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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Thu Dec 27, 2012 11:45 am 
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Barbra, I think maybe the big difference is what we both are working with. You are most likely working with cut stones. I am mainly buying rough stones. With a cut stone, one of the first things I would do, would be to measure the RI. I can't do this with a rough stone. So when sorting rough, the filters become more useful. I had a guy show me a parcel of nice deep green tsavorite garnet in 1 to 3 gram pieces. A quick look in the Chelsea filter and the stones were all green. They felt too light in my hand for garnet, but the filter confirmed they were not tsavorite. I didn't buy them and saved a very expensive potential mistake. I suspect the stones were most likely 7-UP.

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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Thu Dec 27, 2012 11:56 am 
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I have made me sunglasses with Chelsea filter (and no I do not support the team Chelsea (soccer) :) ). I see peoples auras very clearly... anyway, I think it is a useful tool within its limitations (as Barbra points out).


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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 7:05 am 
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Scarodactyl wrote:
I have to disagree with this, at least in part. I believe generally that it is important that misconduct in any field be exposed. And sometimes it is, perhaps, appropriate that ridiculous public statements be publicly ridiculed--and it is worse, I think, when people are too worried to expose things to the public.


I agree with this. The guy is quite obviously simply making things up in order to sell his products, memberships etc. Quite frankly, at this point, I'm trying to see the difference between someone who knowingly sells a treated or synthetic stone as untreated or natural and someone who sells his courses and memberships based on completely fictitious scare alert tactics. There doesn't seem to be much of one, in my eyes. Judging from some of the comments his graduates have made here and there, his fictitious treatments make it into his course, a course that costs people trying to learn gemology upwards of $1,000 or $1,200 or whatever he's charging for it these days. I don't think there's anything petty about making sure that people who are forking over their hard earned money to the guy have somewhere to go to see what he's really up to.

What IS petty, is trying to smear the reputation of one of your critics by stating the glass-filled sapphire you bought off of eBay for a buck was bought from a noted Hong Kong sapphire dealer as untreated. We all know who that was supposed to be.

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I don't think the blog we discuss about here will obtain any practical result, unfortunately, but for sure I enjoy reading it for fun.

Well, I have to say that I learned that:
"My worldwide network of suppliers"= eBay
"The open market"=eBay
Thailand and China are apparently the same place.
You can make Xmas tree decorations out of fish tank gravel, trimmings and waterglass at home as a DIY project.
Most importantly, I learned that the man apparently thinks that his people are all stupid and easily manipulated. Frankly, that's pretty sad when you look at how many of them look up to him.

Richard W. Wise wrote:
Ideally, anonymity should not be allowed on the internet---it is responsible for much that is wrong with the web. People make statements that they would never make if they had to sign their names.

I also disagree with this. There's a reason that whistleblower programs are set up. Ultimately, in this case, I don't really see what difference it makes as to who is putting up the information about what Mr. James has been up to. It's a little hard to argue with the very clear fact that the information they are using comes from the guy's own eBay account. Who they themselves are seems to be a bit irrelevant.

I'll echo others in saying that I can fully understand why they would choose anonymity.

So far:
He's registered the domain names of a number of people who dare to naysay him.
He appears to have attempted to destroy the reputation of one his most outspoken critics by fabricating evidence.
Smeared the reputation of a dead friend of many of us while gloating publicly on the Gem-A forum that he was responsible for that person's decision to take their own life (two days before Xmas no less, ho ho ho).
I'm pretty sure that people far more embedded into the gemological community than I have other incidents they could add if they wished to. That LinkedIn thread was educational.

The man seems to have one default position to criticism and that's attack in any way possible, legit or not. That's called being a bully. It looks to me like maybe these people decided to take that option off the table and leave him with only the questions raised to respond to. It seems pretty obvious that if he could point fingers and smear people instead of having to respond, that's exactly what he would have done. It's been a rather clear pattern of his over the years.


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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:46 pm 
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And, you wonder why the members of The Gobsmacked Gang wish to remain anonymous?

The part I do not understand is that if their "Victim" has a cause for action, the ISP or host could be compelled to disclose their identities. It's done frequently. "John Doe" is sued, and the discovery process intiated, and the ISP gets ordered to release the identities.

RE: Amazon Book Reviews.
I am a Kindle addict. I never review books on Amazon, because it is a corrupt community, filled with aspiring author's relatives, sock puppets and shills. I no longer read the reviews, and consider them biased rubbish. All it is is the actions described in this thread moved to a literary venue. The actions described here relating to those reviews seems to support my experience and observation there.
I at one time did review a few. I learned quickly.


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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:02 pm 
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Gearloose said,
"The part I do not understand is that if their "Victim" has a cause for action, the ISP or host could be compelled to disclose their identities. It's done frequently. "John Doe" is sued, and the discovery process intiated, and the ISP gets ordered to release the identities."

In that case, don't tell Robert!

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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:30 pm 
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Gearloose wrote:
The part I do not understand is that if their "Victim" has a cause for action, the ISP or host could be compelled to disclose their identities. It's done frequently. "John Doe" is sued, and the discovery process intiated, and the ISP gets ordered to release the identities.


Likely, they would only get one identity: that of the person paying the hosting/registrar bills.

He would have to start a lawsuit, have it pursued — if the court sees the website articles as libel. If so, the host would likely receive a cease-and-desist order — and the hosting service may be terminated. (I witnessed this once, while working for an ISP/webhost a while back.) I'm not sure at what point identities could be extracted from the ISP, since they are confidential records of the business. The case would have to be pretty strong; usually, that kind of effort is reserved for bigger fish (malware, pirated software or media, etc.)

I'm not saying it can't happen, but the "victim" in question would have to pay the legal fees to get to that point, which may not be worth his while. Even then, I'm not sure he'd be able to expose the whole "gang". Whoever *is* paying the hosting bills, probably knew this was a possible outcome from the start, and went in eyes-open.

Edit: Just did a WHOIS on the domain, and all I can say is WOW... that is one anonymous solution (bookmarking it for a rainy day.) As it is hosted and registered outside the US, there's almost nothing RJ can do. Bravo, Gang! =D>

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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:12 am 
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Precision Gem wrote:
Barbra, I think maybe the big difference is what we both are working with. You are most likely working with cut stones. I am mainly buying rough stones. With a cut stone, one of the first things I would do, would be to measure the RI. I can't do this with a rough stone. So when sorting rough, the filters become more useful. I had a guy show me a parcel of nice deep green tsavorite garnet in 1 to 3 gram pieces. A quick look in the Chelsea filter and the stones were all green. They felt too light in my hand for garnet, but the filter confirmed they were not tsavorite. I didn't buy them and saved a very expensive potential mistake. I suspect the stones were most likely 7-UP.

You're quite right, Gene.
I think a Chelsea would indeed be useful on rough material.


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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:15 am 
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Gearloose wrote:
The part I do not understand is that if their "Victim" has a cause for action, the ISP or host could be compelled to disclose their identities. It's done frequently. "John Doe" is sued, and the discovery process intiated, and the ISP gets ordered to release the identities.

From the looks of it, he's admitted that the "Green sapphire bought from a noted Hong Kong sapphire dealer" was actually bought on eBay from a Thai dealer for just over a dollar. Which is exactly what the site posted. Here. How far is a lawsuit likely to go if you're trying to sue someone for telling the truth about something you've since admitted to?


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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 7:31 am 
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I hired a lawyer about something years ago. Truth is a libel defense here. Even if it is outrageous.
"I saw Gearloose drunk in Times Square, and he was doing it with a sheep..." Might be libellous.
"...And I have the police reports, the Newsmedia filmed it, the video went viral on YouTube, and the lambs all look like Gearloose."
Nope. No jackpot there.

Expressing an opinion is a dodge as well.

But threatening someone with a vexatious action is usually a very bad strategy.
Is there enough involved to make any of this effort worthwhile? One person making a living, bringing in..How much? Is there anything there to take?


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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 8:11 am 
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Quote:
and the lambs all look like Gearloose
. :lol: :lol:

Vexatious action is the same as a frivolous lawsuit? Useless I'd think, unless you've got way more money than the other guy and a bunch of in-house lawyers you're paying anyways.


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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 8:31 am 
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Gearloose,

What you say about Amazon being a corrupt community is right on the mark, but taking it a bit further the whole review world is corrupt. Most reviews, no matter the source, are generated in exactly the same way.

When The French Blue came out I advertised for reviewers on Amazon, if a person replied and they had posted intelligent reviews in the past, I sent them a book. Got some interesting reviews. In several cases the reviewer acknowledged that they had received a review copy.

I find intelligent critical reviews helpful. The only reviews I really dislike are those that begin: I was looking for a book about X, your book is no good because it isn't about X its about Y.

Richard

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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 9:12 am 
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Quote:
I find intelligent critical reviews helpful. The only reviews I really dislike are those that begin: I was looking for a book about X, your book is no good because it isn't about X its about Y.


Yes, I have seen those. :smt105

Image


MAYBE a poorly-chosen title could be misleading, I suppose, but usually Amazon has a sample or excerpt that gives a clue about the content.


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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 1:33 pm 
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My suggestion, if you are a dedicated reader try www.goodreads.com. I think that the reviews are more thoughtful, less commercialized and manipulated. I frequently post reviews of books that I have read and people are so free with five stars.

For myself, I have to be really impressed to give a book five stars. Tolstoy and a few others gets that rating from me.

Richard

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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 2:14 pm 
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I do read the book reviews on Amazon, but only the 1,2 and 3-star ones. The worthless ones are easy to spot, and I look at the others to see if their reasons for not liking the book are things I also don't like.

Often, you can get an impression from the distribution, as well. If a book has 10 5-star reviews and 15 1-star reviews, you can assume the author has a large family.


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 Post subject: Re: Yourgemmologi$t.con
PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 8:36 am 
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Richard W. Wise wrote:
Ideally, anonymity should not be allowed on the internet---it is responsible for much that is wrong with the web. People make statements that they would never make if they had to sign their names.

I also disagree with this. There's a reason that whistleblower programs are set up. Ultimately, in this case, I don't really see what difference it makes as to who is putting up the information about what Mr. James has been up to. It's a little hard to argue with the very clear fact that the information they are using comes from the guy's own eBay account. Who they themselves are seems to be a bit irrelevant.

Africanuck,

I think you missed my point, read the rest of the paragraph. The origin of criticism is irrelevant? Surely you know better, though you use a handle here, your name and credentials are well known and you have posted enough criticism of James elsewhere to have James purchase your very own website, a true mark of distinction.

Criticisms from authorities in a given field are always more respected. We all "consider the source" and the reason we question the anonymous is that we cannot consider the source. Whistleblower programs are, by definition, programs to protect employees from the wrath of their employers.

Had the "authorities" in gemology spoken up at the very beginning or at all, we would not now be having this discussion.

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