SDMB embezzlement

The BBQ Pit
1

We all know the importance and value of post counts. The board was down for a couple of weeks, some great posts were lost, but that’s not what’s important.

The key issue is the post count drop.

Our moderators and administrators would like you to believe that this all occured due to a software issue.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

My confidential sources present evidence for widespread post-count embezzlement and mismanagement here at the SDMB going back at least to 1997.

Countless posters beleiving in the security of the SDMB built up their post counts in the expectation that that count would be available to sustain the through their declining years.

Many posters have no other post count than the one here at the SDMB. Their post count represented their entire nest egg.

They have been ruinously and deliberately defrauded. Tubadiva herself acknowledges the fact that she had prior knowledge of a problem with the board’s backup stability as far back as last December.

She had the moral obligation to let posters know what was going on so they would have the opportunity to protect the post assets, but instead she kept mum.

Even worse, she encouraged posters to continue posting and building their post counts, even though she knew they were not secure.

Acting on her material nonpublic information on the post count insecurity issue, she quietly made inquiries into starting an offshore message board, and she and a few key insiders quietly began funnelling their posting assets onto that venue.

When this board suffered the inevitable meltdown she quickly opened the offshore board to members so that they could try to rebuild the shambles of their posting assets.

Or so she said.

But where is that board now? What has happened to those posts? have you recieved credit for them?

Apparently dipping into the public kitty just once left Tubadiva’s greedy thirst for ill-gained post counts unslaked. When that board was later shut down none of those post counts were returned to their rightful owners. Inquiries into their whereabouts remain unanswered, and, perhaps unanswerable. Allegations of lost posts, document shredding and a hidden post fund seem credible.

Most disturbing are the rumors of a secret third board to which the missing post counts have been secretly diverted for distribution among the upper ranks of SDMB management.

Tubadiva continues to stonewall on this issue, and is only willing to issue generic statements. She has not made herself available for comment, except to vehemently deny any wrongdoing, that post counts were maintained according to generally accepted accounting principle audited annually by Arthur Anderson.

The SDMB however reports post counts on a pro-forma basis, and recent calls for more transparent post-accounting still need to be addressed.

As more information comes to light, rest assured that I will report it here.

2

I see you’ve lost none of your edge, Scylla, no matter what has happened to your count! :smiley:

3

Don’t forget, Scylla, that this is not the first time wide-scale post embezzlement has happened. You do mention that this goes back to 1997 (though I would argue that is part of a conspiracy with a much longer pedigree), but you neglect to point out that the AOL post counts were not merely reduced but slaughtered wholesale. There are very few left from those days to tell their story.

4

Aren’t post counts kinda like Skee-Ball points?

You know, it takes like a million on them just to get the stupid pink furry bunny on the bottom shelf. World domination through embezzled posts just doesn’t make a lot of economic sense.

5

  1. I believe that we also lost post counts when the board switched from UBB to vb software.

  2. Even though the East Germans got credit for West German marks when the country was unified, we have never been given credit for the posts we made on the alt.fan.cecil-adams and misc.facts.straightdope USENET groups.

6

The moral to the story? diversify, diversify, diversify.

The possibility of post count crashing is exactly why I make sure to keep several off shore accounts. Sure, the moderators of the Korean language Hello Kitty Board think it a bit odd when I babble in English about the possible development of retroviral vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases, and discussions on whether Catharine the Great really loved horses (if you know what I mean) may be innappropriate on TheVatican.com, but it is all worth it for the peace of mind that comes from knowing my post-count nest egg is protected.

7

I think it was just a case of the mod’s adjusting the totals to account for artificial inflation due to highly suspicious activity, namely Bricker’s “Three-Minute Mysteries”.

8

I’m taking the fifth.

(The Balvenie Doublewood. 12 years old.)

your humble TubaDiva
Why is there a truck from “60 Minutes” in my driveway?

9

The scandal seems to have driven her to drink!

10

I find this whole situation not at all innocuously remeniscant of the Fed constantly cutting interest rates.

What other ways did they benefit from this? By cutting everyones Post Count, they can claim:

a) A feeble attempt at equalization in the SDMB masses
b) That this will stimulate growth of post counts by way of people rapidly trying to get back to where they were.

This is spurious and disrespectful treatment by the staff, and I find it as stinky as a wollowing llama in a dank, dank puddle.

11

Yeah, but, you know, you take 20,000 dopers and embezzle a couple hundred posts from each of them and you wind up with a substantial stash. Maybe the inactive dopers didn’t lose any, but, still - three months worth of posts from this board are pretty significant. Plus all the posts from the temporary board - which was reopened to continue to pull in unsuspecting posts.

I learned my lesson with the Black Monday 2/11 crash. I have several offshore accounts now, and I’m depositing posts in each of them on a regular basis. I won’t get caught again.

12

20,000 members. Perhaps an average of 100 posts lost for each of them (I, myself, lost probably close to a thousand posts). That’s 2,000,000 posts.

And that doesn’t even factor in the number of posts lost due to board farts, like when you try to make a post and it doesn’t get through the server.

We’re onto you, Tuba. The masses will not tolerate this post abuse any longer!

13

Wow… simulpost, six posts after the one being replied to. ANOTHER part of Tuba’s nefarious scheme!

14

Won’t somebody PLEEEEEEEEEASE think of the children?

15

It’s only a matter of time before someone gets really upset about this scandal and goes postal.

16

I would like to point out that while I am a Moderator, my own personal post count took a serious hit during the time period Scylla references; any advice that I gave to continue posting in a healthy manner was advice that I took as well, and as a result, I likewise saw a serious drop in my posting circumstances. In fact, as a result of the downturn in the message board, I am nearly reduced to the smallish post count I had before I even began as a Moderator.

As for questions regarding my tenure as Moderator here in the Pit- unfortunately, as much as I wish to detail the matter here on the record, on the advice of counsel I must refuse to answer under the protection of the Fifth Amendment.

17
  • Hey! WTF?!?
    My post count was up to 10. I was into double-digits, goddamnit - and now it’s all the way back down to 4???!! WTF is going on here?!! You OWE me, Tuba - :mad:

Thanks for the catch, Scylla. I MUST watch my nest egg more closely from now on –
:slight_smile:

18

Oh sure, that’s the public post count. Who knows how much you moderators have stashed away in subsidiaries and off-the-book partnerships. I bet that you personally have enough to buy yourself a refill for that SDMB coffee mug.

19

I… I lost everything. My accountant said my post count was fine - I’d finally gotten up over 6,000 after months of investing in this board. Sure, there were problems - slow bandwidth, a few trolls here and there - but how could I know what would happen? I trusted the Moderators. I believed the Administrators. Hell, Cecil himself was concerned for my well-being (see signature below)! I mean, with that kind of commitment, I really believed I could trust these people - but how wrong I was! Now, here I am, down a significant percentage, and the only thing I can do is keep posting, keep posting, and hope that, someday, I’ll get back to the point where I can feel comfortable about my security and long-term well-being. But the crash… oh, the crash! To watch all my hard work just evaporate like so many ones and zeroes… it was horrible… just horrible… {sob}

Esprix

20

The loss of posts is a serious matter. An impoverished Honduran lad, suffering from cancer, receives $.05 for every post on this board from a secretive billionaire. The embezzlement of posts may deprive this poor child of the money he urgently needs for essential therapy.

Mods – his death will be on your heads!