Time to clear the air
 

I just got an email with a link to a thread that I view as a gross distortion of the truth about the re-birth of our Germanlook site/forums.

http://www.superbeetlesonly.com/foru...howtopic=10904
Below is a copy of the text in case the link does not work.

************************************************** ********

NOTICE:

The "German Look Forum" (that I created), which was a spin-off of the "Euro-Look" Forum (that I created) on STF after I helped Brian [last name not to be disclosed] create the STF because he was a Club SBO! member...

...the above said forum has now been hi-jacked by a group of people that worked against me instead of with me. The Team of Moderators here on SBO! have always worked with me but for some reason the "people" that were appointed Moderators on my German Look forum didn't perform as well as the ones here.

Here is the hi-jacked forum that I created, they can continue it because I never was against it going into their hands, they just didn't know how to do business negotiations correctly; but then again, I have a degree in Business Management and they do not:
http://www.germanlook.net

Also, you can join another one here:
http://www.germanlook.org/

That being said, SBO! is still going and the German Look forum is now "open source" (links below) to anyone that wants to start a German Look forum with the data provided below. You have my personal permission to download all of the data (data base, pictures, etc.) and start your own German Look forum with this data.

All you have to do is get a (free) PHP board and then take the vbulletin.sql database and convert/upload it to the PHP board. I ask nothing in return and wish all well with this hobby. The domain name (www.germanlook.com) has always been mine and always will be but the database belongs to the people.

Sincerely,
James "Supe"

http://www.germanlook.com/forums/ <----- get pictures here
http://www.germanlook.com/forums/vbulletin.sql <----- get database here
http://www.phpbb.com/ <----- get (free) PHP board here
http://www.phpbb.com/support/documen....0/quickstart/ <----- install PHP board here
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=54908 <----- convert PHP board here

Have fun!!!

************************************************** ********

OK so where is the gross distortion of the truth? I'm glad the GL forums are back too but Supe turned over the database to allow you to help get the forums back up sooner on GL.com and you took it and moved it to GL.net to create your own site. The former moderators would still have been moderators if it was on GL.com.

How did we work against Superman ? Explain this one please. The fact is Superman tried to convert the original database to his preferred format, figured out it did not work as planned, and reached out for some help, on his terms and conditions.

The GL tuning site was his priority, not the forums ... :rolleyes:

Why spew garbage on the internet about people you do not even know ?

A great response from someone with a BM degree that has lost a potential client base of ~3000 people for his new business venture.

I see Superman is 'chums' with Topline John again, after slandering Topline's first to market product. Give me a break .... you can't fix burned bridges.

Sandeep

Can you please talk to Superman and have DTMEngineering's link removed from that awful germanlook.com homepage.

Thanks

Sandeep

I'm sure there are details on both sides that will remain private. I thought VW owners were a special breed and tried to get along. I just think it could have been handled better by everyone involved.

Edit: I'll let him know about the link.

I find this disturbing and will relay the facts as I know them.
I joined the original Germanlook site when if spun off of the Eurolook section of STF. I only recall Alex and Sandeep as the builders and admin staff of the site. I remember when life changes created the need for Alex and Sandeep to pass the site on to someone else. Zen stepped up to take the lead roll and cary the site on. The domain name registration was passed from Alex to Zen. Superman's name was not listed in that domain registration nor was he a part of that transaction. Years later family, life and work teamed up on Zen and he needed to hand the wheel to someone else as he did not have the time to dedicate to the site. Superman stepped in and the site admin and domain registration was passed to him. Many here know what happened to the site under Superman's watch. The site suffered several outages, the main landing page went down and never came back. All of the tech articles, galleries, member galleries, and links were dead and only the forums were reactivated. Then sometime after the first of the year the site went down again. Sometime later we were treated to a germanlook.com page the stated it would be an online store selling struts and other performance parts geared toward the Germanlook tunning crowd. There was no talk of the forums or main site content on that page. Threads on the Eurolook section of STF spured Superman to first contact Zen in an attempt to give the forums back or get Zen to fix them. Zen did not have the time to put the forums back togehter for Superman given the fact the work and family would not allow the time needed and germanlook.com by then was veiwed as damaged goods. Superman then called me and offered to turn over everything but the domain name germanlook.com so that I could get the forums back up and stop people from bashing him. I told him that I was not an IT guy and know nothing about building a forum site. Hell I don't know the difference between http and hmfic. It seemed to me at the time that Superman's reason to step into the admin roll at germanlook.com has to get control of the domain name.
A few calls from Superman later, he saw the Sandeep was ready to take his old backup, get a domain name and rebuild the site. He asked me to contact Sandeep and ask him if he would take the database and mainsite information and rebuild the site but again would not give up the domain name germanlook.com. Superman said that the domain name was his but the content of the forums and the site belong to the community that created it. Superman gave me a username and password for Sandeep to retreive the files needed. He then later called be back and said the the site COULD be hoasted on his (Superman's) server at the Germanlook.com domain name. By this time I had already contacted Sandeep and gave him the username and password and he downloaded the files and started to see what was needed to get them working. I told Sandeep that the site could be hoasted with Superman at germanlook.com. We talked with Zen, factored in the comments from all of the people (from the germanlook comunity) who had emailed us after reading the thread on STF and decided that given the history of the site while under Superman's watch and while living on his server, it would be best to hoast it on one of zenwebservices plans and secure a new domain name. I tried to call Superman and inform him of our plans but all of my calls went directly to a voicmail box that was not taking mesages at that time. Sandeep continued to repair the database and secured a hoasting plan to upload it to. I secured the domain name germanlook.net and soon after Sandeep had the forums up and running.
Superman called me one day later (Wed. April 14th) while I was sleeping (I work the midnight shift) and left a voicemail stating that he was glad the forums back up and that was all he wanted all along. There were some other personal comments that I will keep to myself but that was the content of the voicmail. I again tried to call him back but got the same inactive voicmail box.
Then I get a link to this thread on SBO. I knew better than to waste my time posting this on SBO only to have him delete it. I can't beleive that he clings to his statment that germanlook was created by him when we all know who built it, He also told me that the domain name germanlook.com always belonged to him when I know that it was controlled by Alex and then Zen before Superman. I also can't believe he now says the forums/site were hi-jacked after he said the site content belongs to the community that built and used it and he gave us the username and password to get the files to rebuild it. I don't know how many times he told me the he has a degree in business managment with a minor in accounting. He claims that he is a great businessman. I am still trying to grasp the business plann of creating a store to serve the small germanlook community and set out to piss that community off before you are get it open for business. I now have my opinion of who and what Superman is but I will keep that to myself. I do want everyone to know how the events that brought us here unfolded and for everyone to know the truth. I am sure that Zen and Sandeep will confirm my account of the history of both the .com and .net germanlook sites.
I hope that Superman will stop tryng to say that we hi-jack the files when most view him as the hi-jacker of the community we all built.

I wish I could have typed my second part fast enough to get it in before other posts were made.

Yes it could have been handled better.

1st: Superman should have posted when questions were asked on other forums when germanlook went down instead of having someone else act as his spokesperson. This put you in a bad spot as you did not have all the facts.

2nd: He did not ask that the site remain on germanlook.com he said that the content belonged to the germanlook community but the domain name was his. He offered to hoast the site on his server but did not make that part of the deal. He was just looking to get everyone off his back. We came up with the plan to change the hoasting plan and domain name because the track record of hoasting it with him was very bad and putting all of the work needed into rebuilding the site would not be worth that risk.
I tried to contact him several times but he could not be reached and would not call back nor has he replied to my emails.

We tried to get this site up as fast as possible and stay within the agreement I had with Superman. For him to go back and change his tune now is poor form. I will keep the rest of my coments to myself.

Thanks, it is nice the hear both sides of the story.

At this point I do not care what he thinks. 4 of us were in on this and 3 of us have the same story to tell. 1 of us F@*&ed the site up like a soup sandwich then acted like he wanted to work together to bring it back. and the other 3 worked together to try to bring it back with the help of the community it serves. Then the 1 who F@*&ed the site up in the first place wants to slander the 3 that fixed it because he doesn't like the way it was fixed after it was fixed the way he had in mind when we talked on the phone the first time.

I was not trying to make a snide comment, I genuinely thank you for posting your side of the story. I like the get all the info I can and yours provides the other point of view that was missing.

I believe you. All I ask of you is to tell Superman to pull his act together. His post on SBO is way out of line. I'm sure you can figure it out. I'm sure your powers of observation are good.
Also tell him to get the link to my website off his website. I do not want to be linked to him in any way. I have emailed him several times over the last few days about it and like my many phone calls, my emails are without responce. This coupled with his post has pissed me off.

I will pass that info along the next time I talk to him.

Sorry for turning this thread to something personal to me. I started it to inform our members of what Superman was trying to start and the history related to it. It is ment to post the true story of this site and what brought us to this point. If I have any errors in my story, please let me know.

Check with Alex about Supes involvement with the creation of the GL site, he may be the missing link in confirming some of the GL sites history.

Great post Dave.

There is a record of the comments made on Shoptalk forums. We provided a plan of attack for all to view in getting the forums up, and I can tell you, I had NO cooperation from Superman.

Had he provided the client # and password for the VBulletin licence when I needed it (not when he decided to provide it, at his convenience), this site would have probably been running on his servers. The maintainability may have been in question, but the forums would have been up and running.

I want to make it clear that I never did receive the licence or client # / password from Superman. I did receive a long-winded email from him but do not wish to disclose what the conversation was about.

Lets see if Superman has the BALLS to post his version in this thread. I can assue you it will not be moderated.

Sandeep

There is a key peice of info that would go a long way toward explaining the recent crash of both the GL and SBO! sites, but unfortunately I cannot disclose it.

He may have been involved behind he scenes in the begineing. That I do not question. Alex has not been around for a while. Superman said that the germanlook.com domain name has always belonged to him. That is simply not true. Alex passed it (registered to Alex at the time) to Zen who registered it under his name. It was then passed to Superman's control over a year or more after he took control of site admin. And it was intrusted to him to carry this site forward but we all know how that went. I don't care if the original site was his idea. Alex and Sandeep built this site, Held the domain name to it, passed all of it to Zen who continued to build it, held the domain name to it. Superman was not involved in any way when it was passed to Zen or while he ran the site. Sandeep can say if Superman was involved in the site when he ran it. I bet I know the answer to that one. For Superman to say that the domain name was always his is just a lie.

I know and I told Superman that I would not talk about it also. But that is not key to this thread. I revert to the fact that he did not communicate to the people asking the questions on STF and other forums. He also did not tell anyone that he was going to use the domain name he was trusted to keep to open an online store. He did not maintain the main page with all of the tech articles, galleries and other info that he was intrusted to keep. The forums he was intrusted to keep suffered outages for months on end. He offered it back to us (I think because he only wanted to work on the oline store, but that is my own take on it), gave us a username and password ot access the files and then changes his stroy in a lame attempt to save face (again my take on it) when he sees that the GL community as a whole is realy pissed at him. He dropped the ball (or had it kicked) then doing nothing about it (to include not posting a simple update on any forums were people had questions).
He needs to delete that thread in question on SBO and not push this any further.

From my view,
The site started having issues, then stayed down a long time. Promises of "up soon" were made via third party. The site didn't get put back up, months go by. Wasn't about to get put back up.

Several people got together and did what was needed in just a matter of days and now the site is running along fine.

It seems like someone was relieved of a responsibilty they didn't want or know how to deal with... why be bitter to the people who helped with a problem that you wern't going to solve?


Jeff-

I also don't understand the whole argument of who started what... You didn't invent the farking internet! You didn't write the first line of code in the world! It's a niche site for a tiny group of people that makes zero profit. Why is it sooooo important to claim responsibility for something you didn't care enough about to keep running?

I Soooo Agree with you Jeff...
good call


Chris.

...sounds like this guy is not "super" at all, but he does have a business degree :rolleyes: like many other people that don't know how to use it. I've dealt with people like this. They get mad and take their ball home, but it's NOT their ball :lmao: A REAL business man would personaly admit his failure, and not use some third party.

He would not be the first to have a degree in something they suck at. Thats fine, what gets me is how he distorted the truth or outright lied. To his credit he did offer the site back to us (all but the domain name), gave us access to the files, but after that I am not sure were his mind went.

I can only re-iterate what has already been said so well in this thread. Dave and Sandeep have portrayed the situation exactly as it was and is. There is always more than one side to the story (or way to tell it), but I am perfectly fine with letting our reputations speak for themselves.

I think it says something that we each chose to give up administration of the site in the past for personal reasons (which still exist) and felt there was enough of an injustice being done to the community as a whole that we chose to step back in and get the situation corrected. And that it was done in less than a week (and to ensure credit is given where it should...that was ALL thanks to Sandeep's initiative). And btw, we still don't want admin responsibilities for the site, but are doing what is needed right now. Future stewardship selection will be handled much better than I handled the last one.

Tell me, who is honestly concerned about the GL community!

There is nothing wrong with someone making money off of sites like this. Not a thing and that is not what this is about. However, the conditions I handed over my ownership of the site (I don't care who started what, possession is 9/10ths of the law and EVERYTHING was under my name back then) were not met and it is obvious the communication to the masses has been greatly lacking. This ENTIRE thing could have been avoided with some basic communication and action to back it up. I don't have a BM degree (I have only been a chief architect proposing, obtaining funding, designing, budgeting, and project managing IT infrastructure solutions for a 300k user company for the past 10 years, also managed their entire risk management policies, processes and awareness programs and have/still headed several small businesses of my own in the music and technology industries on the side), but it seems to me that communication is a fundamental tenant of any business.

You don't get paid for a degree unless you are a professor...you get paid for performing in the real world.

It is unfortunate this has had to play out like it has. Time for the drama to end and the community to heal, reconnect and grow. I (and I'm sure most everyone) wish Superman the best in his venture. I won't be buying from there and I think he unfortunately has damaged his relationship with a large part of the GL community and the GL.com brand bad enough that others will make that same decision. Maybe with good communications, that can be overcome though.

I've noticed Superman hasn't been over here (or anywhere else) to share his thoughts. Hopefully he will do so. I'd do so on SBO!, but he charges something like $25 for access to those forums and the privilege to communicate there. Perhaps someone will extend and invite to him over there.

BTW, we won't ban someone for speaking their mind here as has been threatened/stated against us by Superman on his forums. So feel free to speak your mind as long as you are speaking the truth and are not relying on secondhand knowledge.

Well said on all points Zen. I wish he would come here and voice his point also. I just don't think he will. But I bet he has read everything for sure.

It not only says something, it speaks volumes.

I have tried to remain quite about this whole deal, but after reading everything posted over the last week... I finally had to post something! I try not to say anything bad about anyone, but this guy takes the freakn' cake! :screwy: :rolleyes:

It does not cost anything to create an account and be a member of SBO!. You will be able to post in any thread you have access to. There is a private forum you will not have access to and you cannot upload picts but you can link them. The $25 lifetime SBO! membership gives you full site access and upload privileges and access to set up your own galleries, a garage and a blog if you want one. The membership fee only helps to offset the cost of keeping the site up.

There are alot of people from this GermanLook community that paid or rather donated far larger sums of money to "keep this site up". What is or was "Superman's plan" for them? I think that was a part of why he first "offered" to give everything (everything but the domain name that HE SAID always belonged to him) back to (1st) Zen, (2nd) me then Sandeep. If someone, anyone could have put Humpty Dumpty back together again, it would clear him of that obligation. But he did not care were the forums/site was rebuilt at first. He only made the offer to hoast it on his server under "his domain name" later in the game. He has still not deleted the thread in question or recanted his remarks. Hell he still has not removed the link to my webste from "his" sorry landing page on the .com site.
I think this thread should be linked at the thread in question so that the people over there can see what realy happened. Or better yet. He should wipe out that thread, apologise for slandering the people over here and offer to square up with everyone who donated funds to keep the germanlook site up and running. If he will do that, I vote we will wipe this thread out like it never happened. That would start the healing. Could you ask him if he will do that and let us know what his answer is?

I'm glad you brought that up. Let's also make it clear that none of those donations that were made over the past year were transferred to bring this instance of the forums back up. This was brought up with new donations by a select few hardcore GL'ers. There were also many more offers from those already back on this forum, but the funds have not been accepted at this point (everything has been covered for now). There may still be plans for those funds donated to GermanLook.com over the past year or two, but there isn't much communication as to what those plans might be. It sounds like they may be used to pay for the design of the store or paying for the porting of the forums from vBulletin to Supe's chosen platform. It does take money to meet the basic operating costs, but those costs are pretty low if maintaining the current site. If changes are required/desired, costs certainly can increase. Just depends how you want to spend your money...or other people's who just want a running site.

I will ask him about all this as soon as he gets back.

Please do. Could you also ask him why that link to my website is still on his damn landing page. I am realy sick of that.

He took some time off and will be back soon. As soon as he is back I will address all of the issues with him including your link.

Thank you. We will be waiting to hear from him or you.

Wow, I'm really glad you wrote that, my fingers are sore just thinking about it. I might not have been around from the very very beginning either, but this post is EXACTLY how I remember it all going down as well, but again I wasn't there from the very beginning. It's becoming more and more evident to me that James has taken a wrong turn somewhere, and hearing about his academic accomplishments and seeing how things are unfolding at the same time is only cementing my thoughts. I don't think James is a bad person at all, it just seems like his ego might be getting the better of him. I hope things do work out for him regardless, the community needs active people with passion regardless of the motivation.

Jason

All drama aside, please be sure all of you are letting everyone know they are back up at a new address. Sandeep emailed all registered members, but it is in everyone's best interest to continue to get the word out. These forums were/are so valuable only due to the level of participation. We are only back up to 115+ active members (recent activity) so far...but it is early. It was over 500 when I gave up the site with a total of over 3,000 members in all. Put www.germanlook.net in your signature in other forums and spread the word in general.

I wish I could get a voice mail off my cell phone and into an mp3 so I could upload it and everyone could hear Supermans measage to me on April 14th (same day he posted his "They Hi-Jacked My forums" thread. His measage confirmed that we did things just as he asked us to in the first place. That would be all the proof of our story needed.

I spoke with Superman and he is going to take NO_H2O's link off of the GL.com site. He also said that he has no problems with the way you set up the GL.net site ie. sepatating it from the GL.com site and hosting it yourselves. We hope this is water under the bridge and let's all get back to enjoying SuperBeetles, Beetles, GermanLook, EuroLook or any kind of other VW's that you may play with. I have only one last comment on the origin/creation of GermanLook.com and then I am done with the subject. Take a look at this thread on the STF from 2001 and you will see how GermanLook.com got started. That being said, We are just glad the GermanLook Forums are back up and running no matter who is at the helm.

Edit: Fixed Bad Link

Ok he was in on the GL.com in the begining. I am glad he was. But he did not build the site, as we all know Alex and Sandeep did that. As I said before the domain name was trasfered from Alex to Zen and then to Superman, This we know to be a fact.The rest of the history has been covered well here. I am glad he has no problem with the way we rebuilt this site. He did not say that in the thread in question posted April 14th on SBO. Did he or did he not agree to delet the thread in question on SBO and will he or will he not apologise to us for him comments. They were way out of line. They were not true. They were a direct stab at the people here who brought this site back from the ashes left by him. They were nothing short of slander.
I am not busting on you Bugorsche. I am glad you are here. I am just looking for the right answer from him. He posted that as a stab at us trying to make us look dishonest and slander us, we posted this thread so that people would know the truth. Every word of his post is a lie. I want to hear the right answer. If I mess up something I step up and take my lumps but I will not let someone make me out to be dishonest or slander me when I have done nothing wrong. He has done just that. If he does not have the right answer, I will do all I can to make sure the truth is know. Again, I want to hear the right answer. Untill today I had forgoten all about the voicmail he left on the 14th and that I had saved it.

BTW. I can forward the voicmail I got from Superman on April 14th giving us congrats for getting the website/forums up and running again. The same day he posted on SBO that we hi-jacked it and that we didn't work with him and we do not know how to conduct business because he has a degree in business managment and we don't. I would love to convert it to mp3 and post it. If you would like to hear it PM me your number and I will forward it to you so you will know who is telling the truth and who is not.

Superman originally built the GL.com site on Ikon board software and hosted it for a while, Steve Carter can verify this as he is still around and posting on various VW forums, if anyone could locate Alex, he too could corroborate this part of the story. There was not alot of traffic on the site at that time so Superman took it down for about 6 mos. or so. Alex and Sandeep created a GermanLook Forums site on a .org domain. Superman offered to host their GL Forums on the Germanlook.com domain and they agreed. Alex was Admin and Sandeep was the webmaster. Alex then turned the Adimin. job over to Zen who, after it was taking up too much of his personal time, turned it back over to Superman once again. Superman originated and owned the GL.com domain name and assigned it to Alex with the stipulation it would revert back to Superman if he left he scene, Alex then assigned it to Zen with Supermans permission and Zen took over with the understanding that when he got tired of being the Admin, he would sign it back over to Superman which is exactly what happened. Personal time spent to be the Admin appears to be the main factor for it being transferred to all these different people as it takes up alot of time to keep things up to date and running smoothly. The content of the site and all the articles belong to all the members who have helped to make this the great place it is today which is why it has been passed to Sandeep for safe keeping so that all the members can keep contributing and enjoying this GermanLook site. The derogatory post on SBO! will be dealt with and NO_H2O's link will be removed from the GL.com site, so let's all just relax and get back to our VW's.

Edit: to correct factual content