Quote:
Originally Posted by NO_H2O
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.
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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