Strange goings on in the other place overnight.
Several threads were posted by 'oilrag - Moderator' which were not by him.
They were not offensive, quite amusing actually, taking the mick out of the oily style which some of us neither love nor understand.
And after a rather sour exchange, I see oily has annihilated rtj 70, assuming it's the real rtj 70 and not another impersonator.
I suppose none of this amounts to any real harm, but it disrupts the smooth running of the forum, so I hope our accounts are a bit more secure over here.
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>>I see oily has annihilated rtj 70<<
ok ya, I noticed that yesterday too iffi, the woman stuck her ore in as well.
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I don't know the technicalities here, but the passwords you set are "hashed" here upon storage in the admin area, i.e. all we see as Mods are a random characters in the password field so if a hackr got access to that area that's all they'd "see" as well.
No doubt Car4Play will be along to explain...!
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I think the mods have answered this very well, but just to reiterate, passwords are stored hashed so that even if accounts are hacked logging with a hacked account would be very hard.
Every system has it's vulnerabilities, so we never say never. We just do the best we can to prevent attacks.
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...I noticed that yesterday too...
I see the annihilation thread has now been annihilated - rtj 70 has been airbrushed from BR history.
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Unfortunately some of the posts were stupid, childish 'answers' to genuine queries in the Technical section - posted at 3.00 am. I do hope for your sake that it doesn't happen over here.
He creates a new E-mail address and password and starts again - it's just very sad that a presumably grown man feels that this sort of thing is worthwhile.
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But the only posts from me over there were about oilrag taking over the discussion area. None of the rest was me. The fact oilrag could not take some feedback and deleted my posts says something about him I guess. Sarah did say she would reenable my account though. Whether she has I don't know because I haven't tried.
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Thanks for the head up though - we'll keep an eye on here, all posts are read by the Mods (in triplicate probably) from early mornings.
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I guess the 'improvements' over there didn't include security then!
From what I have read here over the last few months (I haven't darked their door since C4P arrived except when it 1st reopened - I didn't like what I saw) they have been hit by hackers more than before the 'improvements'
Ho Hum.....progress I 'spose!
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Yip, HJ does seem to have been replaced by one man on a mission to earn his stripes with spouting endless drivel.
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But at the moment someone is either posting as him or using an account with a very similar looking name. I'd report the messages but Oilrag disabled my account and you need to be logged in to report a message. And at least one of the new posts is offensive.
There's even a post recently in one of the stickies... I'm pretty sure that's not Mike.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=85754
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That's interesting... the report post as offensive link has been disabled over there!
Last edited by: Fenlander on Sat 31 Jul 10 at 13:41
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Is it?
I'm stil struggling to understand what the obsession is. It's just another website.
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>> I'm stil struggling to understand what the obsession is. It's just another website.
>>
x 2
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...I'm stil struggling to understand what the obsession is. It's just another website...
mlc,
My main reason for posting was to let everyone know - including mods and management here - there's a hacker about.
I can get into quite enough trouble being me, without someone else posting inflammatory material as me.
The software looks similar, so I reckon anyone who can hack HJ might be able to hack here.
And yes, there is interest in what happens over there.
It's not an obsession, but plenty of members still post on both sites.
I found what was going on there at about 5am this morning fascinating, in a rubber necking sort of way.
I'd far rather have been asleep, but unfortunately that's not always possible, for reasons I'll not bore you with.
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Iffy - thanks for flagging it up, I never look in HJ really these days so any useful info is er...useful, passed it on t'management.
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>> He creates a new E-mail address and password and starts again
Some things never change. That has been happening for as long as I can remember when I was a moderator on there. When you've and idiot like this you just have to be more patient and on your guard until they get bored.
>> My main reason for posting was to let everyone know - including mods and management here - there's a hacker about.
Is it a hacker though or has someone created a similar username? I suspect the latter. We had someone last year do the same when they mimicked PU's username.
>> The software looks similar, so I reckon anyone who can hack HJ might be able to hack here.
As PU pointed out, all passwords are hashed, and that not only includes the admin site, but copies of new registrations that are sent to The Webmasters email account as well. To give you an example, when I look up my C4P username in the database the password is a7ac642f32b37f47794f7b86944c8. Best of luck trying to log in using that password.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 31 Jul 10 at 16:32
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"I'd far rather have been asleep, but unfortunately that's not always possible, for reasons I'll not bore you with."
They make special "adult nappies" for those who can't quite make it through the night. I'll try and find you a link.
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...special "adult nappies"...
BBD,
One day, I will find a topic that you cannot reduce to toilet humour.
Same as one day you might come to love your mother-in-law.
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"one day you might come to love your mother-in-law"
Perhaps when she's in an urn, and I can use her to stop my papers blowing about when I put the fan on.
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you could mix the ashes with perfume, then sprinkle on the carpets and hoover up, ala shake 'n vac.
You could then say you walked all over your mother in law
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I used to think that Les Dawson was telling jokes. I had no idea he was simply telling the truth :-(
JH
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Forgive the intrusion.
RTJ, I`ve traced the person who was hacking the accounts.
Avant is also going to reopen your main account with us - so let`s give it another go.
Last edited by: oilrag on Sat 31 Jul 10 at 18:25
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Sorry, that should read - spoofing - and the trace was wrong - nothing has been hacked.
Sorry about that.
I won`t comment further - but see you back in our place - if you wish, rtj
Regards to you all
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...I'm stumped...
If you are, it can't have been by that Pakistani wicket keeper - he's rubbish.
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...But I'm telling you!...
...but not very much.
I'm all in favour of brevity in posting, but I feel you may need to expand a little on this one.
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Are you young? Try it with a Pakistani accent and a wobble of the head. Oh! all right then. We know what we mean.
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"I'm all in favour of brevity in posting"
hmm
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...hmm..
BBD,
You'll have heard of the phrase: "Do as I say, not as I do?"
Sorry to be brief.
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>> "I'm all in favour of brevity in posting"
>>
>> hmm
>>
Huh?
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I wish somebody would hack this thread and press the delete button!
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...I wish somebody would hack this thread and press the delete button!...
mlc,
As I always say to those who seek to censor threads on here, stop posting and it will soon drop down the board out of sight.
But 30-odd replies, a thousand views, and an informal 'thank you' from one of the mods suggests there is some interest in it.
And it's not as if we are short of room - anyone can start new, more interesting threads.
But that requires a bit of thought - simply sniping at what's here already is much easier, isn't it?
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>>
>> But that requires a bit of thought - simply sniping at what's here already is
>> much easier, isn't it?
Well, I found the initial comment unnecessary
" taking the mick out of the oily style which some of us neither love nor understand."
Aside from that, the fist post had some merit concerning hacked accounts. It then degenerates it yet another HJ obssesive and further into just plain nonsense.
You're right though. I didn't have to reply, but I was hoping that it might strike a chord and we could see a return to informative and interesting threads.
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"and further into just plain nonsense"
I think I made some valid points. Urns do make good paperweights.
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mlc
Your claim the thread is HJ obsessive is claptrap.
I thought rtj 70 was badly treated over there, and I like to think this thread played maybe a tiny part in getting him reinstated.
After that, I was quite pleased it went in another direction.
If we are all HJ obsessed as you falsely claim, how come the thread drifted into 'plain nonsense'?
Surely all us HJ-obsessives would never let that happen?
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You have taken this rather personally haven't you!
Sorry for having an opinion.
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...You have taken this rather personally haven't you!...
Yet another bold statement you cannot stand up.
We just disagree - there's no more to it than that.
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>> Sorry, that should read - spoofing - and the trace was wrong - nothing has been hacked.
>> I won`t comment further
As well as an explanation here, now about one in the Backroom for the folks who haven't yet moved across and are not aware what happened?
That aside, how are we supposed to know whether future posts are made by you or your doppelganger?
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Oilrag was quick on the ball and hid the offending posts to avoid confusion, so the forum was able to operate as normal. With regard to RTJ, we value his motoring posts, but we have simply asked him, if he has any comments about the moderation of the forum, to send them to our E-mail address.
I think that was your policy when you were a moderator on HJ, and it's a good one. As moderators we adopt (and this isn't a criticism) a lighter touch than you and RTJ did, but you seem to be doing that too on this forum and it works well.
Whoever the doppelganger was, we have disabled his/her account and will continue to do so promptly if it happens again. There's only one Oilrag!
Last edited by: Avant on Sun 1 Aug 10 at 15:29
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...With regard to RTJ, we value his motoring posts, but we have simply asked him, if he has any comments about the moderation of the forum, to send them to our E-mail address...
Thanks to insomnia, I have a slightly different take on this.
Rtj suggested, politely, that oillrag stopped posting in non-motoring because the volume of his threads was putting people off - nothing to do with moderation.
Oilrag's response was aggressive to the point of rudeness - I was quite impressed, I didn't think he had it in him.
The response included threats of cyber annihilation, and fairly swiftly annihilation itself.
Like I said earlier, quite entertaining stuff in a rubber necking sort of way.
And then there was the separate matter of all the false postings.
Who'd have thought so much could on at once in such a small corner of the internet?
And there's me, bleary eyed, thinking it was never as much fun when we were all posting on there. :)
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Thanks for the support ifithelps. I did indeed say to hold off on posting for a while and then got threatened. I never questioned any moderation style. It was the high number of posts which were all by 'Oilrag (Moderator)' and most had no replies.
As the mods there want, I will go back to not suggesting anything etc.
Apologies to the mods here, I never intended to involve anyone at all. All Oilrag had to do was read the post and ignore if he wanted. But he went off on one.
I am glad to say that impersonating anyone on here is a lot more difficult because of the more proactive moderating style, especially with mods seeing new accounts being registered. As well as seeing 'impersonators' they also change inappropriate usernames before they ever login in. And this site is all the better for more proactive moderating, with some tidying up where it makes sense. I for one appreciate the efforts of VxFan, Pugugly and Smokie. They make this site work well.
EDIT: can we lock this now and let it lie?
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sun 1 Aug 10 at 16:42
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Whilst I agree that this site has no axe to grind with HJ's Backroom on the other hand this site isn't the place to discuss the moderation policies (especially specifics) of the BR - no need to lock at this stage but let's keep personalities out of this please.
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It sounds fun becoming a hacker. Would my Level 1 NVQ in IT be a good entry-level start?
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Not to pick out rtj70 in particular, though it is him on this occasion, but I always think the desire to claim the right to the last word and then have the thread locked is rather funny!
Thanks for resisting PU. I hope this doesn't constitute discussing moderation policies!
What's happened to the BR would (and has been no doubt) be an interesting case study I am sure, for anyone wishing to establish such a forum.
The original post in this thread was a perfectly reasonable caution; most of the rest is pure digression, but isn't any conversation?
You can lock the thread now PU ;-)
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I see oily's resigned as a moderator, he must have been truly hacked off.
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Does that leave mostly Avant now? The other's seem to do little over there.
There never was a hacker - just someone creating accounts that look like the real/original ones. Sadly. And it takes someone monitoring new account creation to spot them early. Suspicious ones are tracked/monitored on this site I know, i.e. you know someone might be up to something. I think VxFan has a sixth sense to spot these things now.
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>> The original post in this thread was a perfectly reasonable caution; most of the rest
>> is pure digression, but isn't any conversation?
>>
The original post made an assumption about hacking. Replies from Avant and Oilrag above indicate that there was no hacking of accounts, but it was someone simply using spoofing login names which made it look like it was Oilrag. Didn't previous posts on this forum by the Dragon's Den contestant allege that one, or was it two, former moderator(s) at HJ were adept at that sort of activity?
Last edited by: Spospe on Mon 2 Aug 10 at 22:04
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...There never was a hacker - just someone creating accounts that look like the real/original ones...
One or two people have commented on the thread title.
The use of the term 'hacker' only demonstrates a lack of knowledge on my part.
There was no intention to mislead anyone.
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But Oilrag's computer skills are top notch because he personally traced the impersonator and disabled his account. Despite moderators not having access to the info needed to actually trace someone as such. He could find the false accounts and disable them of course.
On this site, it is also then easy to find all posts by the accounts and do something about them all. It took them a while to remove all of them over there.... despite being obvious to see.
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I looked at the *spoof* posts just before they were deleted and the odd thing was the username appeared 100% the same as the genuine Oilrag one.... odd.
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I don't know what they changed but it would be easy on most forums. Don't want that happening here too often.
The only way to spot this and stop it is to have moderators to spot the registrations and stop/disable them ASAP. We did that on HJ and they do that here. Unfortunately on HJ this info is not available to the mods any more. You could register an account there with an offensive name and it would probably still be there sometime later.
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As far as I could see the characters and spacing were identical.... something like... oilrag(Moderator)
Anyway see he's just given up the HJ mods truncheon.
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It looked the same but wasn't. I could say how to do it but that would be idiotic of me... so what you need to do is....
Maybe Oily's off to the far east again soon anyway.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 3 Aug 10 at 01:01
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Ahhh Ok so it's possible to add/delete something hidden. No need to say.
Had it not been for the crude post I thought it could have been the real oily a bit tipsy after HJ had taken all the mods out for a *drinks are on me* party.
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>> I thought it could have been the real oily a bit tipsy after HJ had taken all the mods out for a *drinks are on me* party.
Being an ex HJ moderator yourself, you know that would never happen :o)
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>>>Being an ex HJ moderator yourself, you know that would never happen :o)
I just thought my short but eventful time there missed the frequent *have anything you like from the menu* outings!
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I've just crossed over to have a look, and there is a billboard displayed, with a small grubby urchin in 1930s shorts yelling
"Oilrag resigns, read all abaht it !"
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>> I just thought my short but eventful time there missed the frequent *have anything you like from the menu* outings!
I never even got a sniff at the ploughmans and share of a pint I was promised. Saying that though, Mark did buy Alan and myself a drink one evening when we met up.
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And boy, has he been bleating on about it ever since.
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Notice I failed to mention each of us a drink ;o)
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ah yes, the half and two straws. I remember.
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...I could say how to do it...
I've no criticism of the security of either site, but by the same token I don't reckon it's too hard to breach for someone who knows what they are doing.
The answer is only put in what you are prepared to lose.
A made up username, a made up password and an email address are not that precious.
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Some forums I have joined, you need to wait for an authorisation code before you can start posting. Surely you just stop these being automated?
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>> Surely you just stop these being automated?
Which would mean a lot more work for me if I had to manually validate accounts, not to mention scrutinising each and every one beforehand. For the occasional idiot / spammer it's simply not worth the effort involved.
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I agree with every word, Webmaster! In fact the real troublemaker on HJ first started with a genuine-looking name and E-mail address which none of us would have had reason to disallow.
Most moderators on any forum are volunteers; many work full-time, as I do; we can only do what we have time for. Personally I don't get upset by the sniping: my skin is thick and if anything I'm more amused than annoyed by the saddos with nothing better to do than draw attention to themselves.
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>> Most moderators on any forum are volunteers
Indeed they are. And unless they can give a fair amount of time on a regular basis then they are not much use. I bet VxFan won't say how much time he spends doing moderation type work. I know I used to do 2 hours plus most days. And some days when you knew a new member (or old) was likely to cause problems you might do more.
What people don't realise on here and on the old HJ site was how much admin%2
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 3 Aug 10 at 21:57
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Oops - someone cut you off in your prime there, RTJ.
I should have added to my post above that not for a moment do I think that the 'troublemaker' was anyone who posts on this forum.
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we have plenty of troublemakers, (me) but not in that way.
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I don't understand any aspect of this, why someone would want to do this stuff or how they could. No doubt it's simple enough if you can be bothered.
But is it anyone we might remember from HJ, Avant? Of course you needn't say if you don't want to. But I do seem to recall the odd very tiresome element.
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me too AC
im intrigued too
i can never get my head round the fact that a cyber geek would do harm rather than good for society,but then i see kids kicking the heads of flowers and just despair
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I understand the main person behind this on HJ was not a name any of us would know on here or posted anything of use there....
I suggested before this got locked - not because I wanted the last say but because this thread is pointless. And since (a) I probably sparked all this by asking Oilrag not to post as much for a bit over there and (b) was involved in this thread.... it might have made sense.
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In precise I said what the mods do that nobody knows about. Like a post in the wrong place and moving it. Editing in vehicle details to technical threads when known (helps with later searches by members) etc.
And I also said that like a swan you shouldn't see the work going on under the surface. There's a lot the mods on here do. And we used to do on HJ.
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Also when people register they want to post straight away. If I register on a forum which has be activated by hand I tend not to bother posting and just forget about.
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I used to be a moderator on a much bigger forum than HJ or this site but then we had about 40 moderators for about 140,000 members. It would take up a huge amount of time. I would spend about two-three hours on a day moderating it but some of the students would spent 12 hours a day moderating for nothing.
I left because as I got sick of all the snobbery rife on that site and due to differing opinions of the mods. The only reward is I think my ex saw me as some kind of power figure and she fancied me as a result.. :p We all needed to get out more.
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Iffy :- Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I can't fault you my friend. Yes you can get into trouble being you , i wouldnt want Iffy any other way. I agree totally with this post you make. Likewise my shift patterns dictate when i come onboard and sometimes it can be early hours as well. Thanks.
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I Think that the Mods here, and at the other place do a good job
I remeber I got one of my posts deleted by Big Bad Dave? /Vxfan on the HJ Site becasue I made a remark about a BMW driver who's throttle got stuck.
It was right to remove my post, and I apologised for it - it was a one off and I think I have behaved myself since :-)
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"I remeber I got one of my posts deleted by Big Bad Dave?"
?????
Wasn't me. I've never been a mod.
Although I'm surprised I've never been ask, what with the quality and seriousness of my posts.
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>> Yeah, you get my vote.
BBD or Bellboy. Probably Bellboy, he doesn't cause me to spit tea out laughing, his wisdom and humour's easier on the electrical items around
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>> Wasn't me. I've never been a mod.
>>
Sorry I meant Dynamic Dave
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>> Sorry I meant Dynamic Dave
Who he?
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Watch out, there's a hacker about - Dog
