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Oh! That reminds me - if anyone runs out of gallery room because of posting in the label/BPTP galleries, PM me. I'm trying to see if there's a way to not count those two galleries in your uploaded space, or to put it on a separate counter because I know there are alot of people who do a TON of label uploads.

Invision, the company that developed the forum software we use, recently released the next version of the forum software. This doesn't mean that downtime is imminent - we'll announce it a few days before we begin the upgrade. But, it is coming. If you want to see what the default forum looks like with version 2.2, you can visit the Invision forum. I don't believe they've got any mods up, but I could be wrong. One of the more interesting changes is a slight change in how the warning system works -- in addition to being able to give warnings and reverse them, moderators will be able to add notes. I'm not sure how exactly we'll use them, but I'm guessing that things that aren't warnable on a first offense (things like violating our signature image restrictions, or having an avatar that doesn't meet our work safe standard) will be noted in there. One thing that I do know: I've already modified the system slightly, based on feedback we've gotten - now, whenever you get a new note (beit a new warning or just a note), you'll get a PM letting you know that it has been issued. And that brings another change to mind: no longer will people with full in-boxes have their PMs from the moderating staff bounced. Right now, if someone's in-box is full, we can't send PMs and in fact, have to give them a bigger capacity to contact them.

With the exception of the '05 resurrections (which really weren't LE re-releases), the two original batches of 13, and I believe the P'Patches, every re-released LE has had something indicating when it was from. Quoting the Swap Pricecap and Pricelist announcement: There are linked images in the announcements.

oh crap, nobody had better tell my dad that a&e released dvds of nero wolfe! my dad adores buying dvds of his favorite tv series. unfortunately, he's got like ... a gazillion favorite series. on the bright side, he DOES watch the dvds, because my mom doesn't allow him to buy any more dvds until he's watched the dvds they've already got.

We actually have less swaplifting than we used to.

Bumping the reminder - we've had a few reports of panhandling via PM lately. If you are reported for panhandling, you can and will be warned for it. I don't care what it is that you're trying to get, or how badly you want it, or how rare it is. It is unacceptable.

Also, while you can leave feedback about swaps were arranged elsewhere, please be aware that we do not count swaplifts that were arranged at Lush, MUA, eBay, LJ, etc against anyone here, even when it is between forumites. Only swaps (or sales/etc) arranged on the forum count towards banning from swaps for excessive swaplifts.

You may have noticed that BPAL Chatter is no longer in the Idle Chatter category that you're used to seeing it in. Never fear, we didn't delete it - it's just found a new home under the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab category! (It only makes sense that the forum dedicated to talking about BPAL be in the category as the other BPAL-related topics, after all.)

hahahaha! i'm from iowa, you know, so this crappy beer thing, i'm somewhat familiar with. sadly, there are only two places to get decent beer in my hometown - old chicago (because of the microbrews and imports they stock), and this irish pub anyway, that's really what turned me off of IN and really the movement as a whole - the "you're not as realized as we are" coupled with a real stubbornness to help people get there. one of my big suggestions for IN back in the beta test was to, if not actually get into the basics, to link to it. i don't know if they do now, but their attitude about my suggestion was basically that - if you're not there, we're not going to help you get there.

One of the things I regularly hear is how hard it is to read the guidelines, especially if you're looking for something nuanced or aren't sure what section it would be in. So, we'll likely be adding a FAQ system for the guidelines. This will probably come out sometime after we upgrade to 2.2, and after we finish a complete revision of our guidelines. So, if there's anything guideline-related that confuses you, you think people aren't sure about, you hear rumblings about when talking to your friends or reading the forums, please be sure to mention it here! Beyond getting an answer to your question, I'll keep it in mind when we're compiling our FAQ!

I believe we will be having more examples and what not -- one of the reasons we don't in the current guidelines is that they go on and on as it is.

As far as this forum is concerned, she is not "blacklisted" for anything in F_S's blog entry. She's suspended (not banned, though that may very well be the next step) for breaking several rules and then lying about them. Now, individuals may choose to "blacklist" them for things they find questionable, such as the things mentioned in F_S's blog, and they've got that right - just as you've got the right to not shop at Walmart because you disagree with their union policies, or you've got the right to not purchase McDonalds because they use oils containing trans-fats (where other fast food joints, like Wendy's, do not), or you've got the right to avoid Curves because the owner is pro-life.

I found it, QS: they have in fact trademarked their perfume as "Walt Disney's Snow White," not just "Snow White." As far as the trademark office is concerned... perfume Love Potion #9 is different from perfume Love Potion #13 is different from perfume Love Potion ... and "Walt Disney's Snow White" is not the same as "Snow White" - and for "Snow White" itself, Disney only has a trademark on makeup [and the movie/etc]. I would not be surprised if some of the other pefumes that were mentioned are also trademarked as [x]'s [y] as was the case here.

As unbelievable as it may be, Disney doesn't have an active trademark Snow White for perfume. Just makeup. Different classification.

Except: this forum is NOT business. While the Lab profits from its existence (especially with the vast reviews area), and they have supported us in the past (such as donating about $1,250* of oils and BPTP items for the raffle and before the raffle), they do not pay our bills. We are an *unofficial* forum, though the Lab has adopted us and we let them post announcements and pretty much whatever they want, because we were created to talk about their products and generally worship at their feet. (Well, the last is an exaggeration, but you get what I mean.) *Keep in mind, running this forum is incredibly expensive -- their raffle donation doesn't even cover four months of our server's expenses.

he's such a sweetheart, too! but he has lousy taste in beer - st pauli's girl and heinie.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm necessarily agreeing with the philosophy, but I do like Stu's music

Outta curiousity, are you familiar with Stuart Davis? The integral world is small, after all (I was one of the beta testers for II, back in the day)

If anyone cares more about the admin-y side of things (a little about how we find duplicate accounts and a summary of what happened with this specific duplicate account), check out my blog. You'd think by now, I would be used to it, too

A few of our long-existing code tweaks are here for duplicate account detection. For the most part, we haven't done much with them. We've got a great set of members here, and most of our members wouldn't purposely make duplicate accounts. A few have made new accounts in the past when they've forgotten their logins or passwords, or who weren't able to get their account to validate properly, and that's ok. I was actually surprised at the number of people who PM'd me after last Sunday's reminder about duplicate accounts telling me that they'd made accounts but never used them. Kudos to you for letting me know & straightening it out! I really do appreciate it. But, we've had some people that, for whatever reason, create duplicate accounts. Some of them do it to get around account restrictions (like the swaplifters I mentioned in my previous post). Others do it to troll, others do it just so they've got a sock puppet ("just in case"). So, we've had a bunch of tools. Some use cookies, some use IP addresses. Cookies are tiny files stored on your computer by websites in order to uniquely identify the user. They're what lets you stay logged into the forum even after you close your browser, and how amazon.com magically knows who you are when you go there. IP addresses (ofen just called "IPs") are assigned by your service provider. They're like mailing addresses - just like how mailing addresses tell the post office how to send your mail from the Lab to your home, IPs tell the server how to send your web pages from the host server (such as bpal.org) to your computer. And I'll say it again: most people do not realize what all is recorded whenever you use the internet. Not to sound all "big-brother" like, but every click you make, every hotlink you make, every time you view anything, every time you log in to check your webmail, or log out of your amazon account... it all gets logged, and by multiple people. Your ISP. The ISPs along the route. The server. If the site you're viewing is database driven, likely that database as well. Nobody may be paying attention, but it's all there. This is standard practice, and we're no different. Anyway, back to the point of all of this, I won't get into specifics as to how our duplicate topic tools work, except this: IP addresses can vary between times of logging onto (especially for people who use dial-up internet, where you'll get a different IP each time you log-in to your ISP), and people can legitimately have the same IP (for instance, people who use AOL will often have the same IP, or people who work at the same corporation site, or people who use wireless). Cookies, however, do not. They're unique to your computer. As a result, if someone comes up as a duplicate account on our cookie analyzer, it's given much more weight than someone who comes up as a duplicate account on our IP analyzers, and they will be contacted with a short and painless survey to get a brief idea as to what is going on. 99% of these people are legitimate - people who are using a computer lab or sharing a computer or signing into approved specialty accounts (such as the "switch witch" account), or again - people whose accounts weren't validating properly. To date, there's only been one person who flat out refused to answer my questions about this. And people, these questions aren't rocket science. It's things like "Do you share your computer?" or "How do you connect to the internet?" Though, I should correct my statement: she answered them on her duplicate account I found the answers to be questionably at best (there were alot of inconsistencies with what she claimed and what she answered). For instance, she claimed to have found the Lab through NALF (the North America Lush Forum, for those that aren't familiar with it - who is members-only for their "Retail Therapy" equivalent). She also claimed to use the same username everywhere. Well, you know what? It doesn't take more than 5 minutes to go to NALF and scan through their member list to determine whether or not the account exists there. And I looked, because I am nothing if not thorough. If I am going to tell my moderators and co-administrator that we have a duplicate account - ESPECIALLY when it's a person that we (as a whole) do not have the best relationship with - I want to be damn sure that I have as clear an idea of what is going on as possible. Because cookies is not enough -- just ask the Lab: Beth, Brian, and Teddy are all known to share computers and log in and out to get into the forum. There comes a point in time where coincidences are stretched too thinly, and when the story I'm told by one account isn't holding up to examination, I have to use Occam's Razor: that the simplest explanation that accounts for all of the evidence is the most likely explanation. And I'm not stating this to "argue my position". You can take this, or you can leave this. But I prefer transparency to what goes on around here, especially in something that has become so drama-riffic. So here are the facts, as I see them, on anxious1 and her duplicate account usage. This is not a comprehensive list, as that would be quite long. First, a timeline. Timeline: (Unrelated) Mid April, anxious1 basically gets kicked out of NALF for breaking their e-tailer policies. A note, for those that aren't a member of NALF, that their e-tailer policies are very similiar to ours - especially . If you search for her username (also anxious1) and show just the posts, you'll see she made 12 posts, of which 1 was a negative review about a LUSH product. The rest were pimping her business. On 6/12, anxious1 originally gets reminded about the e-tailer rules, which state that she cannot be here for just pimping her goods, and that she needs to participate in the forum as a whole and cannot use the forum to support her business. In early July, we posted an announcement in Retail Therapy reminding e-tailers about our rules. This is unrelated to anxious1 - we'd just been noticing a bunch of e-tailers coming in to pimp their business. On 7/21, she gets moved to the "e-tailer" member group, as she is continuing to break our rules. On 7/26, after much discussion, this group (of which anxious1 is NOT the only member) has its ability to see most BPAL-related forums (including: Suggestions, Recommendations, Swaps, BPAL Chatter, TAL Chatter) taken away. This is unrelated to anxious1 and had been under discussion, off and on, for a few months. For clarification: here, I refer to restricting what the member group can view, not the member group itself. We've been using the e-tailer member group for over a year. On 7/27, anxious1 creates the account "Testing123" from her home computer. On 7/28, she PMs several of the e-tailers that follow our rules (and thus aren't even part of the "e-tailer" member group). I wouldn't be surprised if she also PM'd the individuals in the e-tailer group, but most of them left after we asked them to stop only posting about their products. Incidentally, I know this because these individuals contacted us. On 10/17, we notice that there was a rather suspicious-sounding account ("Testing123") that was accessing some weird topic that one of the mods was looking at. The moderator who noticed the Testing123 does a quick IP-post search and finds out that the only person who has posted from that IP is anxious1. On 10/17, I start working with our analyzing tools to see what's going on with those accounts, and to go ahead and do a sweep for duplicate accounts. (As you know, duplicate accounts are not allowed. So, the analysis on IPs and what not started happening then. It's a slow and painful process, because there's quite a bit of information to go through.) I also given both accounts vastly restricted forum permissions (the same permissions everyone who hasn't certified the original set of guidelines is in, incidentally). Around 10/18, anxious1 obtains a third account. One of her customers had created a second account in July 05 (jasperzwrath) when she was having issues accessing our forum, and gives her the login because anxious1 "wants to check in the H&E thread". Incidentally, this individual came to me to tell me what happened with her duplicate account shortly after the duplicate account announcement was put up. It's important to note here that I can tell, by timestamps & IPs & cookies, which user (anxious1 or the original owner) accessed which topics. So when I say that anxious1 accessed, on this account, a topic, I really do know that it was her and not the original owner. And these duplicate accounts accessed more than the H&E topic - including some Recommendations, Suggestions (mostly for foody oils, incidentally, the very kind of oils she tends to sell), Swaps, BPAL Chatter, as well as the other perfume shops. The first four of those, to reiterate, anxious1 cannot access under that account. By 10/18, the anxious1 analysis is more-or-less complete. The cookie analysis was incomplete, but the IP analysis showed that the vast majority of her posts (108 out of 112) were made at three IPs - two I identify as "Work" (being her Fortune 500, day job employer, which had 72 posts), one I identify as "Home" (being a typical broadband provider for the area). The other four posts were made from other places. Of these seven IPs, there are exactly THREE accounts with any traffic: anxious1, Testing123, and jasperzwrath. By 10/19, the cookie analysis is complete. The cookies show that at the Work IP and the Home IP, anxious1 switched back and forth between jasperzwrath, Testing123, and anxious1 during the previous week. We'd also found three other accounts that used multiple accounts. All accounts get a PM & restricted access. By 10/21, all outstanding accounts have answered the survey EXCEPT for anxious1 (who stated that "Are you saying that I have dual accounts? I do not and am not going to be subjected to questions" when we originally asked, and never did answer my questions). Despite not having a firm answer from anxious1, feel there's enough evidence between the IPs, the cookies, the statement from the jasperzwrath original owner, and inconsistencies with what Testing123 was saying and anxious1 was saying to call it a duplicate account. Incidentally, one of the inconsistencies that Testing123 had said is that she didn't know who anxious1 was, but that "she frequently visited the H&E topic". If it was just an IP similarity, it could be a coincidence that someone works near anxious1 and happens to also live near her. It becomes less so when you take into consideration that the cookies are showing the accounts regularly share a computer, and nobody claims to share a computer. It's even less so when you have someone tell you that anxious1 was using their duplicate account. And less so when one of the accounts is flat-out lying in their responses (such as when Testing123 claimed to use Testing123 everywhere, hear about us via the NA Lush Forum, and when checking, there's no member with the ID "Testing123" there). Note that here, I have not said a WORD about how anxious1 runs her business, though there are two blogs that I've seen that sort of talk about it. I am ONLY commenting on our duplicate account policy and a little bit about how we uncovered one specific duplicate account. And, if you're still reading this, I applaud your ability to listen to me ramble. I'm sharing all of this for several reasons: First and foremost, I do think people need to know that we can, and do, identify duplicate accounts, and that in most cases (thus far), it's nothing major. Nobody that has been honest and up-front with us have been warned for making this mistake. Secondly, I want people to realize that when we bust someone for having a duplicate account, it's not just a matter of two IPs matching. It involves a pattern of traffic (both in IPs and in cookies), personal discussion with the accounts, and some fact-checking. Finally, with the to-do with anxious1 being suspended, I thought people should know what happened. And that at the end of the day: she was suspended not for the e-tailer violations (though it was a consideration in the duration of the suspension), not for the creation of the duplicate accounts... but for lying about using other accounts, about misleading us via one account, and for trying to claim that it was all one giant coincidence.

First off, I want to point out that Oly made her comment in early August, and it wasn't until late August/early September that the Lab requested people stop calling non-Lab products as "imps", and October that they made the announcement at the forum that flat-out said not to call non-BPAL items imps. Now... I have no clue as to why she created a second account, except that it happened the day after we restricted her account for being an e-tailer, and then she switched to yet another account within a day or two after we restricted her account again for being a suspected duplicate account (which further analysis of the forum logs showed to be accurate). The individual whose account it was gave Michele the login information because Michele "wanted to look at the H&E topic". ...which she did. Along with a handful of other topics she doens't normally have access to, as well as the topics for other perfumeries [which, for clarification, she does normally have access to]. HOWEVER, that said, I can easily see why someone would use this forum as market research for a perfume house: we've got a strong userbase, with a significant amount of comments and discussion about our likes and dislikes going back nearly three years. I don't know her usage rates as her membership is entirely closed and I really doubt she'd approve an account for me, but they can't anywhere near ours -- ezboards's fees would be up the roof if they were (there's a *reason* we're on a dedicated server, after all).

One of the non-mod-related modifications that I've done in the last few months was set up the feedback to show a note for the people that have been banned from swapping on our forum. This is mostly for the LJ folks, because there are people who will list their forum feedback with their LJ feedback, or LJ folks that search for usernames on the forum to check the feedback. So, there you go. Unsure if someone has the ability to swap here? Check their feedback. Though, the same note shows up for people that have lost their access to the swap forum because of violations to the price caps - but if they've got feedback, chances are if they lost access to swaps because of swaplifting, they'll have feedback reflecting that. HOWEVER, that said, keep in mind that we have been analyzing our logs and finding a few swaplifters that have made duplicate accounts. Some using 'em, some not.

If Michele does not follow our rules, she will lose access to the Retail Therapy section or the forum all together, and she is well aware of this. I'm not sure what you mean by "do business" with Michele. It's not like she financially supports the forum, despite all of the people that have come her way. After her access was restricted, she did still have access to other etailer threads. Everything in the retail section was still open to her. She was only shut out of Suggestions, Swaps, & BPAL + TAL chatter areas. Otherwise, very detailed post. I'm impressed. Though, since she used her second account to view those areas... she (as a person) wasn't, just she (as that particular user) was. She's not the first person to use other accounts to get around restrictions like that, and I doubt she'll be the last.

I'm just posting to remind y'all that we do not allow duplicate accounts. This has been in the guidelines for more than two years at this point in time, so it should not come as a surprise. We track duplicate accounts in a variety of ways, and the probability is high that we will find out. What to do if you were thinking about getting a new account: If you want an account for something special (like the "swap fairy" circle), it must be pre-approved by contacting SV or myself. If you want to change your display name, you can do so by contacting SV or myself on the forum -- though after the first name change, you will need to cash in reward points to do so. If you want to change your login, you can do so by contacting SV or myself. If you forgot your old username or password and the retrieval isn't working, contact us at bpal {dot} org [at] gmail {dot} com. We will require some identity verification before we change your password, though. If you were wanting a "sock puppet" or to get around punishments, you're outta luck. If you have an unapproved duplicate account: If it's something innocent and you're honest about it when we contact you (or if you contact us), no harm done. We will require that you pick one and the one you don't pick will be suspended indefinitely, but it won't go on "your permanent record" (so to speak). If you've got the second account for the purposes of a sock puppet or getting around punishments issued (such as being black listed from the swaps area for having too many swaplifts) or lie about it when asked, you will be harshly punished. Punishment may include (but is not limited to): a warning, a public outting of both accounts a suspension, or banning. What exactly happens will depend on the circumstances.

I just wanted to remind everyone that while listing things as being swaplifted via feedback is all and good for letting others know, you NEED to contact one of the swap moderators (allidavie, clephan, cupide430, grrrlennyl, and Scylla) if you want to have your report count against the "three-strikes" policy (after three swaplifts, people are banned from the swap areas until all outstanding issues have been resolved).