who use our passwords and other forums passwords they get from a site(s) that shouldnt pot them ... They use OUR passwords and THEN JOIN the site after the event and / or post 10+ to make themselves semi legit

The key point here is that the only people that members of the forum are able to beat up on or get angry with in the forum are "reformed" or "recovering" password using offenders ... I can tell you now that the percentage of password users who will try to sneak into games and NEVER join is higher than the odd new members who join and try to go straight

so I WILL NOT tollerate other members having a go at them ... its like beating up one person because you've caught them for a crime that was committed by them and 99 others you havent caught ... it serves NO purpose making a personally focussed attack all it does do is make the forum look less friendly and drags us down to the level of other forums.

The way to do this is to get the message out that we do not tollerate private password posting / sharing / using etc - but generally - lets not make this personal

I can tell the forum now - that the people I've caught in the past sharing / posting our passwords were for all intents and purposes "model" members - the reality was they were sneaky mofo's who would swear blind they were whiter than white ... if on that basis I went round suspecting everyone with a decent amount of posts and longer terms members that wouldn't be a very fair way to sort things out.

As I mentioned before we had 2 non members / members with insufficent posts to have got the passwords (directly from a member) they then cashed in games of ours - they posted to try and make themselves "appear" legit but fundamentally offered zero co-operation on giving me the name of the member who gave them the password ... that earnt them a ban etc

but when the OP has stated clearly that while he may have USED OTHER sites passwords BUT NEVER posted ours or any others ... I am not about to ban him when we still have a nest of shameless password posters in our own member base.

Look at it like this - which is the worse crime ...

mugging and old lady or picking up a $10 note thats on the floor ?

I dont have 100% proof of anything in this - and having wasted 2 days last week pointing fingers in the wrong direction with the other password issue I am not about to go off on another witch hunt and end up with egg on my face ... or put up with name calling etc which affects the wider forum more than it needs to

cheers scrawnybob