Why doesn't some shoot Ben Smith?

[dinosaur]

This as*hole has TOTALLY ruined comp.sys.atari.8bit! I mean the Usegroup is not there for his unpaid (and UNWANTED!) advertising.

 

8 out of 10 posts are advertisements for his lame Bravo Sierra ripoffs

 

I was active on this Usegroup for over ten years and found much good information there,

but,between him and MI5 spam,the aggravation is not worth the visit!

 

I think that it is terrible that some materiallistic as*hole like him can be allowed to ruin the whole Usegroup.

 

If he wants to advertise commercially,then let the bastard PAY for it!

 

Sorry...I had to get that off my chest!

 

( I was probably typing in A.N.A.L,O.G. programs when he was still fillimg his diapers!)

[BoatofCar]

Because of spam, I've found USENET to be unusable for discussion the for the past five years or so.

[tjlazer]

The guy literally lives in the 80's, his main machine is a Mega ST and he uses it to go online. He really has no other way to go online that I know of. His reselling is his only job so I presume he is desperate to make money so he does what he can do to make money. He is a 1 man shop and he gets donations and resells them. Works out of his house, and it was beyond words seeing his place. Not trying to be mean so I will leave it at that.

[Rybags]

Someone start a topic "Stop spamming up this group!"

 

I'll jump in and agree with it.

 

ed: I just posted in his most recent - feel free to join in.

Edited October 18, 2007 by Rybags

[classics]

My news feed must suck because I'm not getting any of this.

 

I rarely see any messages at all in c.s.a.8 these days. Its a pretty sad thing, I have many fond memories of using FreeNet to access the Atari newsgroups on my 130XE.

 

Steve

Edited October 18, 2007 by classics

[Rybags]

I just use http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.atari.8bit

 

Seems to update fairly quickly.

[Tickled_Pink]

My news feed must suck because I'm not getting any of this.

 

I rarely see any messages at all in c.s.a.8 these days. Its a pretty sad thing, I have many fond memories of using FreeNet to access the Atari newsgroups on my 130XE.

 

Steve

Haven't been on c.s.a.8 for years. It was practically my first introduction to the net while at college in '94.

[MEtalGuy66]

I think Dinosaur is right.

 

Someone needs to just take him out..

 

Afterwards, we'll decide how we are gonna devide up all his atari stuff amognst everyone...

[Artlover]

Someone start a topic "Stop spamming up this group!"

 

I'll jump in and agree with it.

 

ed: I just posted in his most recent - feel free to join in.

Yeah, and he replied with this same "form spam" bullshit.

[doctorclu]

The guy literally lives in the 80's, his main machine is a Mega ST and he uses it to go online. He really has no other way to go online that I know of. His reselling is his only job so I presume he is desperate to make money so he does what he can do to make money. He is a 1 man shop and he gets donations and resells them. Works out of his house, and it was beyond words seeing his place. Not trying to be mean so I will leave it at that.

 

In a way I admire a man who can make do.

 

I have no problem with his business, yes we get advertisements, but we also get spam, and like 80% of that spam is not him. I do not really consider it spam when it is related to the newgroups or forum. It would be nice to make it more original, but then I would like to know more vendors out there. If I was only on the newsgroup, those adds would be very valuable to me.

 

As for the rest of the spammers, I hope they all rot in hell.

[Rybags]

I call spam.

 

He could sufficiently get his message across by posting once a week.

 

By the looks of things, he's just set up a bot which chucks out shit every 8 hours or something.

[Artlover]

I call spam.

 

He could sufficiently get his message across by posting once a week.

 

By the looks of things, he's just set up a bot which chucks out shit every 8 hours or something.

Exactly!

[retrobits]

Ben's business postings are OK by me. He is one of the last remaining Atari vendors we have. He is actually quite a good vendor if you ever purchase anything from him. He thoroughly tests his hardware, accurately describes items, and ships the stuff quickly.

 

I actually visted him once when I was in Portland on business and we played a some Atari on his system (Jaguar). Its true that he has no other hardware in his house than Atari and uses his Mega ST for all internet access and business processing.

[dinosaur]

doctorclu....I have a lot of respect for you personally....you are a valued asset to the Atari community.

 

I don't understand how you can defend Smith's obnoxious behavior.

 

I am QUITE sure that,by now, everyone knows who (and what! ) he is.

 

I think that it is selffish and greedy and rude to flood a public forum with his stupid ads.

 

I don't see Brad Koda or Bob Puff or Lance Ringquist begging people to GIVE them Atari items,so that they can SELL them!

 

CAS8 was my introduction to the fine people of the Atari community,ahd it makes me angry to see it so abused.

 

Ben Smith = Bull Sh*t!

 

This rant is coming to you from a normallu mild-mannered old man

Edited October 18, 2007 by dinosaur

[tjlazer]

I actually visted him once when I was in Portland on business and we played a some Atari on his system (Jaguar). Its true that he has no other hardware in his house than Atari and uses his Mega ST for all internet access and business processing.

 

What did you think of his place? I still have flashbacks sometimes. I never imagined anyone living like that in those conditions. Nice guy though and trustworthy. Placed a few orders and got exactly what I ordered in a timely manner. I do think he needs to cut his spamming in half though, it does get pretty old. I think he should get a modern computer and create a real web site with an online store though, then he can stop spamming the newsgroups.

[retrobits]

OK, I checked out groups.google.com and (at least with this newsreader) I see that Ben is posting about 4 messages in the group every week. I agree that this is a bit excessive. These could easily be all combined in a single message and probably biweekly or monthly would be more than enough. I can send him some advice to lighten up on the ads a bit. Coming from someone he knows, I think he'll change his behavior to be more usenet friendly. Shooting would also work of course, but then we'd be minus one good Atari vendor.

[classics]

All the excessive posting is actually doing him harm since as far as I can tell, all of his messages are being cancelled.

 

Google does not appear to honor the cancels, but on my ISPs news feed, all of his messages are cancelled by a robot.

 

Steve

[Mathy]

Hello guys (and girls?)

 

OK, maybe Ben might overdo it "a bit", when it comes to advertising (although I haven't been on UseNet since my provider started to ask money for it, because nowaday, every .................................. uses it for pirated software). But ...

 

My impression is, that Ben checks out everything he gets, refurbishes it if needed, then sells it. For this he asks money. So that he too can buy food, pay rent, etc. If he now sells a piece of hardware, he adds this amount of money to what he payed for the hardware. Let's say he askes 20 bucks to make sure a piece of hardware works. If he has to pay an additional 20 bucks to get the hardware, the buyer has to pay 40 bucks, plus postage. If he get's the hardware for free, he doesn't have to add anything and can ask 20 bucks for that same piece of hardware. Now what do you think is easier to sell, a piece of hardware for 20 bucks, or the same piece for hardware for 40 bucks?

 

Why be angry because the guy wants to earn a living? Isn't that what America is all about?

 

Greetings

 

Mathy

[Marius]

It does not happen very much, but I 100% agree with Mathy.

 

And I can remember I once bought something from him, and his aftersales service is excellent too.

 

Ofcourse... If he posts too much, that can be annoying, but hey... you could ignore it. It can't be his fault, the csa8 dried up.

 

And starting a public offense about someone personal... hmmm that appears to be a little below the belt too to me.

 

But ok. It's free to give your opinion

 

Marius

[Rybags]

Nothing wrong with earning a living.

 

Plenty of people do it with eBay stores (despite the ripoff fees).

 

Most die-hard Atari fans know all of the good sites with useful resources like AtariMax, AtariMania, AtariMuseum etc.

 

He'd do a lot better by just spending the couple of hundred a year it would take to buy some hosting/bandwidth and register his own domain name.

 

TBH, I don't visit the NewsGroup much - seems there's not much activity there, which would accentuate the postings if they are 4 days apart of whatever.

 

But still, it is an annoyance having to go through the listings when there is only 1 or 2 genuine enquiries/replies per page.

[charliecron]

Leave the guy alone already... can't a man make a buck selling Atari?

 

Still running the Mega eh? Gotta love that...

 

Charlie

[Artlover]

Everyone keeps talking about earning a living, and how good of a person he is to deal with. All well and good, but totaly irrevelant to the issue. Spam is spam. Just because some of you wish to over look it because he's such a good guy to deal with doesn't make it any less so.

 

It's a newsgroup, not Radio or TV. He doesn't need to advertise constantly because the only people who will hear/see it are those who were listening/watching at the time. Even the crappiest free usenet server has text retention of months. Couple of times a month would be more then sufficient to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.

 

As several had said, one can ignore him (not that it makes it any less of spam on his part). Yup, we sure can, and we'll be that many less people he has as potential customers. That doesn't exactly benefit him, now does it. If he's interested in making a living, then one would assume he wouldn't want to go out of his way to annoy the customer base. But so be it, filters active; his loss, not ours.

[potatohead]

I think any Atari vendor gets slack.

 

Maybe a polite conversation, and a little web help would do some good.

 

"To fill the void left behind by my loss of abilities. I bought my first Atari Computer. A 600xl in 1982? Before I bought it I I told my Parents if they'd buy it for me, I would learn to become a Great Programmer & make them proud. What I really wanted to do was play Star Raiders, my New Game which I bought even before I had the Computer! Since then, over the years My Atari has been a close companion. When I'm not Gaming with my Atari, I'm DeskTop Publishing, CAD, Writing Letters, keeping my DataBase, Reading my E-Mail and / or Editing this Web Page / Site! I only own Atari! I won't own a PC or a Mac! Everything I do is on my Atari Computer's & my Atari Jaguar! So when I receive orphaned Atari's, it's Like Christmas & my Birthday all rolled into one. Nothing lifts me out of depression like somebody else's Atari "

 

C'mon guys. It's cool. He's had a hard time of it, and loves Atari.

 

That's worth some thing.

 

Really.

Edited October 19, 2007 by potatohead

[dinosaur]

OK, I checked out groups.google.com and (at least with this newsreader) I see that Ben is posting about 4 messages in the group every week. I agree that this is a bit excessive. These could easily be all combined in a single message and probably biweekly or monthly would be more than enough. I can send him some advice to lighten up on the ads a bit. Coming from someone he knows, I think he'll change his behavior to be more usenet friendly. Shooting would also work of course, but then we'd be minus one good Atari vendor.

 

retrobits.....I will bet you a case of Harp Lager that nothing you say will change his behavior or attitude!

 

But thanks for trying!

[S1500]

UGH!@#

 

I knew this topic would come up.

 

I'm on rec.games.video.classic, and his weekly spam is so predictable, it comes in the forms of replies to his own posts.

 

The worst subject I saw was "Bravo Sierra computers wants your money!". WOW, what a sales pitch. I've been on rgvc long enough to know every summer he does the "spend a vacation with your atari!". I replied that I'd rather kill myself.

 

Looking at his web page is hilarious. A while back I did a commentary on this whole site, picking it left and right. He's against emulators, saying in the long run it would cost less to just buy it from him. He makes playing a game on an emu like it's some big-budget IT project. Uh, no you download & play. Of course he's anti-emulator since it would cut into his sales.

 

I saw the prices for his games. They are rather high.

 

His formatting for his web pages are in 40 column format so Atari 8-bit users can see them. Uh, does anyone even surf the web with an 8-bit? Yes, he's living in the 80s more than I am.

 

I'm on giganews(comcast), and sadly the kind helpful cancelbot does NOT get his cancellations.

 

He's spamming, plain and simple. We don't need weekly advertisements on a newsgroup for his stuff. A contributing factor as to why usenet is dead. Perhaps it's a blessing he can't go beyond the arhcaic USENET otherwise he'd be flooding these forums.