Respect and Honor are foreign to Nirav, the aftermath of EBD Oct 29 '01    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Books Mildred D. Taylor - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: A Literature Unit From $8 Olivier Dunrea - Ollie From $7 The Bottom Line Nirav and friends have not grown a pair, as evidenced by the swift reinstatement of edit/delete. Easiest battle I ever fought. But the war will still go on… Pros: we got edit/delete back with hardly a fight, much more effective than an e-mail campaign Cons: we may have won the battle, but certainly not the war So, after this weekend’s foray into what some would call pettiness, what others might call a noble fight, the Epinions community emerges victorious, sort of. We learned what sort of person Nirav is, how strong he is of his convictions (or weak); we learned what peer pressure can do for a cause that certainly was not lost, and we learned just how many people were willing to put their reputations on the line for a worthy cause. What did the EBD write-off serve to do, you ask? The EBD write-off was so much more than a bitch slap at the Epinions Collective; it wasn’t petty or crass, it was for some a last-ditch effort to have Brisbane realize just how important it is for the main body and soul of its existence to be well-fed and content. Unhappy workers lead to poor results, and even strikes. As for the EBD write-off, that was a strike against the “rules” set out in the constantly changing TOS. It seems to many of us that there is not one shred of the TOS that existed when we signed up. I haven’t been here quite as long as some, but longer than most. I’m coming up on the 2 year point in December, and it’s pretty incredible to look back at how the site has actually devolved into what you see before you today. I was here when eroyalties were reduced from $.30 and $.10 to $.03 and $.01 respectively, with one fell swoop and I think 3 days notice. I was here when Income Share was first introduced, I was here when dinosaurs roamed the web. I was here for the unveiling and subsequent breaking of Epinions version 2.0, the database woes, the computerized advisor/editor fiasco, and more recently, the edit/delete fiasco. I’ve weathered it all, and survived, but I do not believe I can say the same for the site. The idea is a noble one, but the brainfart at Brisbane which runs this machine cannot seem to exhaust itself of inventing new ways to further downgrade the existence of this community. For the die-hards out there, epinions is a culture unto itself. It succeeds and fails with the sentiment of the community. Nirav comments how he was afraid a mass exodus would occur when the new eroyalties process was presented to the community, but he should turn around and ask himself how it got to that level in the first place. His thinly veiled words told us that he really didn’t trust us to do the right thing when being a member of the Epinions community became not as fun anymore, and then he went on to accuse us of not trusting him! It's all about RESPECT and HONOR All I can say is: unbelievable! Over the past year, I’ve had to look long and hard at myself and my core values, and strip away all the pretenses because of some unwise choices I made while I was a cadet. And I had to pay the price on Honor Probation, after being found in violation of the Academy’s Honor Code (We will not lie, steal or cheat…). And what I learned is that integrity is a two-way street. If I don’t respect someone, I will not trust them either, and if I don’t trust someone, I have no respect for them. Nirav and friends gave this community no cause for us to trust him. I don’t think he understands that trust is not flung around and handed out like candy. He never extended respect or trust towards the Epinions Community, when we were his faithful followers! We tried to respect him, we tried to give him our trust, but we found he was not worthy of it. And so when we decided to act on this revelation, EBD was born. Countless times many have e-mailed the brainfart at Brisbane only to get a computer generated response, no real answer, no discernible action to a pressing need. And with EBD, we certainly did get their attention. Unfortunately, Nirav did little more than show us how weak he really is, by immediately returning the edit/delete function to it’s rightful accessibility by the heart and soul of the Epinions database, the community. The fight was almost too easy. And it in no way won the war. There will be more battles to fight in the future, but until Nirav learns that respect is the linchpin that holds this community together, the war will never be won. Honor is no more that knowing and doing the right thing. Nirav just doesn’t want to admit that. Epinions has become a bloated mess of worthless reviews by people whose only motivation was to make some quick money. All the gems, written by the time-honored members of the Epinions community, lay hidden like a needle in a haystack. Our reviews are the heart and soul of this website; do everyone a favor and clean out your old reviews that are just occupying space, and I think you’ll find Epinions a much more enjoyable place to be. I’ll get off my soapbox now, and as always, questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.

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