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  EXIT FROM GOLDENTALK: My Own Side of The Story
 

      EXIT FROM GOLDENTALK: My Own Side of The Story

                                    by Ajibola Aries


On Friday December 2nd, 2011, I observed that my account in Goldentalk had been 'disabled' (for that was the error message I received).
When I looked closely to investigate what could be behind it, I discovered that the so-called Geriatic Moderator called Jambutty was behind it and that he made a very spurious and baseless allegation that I posted ‘wrong or false information’.

What I am going to say here will will make an interesting reading and will let people know some details of my own side of the story. So, what are the facts? In Virtapay thread of GoldenTalk, I was known to have always made rational posts based on what I know to be the truth and I always articulate my own views in ways that are diplomatic and honest. Towards October/November 2011, two Nigerians, one of them called Cutieck (who was banned shortly after he joined Goldentalk as a result of using duplicate accounts) joined Virtapay thread and they began to antagonize my posts with hostile statements that were consistently pessimistic of Virtapay. Coincidentally, Jambutty himself had become skeptical of Virtapay along the line, especially from the time that Virtapay instructed members to be login in through Facebook. Jambutty did not like this and he said so in Virtapay thread. Consequently, his views of Virtapay became negative. Meanwhile, my views of Virtapay had, in the main, been optimistic. Basically, I maintained that the only guilt of Virtapay was sluggishness, and that in as much as and as long as there was no evidence that Virtapay was scamming anybody, we should be patient with Virtapay and give the nascent payment processor the benefits of the doubt that sooner or later, it would overcome whatever challenges that were impeding it from becoming a fully operational commercial outfit. This viewpoint of mine, which I took a lot of pains in articulating in a competent manner, is the major thing that set Jambutty’s mind against me, and based on the information that later reached me, he had been looking for a way to do something against me since that time.

When the two Nigerian antagonists became more vehement in their arguments against Virtapay, I made them to know, through Virtapay forum in Goldentalk, that I had actually been able to sell Virtapay dollars at one time or the other. I had to let them know this, in order to make them to understand that Virtapay really worked for me and therefore imply that it could also work for them. Jambutty, whose opinion did not favour Virtapay, was naturally angered by this and this is where he erred: anybody who looked at Virtapay thread at that time will see that the question he asked me is that I should tell the house HOW I sold my Virtapay dollars – a question that I answered in details. That is quite different from asking me WHO I sold my VP$ to. The former has to do with me being asked to tell the house the PROCESS OR THE PROCEDURE that I used in selling my VP$; the later has to do with THE PARTICULARS OR DETAILS OF THE PERSON(S) who I sold my Virtapay dollars to. These two questions are arguably different; it was the first that he asked – which I answered in details (and the records are still there, unless he has tampered with them). Ordinarily, he ought not to even contemplate asking me the second, for very obvious reasons: at that time Virtapay had a History of transactions that ensures that anyone who sees your receipt of sales could easily trace your buyer(s) to their Facebook page! (this practice of including buyers' Facebook identity in receipts was however discontinued after direct login was reintroduced in Virtapay, but that was long after this incident). So, even if Jambutty was silly enough to expect me to disclose the identity(ies) of my buyers, I shouldn’t have done so because Virtapay buyers were so hard to find at that time and it would be foolish of me if I openly disclosed the identities of my buyers in an open internet forum.

At the end of my explanation of HOW I sold my Virtapay, all what Jambutty said is that I have said a lot without saying anything useful! For him to have made such comment, he must be either mischeivious or simply daft, because I gave enough hints on how other people too can successfully sell their Virtapay, plus the disclosure I made that some people were actually purchasing Virtapay to convert them to bitcoins. The fact that I even mentioned ‘Bitcoins’ should have given a hint to anybody with a sound mind on what to do research upon.  The man must be simply daft to say that he couldn’t see anything useful in all what I explained because even a primary school pupil could get many ideas and hints from my straightforward explanations.

Anyone who looked at the posts would observe that I was responding to every question with the appropriate answers, including what transpired between me and my buyers; but I observed one thing: Jambutty kept saying that I should answer the question posed to me, despite the fact that I was giving the answers.

On the morning of Thursday November 24, 2011, I received an email from one of the Senior Investors in Goldentalk, in which the person warned me not to post any more information in Virtapay’s thread because Jambutty had made up his mind to classify any further post I made as a false or wrong information. And truly, when I looked at the forum thread later that day, I saw Jambutty asking me to post the proof that I sold my Virtapay dollars and at the same time he was saying that I should not post any other thing on the Virtapay thread again apart from my proof of sale. At this point, it became clear to me that what Jambutty was really after, is THE IDENTITY OF MY VIRTAPAY BUYERS! There was simply no way by which I could have posted the proof of my transaction at that time without giving away the identity of my buyers! In a situation where it was very hard to find Virtapay buyers and I was fortunate to find one or two, it would be outrightly stupid for me to go to a public forum to disclose their identities. Just as I earlier said, those who knew how the payment History of Virtapay transactions were displayed will agree that there is simply no way by which I could post it as proof of my transactions without disclosing the identities of my buyers. For God’s sake, I was doing business and I didn’t want to lose my buyers! At the same time, I knew that even if I cleverly doctored my proof of transaction in such a way as to hide the identity of my buyers, Jambutty would still refuse to classify it as a proof, since what he was after, is the identity of my buyers. Now, on my website’s Aries Dynamics page, long before the Goldentalk incident, I have clearly stated my business philosophy: namely that there are certain information that I won’t publicly disclose and that it is only investigative authorities and trusted insiders who can have access to such information. The identity of my Virtapay buyers falls within this category of information that is of strategic importance to me. And who the hell is Jambutty? Jambutty is just an old man who called himself a ‘Geriatic Moderator’ on GoldenTalk forum; he is not a trusted insider neither is he an investigative authority! So he had no right to probe the identity of my buyers! That is none of his business, unless he was interested in taking my buyers away from me or looking for an excuse to come after me!

People who were more experienced than me in the Goldentalk forum made me to understand that Jambutty was the vindictive type who would still go ahead to ban a person’s account once he has taken a dislike to that person. And the reason why he didn’t like me is that I was, for the most part, making positive posts about Virtapay – an ecurrency that he was frustrated and disillusioned with.

Following this advice, I decided to discontinue making further posts in the Virtapay thread from November 24, 2011. To make my withdrawal effective, I unsubscribed from the Virtapay thread on the same day, because if I did not unsubscribe, I would still have continued to receive email notifications of replies from other forum members in that particular thread and this would have tempted me to visit the thread again in order to reply. The administrators of Goldentalk, if at all they are sincere and if they still have the records, will attest to the fact that Ajibola Aries actually unsubscribed from the Virtapay thread on Thursday November 24, 2011. The implication of my unsubscription is that from November 24, 2011, I was no longer aware of whatever posts or information being made in Virtapay thread. It is important that I state it here that before unsubscribing  from the Virtapay thread, I wrote two private internal emails to Jambutty telling him that I couldn’t openly declare details of my Virtapay buyers in an open forum. Simultaneously, in the Virtapay thread I wrote an open apology to those who felt hurt as a result of being defeated by the arguments I made in favour of Virtapay. It’s a situation where one feels bad for hurting the ego of one’s opponents, though still standing firmly on one’s point of view. I am the type that will often apologise to a person whose ego I feel I hurt, even if I know that I am in the right. At that time, I was even thinking of making a little concession, which is to privately disclose ONLY ONE of my buyers to Jambutty alone, by virtue of the respect that I have for his age and his position in Goldentalk. The other reason why I wrote these two private mails to him is because I wanted to stop making further posts in Virtapay thread so as to correct the wrong insinuation ( which people like Jambutty might be making) that I was making posts in order to earn more points. Jambutty didn’t reply any of these emails yet he kept coming to Virtapay thread to be making the same demands, that I should answer the question posed to me. And he was repeating these demands with rather unfriendly undertone. The fact that Jambutty refused to reply my emails, while at the same time behaving like this in the Virtapay thread, is what convinced me that he was up to something and this is the more reason why I had to unsubscribe from the Virtapay thread on November 24, 2011. I also decided finally, that I wouldn’t even disclose even just one of my buyers to him again.

From that time I continued to make posts only in other forum threads of GoldenTalk and things went on normally. However, it was on Friday December 2nd 2011 that I discovered first, that a post I was trying to publish on GoldenTalk could not get through. When this occurred so many times, I decided to log out and login again to repeat the action. It was at this point that I found out that I could not login again and there was an error message telling me that my account had been disabled and that I needed to register all over again as a new member. I then wrote a complaint to the administration of Goldentalk informing them that my account had been unjustly disabled and that they should either reply me if they have justification for their action otherwise they should restore my account. They never replied till date.

In later days when I looked into the Virtapay thread of Goldentalk, I discovered that the person behind the termination of my account was Jambuty. He claimed that I posted a wrong or false information and that he gave me one week to react to that allegation and that since I appeared to have ignored his call, he disabled my account.
Jambutty’s claim that I ignored his ultimatum to reply him in the forum is a very false claim and a blatant lie. The fact is simply that he posted that invitation in Virtapay’s thread AFTER I HAVE UNSUBSCRIBED FROM THAT THREAD, and so I was not served any notice of any further posts made in that thread (including his invitation) after my unsubscription. So, I have the advantage of the benefit of the doubt as to how I would have reacted and what I would have done, if I had been properly served this notice.

Dear reader, as you have seen from my earlier arguments about the information and views that I posted about Virtapay, Jambuty’s excuse for his action is a very lame excuse. It’s either that senility made the old man to construct his own warped definition of what constitutes a ‘right information’, or the old man was simply daft since he still failed  to comprehend anything useful from all the information I gave in my posts about Virtapay. Why is it that some other members sent private emails to me thanking me for the contributions that I made in the Virtapay thread? If I justifiably refused to disclose the identity of my Virtapay buyers in the open forum, why not the old man and other disgruntled forum members do their own research and step out into the sun to look for their own buyers? The fact that I refused to disclose the identity of my buyers does not mean lack of evidence that I sold my Virtapay. Just as I have said earlier, since Jambutty and co are not investigative authorities or trusted insiders, I am not bound to disclose to them a sensitive information that could compromise my business interest. The fact that we have to help one another in Goldentalk forum does not mean that I should go to the length of shooting myself in the foot, just to help other people. Apart from that, Goldentalk forum is not all about members having to post information; it is also about members having the right to post their views and ideas. People get paid in Goldentalk, not just for the information they post, but also for views they articulate. Thus, even if it is my views that hurt Jambutty, I am entitled to my views and the fact that I expressed views that contradict Jambuty’s own does not mean that I posted a wrong or false information either.

 Jambutty had a notorious record of banning people who expressed and defended views that he disagreed with, especially if such persons prove very articulate, enthusiastic and thorough in putting up their defences. Examples  of such brilliant members of Goldentalk that I can still recall are people like Veyron and Bulastica. I remember that as at the time I joined Goldentalk, Veyron and Jambutty were posting divergent views which turned into an argument. I viewed and compared their different posts and it was clear that Veyron’s posts were far more logical and very scholarly. In fact, anyone who goes back to old posts on Goldentalk will see that Veyron (an American) was known for making posts most of which look like academic presentations. Those posts are still there if they have not tampered with the records. There is simply no reason why the account of such a brilliant, academic-minded person should have been banned by Jambuty. And do you know what? When Veyron’s account was banned and I looked at the excuse Jambutty made for disabling his account, it was claimed that Veyron made posts that were ‘against the spirit’ of Goldentalk!!! The fact is that Veyron did not violate any established rule in Goldentalk. The superior views expressed by Veyron were obvious; Jambutty simply did not have the courage to take any more of such superior arguments!

I also remember a number of times when Bulastica, another very articulate member, also had his account banned or suspended following arguments with Jambuty.
When I analysed Jambuty’s behaviour in Goldentalk, one of the conclusions I made is that the old man derived his confidence basically from the fact that he knew he had the power to suspend or ban people’s account at will. This a major thing that kept him going in Goldentalk. If he didn't have such powers, the heat of the arguments of people with younger, fresher and smarter brains would have frustrated him out of Goldentalk. But with such powers, he is a law unto himself. That is very different from the situation of those who us who derive our confidence from the strength and depth of our convictions and our ability to brilliantly articulate our viewpoints.
There is also something fundamentally wrong with Jambutty’s status in Goldentalk. As a Geriatic Moderator and at the same time a paid forum member, the fact is that in any situation, the power to be the accuser and the judge and at the same time the one who implements judgements, are all concentrated in him. And he also had vested interest in investments. This is simply tyranny. Under this circumstance, he cannot be expected to be always fair, especially to those who disagree with him. Political scientists know the logic behind the concept of Separation of Powers. Under any circumstance you don’t make any single person or group of persons to possess all powers and become too powerful. The temptations of absolute power are many and strong. There’s no way by which anybody can avoid falling to such temptation, especially if such person has vested interests.

In the days and weeks after my exit from Goldentalk, some important developments took place which I would like to mention here. Some of them have opened important opportunities for me, which I have continued to enjoy till today. Let me start from the less significant ones. First, a number of Goldentalk members got in touch with me through my private email address. I won’t mention their names here so as to protect them from being witch-hunted by Jambutty. It was through these people that I got to know how much Jambutty is loathed in Goldentalk. Feelers that I got from these people indicate that many people didn’t like Jambutty and were always looking over their shoulders whenever they posted in the forum. In fact, it was many of these people who strongly requested that I should conceal their identities when writing this piece. Let’s ask ourselves why so many people told me they loathed Jambutty and why they had to ask me to hide their identities? Let’s ask ourselves again why, throughout my over one year in Goldentalk I never for once had any problem with any of the other moderators apart from Jambutty?

The more significant development is that five persons, who are also owners of online businesses and who also witnessed the controversy between me and Jambutty, got in touch with me with proposals that I should work with them. These persons, whose identities I will also conceal here, told me about how impressed they were by my contributions in Goldentalk and the fact that they believe in my integrity. I accepted the proposal of four of them and I’ve been working with them till date. I write blogs for two of them and I get paid at least twice every month. The amount of money one of them pay me in one single month is three times the total amount Goldentalk used to pay me in 2 months. The third one gave me the position of a Senior Moderator in his forum and pays me from time to time, according to the variable income of his business. My earnings from this one also surpasses what Goldentalk used to pay me and what is more, it requires less effort from me unlike Goldentalk where I always had to take so much time to properly articulate and then defend my positions. The fourth person introduced me to his own personal investment site where I invested a sizeable amount of money and where I am now in profit.
Thus, at the end of the day, my bad experience in Goldentalk turned out to be blessings for me. The truth of the matter is that if you are truly good,  people will somehow notice you and seek you out. There will always be someone or some people who will appreciate you, and when the appropriate time comes, your paths will cross. This is one of the lessons that life has taught me.

Finally, I will use this opportunity to make an open and general response to those members of Goldentalk who have been asking me whether I will come back to Goldentalk: why on earth will I even think of going back to Goldentalk when I have gotten better offers? Why will I go back to Goldentalk when I have found places where my contributions are better appreciated and where my horizons have become more broadened?
In life, the only thing that is constant is change. I thank God that my own change is a positive one. I have evolved. I have moved on to better things.



 


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